John Lewis Roe

The wild and dangerous flooded Levisa River rages northward overflowing with logs, rubbish, and rafts loaded with brave men fighting the cursed river at ever turn and bend in the unforgiving river on their way to deliver logs to buyers in Catlettsburg, Kenticky in late February, in the winter of 1880. The two main character WEBB McCLANAHAN and SAM HURLEY are partners in a logging business in the remote Cumberland Mountains in Southwester Virginia in Buchanan County. The rains are needed to flood the Levisa River high enough to float their logs one-hundred and fifty-five miles north in a perilous and dangerous river risking death and injury to the men who volunteer to take the hazardous log run in a raging and cursed river to market at Catlettsburg, Kentucky, a small river town located on the banks of the Big Sandy River at the junction of the Ohio River. Taking three rafts and thirteen men, Webb and Sam and the men face the hazardous river. They face deaths, injuries, and muderers head-on. And use dynamite to get the log moving to Catlettsburg. Finding his log buyer dead, and charged with murder, Webb and Sam take the law into the own hands to find the criminals responsible for the unsolved murders of log buyer and lawmen in Catlettsburg. Webb, informs the town Mayor Ottis Cox of his actions, and his true facts of criminals running rampant and free in his town. And log owners forming a vigilante committee to hunt down the murderers of their log buyers. Fearing a riot by the log owners, and harm to citizens, the mayor send for the county HIGH SHERIFF TOM JENNINGS. Deputy Samuel Hale comes to help. The High Sheriff's investigations reveled the dark-side of wanton lawlessness by greedy men to hide their illegal businesses and plans to controll all the logging businesses in Catlettsburg. Using the forces availabe, the High Sheriff asked for help in bring law and order and justice back to Catlettsburg. Webb comes-up with options to help the log buyer sell their logs, and informed log buyers Catlettsburg was safe to return. With their logs sold, Webb and Sam and their men with a schoolteacher depart from catlettsburg for a five day journey home on horseback.