When the rivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump of piles, his shotgun across his knees.
Their skill at woodsmanship might be undoubted, but the intermittent character of their work precluded any development of individual type, like the rivermen and shanty boys of the vanished North.
That is to say, he sat at the camp fires practically unnoticed, and the rivermen talked as though he were not there.
But the practisedrivermen must have foreseen this, for none were caught.
Each morning the rivermen rose, cocked wise eyes at the sky, and cursed the weather.
The bright sun, the dancing water, the bird songs from the woods, and the fierce activity of the rivermen were all at variance with the vision of sudden death which she had beheld.
When these floating patches of timber were reached the peakies were dumped over the side and the rivermen tumbled into them.
Down the shore for a mile and more other rivermen hunted for boats, taking everything that would pull two pairs of oars.
Over the turmoil the rivermen fled for shore, each man balancing himself with his peavey, held low across his body.
A crew of unkempt, tousled rivermen manned the booms and kept the sticks hustling.
Altogether it was miserable, and therivermen cursed the weather heartily.
The work proceeded merrily, for the rivermen enjoyed the trick.
The rivermen debarked, followed down the river, and hustled out the bunches of logs that the few men who had preceded them had not bothered about.
This vanguard was run into Kent's booms, and the rivermen cheered as they caught sight of the young boss, and cheered again for William Crooks and his daughter who stood beside him.
Crooks lit a cigar and joined the foremen, to discuss the jam and the probability of breaking it, and yarn of his own experiences with mighty rivermen whose names were now but traditions.
These were winged out by a launch, and the rivermen fed logs down the moving funnel thus formed.
They will tell you that of the twenty rivermen who witnessed the accident only two dared to attempt a rescue, and those two were René and Victor Bossuet.
He would cause it to sweep like a flame among the rivermen who hated him, and among the men of the Mounted.
And rivermendid not vex their brains with abstract problems; they fought with their hands.
And when that news was relayed to the big man who never ceased to watch he understood why there had been no violence when the rivermen went on strike.
Here the rivermen recounted their thrilling experiences in piloting their rafts through the Dells and told of the days in the pineries of pioneer Wisconsin.
Three big rivermen entered the church and took seats in the rear of the building.
On the morrow when the visitors were returning, several of the rivermen went to the preacher and spoke of the pleasure they had derived from the service.
The lumberjacks and rivermen have no admiration for him who is fearful of hardship, or succumbs before the strenuous labor which they themselves must daily perform.
In response to the call the rivermen hastily made for shore, and headed for the grassy place near the wannigan.
The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that made it both apt and figuratively accurate.
Her builder, familiarly known to a generation of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve.
Their roistering exploits, indeed, have made these rivermen almost better known at play than at work.
Though few Europeans had made this laborious journey before 1800, the Natchez Trace had been for many years the land route of thousands of returning rivermen who had descended the Mississippi in flatboat and barge.
The rivermen who filled the pit received him, it is related, with "a prolonged whoop, or howl, such as Indians give when they are especially pleased.
It was impossible to take their own as two of the rivermen slept in it.
John felt apprehensive of the rivermen and so informed Mr. Owen.
Captain Shot has many estimable sons, all of whom are rivermen and shipbuilders.
North of the Landing, there are thirty thousand people who depend on the local rivermen to bring down their year's supplies, so that this is a place of no small concernment and it has seven streets, you might say.
It tells how on each New Year's Night the spirits of the woodsmen and rivermen are carried in phantom canoes from these lonely northlands back to the old homesteads in the south, where, unseen and undisturbed, they mingle with their friends.
The rivermen push off from shore with their oars till, in the centre of the stream, the current catches them and carries them along.
And the factors have laughed, and the rivermen taunted her with being the mother of a fatherless child!
At last, the selection had been made, and five of the most desperate and daring of all the rivermen had, by the lure of much gold, consented to cast loose from the system and "go it alone.
A week later the two rivermenpaused at the edge of a thicket that commanded the approach to Brown's abandoned cabin on the Clearwater.
Oh, you know, Lac la Biche, way up country, where the rivermen come from.
For the more casual guests, the rivermen and others, the supper was spread out of doors near the water.
Like children, the rivermen were wholly absorbed in a new toy--a bridegroom who had so suddenly deserted the handsomest girl between Adonia and The Forks.
Near her were rivermen who were waiting for their suppers.
The rivermen did not lounge on the ground, as they usually did when they were resting.
And I'm believing that there are still enough honest rivermen in the Comas crowd to make it a square fight, like we've always had on the Noda when a fight had to be!
The rivermen guests had departed; there were no bateaus on the shore; faint smoke came wreathing from the black embers of the feast fire.
The rear guard was made of rivermen who marched in ragged formation, scuffling, elbowing one another, shouting jokes, making merry after their manner.
There were two or more experienced rivermen in each boat, but the new colonists were required to help.
It surprised Walter at first to see the wild-looking rivermen kneeling with bowed heads repeating their "Aves" before lying down to rest.
One after another a half-dozen rivermen tackled the imperturbable Dick, but none of them possessed the agility to stay on top in the pace he set them.
At dusk the rivermen straggled in from the down-river trail.
In connection with that first generation of rivermen it was observed that social equality was a general rule.
With the passing of the fur trade, a score of remunerative openings was at the command of the rivermen who had learned well his lesson.
Teamsters, tow-boat men, and rivermen were foremost in opposing the railway.
And, at any rate, whatever the social average, we can be very certain that the rivermen had the hardest work and were the hardest type of all laborers in the new West.
Of these the rivermen were a part, moved by one and the same force politically.
A hint has been dropped some pages before about the feeling of the old-time rivermenconcerning the introduction of steam navigation.
Indeed it was these firstrivermen who floated on the Ohio in canoes laden with peltry who brought on apace the Old French War.
Of course the flat-boat did not pass from our waters, but as a type of old-time rivermen their lusty crews have disappeared.
He could see the bare heads and naked arms of the rivermen at the sweeps.
Then he watched the fading away of the sun until only the red glow of it remained in the west, and against the still thicker shadows the fires of the rivermen threw up yellow flames.
The crew of the bateau had joined in the evening song of the rivermen on the raft, and over the ridges and hollows of the forest tops, red and green and gold in the last warm glory of the sun, echoed that chanting voice of men.
He faced the rivermen again, and while he gripped at his own weakness, he tried to count the flashings of their oars.
The wild chant of the rivermen was near as she turned to the door.
A proprio, a messenger, was sent overland up the river to notify the Lecco rivermen a few miles above and a week later four balsas and ten Leccos swung around the bend under the bank in the dawn and we started.
The others were to try the cañon when they would, and reliance was well placed in them; there are no finer rivermen to be found anywhere in the world.
The rivermen early worked off the effects of their rather wild spree, and turned up at noon chipper as larks.
The rivermen and the engineer who had accompanied him lingered only long enough to start up the band.
The rivermen could make out the troops--three or four score of them--standing rigid at attention.
Somewhat astonished at this outbreak, the two rivermen stood for a moment staring at the old man.
The rivermen ate standing up, as close to the sputtering, roaring fires as they could get.
Astonishment and delight held the rivermen breathless for a moment.
With the strange and interesting tendency rivermen and woodsmen have of personifying the elements of their daily work, the men addressed the helpless timbers in tones of contempt.
They won't be rivermen like my old crew, though," said Orde regretfully to Tom North, the walking boss.
The rivermen thereupon made their uncertain way back to shore, where they took the river trail up stream again to their respective posts.
In case of difficulty, a determined push would separate the rivermen from the gamblers long enough for the latter to disappear quietly through the small door at the back.
At the dredged channel Orde saw the rivermen standing idle, and, half-blind with anger he burst upon them demanding by this, that and the other what they meant.
But McNeill's could not afford to be shown up before thirty interested rivermen as running an open-and-shut brace-game.
There are, as I have said, numbers of skilled rivermen to be hired.
The slaves and creoles were polite in their replies, the sailors and rivermen gruff, but all alike expressed their inability to enlighten me.
From that moment began the wonderful struggle against circumstances which has become a by-word among rivermen everywhere.
At that time rivermen were not an uncommon sight along the water front.
In the long dining room the rivermen consumed a belated dinner.
When the logs began to cave under them so rapidly that even the expert rivermen found difficulty in "staying on top," the foreman set the example of hunting safety.
Across the stream, almost from bank to bank, a string of gravel flats made a barrier that all the rivermen feared.
In a minute the boat came alongside the log and two of the rivermen grabbed the boy and the unconscious foreman.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "rivermen" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
