The work of unbeaching the logs and towing them to the steamer is very hard, but the danger and the excitement is in getting them loaded and stowed. They are made fast at the ship’s side. Several of the Kruboys remain in the water. They first knock the “dog” out of the last log; then they pass a chain around it which is made fast to the steel cable of the deck-winch. A signal, always accompanied by a shout, is passed up to one on deck who transmits it to the man at the winch and the log is lifted out of the water. The Kruboy rises with it a part of the way, then leaps into the water and prepares the next log. This may not seem so very difficult to men who are as much at home in the water as on shore. But these logs weighing a ton each are all the while dashing against each other or against the ship’s side with a deep boom that echoes through the ship. They are pitching and tossing and spinning, while the Kruboy tries to balance himself on top, keeps his eye on every log that is near, and at the same time does his work. But however it pitches and plunges he rides it as easily as a cowboy rides a pitching broncho. At first I looked on not only with interest, as always, but with a horrible fascination that I had never before experienced. All the passengers, from the upper deck, are watching the Kruboy lying across a log that heaves and rolls while he passes the chain beneath it, and at that moment another log is driven towards it with its full ton weight, the two colliding broadside. The passengers shout; if there is a lady aboard she screams. But somehow, when those logs meet, the Kruboy is not between them. He is underneath, and quite out of sight. At last he comes up somewhere, and shaking the water from his woolly head, looks up with a smile full of white teeth and says: “He nebber catch me.” And this goes on all day long, whenever logs are loaded. Occasionally an arm is broken, more often a leg, and sometimes a life is lost.