path: root/70060-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 70060 ***






PAUL BUNYAN


[Illustration]




                             JAMES STEVENS

                              PAUL BUNYAN

                        WOODCUTS BY ALLAN LEWIS

                             [Illustration]

                                NEW YORK
                    GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.




               COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.


          NOTE: _Four of Mr. Lewis’ woodcuts were originally
          made for, and are used by courtesy of The Century
          Magazine._


                                   CL
              MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




                                   TO
                            OTHEMAN STEVENS




CONTENTS


  INTRODUCTION                               1

  THE WINTER OF THE BLUE SNOW               11

  THE BULL OF THE WOODS                     31

  A MATTER OF HISTORY                       51

  THE SOURDOUGH DRIVE                       70

  THE BLACK DUCK DINNER                     90

  THE OLD HOME CAMP                        114

  SHANTY BOY                               132

  THE KINGDOM OF KANSAS                    149

  ORATORICAL MEDICINE                      169

  NEW IOWA                                 188

  THE HE MAN COUNTRY                       207

  EVIL INVENTIONS                          225




INTRODUCTION


The Paul Bunyan legend had its origin in the Papineau Rebellion of
1837. This was a revolt of the French-Canadians against their young
English queen. In the Two Mountains country, at St. Eustache, many
loggers armed with mattocks, axes, and wooden forks which had been
steamed and warped into hooks, stormed into battle. Among them was
a mighty-muscled, bellicose, bearded giant named Paul Bunyon. This
forest warrior, with a mattock in one hand, and a great fork in the
other, powerful as Hercules, indomitable as Spartacus, bellowing like
a furious Titan, raged among the Queen’s troops like Samson among the
Philistines. He came out of the rebellion with great fame among his own
kind. His slaughters got the grandeur of legend.

Later this Paul Bunyon operated a logging camp. In that day logging
was heroic labor. In the autumn the loggers went to the woods, forcing
their way in batteaux up swift rivers. On every trip there were many
wearisome portages around rapids. Snow and ice then locked them in
their camps for five or six months. The workday was from dawn to dusk.
The loggers lived on beans, salt pork and sourdough bread. At night
there were songs and tales around the shanty stove. Of course these
were mainly about their own life, their own heroes. The camp boss was
like the chief of a tribe; his will had to be the law, and he had to
have exceptional physical power and courage to enforce it. After his
part in the rebellion there was no more famous camp chief in Canada
than Paul Bunyon.

Sure that the Paul Bunyan stories which have been told for generations
in the American timberlands were of Canadian origin, I questioned many
old time French-Canadian loggers before I found genuine proofs. At last
I met Louis Letourneau in the Big Berry country, Puyallup, Washington.
And Louis’ father-in-law, Z. Berneche, a snowy-maned, shining-eyed,
keen-minded veteran logger of ninety years, told me about the original
hero. His uncle, Collet Bellaine, fought by the side of Paul Bunyon,
and later worked two seasons for him. Now, the French-Canadians have no
genius for the humor of purposeful exaggeration such as the Americans
have; the _habitans_ exaggerate honestly and enthusiastically and with
an illusion of truth, like Tartarin of Tarascon.

“My uncle, Collet Bellaine,” said Mr. Berneche earnestly, “know that
Paul Bunyon carry five hundred pounds on portage. That is truth. He was
very big, strong man, you understand; he fight like hell, he work like
hell, and he pack like hell. Never was another man like Paul Bunyon.
That’s right.”

It is not difficult to imagine the _habitans_ honestly exaggerating
the logging feats of the war hero as they talked about him in the New
Brunswick camps, and in Maine, and in the Great Lakes pineries. And it
is simple for one who has seen the two races together to imagine the
Americans “improving” on the first stories about Paul Bunyon, only to
ridicule his extravagant admirers; and then developing their own Paul
Bunyan legend to ease their weariness when their twelve-hour day was
done.

Other evidence supports this view of the origin of the stories. There
are stories told about an Irish-French-Canadian logger, Joe Mufraw
(Murphy was his ancestral name); and the name of Joe Mufraw is famous
in the woods, sometimes being linked with Paul Bunyan’s. He appears in
the Red River Lumber Company’s collection of Paul Bunyan stories. Now,
Joe Mufraw logged in the Misstassinny River country in Quebec less than
fifty years ago. I have seen pictures of this huge frowning man and
his oxen. Many old French-Canadians have sworn to me that he put the
calks in his boots in the shape of his initials, and that after the
thirteenth drink he would kick his initials in a ceiling eight feet
high. His feats in camp and on the log drives were as magnificent.

It was the American loggers below the Border who made of Paul Bunyon a
true hero of camp nights’ entertainment. They gave him Babe, the blue
ox, who measured forty-two ax handles and a plug of chewing tobacco
between the horns. They created the marvelous mythical logging camp,
with its cookhouse of mountainous size and history of Olympian feats;
and they peopled this camp with astounding minor heroes. They made
their Paul Bunyan an inventor and orator, and an industrialist whose
labors surpassed those of Hercules. They devised a chronology for him;
he ruled American life in the period between the Winter of the Blue
Snow and the Spring That the Rain Came Up From China. By 1860 Paul
Bunyan had become a genuine American legendary hero.

Perhaps the Paul Bunyan narrator who won most lasting fame was Len Day,
whose firm of Len Day & Son was one of the largest lumber concerns of
Minneapolis in the sixties. I had often heard of him; and lately Mr.
Michael Christopher Quinn, yard superintendent for the Northwestern
Lumber Company, of Hoquiam, Washington, for twenty-two years, gave me
a first-hand account of him. In 1873 Quinn was working in a great log
drive down the Mississippi; his camp was at Haney Landing, Minnesota.
Len Day was then eighty-five, a prosperous and influential lumberman.
But the lure of the drive and of camp life still stirred the true
logger’s soul of him, and he came to the camp each spring. Every night
the gang gathered in the cookhouse to hear the old camp bard declaim a
canto of the Paul Bunyan epic.

“Len Day told the stories in sections,” said Mr. Quinn.

A section, or a canto, or a chapter, or whatever one may call it,
was delivered each night by the old lumberman, who could see toiling
demi-gods and sweating heroes in his dark woods, and imagined
narratives about them, to which he gave the substance and characters of
the traditional Paul Bunyan stories. Len Day had lived in New Brunswick
in the forties and had thus heard the stories in their beginnings. The
Paul Bunyan stories which form the body of the legend have not had
many changes or surviving additions in fifty years. They themselves
are not a narrative; they exist, rather, as a group of anecdotes which
are told among a group of camp men until the story-teller of the gang
is started on a narrative which he makes up as he yarns along, and
which may take him an hour, or three evenings, to relate. A Paul Bunyan
bunkhouse service is a glory to hear, when it is spontaneous and in a
proper setting; preferably around a big heater in the winter, when the
wind is howling through crackling boughs outside, and the pungent smell
of steaming wool drifts down from the drying lines above the stove.
When the vasty spirit of the woods really moves the meeting a noble
and expansive ecstasy of the soul is exhibited. Remarks are passed
about a similar night in Paul Bunyan’s camp, when the wind blew so hard
that Big Ole, the blacksmith, had to bolt iron straps over the logs to
keep them from being sucked up the chimneys. The theme grows and bears
strange fruits; and finally the camp bard harvests them all in a story
based on such a venerable anecdote as that one about Big Ole toting one
of Babe’s ox shoes for half a mile and sinking knee-deep into the solid
rock at every step.

This anecdote is what might be called a “key story,” for it is one of
the very old ones. There are at least a hundred of these, all familiar
to every man who has worked long in the woods. They all deal with some
of the characters whom tradition has placed about Paul Bunyan, with
the mighty logger himself as the main hero; their settings are in such
regions as the Onion River country, the Bullfrog Lake country, or the
Leaning Pine country; and each one is a theme for gorgeous yarns, when
a knowing and gifted camp bard is inspired to use it.

Nowadays, with a shed garage in every logging camp, a radio in the
camp office, graphophones in the bunkhouses, and a jazz shack in the
village just “over the hump,” the camp bard has a scant audience. But
in happier times each camp enjoyed its chief story-teller; and such a
bard could take one of the key stories and elaborate on it for hours,
building a complete narrative, picturing awe-inspiring characters,
inventing dialogue of astonishing eloquence. (And what stupendous
curses, terrifying threats and verbose orations such bards as Happy
Olsen and Old Time Sandy could invent!) It is the method of the old
bards that I have attempted to follow in writing this book.

The art of the plain American, which in the last century brought forth
tales and songs as native to the soil as the grass of the prairies,
is at last perishing under the feet of the herd arts of a perfected
democratic culture. The legends about Buffalo Bill and Brigham Young
have passed; these heroes are now plain figures in book history. Jim
Bridger, the heroic “old man of the mountains,” is obscenely and
falsely portrayed in a movie to draw snickers from the chiropractors,
pants salesmen and tin-roofers who are the passionate devotees of this
carnal herd art. Kentucky and Tennessee mountain folk still tell their
tales about “ol’ Dan’l,” tales in which the listener will discover a
Boone a thousand times more picturesque and grand than the hero of
written history. Crockett, Carson, old Andy Jackson, Sam Houston--but
I could name a score whom the plain man’s untutored art ennobled and
glorified in a manner that put the erudite narrators to shame. This art
is perishing simply because Universal Education, and other blights,
curses and evil inventions of democracy are destroying all the old
simplicity, imaginativeness and self-amusement of plain American life.

Only in a few regions, and among the elders, do the creations of this
art, this folk lore, or whatever one wills to call it, survive as
shining memorials to sturdier and nobler days. And the legend of Paul
Bunyan is certainly the greatest of these creations; for it embodies
the souls of the millions of American camp men who have always done the
hard and perilous pioneer labor of this country. It is true American
legend now, for Paul Bunyan, as he stands to-day, is absolutely
American from head to foot. He visualizes perfectly the American
love of tall talk and tall doings, the true American exuberance and
extravagance. Beginning in Paul Bunyon, soldier with Papineau, he has
become the creation of whole generations of men. Thousands of narrators
by far-flung campfires have contributed their mites to the classical
picture of him. And he, at least, will live as long as there is a
forest for his refuge, as long as there are shadows and whispers of
trees.

I want to thank the old camp comrades who have sent me so many versions
of all the known key stories, and who have given me accounts of new
ideas. They, and several lumbermen also, have been very kind to me. And
I owe gratitude particularly to Mr. H. L. Mencken, of the _American
Mercury_. Without his help and encouragement the stories would not have
been written.

[Illustration]




PAUL BUNYAN




THE WINTER OF THE BLUE SNOW


Paul Bunyan was the one historian of the useful and the beautiful;
other writers of history tell only of terrible and dramatic events.
Therefore the chronicles of Paul Bunyan, the mighty logger, the
inventor of the lumber industry, the leader-hero of the best band
of bullies, the finest bunch of savages, that ever tramped the
continent, the master orator of a land that has since grown forests of
orators--his chronicles alone tell of the Winter of the Blue Snow.

The blue snow fell first in the North. It fell scantily in its earlier
hours, its sapphire flakes floating down on the waves of a mild winter
wind, and glittering in an ashen gold light, a sober pale radiance
which shimmered through silver mists. There was poetry in the spectacle
of these hours. And then the hard gray ground of a peopleless land was
hidden under a blanket of dark blue. And the nameless frozen lakes and
rivers, the silent valleys and the windy hills of the country were
all spread over with a sky-dyed snow. When the last light of this day
went out, the boughs of the great pines were creaking under heavy wet
masses of snow like torn bales of blue cotton. There was a rush in the
snowfall now, as a fiercer wind whipped it on; its heavy flakes were
driven down in thick, whirling clusters, in streaming veils, leaping
lines and dashing columns; and there were cloudlike swarms of the blue
flakes, which settled slowly, floating easily in the hard wind. This
wind got so strong that it shivered the timber, and the piles of blue
snow which had gathered on the pine boughs were shaken down. Most of
this snow fell into blue mounds around the trees, but some of it fell
on the fauna of the forest, adding to their troublement.

At the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, the forest creatures of
this land lived a free and easy life. Man was not there to embarrass
them with accusations of trespass and to slay them for their ignorance
of the crime. Their main problem was the overcrowding of the forests.
The vast moose herds, who populated the woods so densely that traffic
through their favorite timber was dangerous, made the matter of getting
food a simple one for the carnivorous animals. There were many moose to
spare, and the elders of the herds, like most prolific parents, never
became frantically resentful over the loss of an offspring. The moose
themselves, of course, lived easily on the crisp, juicy moose grass
which grew so plenteously in these regions before the blue snow. So the
carnivorous creatures of the forests lived a fast and furious life;
and it is certain that if they were capable of praise, they had good
praises for the moose meat which they got with such little difficulty.
The coal-black bruins of the North were an especially happy crowd.
Theirs was a gay, frolicsome life in the summer time, when the big
bruins danced and galloped through sunny valleys and the small ones had
rolling races on shady hillsides. In the fall, all fat and drowsy from
moose meat, the bruins would go to sleep in their warm caves and dream
pleasantly all winter.

They were all dreaming now; and the blue snow would no doubt have
fallen and melted away without their knowledge had it not been for the
moose herds which crowded the forest aisles. Moose at that time did not
have it in them to enjoy wonder, and they had not learned to combat
fear, for they were never afraid. Still, they had some imagination,
and the moose trembled when the first blue snowflakes fell among them.
They kept up an appearance of unconcern at first, eating moose moss as
usual; but they sniffed gingerly at the blue streaks in it, and they
stole furtive glances at each other as they bravely ate. This strange
snowfall was certainly breeding fear of it in the hearts of all the
moose, but each one seemed determined to be the last one to show it.
However, as the day-end got near, and the wind grew more boisterous,
shaking snow masses from the trees, some of the moose had fits of
trembling and eye-rolling which they could not conceal. When a heap
of snow dropped on the back of some timid moose, he would twist his
head sharply and stare with bulging eyes at the mysteriously fearsome
color, then he would prance wildly until the unwelcome snow was bucked
from his shivering back. When the early shadows of evening came among
the trees, the moose all had a heavy darkness of fear in their hearts.
Little was needed to put them in a panic.

It was a great bull moose, a herd king, who forgot the example he owed
to his weaker kindred and unloosed a thunderous bellow of terror which
started the moose flight, the first memorable incident of the Winter
of the Blue Snow. An overladen bough cracked above him; it fell and
straddled him from quivering tail to flailing horns, burying him under
its wet blue load. He reared out roaring, and his own herd echoed the
cry; then a storm of moose bellows crashed through the forest. This
tumult died, but there followed the earth-shaking thunder of a stampede.

The bruins, awakened from their pleasant dreams, came out from their
caves and blinked at the hosts of terrified moose which were galloping
past. The earth-shaking uproar of the flight at last thoroughly aroused
the bruins, and they began to sniff the air uneasily. Then they noticed
the blue snow; and now in front of every cave crowds of bruins were
staring down at the snow; and each bruin was swaying heavily, lifting
his left front foot as he swayed to the right, and lifting his right
front foot as he swayed to the left. The bruins had no courage either,
and, once they had got sleep out of their heads, nearly all of them
took out after the moose herds. The wind roared louder with every
passing minute this night. And the flakes of the blue snow were as
dense as the particles of a fog. At dawn a blue blizzard was raging.
But the fauna of the forest plunged tirelessly on, seeking a refuge of
white snow.

And Niagara, made faithless by the Blue Terror, galloped behind
them--Niagara, the great moose hound, bread-winner for the student of
history, Paul Bunyon (his real name), and his companion also.

Paul Bunyon lived at Tonnere Bay. He dwelt in a cave that was as large
as ten Mammoth Caves and which had a roof loftier than any tower or
spire. But this cave was none too vast for Paul Bunyon, the one man
of this region, but one man as great as a city of ordinary men. His
tarpaulins and blankets covered one-fourth of the cave floor; his
hunting clothes, traps and seines filled another quarter; and the rest
of the space was occupied by a fireplace and his papers and books.

For Paul Bunyon was a student now. There had been a time when he
had gone forth in the hunting and fishing season to gather the huge
supplies of provender which he required, but now his days and nights
were all spent with his books. Paul Bunyon’s favorite food was raw
moose meat, and after he found Niagara in the Tall Wolf country he no
longer needed to hunt. Each night Niagara trotted out in the darkness
and satisfied his own hunger, then he carried mouthfuls of moose to
the cave until he had a day’s supply of meat for his master. Niagara
was ever careful not to frighten the moose herds; he hunted stealthily
and with quiet. The moose at night were only conscious of a dark cloud
looming over them, then numbers of the herds would disappear without
painful sound. The moose, if they had thought about it, would have been
only thankful to Niagara for lessening the congestion of the forests.

So Paul Bunyon fared well on the moose meat which Niagara brought him,
and he lived contentedly as a student in his cave at Tonnere Bay. Each
day he studied, and far into the night he figured. Taking a trimmed
pine tree for a pencil, he would char its end in the fire and use the
cave floor for a slate. He was not long in learning all the history
worth knowing, and he became as good a figurer as any man could be.

Vague ambitions began to stir in his soul after this and he often
deserted his studies to dream about them. He knew he would not spend
his days forever in the cave at Tonnere Bay. Somewhere in the future
a great Work was waiting to be done by him. Now it was only a dream;
but he was sure that it would be a reality; and he came to think more
and more about it. The books were opened less and less; the pine tree
pencil was seldom brought from its corner. Paul Bunyon now used another
pine tree which still had its boughs; it was a young one, and he
brushed his curly black beard with it as he dreamed. But he was still
a contented man at the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, for his
dreams had not yet blazed up in a desire for any certain attainment.

On the first day of the blue snow, Paul Bunyon was in a particularly
contented mood. He sat all that day before his fire; so charmed with
drowsy thoughts was he that he did not once look out. It had been dark
a long time before he rolled into his blankets. He awoke at the dawn
of a day that had scarcely more light than the night. He was cold, and
he got up to throw an armful of trees on the fire. Then he saw the
blue drifts which had piled up before the cave, and he saw the fog of
the blue blizzard. He heard the roar of a terrific wind, too, and he
knew that the storm was perilous as well as strange. But Paul Bunyon
thought gladly of the blue snow, for it was a beautiful event, and the
historians he liked most would write wonderful books about it.

He kicked the drifts away from the cave entrance, but the usual pile of
slain moose was not under them. Paul Bunyon was a little worried, as he
thought that Niagara might have lost himself in the blue blizzard. The
possibility that the unnatural color of the storm might send the fauna
of the forest, and Niagara as well, into panicky flight did not occur
to him. He was sure that Niagara would return with a grand supply of
moose meat when the blue blizzard had passed.

But the moose herds were now far to the North, fleeing blindly from
the blue snow. The bruins galloped after them. Before the day was
over, Niagara had overtaken the bruins and was gaining on the moose.
At nightfall his lunging strides had carried him far ahead of all the
fauna of the forest. He galloped yet faster as he reached the blacker
darkness of the Arctic winter. Now the darkness was so heavy that even
his powerful eyes could not see in it.... Niagara at last ran head-on
into the North Pole; the terrific speed at which he was traveling
threw his body whirling high in the air; when Niagara fell he crashed
through ninety feet of ice, and the polar fields cracked explosively as
his struggles convulsed the waters under them.... Then only mournful
blasts of wind sounded in the night of the Farthest North.

The moose were wearied out before they reached the white Arctic, and
hordes of them fell and perished in the blizzard; many others died from
fright, and only a tiny remnant of the great herds survived. Some of
the bruins reached the polar fields, and they have lived there since.
Their hair had turned white from fright, and their descendants still
wear that mark of fear. Others were not frightened so much, and their
hair only turned gray. They did not run out of the timber, and their
descendants, the silver-tip grizzlies, still live in the Northern
woods. The baby bruins were only scared out of their growth, and their
black descendants now grow no larger than the cubs of Paul Bunyon’s
time.

Being ignorant of this disaster, Paul Bunyon was comfortable enough
while the blizzard lasted. He had a good store of trees on hand and
his cave was warm in the storm. He got hungry in the last days; but
this emotion, or any emotion, for that matter, could have but little
power over him when he was dreaming. And he dreamed deeply now of
great enterprises; his dreams were formless, without any substance of
reality; but they had brilliant colors, and they made him very hopeful.

The sun shone at last from a whitish blue sky, and the strange snow
fell no more. A snapping cold was in the land; and pine boughs were
bangled and brocaded with glittering blue crystals, and crusty blue
snow crackled underfoot.

Paul Bunyon strapped on his snow shoes and started out through the
Border forests in search of Niagara. His was a kingly figure as he
mushed through the pine trees, looming above all but the very tallest
of them. He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his glossy hair and beard
shone under it with a blackness that blended with the cap’s color
perfectly. His unique eyebrows were black also; covering a fourth of
his forehead above the eyes, they narrowed where they arched down under
his temples, and they ended in thin curls just in front of his ears.
His mustache had natural twirls and he never disturbed it. He wore a
yellow muffler this morning under his virile curly beard. His mackinaw
coat was of huge orange and purple checks. His mackinaw pants were
sober-seeming, having tan and light gray checks, but some small crimson
dots and crosses brightened them. Green wool socks showed above his
black boots, which had buckskin laces and big brass eyelets and hooks.
And he wore striped mittens of white and plum color. Paul Bunyon was
a gorgeous picture this morning in the frozen fields and forests, all
covered with blue snow which sparkled in a pale gold light.

That day and the next, and for five more days, he searched in vain for
Niagara; and neither did he see any moose herds in the woods. Only the
frost crackles broke the silences of the deserted blue forests. And at
last Paul Bunyon returned to his cave, feeling depressed and lonely. He
had not thought that the companionship of Niagara could mean so much to
him. In his mood of depression he forgot his hunger and made no further
effort to find food.

Lonely Paul Bunyon lay sleepless in his blankets this night, his eyes
gleaming through hedgelike eyelashes as their gaze restlessly followed
the red flares that shot from the fire and streaked the walls and roof
of the cave. He did not realize that his first creative idea was now
struggling for birth. He could yet feel no shape of it. He was only
conscious of an unaccustomed turmoil of mind. Wearied with fruitless
thought, he at last fell into a doze. But Paul Bunyon was not fated to
sleep this night. A sustained crashing roar, as of the splintering of
millions of timbers, brought him up suddenly; it was hushed for a short
second; then a thudding boom sounded from Tonnere Bay. Paul Bunyon
leaped to the cave door, and in the moonlight he saw a white wave of
water rolling over the blue beach. It came near to the cave before it
stopped and receded. He pulled on his boots, and two strides brought
him down to the bay. It had been covered with ice seven feet thick, and
the cakes of this broken ice were now tossing on heaving waters. Now
Paul Bunyon saw two ears show sometimes above the billows; they were
of the shape of moose ears, but enormous as his two forefingers. Paul
Bunyon waded out into the waters, and he reached these ears a mile from
shore. He seized them without fear and he lifted ... now a head with
closed eyes appeared ... shoulders and forelegs ... body and hips ...
rear legs and curled tail. It was a calf, newborn apparently, though it
was of such a size that Paul Bunyon had to use both arms to carry it.

“_Nom d’un nom!_” exclaimed Paul Bunyon. “_Pauvre petite bleue bête!_”

For this great baby calf was of a bright blue hue which was neither
darker nor lighter than the color of the beautiful strange snow. A blue
baby ox calf. For such was its sex. Its ears drooped pitifully, and
its scrawny, big-jointed legs hung limply below Paul Bunyon’s arms. A
spasmodic shiver ran from its head to its tail, and its savior was glad
to feel this shiver, for it showed that life remained. Paul Bunyon was
touched with a tenderness that drove out his loneliness. “_Ma bête_,”
he said. “_Mon cher bleu bébé ausha._”

He turned back through the waters, and the ice cakes pounded each other
into bits as they rolled together in his wake. In thirty seconds Paul
Bunyon was back in his cave. He spread out his blankets in front of the
fire, and he laid Bébé upon them.

Through the night Paul Bunyon worked over the blue ox calf, nursing
him back to warm life; and in the morning Bébé was breathing regularly
and seemed to rest. Paul Bunyon leaned over to hear his exhalations,
and the blue ox calf suddenly opened his mouth and caressed Paul
Bunyon’s neck with his tongue. Paul Bunyon then discovered that he was
ticklish in this region, for the caress impelled him to roll and laugh.
The serious student Paul Bunyon had never laughed before; and he now
enjoyed the new pleasure to the utmost.

“_Eh, Bébé!_” he chuckled. “_Eh, Bébé! Sacre bleu! Bon bleu, mon
cher!_” Bébé raised his eyelids with astonishment upon hearing this
cave-shaking chuckle, revealing large, bulging orbs which were of even
a heavenlier blue than his silken hair. Such affection and intelligence
shone in his eyes that Paul Bunyon wished he would keep his eyes
opened. But Bébé was weary and weak, and he closed them again.

He is hungry, thought Paul Bunyon; and he went out to find him food.
None of the animals he knew about could supply milk for such a calf as
this blue Bébé. But he was newborn and his parents should be somewhere
in the neighborhood. Paul Bunyon stepped up on the cliff over which
Bébé had bounced when he fell into Tonnere Bay. From here a wide swath
of smashed timber ran straight up the side of the tallest Northern
mountain. It was here that Bébé had made his thunderous roll of the
night before.

Six strides brought Paul Bunyon to the mountain-top. One of its jagged
peaks was broken off, showing where Bébé had stumbled over it and
fallen. Then Paul Bunyon followed the calf tracks down the land side of
the mountain. For two hours he trailed them, but they grew fainter as
he went on, and in the Big Bay country the last fall of the blue snow
had covered them. Paul Bunyon now had no doubt that Bébé’s mother had
been frightened by the strange color of the snow and that his blueness
was a birthmark. Like Niagara and the fauna of the forest, the parents
had stampeded, forgetting the little one. It was no use to search for
them.

Paul Bunyon circled back through the forest and gathered a great load
of moose moss before he returned to the cave. This rich food would
meet the lack of milk. Bébé was asleep before the fireplace when Paul
Bunyon returned, and he still slumbered while his friend prepared him
some moose moss soup. But when a kettle full of steaming odorous food
was set before him, he opened his eyes with amazing energy and sat up.
It was then that Bébé first showed the depth and circumference of his
natural appetite, an appetite which was to have its effect on history.
He drank most of the moose moss soup at three gulps, he seized the rim
of the kettle in his teeth and tilted it up until even the last ten
gallons were drained out of it; then, looking roguishly at Paul Bunyon
the while, he bit off a large section of the kettle rim and chewed it
down, switching his pretty tail to show his enjoyment.

“_Eh, Bébé!_” roared Paul Bunyon, doubling up with laughter for the
second time in his life. And he praised the blue snow for giving him
such a creature, and did not mourn Niagara, who had never been amusing.
But now, as Paul Bunyon doubled over for another rare roar of laughter,
he got one more surprise. He was struck with terrifical force from the
rear and knocked flat. Paul Bunyon hit the cave floor so hard that
its walls were shaken, and a cloud of stones dropped from the roof,
covering him from his hips to his thighs. Paul Bunyon dug himself out
with no displeasure. He was marveling too much to be wrathful.

There is strength in this baby animal, he thought; surely he has the
muscle and energy for great deeds; for that was such a tremendous
butting he gave me that I am more comfortable standing than sitting. So
he stood and admired this strong and energetic ox calf, who was calmly
seated on his haunches before the fireplace, now throwing his head to
the right as he licked his right shoulder, now throwing his head to
the left as he licked his left shoulder. While Paul Bunyon admired,
he pondered; then, even as Bébé had given him his first laugh, the ox
calf now showed him the outline of his first real idea. The thought
struck him that his student’s life was finally over; there was nothing
more for him to learn; there was everything for him to do. The hour for
action was at hand.

Indeed, if he was to keep this blue ox calf, action was truly
necessary. Bébé had shown that his super-abundance of vitality made him
dangerous as well as delightful and amusing. This inexhaustible energy
of his must be put to work; this vast store of power in an ox-hide
should be developed and harnessed to give reality to some one of Paul
Bunyon’s vague dreams.

Soon the well-fed blue ox calf lay down and slept contentedly. But Paul
Bunyon did not sleep. One after another, occupations, enterprises and
industries which would be worthy of his knowledge and his extraordinary
mental and physical powers, and which would also offer labor great
enough for Bébé when he was grown, were considered by Paul Bunyon; but
nothing that he thought about satisfied him in the least. Certainly he
would have to invent something new; and as he thought of invention, his
imagination blazed up like a fire in a dry forest. He was so unused
to it that it got out of control, and its smoky flames hid his idea
rather than illuminating it.

Wearied at last, he lay on his side, for he remembered his bruises,
and he fell into a troubled doze. Now he dreamed and saw great blazing
letters which formed the words REAL AMERICA. He sat up, and his bruises
gave him such sudden pain that the dream vanished utterly. But he
dreamed again before morning. In this second dream he saw no words, but
a forest. A flame like a scythe blade sheared through the trees and
they fell. Then Paul Bunyon saw in his dream a forest of stumps, and
trees were fallen among them.

For many days Paul Bunyon thought about these dreams as he gathered
moose moss for Bébé and seined fish from the bay for himself. And for
many nights he tried to dream again, but his sleep was the untroubled
sleep of the weary.

Bébé grew wonderfully as the weeks went by, and the moose moss made
him saucy as well as fat. His bulging blue eyes got a jovial look that
was never to leave them. His bellow already had bass tones in it. He
would paw and snort and lift his tail as vigorously as any ordinary ox
ten times his age. His chest deepened, his back widened, muscle-masses
began to swell and quiver under the fat of his shoulders and haunches.
The drifts of the beautiful unnatural snow melted away in streams of
blue water, and the marvelous color of this historical winter vanished,
but the glittering blue of Bébé’s silken hair remained. His tail brush
was of a darker blue; it looked like a heavily foliaged cypress bough
in purple twilight; and Bébé was proud of this wonderful tail brush
that belonged to him, for he would twist it from behind him and turn
his head and stare at it by the hour.

Now spring came and Paul Bunyon determined to start out with his blue
ox calf and try to find the meanings of his dreams. The bright warm
hours of these days gave him a tormenting physical restlessness;
and his imagination ranged through a thousand lands, playing over a
thousand activities. It was certainly the time to begin a Life Work.

Each day Paul Bunyon pondered his two dreams without finding
substantial meaning in them. The first one indicated that he should go
to Real America; and this Paul Bunyon finally resolved to do, hoping
that he would discover the Work that was meant for him and the blue ox
calf. He knew that he could not fare worse in that land, for few of
the fauna of his native country had returned with the spring, and Paul
Bunyon could not live well on a fish diet. Bébé’s growing appetite,
too, made some move a necessity, for the blue snow had killed the
moose grass, and moose moss was a dry food without nourishment in the
summer. The more Paul Bunyon thought about Real America, the better
he liked the idea of going there. Moose and grass, at least, were to
be found across the Border. And no doubt Real America was his Land of
Opportunity.

So one fine day Paul Bunyon and Bébé came down to the Border. The blue
ox calf frolicked with his master and bellowed happily when he saw
the green grass and clover on the hills of Real America. He was for
rushing over at once, but Paul Bunyon, the student, was not unmindful
of his duty to his new country; he would not enter it without fitting
ceremonies and pledges, though Bébé butted him soundly in resenting the
delay.

Now Paul Bunyon lifted his hands solemnly and spoke in the rightful
language of Real America.

“In becoming a Real American, I become Paul _Bunyan_,” he declared. “I
am Paul _Bunyon_ no more. Even so shall my blue ox calf be called Babe,
and Bébé no longer. We are now Real Americans both, hearts, souls and
hides.”

After uttering these words with feeling and solemnity, an emotion more
expansive, more uplifting and more inspiring than any he had ever known
possessed Paul Bunyan and transfigured him. His chest swelled, his eyes
danced and glittered, and his cheeks shone rosily through the black
curls of his beard.

“And I’m glad of it!” he roared. “By the holy old mackinaw, and by the
hell-jumping, high-tailed, fuzzy-eared, whistling old jeem cris and
seventeen slippery saints, I’m _proud_ of it, too! Gloriously proud!”

Then he felt amazed beyond words that the simple fact of entering Real
America and becoming a Real American could make him feel so exalted, so
pure, so noble, so good. And an indomitable conquering spirit had come
to him also. He now felt that he could whip his weight in wildcats,
that he could pull the clouds out of the sky, or chew up stones, or
tell the whole world anything.

“Since becoming a Real American,” roared Paul Bunyan, “I can look any
man straight in the eye and tell him to go to hell! If I could meet a
man of my own size, I’d prove this instantly. We may find such a man
and celebrate our naturalization in a Real American manner. We shall
see. Yay, Babe!”

Then the two great Real Americans leaped over the Border. Freedom
and Inspiration and Uplift were in the very air of this country, and
Babe and Paul Bunyan got more noble feelings in every breath. They
were greatly exhilarated physically at first; and they galloped over
valleys and hills without looking about them, but only breathing this
soul-flushing air and roaring and bellowing their delight in it.

But before the day was over, Paul Bunyan discovered that Real America
had its sober, matter-of-fact side also. A whisper stirred in his
heart: “To work! Take advantage of your opportunity!” The whisper got
louder and more insistent every moment; and at last the idea it spoke
possessed Paul Bunyan, and he sat down to ponder it, letting Babe graze
and roll on the clover-covered hills.

Now the whisper became an insistent cry: “Work! Work! Work!” Paul
Bunyan looked up, and he seemed to see the word shining among the
clouds; he looked down then into the vast valley, and he seemed to
see--by the holy old mackinaw! he did see--the forest of his second
dream! And now he knew it: his Life Work was to begin here.

For many days and nights Paul Bunyan pondered on the hillside before
the Great Idea came to him. Like all Great Ideas, it was simple enough,
once he had thought of it. Real America was covered with forests. A
forest was composed of trees. A felled and trimmed tree was a log. Paul
Bunyan threw aside his pine tree beard brush and jumped to his feet
with a great shout.

“What greater work could be done in Real America than to make logs from
trees?” he cried. “Logging! I shall invent this industry and make it
the greatest one of all time! I shall become a figure as admired in
history as any of the great ones I have read about.”

Paul Bunyan then delivered his first oration. The blue ox calf was his
only listener; and this was a pity, for Paul Bunyan’s first oratorical
effort, inspired as it was, surely was one of his noblest ones. But we
know the outline of this oration, if not the words. It dealt mainly
with the logging method which he had devised in the moment, the one
which he used in his first work. So he told of his plan to uproot the
trees by hand, and to transport the logs overland, binding a bundle of
them on one side of Babe, and hanging a sack of rocks from the other
side for ballast. It was months after this that he made his first
improvement, the using of a second bundle of logs, instead of rocks,
for ballast. And at this moment Paul Bunyan, for all his foresight and
imagination, could not have dreamed of the superb tools and marvelous
logging methods that he was to originate, or of the countless crews of
little loggers that he was to import from France, Ireland, Scotland and
Scandinavia, or of the tremendous river drives and the mammoth camp
life he was to create. He would have been bewildered then by the fact
that he would some day need a foreman as grand as himself for his Life
Work; and the notion that he would some day need help in his figuring
would have seemed like a far-fetched jest.

No; in this first oration, imaginative and eloquent as it must have
been, Paul Bunyan only spoke of simple work for himself and Babe. But
he only tells us that the oration was not a long one, for the call to
Work came more insistently as he ended each period. At last he had to
answer this powerful call. He commanded, “Yay, Babe!” and the baby blue
ox and Paul Bunyan descended into the valley to begin the first logging
in the Real American woods.

[Illustration]




THE BULL OF THE WOODS


“The straw boss is the backbone of industry,” was a favorite saying of
Paul Bunyan’s. This sage observation is constantly repeated to-day by
industrialists who are so overwhelmed by salesmen, efficiency experts,
welfare workers and the like that they are forced to leave production
in the hands of the powerful race of foremen.

Paul Bunyan had become a true man of the woods, and paperwork troubled
him. He was fortunate in discovering the greatest man with figures
that ever lived to do his office work for him, and this man, Johnny
Inkslinger, did all the figuring alone after he came to camp. But
before the renowned timekeeper was found the keeping of his accounts
and records was Paul Bunyan’s largest difficulty. He figured wearily
and the smell of ink often made him sick. His logging operations grew
more extensive as time went on. He brought crews of great little men
from overseas and organized his first logging camp. He cleared off
seven hundred townships in the Smiling River country for a big farm,
and John Shears, his earnest boss farmer, managed it so efficiently
that new companies of loggers had to be added to the camp each season
to use up the produce; consequently, more and more timber was being
felled as each season ran its course.

At last it got so that figuring occupied all of Paul Bunyan’s time
between supper and breakfast, and then he had to take time away from
work in the woods for the keeping of his accounts. In vain he tried to
increase his speed as a figurer. He learned to write with both hands
at once; but this was no use, for the two sets of figures would mix up
in his head and result in confusion. He invented the multiplication
table, cube root and algebra, but production increased so fast that
these short cuts gave him no more time than before for the woods. Then
he gave in to necessity and looked about for help. No figurers were
anywhere to be discovered, so Paul Bunyan invented bossmen to carry on
the work in the woods while he held forth in the office.

His first foreman was Gun Gunderson, commonly known as “Shot” Gunderson
because of his explosive nature. He originated the “High-ball System,”
which is still used in some logging camps. Much of the loggers’ tough
vocabulary has come down from him. His favorite words of encouragement
were: “Put a better notch in that stick or I’ll cave your head in!”
“Heave harder on that peavy handle, you gizzardless scissor-bill, or
I’ll put the calks to you!” He began to lose power when the loggers
learned his lingo and came back at him fiercely in his own words.
His downfall happened in the second winter on Tadpole River, in the
Bullfrog Lake country. That was the winter of the Big Wind, which blew
so hard for four months that Shot Gunderson had to yell at the top of
his voice to be heard in its howling blasts. His voice cracked under
the strain and then, of course, his chief strength as a boss was gone.
He became a plain logger again, and Chris Crosshaulsen succeeded him.

This industrious man was a worthy and well-beloved boss, but he, too,
had a fatal weakness. Such a passion for river driving did he possess
that he could never stop the drive at its destination, but he would run
the logs on for miles and then drive them back again. This upstream
driving was terrible labor, for each logger had to drive one log at
a time; treading it, he would roll it against the current. So much
time and energy was wasted for Chris Crosshaulsen’s pleasure that Paul
Bunyan was forced to depose him.

The next chief was Ole Olsen. He was so loved that countless loggers
have been named after him, but his tender heart made him a failure as
a boss. Other bosses were Lars Larsen, Swan Swanson, Pete Peterson,
John Johnson, Jens Jensen, Anders Anderson, Hans Hansen, and Eric
Ericksen. They were all noble men, and loggers and mill men are still
named in their honor. But not one was powerful enough to keep his job
as Paul Bunyan’s aide. Once, indeed, it was thought that an ideal
foreman had been discovered when a burly man who called himself Murph
Murpheson was put on the job. But one night he was heard talking
Gaelic in his sleep. Cross-questioned, he admitted that his true name
was Pat Murphy; knowing Paul Bunyan’s predilection for Scandinavian
foremen he had called himself Murph Murpheson in order to get his high
position. Deceit was the one human frailty that the great logger had
no tolerance for, and the Irish boss followed his predecessors.

Paul Bunyan was now without a foreman, and he had never had a greater
need for a good one. For his next project was to log off the Dakota
country, which was then known as the region of the Mountain That Stood
On Its Head. Difficulties loomed before him which only he or a better
foreman than he had yet discovered could surmount. Unless he discovered
either a great figurer or a great foreman success would be improbable.

Then fortune shone on him with sudden, dazzling brightness. For word
came down through the woods that the mightiest logger of Sweden was
tramping overland for Paul Bunyan’s camp. The gossip that ran before
him called him Sweden’s greatest milker also; and some whispered that
he was the greatest fisherman and the greatest hunter of that country
of superb giants. It was rumored that he was taller than a tree, as
tall as Paul Bunyan and as wide, and that he feared no man. The great
logger, toiling over his vast ledgers, heard and hoped that the perfect
foreman was coming to him at last.

He arrived at the end of a bright June day. The loggers were at supper,
happily occupied with pea soup and hard-tack, which were their only
rations at that time. The soup bowls before the loggers were emptying
fast, and the cookhouse resounded with a hissing rumble, to which the
clangor of the spoons striking the bottoms of the bowls was presently
added. Then above the noise was heard a slow muffled “boom ... boom
... boom.”

The loggers listened and wondered. “Ol’ Paul’s walkin’ heavy this
evenin’,” said some. Said others, “But it don’t sound like Ol’ Paul’s
step anyway.” The booming tramp sounded nearer; the cookhouse began
to shake; the loggers, curious and wondering, gulped down the last of
their soup and hurried outside.

Through the trees that covered the slopes above the camp they saw a
great man approaching. He was not as tall as the tallest trees, but
the shortest ones were no higher than his waist. Yellow bristles
protruded through the crevices in the hat that was cocked on one side
of his head; he walked with a swagger that sent the limbs crashing as
he swayed against them; a good-sized pine tree stood in his way, and
he cast it aside and marched on. When he had reached the center of the
camp he stopped and said in a commanding voice, “Aye wan’ see Paul
Bunyan.”

While he waited the loggers gazed in awe on his heroic figure, and they
whispered to one another that here at last was the Swede of wonderful
deeds. It was indeed a marvelous moment for them. Every real logger
to-day would give ten years of his life to have been among the men who
first saw Hels Helsen the mighty, the Big Swede, the incomparable Bull
of the Woods.

When Paul Bunyan came forth he made no attempt to conceal his pleasure
over the newcomer. For the first time in months the darkness of worry
lifted from his countenance and a smile shone through his beard. He
shook hands awkwardly, as this was a novel experience for him. Here was
a man whom he did not have to look down upon to see, one man who could
reach above the great logger’s boot tops. Surely he would make an ideal
foreman; though a fierce light glittered at moments in his blue eyes,
his grin showed that he possessed the amiability that a good foreman
must have; being a Swede, he was certainly trustworthy and obedient.

In broken Real American Hels Helsen began to tell Paul Bunyan of the
purpose of his journey from the old country. But he got no further than
an account of his hard tramp over the polar lands, where he had lived
on white bear meat and whale steak, when Paul Bunyan stopped him.

“A mountain of energy, a river of power like yourself does not need to
make explanations or ask me for anything,” said the mighty logger. “I
appoint you foreman at once, without question.”

“Fooreman?” asked Hels Helsen, seemingly puzzled.

“Yes,” said Paul Bunyan heartily. “You shall be boss over all my
loggers in the timber and on the drives. Honor and glory will be yours,
for you shall be remembered as long as men fell trees. I will give you
a fitting title. I call you ‘the Bull of the Woods,’ a name which shall
be applied to only the greatest of woods bosses hereafter because you
were the first to have it.”

“Har noo--” began Hels Helsen; but his words were drowned in the great
cheer which had arisen from the excited loggers.

Their enthusiasm inspired Paul Bunyan to make one of his famous
speeches. He spoke for an hour about the historic accomplishment that
was now certain in the logging off of the Mountain That Stood On Its
Head.

“A cheer now, my men, for Hels Helsen, the Bull of the Woods!” Thus
Paul Bunyan ended his speech; and the loggers responded with a shout
that sounded like one throat had made it.

Several times during the early part of the speech Hels Helsen had
attempted to interrupt Paul Bunyan, but he was always silenced by the
matchless eloquence of the master orator. And when the loggers cheered
him he kept in his heart whatever he wanted to say; he frowned and
mumbled powerfully for a moment; but then he grinned and obediently
followed Paul Bunyan into the camp office.

The virgin Dakota country of that time had what was no doubt the most
beautiful and unique scenic feature in Real America. In the center of
a forested plain stood the largest and most original of all mountains,
the Mountain That Stood On Its Head. Its peak was buried in the ground,
and its slopes ran outward, instead of in toward its summit. It was
five miles in a direct line from the head of the mountain and up the
slope to the rim of its foot; ascent would seem impossible to any
beholder, for a climber up the mountain side would necessarily have to
move with his feet uppermost or else walk with his head. The stubborn
pine trees on the mountain sides had refused to grow unnaturally;
they had kept their roots in the ground, and their tops all pointed
downward. The summit of the mountain (perhaps I should go on saying
“foot,” but this might prove confusing) was a plain two miles above
a plain, for it was flat and heavily timbered with the noblest of
close-grained pine. This unnatural but wonderful mountain top was in
the form of a true circle which was one hundred and twenty-seven miles
in circumference. At one place the rim of the circle rose gently, and a
mild slope ran away from it towards the center of the plain. Here were
the High Springs, whose waters formed Lofty River and flowed smoothly
through aisles of pine and wound among meadows which were abloom with
mountain orchids and fragrant with purple clover. The falls in which
the river made its two mile drop to the plain below had been named
Niagara by Paul Bunyan, to honor the memory of his old moose hound, and
the name was later passed on to a little waterfall along the Border.

It was to this place of scenic grandeur that Paul Bunyan now moved
his camp. It was here that he was determined to try out Hels Helsen
and make him prove his right to the title of Bull of the Woods. The
camp was put in order; the axmen and sawyers were given their stations
in the woods, trails were swamped out for Babe, the big blue ox, to
use in snaking the logs to the landings, Hels Helsen was given final
instructions. Paul Bunyan then retired with a sigh to his ledgers, and
the logging began.

Paul Bunyan had figured that it would require two seasons to log off
Dakota; one season for the low lands, and one for the mountain. But he
did not know Hels Helsen, the Big Swede. From the time that he yelled,
“Roll out or roll up!” on his first morning in camp the loggers felt
the urge of a new power and they put a vigor and force into their work
which had been lacking for a long time. Not often did the Bull of the
Woods speak to them, but when he did his roar made the loggers remember
his title; and the chips flew from the ax bits like leaves in a wind,
and the saws smoked as they flashed back and forth in the tree trunks.

Logs piled up ahead of the blue ox, but Hels Helsen remembering the
tricks he had learned as a great man with cattle in the old country,
took the exuberant, well-meaning creature in hand and taught him speed.
So active did Babe become that only Hels Helsen could handle him. Each
morning, eager to get to work, he galloped madly for the woods, while
the foreman held grimly to the halter rope, thrown from his feet very
often, hurled through the air, bounced over rocks and stumps, but
holding fast always.

So rapidly did the logging go on that Paul Bunyan could only accomplish
the necessary figuring by giving all of his time to it. He began to
weary of his hours at the desk, while his soul cried out for the
timber; he envied Hels Helsen for the ideal life he was living, but
he gladly gave him the honor and glory that was his due. Latin Paul
Bunyan praised his great Nordic foreman constantly and said nothing of
himself.

Now, as Paul Bunyan’s only physical weakness was a ticklishness
of the neck, so was his only mental weakness extreme modesty. He
never boasted, and he never belittled the pretensions of his men by
reminding them of his own part in their achievements. Consequently,
his inventions were taken as a matter of course, and his paperwork was
not considered very difficult by his loggers because they knew nothing
about it. His praise of Hels Helsen, and his reticence about himself,
naturally made his men exaggerate the greatness of the Bull of the
Woods and minimize the importance of Paul Bunyan.

The effect on Hels Helsen was even more dangerous. In the first
place he had not come to Paul Bunyan with the intention of seeking
a foreman’s job; he had wanted to propose a partnership between the
greatest man of Sweden and the greatest man of Real America. But
Paul Bunyan’s oratory had baffled him, and he had taken the position
without arguing for what he considered his rightful place. However,
a resentment had been kindled in his soul; and with his success as a
foreman it flamed into an exalted opinion of his own powers; as the
time for logging off the mountain approached he resolved to not only
make this enterprise bring him equality with Paul Bunyan but a position
of command over him. Therefore, a terrible conflict was inevitable.

The first intimation that Paul Bunyan had of the coming struggle was
during the preparations for logging off the mountain. He himself had
made many plans for accomplishing the difficult job, taking time from
his office work to think them out. Then the first drive was finished
and the day came when felling was to begin on the mountain side. On
that morning Paul Bunyan was about to call his foreman to give him
instructions when he heard the loggers marching out of camp. Hels
Helsen was taking them to the woods; the foreman had seemed to think it
unnecessary to consult with Paul Bunyan. For a moment the master of the
camp had a raging impulse to take after them and assert his authority,
but his good sense restrained him.

“There is no appetite more powerful than that for the strong meat of
authority,” Paul Bunyan always told his bossmen. “But if you bite off
more than you can chew, nothing will choke you more surely.”

Paul Bunyan remembered this saying now, and he thought it best to let
Hels Helsen learn the lesson for himself.

So for days he made no inquiries about the progress of the work in the
woods. He busied himself with his figures and waited. He noted with
secret pleasure the bafflement and worry that showed in deeper lines
on Hels Helsen’s face each succeeding night. The loggers were always
utterly weary now when they got into camp; at last many of them were
too exhausted to eat their pea soup when the day was done; others went
to sleep at the supper table, and they would not awaken until breakfast
time. Then the first week’s scale was brought in, and it showed only
an average of one tree per man for each seventy-two hours of labor. The
master logger chuckled over this, but he said nothing.

On Monday morning, his accounts being in order, he walked over the hump
to where he could observe the logging operations.

On the slopes--or under them, rather--of the Mountain That Stood On
Its Head crawled Hels Helsen, and he was urging the loggers to follow
him. Not an original method had he devised; he was even insisting that
the loggers walk upside down and fell the trees in exactly the same
style that they used when standing up. Having been a champion mountain
climber in Sweden, he got up the slopes without much difficulty, and he
strung cables between the trees. Along these cables the loggers dizzily
worked themselves. Tree-felling even under ordinary conditions is hard
labor for the strongest men. But when a woodsman attempts to operate a
limber crosscut saw and a heavy ax, his head down, his body hanging by
a leather belt which is fastened to a swaying cable; when a woodsman
looks up to see his feet and to have dirt and sawdust fall down in his
eyes; when a woodsman looks down to see rocks and stumps a mile and a
half below him--brave and powerful though he may be, a woodsman in such
circumstances is bound to feel inconvenienced, harassed and impeded in
the performance of his labor. And even the threatening roars and the
pleading bellows of a Hels Helsen, the supreme and original Bull of the
Woods, cannot make him work efficiently.

“The test of great leadership is originality,” mused Paul Bunyan, as he
returned to camp. “At least some inventiveness is needed. Heroic Hels
Helsen, the Bull of the Woods--a fair title. The hero inspires, but the
thinker leads. I shall now think. One great idea put into action can
set the world afire. Surely it will take no more than a common one to
master Hels Helsen.”

In such solemn ponderings Paul Bunyan spent the rest of the day. Until
midnight he thought, and then the idea came. He at once went to work to
make a reality of it.

From an old chest that held the weapons and traps of his pre-logging
days he brought forth the most prized weapon of his youth, a
gold-butted, diamond-mounted, double-barreled shot gun. He spent the
rest of the night in careful cleaning of all its parts. An idea of the
size and power of this super-cannon can be gained when it is remembered
that he used its two barrels at a later time as smokestacks for his
first sawmill. The shells for it were made from the largest cedar logs
in the country; they were hollowed out, bound with brass, and capped
with sheet iron.

After breakfast, when the loggers had gone wearily to their terrible
labor, Paul Bunyan ordered Big Ole, the blacksmith, to cut up thousands
of pieces of sheet iron, making each one two feet square. In two
days he had the shells loaded, and he was ready to try out his idea.
Then he waited for the time when Hels Helsen would have to call on
him for help. And this time was sure to come soon, for as the work
slowly moved up from the head of the mountain the unimaginative
logging methods of the stubborn Bull of the Woods could not but fail
completely. And Hels Helsen was not the leader to change these methods
himself; he was only a hero.

But Paul Bunyan was not prepared for the monstrous display of
effrontery which was given by Hels Helsen when the exhausted loggers
could no longer follow him up the mountain side.

One morning the foreman did not call the men out to work; instead, Paul
Bunyan heard him giving them orders to pack up.

“Thunderation!” exclaimed the master logger. “What means this, Hels?”

The Bull of the Woods was attaching a cable to the cookhouse skids. He
looked up with an insolent grin.

“Aye forgot tal you, Bunyan, but aye goin’ move dar camp,” he said, in
tones of marked disrespect. “No use to try har no moore noo, aye tank.
Logger can’ stan’ on head mooch lonker har. Aye don’ tank so, Bunyan.
We move new yob noo.”

“Bunyan!” exploded the appalled leader. “‘Bunyan,’ you call me! You
think _you’ll_ move the camp! _You_ will do so! By the blazing sands of
the hot high hills of hell, and by the stink and steam of its low swamp
water, how in the name of the holy old mackinaw, how in the names of
the whistling old, roaring old, jumping old, bald-headed, blue-bellied
jeem cris and the dod derned dod do you figure you’re wearing any
shining crown of supreme authority in this man’s camp? Say!!!”

“Aye tank so,” said Hels Helsen calmly.

“Suffering old saints and bleary-eyed fathers!”

“Yah, aye tank so.”

With a mighty effort Paul Bunyan recovered his poise and dignity. He
strode to the office and got his shot gun and a sack of shells loaded
with sheet iron squares. Then his “All out, men!” rolled through the
camp.

The power of that unloosed voice threw each logger into the air, and
they all dropped, bottoms down, on the rocky ground. They were still
dazed men as they wabbled to their feet, and they meekly followed their
rightful leader toward the mountain, rubbing sore spots with their
hands as they staggered along. Muttering darkly, Hels Helsen followed
at a distance.

Paul Bunyan halted the loggers before they reached the shadows of the
mountain. He turned and faced them, and for a moment they stood in
breathless terror, fearing that he was going to urge them to another
effort on the slopes above. But no. Paul Bunyan only said, in the tones
of a gentle teacher, “You see before you a logged-off plain. Only
stumps remain upon its soil. I shall make you a forest. Behold!”

He turned and lifted the shot gun to his shoulder and pulled the
triggers; both barrels went off in such a violent explosion that many
of the loggers again tumbled to the ground. Clouds of dust dropped from
the mountain side and blanketed the plain. When the wind had thinned
out the fog the amazed loggers saw the beginnings of a new forest
before them. The loads from the two shells had sheared off a thousand
trees; they had dropped straightly down and plunged their tops into the
plain. And there they stood, the strangest grove ever seen by man. The
small brushy tops of the trees were imbedded in the ground, and their
huge bare trunks were swaying high in the air. Before the loggers had
recovered from their astonishment at the sight Paul Bunyan was firing
again; and all that day the terrific explosions of his gun, and the
falling clouds of dust from the mountain addled the loggers. At sundown
he had completed the circuit around the Mountain That Stood On Its
Head; its slopes were shorn of trees, and the plain underneath once
more had a forest. It was an amazing artificial one, and the loggers
doubted if they could get used to it. But it promised easy logging, and
when their leader ordered them into camp they went singing. It looked
like the good old times were back.

“Now,” said Paul Bunyan to his foreman, “the idea has mastered the
material. I turn the job over to you. Go to it in the morning. In the
meantime, I’ll invent a way to log off the foot of the mountain which
towers yonder among the clouds.”

Hels Helsen said nothing; but he scowled and scratched his head.

In the morning Paul Bunyan was figuring briskly, quite content again,
when he noticed a stir in the camp that was unusual for the late hour.
He looked out and saw the loggers wandering idly about. They said that
Hels Helsen had not ordered them to roll out but had gone to the woods
himself. Sensing that a struggle was at hand for the dominance of the
camp, and realizing that the powerful and obtuse Hels Helsen could only
be conquered by physical force, Paul Bunyan ordered his men to remain
behind, and he started after the foreman.

Hels Helsen was climbing the mountain when Paul Bunyan reached the new
forest, and he paid no heed to the calls that were sent after him. The
climber had his shoes off, and he moved up swiftly by grasping the
largest stumps of the sheared trees with his fingers, wrapping his
toes around others and drawing himself up like a rope climber. In a
short time he reached the rim and, throwing his leg over it, he drew
himself to the top. He rested for a moment, then he stood up and began
uprooting the close-grained white pine trees, which extended scores
of miles before him. A tumult of rage swelled up in Paul Bunyan’s
heart. So Hels Helsen had rebelled and become an independent logger.
If competition had been necessary to the logging industry the greatest
logger himself would have invented it. But he knew that equality was an
evil thing; a powerful rival was not to be tolerated; for the sake of
the grand new race of loggers, if for nothing else, Hels Helsen must be
put in his proper place.

Wise even in wrath, Paul Bunyan did not attempt to climb the mountain.
He ran to a far point of the plain, then he turned and rushed back with
his greatest speed. When he neared the mountain he leaped, he struck
the ground with his knees bending for a spring, and then he threw
himself upward in a tremendous lunge. His upstretched hands brushed
down the slope and started a roaring avalanche. A large section of the
rim gave way, and now a large hill stood under the broken edge of the
mountain rim. Again Paul Bunyan ran and leaped; this time he made his
second jump from the hilltop and his hands caught over a cliff that
jutted below the broken rim. Laboriously he drew himself up, he thrust
his foot over the top, and after a struggle that sent more rocks and
trees crashing down upon the hill, he won to the plain and lay resting
for the battle.

A minute had not passed before he felt the mountain shake, and when he
rolled over he saw Hels Helsen rushing upon him. The Big Swede’s blue
eyes flashed like hot polished steel, the gritting of his teeth sounded
like the grind of a rock crusher, his hat was off and his yellow
bristles stuck up like tall ripe grain on a squat hill. The pine trees
rocked and creaked from the wind of his swinging fists. The mighty Paul
Bunyan sprang to his feet and received the furious charge as a cliff of
solid rock receives the smash of a tidal wave....

The loggers in camp heard a stupendous uproar of battle, and they fled
from the shaking bunkhouses. The bravest among them crawled to the top
of the hump, from where they could see the mountain. When they beheld
the titanic conflict that was raging two miles above them on the flat
mountain top they stood like images of stone and stared affrightedly.
Around and around the one hundred and twenty-seven mile circle of the
lofty plain the leader and the foreman fought with all their powers.
Now came a sound like a thunder-clap as Paul Bunyan smote Hels Helsen
solidly on his square jaw. Now came a sound like a hurricane screeching
through a network of cables as Hels Helsen’s hand seized Paul Bunyan’s
beard and was jerked loose. For a long time the struggle seemed equal,
with neither combatant suffering great injury. Then Paul Bunyan’s
shoulders struck acres of pine trees with the crash of a tornado. A
heaving mass of dust rolled over him, but the dauntless leader’s head
was suddenly thrust above it; the loggers saw his fist fly from behind
him, it squashed over Hels Helsen’s nose, and the sun shone red through
a spray of blood.... Balloons and geysers of dust now rose explosively
all over the mountain top, and heavy gray clouds soon hid the mountain
from view; trees and rocks crashed everywhere on the plain below; the
convulsions of the earth increased in force; even the bravest of the
loggers were at last terrified by the shocks and blasts, and they fled
to camp and hid under their blankets.

All night the tumult of battle sounded, but at dawn there was a crash
of such shocking force that it upset every bunkhouse; and then a sudden
hush. The loggers, all shell-shocked and bruised, crawled under their
overturned bunks, but as the quiet persisted they at length ventured
outside. The dust was still rolling by in thick clouds and they could
not see their hands before them. But at sunup it had thinned out, and
ere long they beheld the figure of one of the fighters looming in the
distance. The conqueror was carrying his helpless adversary over his
shoulder.

And this conqueror, this victor in that tourney of the Titans, that
battle of the behemoths, that riot of the races, that Herculean
jaw-hammering, chin-mauling, nose-pounding, side-stamping,
cheek-tearing, rib-breaking, lip-pinching, back-beating, neck-choking,
eye-gouging, tooth-jerking, arm-twisting, head-butting, beard-pulling,
ear-biting, bottom-thumping, toe-holding, knee-tickling, shin-cracking,
heel-bruising, belly-whacking, hair-yanking, hell-roaring supreme and
incomparable knock-down-and-drag-out fight of all history was the
mighty leader of the new race of loggers, Battling Paul Bunyan.

Tattered, bloody, dirt-streaked, he marched with dignity still. On
through the hosts of silent awed loggers he passed, without glancing
down at them. He disappeared with the Bull of the Woods into the camp
office.

“You’re going to be a good foreman now, Hels Helsen!”

“Aye tank so, Mr. Bunyan.”

“You _know_ so, Hels Helsen.”

“Yah, Mr. Bunyan.”

And no more was said.

The wonderful mountain was gone, alas; the struggle had demolished it
and scattered its majesty in dust over the plain. To-day the Northern
winds blow down over the desolate remains of that once noble and
marvelous eminence--the remains of blood-darkened dust which are now
known as the Black Hills of Dakota.




A MATTER OF HISTORY


Three weeks after his cataclysmic fist fight with his foreman, Hels
Helsen, Paul Bunyan was up and around, thinking of his next move.
Dakota, once a great timberland, was now a brown, barren country;
its logs and stumps had been covered with blankets of dust when the
Mountain That Stood On Its Head was destroyed, and the mountain itself
was now only clusters of black hills. The greatest logging camp of all
history was situated in a vacant prairie. It was preposterous.

But the mighty logger did not revile fate, nor did he lift his voice
in lamentations. Neither did he have words of condemnation for the
belligerent audacity of the Big Swede, who, chastened and meek in
defeat, now gazed worshipfully on his conqueror. Still wearing the
bruises and scars of battle, he limped around his bunk a few times and
then said mildly:

“Aye tank aye soon be back on yob noo, Mr. Bunyan.”

“We have no job now. There is no timber within hundreds of miles of us.”

Paul Bunyan shook his head sadly; but presently consoling thoughts came
to him, and then proud joy flashed in his eyes.

“But what does the ruin of a season’s logging matter?” he said
cheerily. “We have made history; and that is what matters. After all,
industry is bunk; making history is the true work of the leader-hero.
And this fight of ours was the first dramatic historical event since
the Winter of the Blue Snow. This idea would be a great consolation to
you also, but you lack imagination.”

“Yah,” said the Big Swede humbly. “Aye yust wan’ yob, Mr. Bunyan.”

“And a job you shall have,” said Paul Bunyan with great heartiness.
“We will move at once to--but that is something to be thought about.
Wherever we go you shall have full command over the blue ox. And, next
to myself, you shall be in command over the loggers. Now that there is
peace and understanding between us we can perform impossible labors.”

For several hours the great logger talked on, and there was more of
enthusiasm than of purpose in his speech, for he was still shaken from
the knocks and strokes the Big Swede had given him three weeks before.
The foreman went to sleep at length, but all night Paul Bunyan was
wakeful with troublous fancies and bright but insubstantial ideas. In
the morning, when his mind was calmer and his thoughts more orderly,
only one of the notions that had come to him seemed worth while. This
was the idea of a double drive, one under his direction, and one in the
charge of the Big Swede, but both of them side by side. It should make
a unique race. There was some stuff of history in the idea.

So Paul Bunyan determined to forget the Dakota Disaster and make
practical preparations for the new achievement at once. First, he
inspected the bunkhouses and found that the loggers had set them up and
repaired the bunks. Next, he examined the cookhouse, and he saw to his
pleasure, that the cooks had it clean of dust and that pea soup was
once more bubbling on the stoves. Babe, the big blue ox, was suffering
from hayfever, and he sneezed dolefully at long intervals, but the old
eager, jovial look was in his eyes; they shone like blue moons when
Paul Bunyan looked him over.

Satisfied, the master logger returned to his office. He found the Big
Swede on his feet, and there was only a slight limp in his walk this
morning. It looked indeed like good luck was returning, and Paul Bunyan
thought of the double drive with great hope. In a splendid good humor
he jested with his foreman as he opened his roll-top desk to examine
his papers. But the great logger’s merriment was quickly hushed as the
desk top rolled up and a frightful sight was revealed. The shock of
battle had shaken the ink barrels into pieces, and the shelf on which
they stood was now covered with a black mass of broken staves. Below
were his ledgers. In dismay Paul Bunyan pulled them out and opened
them. Nearly every page was wet and black, and the old figures were
almost illegible. The Ledgers from 1 to 7, for example, seemed to be
entirely ruined. Ledger No. 1111 had black pages up to page 27,000,
and its other sheets were badly smeared. Even Ledger 10,000, the last
one in the row, had streaks and daubs on most of its sheets, and only
the last 3,723 pages remained unstained. Paul Bunyan was appalled,
and only his brave heart could have kept courage in such discouraging
circumstances.

He wished to be alone, so he gave the Big Swede instructions to groom
the blue ox and trim his hooves. When the foreman was gone, Paul Bunyan
sat down, and, having dug a young pine tree out of the earth, he began
to brush his beard and ponder.

The damage done to his precious records was a terrible blow, and he
thought first of how he might repair it. As he had said, his main
desire was to make history; his imagination rose above mere industry.
His records contained the history of all his operations, even to their
most minute details, and if no one could read them his work up to the
present time was all wasted. The loss of his grand history was, to
Paul Bunyan’s mind, the most terrible part of the Dakota Disaster. But
his loggers, of course, were only interested in their work; and the
Big Swede, too, was now anxious to show his conqueror that he would be
an obedient, efficient foreman on the next job. It was Paul Bunyan’s
duty to find a good one for them, and one that would make a fitting
beginning for a new history also. Resolving to devote his energies
solely to realizing this hope, he shook off regret and forced a smile
and a jest.

“It is no use crying over spilled ink,” he said.

So he put the old ledgers away in the chest which held his souvenirs,
and he brought out a set of new ones. In them his new records should be
made, his future history written. It should be an account of splendid
deeds and give him enough glory. He found many gladdening thoughts, and
when he gave orders for a move he showed his men the same cheerful face
that they had always known.

The loggers hustled and bustled, and in a short time the camp buildings
were lined up and fastened together. The grand cookhouse was put in the
lead, Babe was hitched to its skids, and Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede
took stations in front of him. “Yay, Babe!” the leader said, and the
move began.

Happy were the loggers as the camp flew over the prairie, though not
one of them knew where it was going. All were certain, of course, that
they were headed for some vast timberland where great logging could be
enjoyed. They supposed that Paul Bunyan planned a surprise for them,
as he had not given his usual graphic and prophetic speech before the
start was made. The word was passed along that the new job was too
wonderful to tell about. But this was only part of the truth. Paul
Bunyan’s mind was indeed filled with the idea of a unique double drive,
but he did not yet know where the project could be carried out. A wide,
gentle river with timber on both sides of it was needed; and once
found, he would have to use his inventiveness to the utmost in order to
divide the stream so that two drives could be made side by side on it.

Paul Bunyan traveled far with his camp in search of the ideal river.
Powder River looked promising at first; it was a mile wide, but then
it was only a foot deep. It deepened and got narrow in one place, but
this was only a deceitful twist of the stream, for it presently turned
and ran on its edge for the rest of its course, its waters a mile deep
and a foot wide. Hot River, in the Boiling Springs country, flowed
placidly and honestly enough all its way, but it was of a temperature
to scald the calks off the loggers’ boots. And Wild River, though it
was a white water stream, would have served for a double drive; but
it was alive with cougarfish, a species resembling the catfish of the
Mississippi; but the cougarfish were larger and incomparably more
savage and had claws on their tails. Careful Paul Bunyan would not risk
his loggers among them.

At last the master logger had only one hope left. It lay in the Twin
Rivers country. Twin Rivers were ideal for a double drive, as they
were two fat streams which flowed lazily, smoothly, and side by side
through a wide valley. But that country was the scene of Paul Bunyan’s
first logging; it was there that he had invented the industry; and,
having no loggers then, he had uprooted trees by handfuls to get his
logs. Consequently, second growth timber was not to be hoped for in
the greater part of that region. In the lower part of the Twin Rivers
valley there might be some new timber, for there Paul Bunyan had taught
the blue ox the art of skidding; and he had sheared off most of the
trees instead of uprooting them. No doubt there were some new trees on
this land, but most of the logs for a double drive on Twin Rivers would
have to be procured elsewhere. How he was to get them he did not
know. But he was staunch and inflexible in his determination to make
the second event of his new history a tremendously successful one.

[Illustration]

So Babe was turned toward the Twin Rivers country, and in a few hours
the loggers were getting glimpses of familiar scenes as the bunkhouses
sailed over stump-covered valleys and hills. They still had no word of
Paul Bunyan’s intentions, and they were astonished when, at nightfall,
the camp was halted at the upper end of Twin Rivers valley and they
were told that here was to be their camping place for the season.

There was no moon this night, and from the bunkhouses nothing of the
country could be seen except Twin Rivers, which showed surfaces of
blurred, tarnished gray in the darkness; they looked like two wide,
lonely roads with a tall black hedge between them. Heavy grass was
discovered around the camp buildings, but there was no indication
anywhere of timber, or even of brush. But the loggers were too tired to
wonder; they had been riding for two days behind the blue ox, who could
outrun a cyclone, and they were thankful for the chance to rest and
sleep.

Paul Bunyan lay in his camp office and listened to the peaceful
snores of the Big Swede, who could sleep so well because he lacked
imagination. But the great logger’s thoughts and visions banished any
hope of rest for him. Work should begin at once, and a great idea must
precede it. His determination for the double drive was solidly fixed;
he _would_ get a good plan for it. Now then: first, for a drive there
must be logs; next, for logs there must be trees; then, for trees there
must be timberland, as trees cannot be conjured from nothingness. Now,
all around him was nothing but logged-off land; perhaps it would be
possible to invent a way to log off logged-off land.... Thunderation!
what preposterous notions he was getting! But all his ideas seemed to
be as absurd. As the night hours crawled slowly on Paul Bunyan began to
doubt his powers. Had the fight with the Big Swede left him a little
crazy? Perhaps. At dawn his mind was in a turmoil; he felt that he had
brought himself face to face with the supreme crisis of his career,
and it looked like he was not to meet it successfully. If so, the
meanest swamper in camp would despise him. And the Big Swede--how soon
he would lose the humble worship that Paul Bunyan had pounded into
him and be filled with a cold Nordic scorn for this Latin victim of
imagination!... What was wrong with his ideas? Why didn’t they swell
with their usual superb force and burst into a splendor of magnificent
plans? Was this new history of logging, then, to be a history of
failure?...

In a torment of thought, Paul Bunyan could lie still no longer.
Darkness was passing fast now; he threw off his blankets and tramped
to the office door. He drew it open, then--motionless, unblinking,
breathless--he stared for sixty-six minutes. At last he rubbed his
eyes; but then he again stared as woodenly as a heathen idol. He could
only believe that his rebellious imagination was deceiving him, that
the incredible sight before him was certainly unreal. For he saw trees
everywhere; on both sides of the river they reached to the horizon.

They were in exact rows, like trees in an orchard, and each one was a
large, smooth, untapering column, flat-topped and without a trace of
bark or boughs. Again and again Paul Bunyan rubbed his eyes, thinking
to see the strange forest vanish. But it remained, and he rushed out at
last and seized one of the trees. He pulled it up easily, and he was
more amazed than ever, for it had a sharp point instead of roots. He
walked on out into the forest and pulled up others here and there, and
they were all exactly alike in shape and size.

So delighted was Paul Bunyan with his miraculous good fortune that
for a long time he only walked back and forth among the rows of Pine
Orchard--for so he named the forest,--and every moment he found some
new feature of it that was wonderful and enchanting. For one thing, he
could walk through it without difficulty, as there was room between
the rows for one of his feet. He saw that no tedious swamping would be
required for the logging-off of this forest--no cutting of brush and
trimming of limbs. It would be unnecessary to build the usual trails
for the blue ox. As the logs would all be of like size, driving them
down the rivers would be play for his men.

At last he tramped back to camp and called the loggers out of the
bunkhouses. They came forth groaning and yawning, but when they saw
Pine Orchard they too were tremendously enthusiastic about the
beautiful logging it offered, and some of them got their axes and saws
and began felling at once. The trees were as tall and as large as the
medium trees in an ordinary pine forest, but acres of them had been
notched and sawn off when the breakfast gong rang. Paul Bunyan, with
a cyclonic sigh of relief and content retired to the office to do the
first figuring for the new history.

Logging went on at a record-breaking rate during the late summer; early
autumn passed, and the loggers still felt that they were enjoying
the happiest work of their careers. The Big Swede seemed perfectly
contented with his position now; his gentleness and patience with
the blue ox could not be surpassed, and he bossed the felling crews
efficiently when Paul Bunyan had to leave them to toil over the new
ledgers. The great logger himself had not been happier in years, for
the logs being all of a size made the figuring simple now, and he spent
all but three hours a day in the woods.

With the coming of the snapping frosts of late autumn the operations
had reached the lower part of the Twin Rivers valley, and the smooth,
bare trees of Pine Orchard were all piled neatly along the banks of
the stream. Now the second growth of regular pine trees was reached,
and the work of limbing, bucking and swamping again became part of the
loggers’ duties. But they were fat and saucy from their easy months
in Pine Orchard, and the first day’s felling in the old-fashioned
forest brought down a record number of trees. However, it also brought
more figuring for Paul Bunyan, for he now had to keep accounts of
a thousand sizes and lengths of logs. This kept him from the woods,
though the Big Swede really needed him now because of the problems
which develop incessantly in regular logging. Again Paul Bunyan came
to feel the need of a great figurer, recorder and secretary; but where
was one to be found who had both the size and knowledge to care for his
vast bookkeeping system and enormous history books? It was folly to
hope for such a man, so Paul Bunyan stuck bravely to his desk and made
the best of his situation.

And the logging went on without many discouraging incidents until one
morning in November. Then Paul Bunyan looked out and saw that the Twin
River next to the camp had risen six feet, though the other Twin was
at its normal level. Wondering at the unnatural flood and fearing for
the logs piled on the landings, the leader-hero set out at a great
pace to discover what was obstructing the flow of the Left Twin. Where
the river curved around a cliff he saw what appeared to be a boot as
large as his own; it was resting in the stream, and, as it reached from
the cliff to the bank between the Twin Rivers it made a perfect dam,
and the river had not yet risen to the top of it. Paul Bunyan’s gaze
traveled up the bootleg and reached a corduroyed knee; then he saw that
a remarkable figure was seated on the cliff, the figure of a man who
was nearly as large as the master logger.

Remembering the danger to his logs, Paul Bunyan seized the foot that
was damning the river and lifted it without ceremony. The released
waters boiled and thundered as they rolled on, but above the roar Paul
Bunyan heard a voice, soft and mild for all its power, saying, “I beg
your pardon.”

The master logger could not restrain an exclamation of delight.

“Educated! By the holy old mackinaw!”

He pulled aside the trees from which the grand gentlemanly voice had
issued. There sat a man. And such a man!

His long but well-combed hair was level with the tree tops, though he
was seated among them. Some black, straight strands of hair fell over
a forehead of extraordinary height, a forehead which was marked with
deep, grave wrinkles. His black eyebrows resembled nothing so much as
fishhooks, breaking down sharply at his nose. His large, pale eyes
looked through old-fashioned spectacles. His nose was original; it
sloped out to an astonishing length, and a piece of rubber the size of
a barrel was pinched over the end of it. He was certainly an educated
man. He wore a necktie, for one thing; yes, and there were papers
resting on one raised knee; in his right hand was a pencil, and many
others were behind his ears. Now he was figuring with incredible speed;
then he thrust the rubber in his nose against the paper, shook his head
three times and the sheet was clean.

Paul Bunyan wanted to shout and jig like a school-boy, so jubilant was
his logger’s soul made by the sight of this marvelous man. Here was
the one person who was needed to make his camp a perfectly organized
industry, to guarantee the success of his plans to become a maker of
history. By hook or crook he must have him.

He tapped the engrossed figurer on the shoulder.

“Paul Bunyan, the master logger, the maker of history and inventor of
note, the only living Real American leader-hero of industry, addresses
you,” he said impressively.

“I have heard of you,” said the other, extending his hand but not
rising. “I am John Rogers Inkslinger, the master figurer, the one and
only Real American surveyor. But you must excuse me now, for I am
endeavoring to solve the one problem that has ever baffled me. I have
been working on it steadily for two months, and still the answer evades
me.”

He at once began figuring again, and Paul Bunyan, a little awed, had no
words to say at that moment. He had no idea of what a surveyor might
be, and he feared that John Rogers Inkslinger was something greater
than himself. He would find out. So he said:

“I am a figurer also, though not a great one. Yet I might help you.
What is your problem?”

“I am looking for Section 37,” said John Rogers Inkslinger.

“Section 37?”

“Yes. I have only found thirty-six sections in each of the townships
which I have surveyed here. There should be thirty-seven.”

Paul Bunyan was delighted that he could solve the problem so easily.
“When I first logged off lower Twin Rivers valley,” he said, “I had
no logging crews, but only Babe, my big blue ox. The method I used was
to hitch Babe to a section of timber--this ox of mine, Mr. Inkslinger,
can pull anything that man can walk on--, snake it to the river, shear
off the trees, and then haul the logged off land back to its place. I
handled a township a week in this fashion; but I always left Section 37
in the river on Saturday night, and the stream would wash it away. Now
I judge that you survey the land as I measured it; consequently, you
have only found thirty-six sections in each township.”

“Bless my soul!” cried John Rogers Inkslinger admiringly. “I should
have looked you up before. But I supposed you were an ordinary man of
the forests. You would certainly make a great surveyor. You must leave
this common life you are leading and come with me. Together we will
soon have every section of land in the country staked out perfectly.”

“I have a different idea,” said Paul Bunyan.

Whereupon he unloosed his eloquence, and for the rest of the day his
richest phrases were lavished on the surveyor. And this man, sure of
the greatness of his own accomplishments, listened with strong doubts
for a long time. But at last he was convinced that logging was the
greatest of all occupations and that Paul Bunyan towered far above him
as a hero.

“I can only think of you with awe and admiration,” he said at last.
“But I have my own work, inconsequential as it now seems. So I cannot
become your figurer at present. Think, Mr. Bunyan, of Real America’s
uncharted rivers, her unstaked plains, her unplumbed lakes! It is my
mission to--to----”

His speech ended in a yell of fright as a monstrous red tongue was
thrust before his eyes; it passed moistly over his face, it rolled
oozily behind his ear; then he heard a “moo” that was as loud as
muffled thunder, but affectionate and kind. The surveyor wiped his face
and his spectacles and turned fearfully to see Babe, the ox whose hair
was blue as the sky, gazing at him, with a pleading tenderness in his
bulging eyes.

“Even Babe wants you to come with us,” said Paul Bunyan, his beard
shaking in a chuckle. “Such a powerful argument. Now what in
thunderation----”

John Rogers Inkslinger had let out a scream of horror that sent Babe
galloping back through the timber.

“My instruments!” cried he. “Your infernal clumsy ox has trampled them
and demolished every one. What misfortune!” He jumped to his feet and
began looking for his books and papers.

“Gone!” raged the surveyor. “That blue devil has eaten them! All of my
records, the history of my works--gone! gone! gone! Eaten by an ox! His
four stomachs are crammed with them! Gone! gone! gone!”

“Stop that caterwauling,” said Paul Bunyan impatiently. “When my
ledgers were ruined, I simply observed, ‘There is no use crying over
spilled ink.’ The hero is even more heroic in disaster than in triumph.
Be true to your pretensions.”

“Pretensions, the devil!” said John Rogers Inkslinger peevishly. “If
you had the true figurer’s soul you would give me your sympathy instead
of unconsoling platitudes.”

Then the tears began to fall from his eyes and made great splashes in
the river. Paul Bunyan, saying no more, grasped his arm and marched him
toward the camp. The two heroes walked silently until they were out
of the timber and had started over the country where Pine Orchard had
stood.

Then Paul Bunyan said conversationally, “I found a very original forest
here. But it offered splendid logging.... Thunderation again! What ails
you anyway?”

For John Rogers Inkslinger had once more burst into yells of agony.

“My stakes!” he cried. “My surveyor’s stakes! Two years’ work ruined,
utterly ruined! The stakes that marked my section lines--you have
felled them all and dragged them all to the rivers for logs! My stakes
that were to have stood forever--gone! gone! gone!”

He choked and gasped, he clutched wildly at nothingness, and then he
fainted into the appalled logger’s arms....

That winter was the only period of his career in which Paul Bunyan
knew the affliction of a guilty conscience. It was true that he
had not injured the great surveyor willfully, but the fact that he
had destroyed another man’s work could not be ignored. He had done
irreparable damage and for the peace of his soul he must somehow make
amends, devise consolations and give heart balm and recompense. He only
asked that the surveyor make any demand of him, that he give him any
opportunity to do a service that would make up for the loss.

But the winter long John Rogers Inkslinger brooded in the back room
of the office and would speak to no one. Each day regret bore heavier
on Paul Bunyan’s generous heart; Christmas was a time of deep gloom
for him; and when the first sunshine of spring brightened the valley,
even the approach of the great double drive did not cheer him. He had
abandoned his ledgers, and he spent all of his time in the woods; he
had no wish to record the destruction of the surveyor’s work.

The double drive was a huge success, and the rivermen returned from it
singing the praises of Paul Bunyan, who had bested his foreman in the
grand race. But the great logger himself had only cheerless thoughts
as he came to the camp office. Another move must now be made, and the
sad business of repaying John Rogers Inkslinger must be attended to at
last. He would place his camp and crew, his foreman and the great blue
ox, himself and all his august talents unreservedly at the surveyor’s
disposal. Better long years of surveying than to leave this blot on
his history. It would be wretched work for him and his men, he mused
unhappily, as he opened the office door, but he could not oppose
conscience. His mind formed the words of a contrite, submissive speech,
he tramped on into the office and prepared to utter them; then out of
the back room rushed John Rogers Inkslinger; his eyes were shining, his
face was flushed with happiness, his hands were raised as though in
appeal.

“Paul Bunyan, greatest of Real Americans!” he cried. “I have read
your histories, and in the pages of them I have learned the grandeur
and glory of your deeds, the extent and influence of your power, the
might of your mind! I now know your inventiveness, your heroism, your
majestic thoughts, your generous heart! To think that I roared about
Paul Bunyan using my miserable stakes! And still you smile upon me! Oh,
Glory! I beg pardon humbly and ask only to serve you henceforth in your
enterprises----”

“Here now,” said Paul Bunyan, dumfounded, incredulous of his hearing,
greatly embarrassed. “How could you have read my ink-soaked ledgers?”

John Rogers Inkslinger answered him by bringing out one of the volumes
and opening it. On the black pages were figures and letters of white;
with white ink the great figurer had painstakingly traced out the old
dimmed entries, and now every volume was as readable as it had ever
been.

“There!” he declaimed. “There, Mr. Bunyan, is the proof of my worth and
zeal. I found the ledgers, and when you were on the drive I traced out
their messages. From them I learned to worship you. Give me a desk and
let me serve you as well hereafter.”

Overcome by emotion, Paul Bunyan turned and stared unseeingly at
the lands which had once been Pine Orchard. Visions of tremendous
accomplishments swept before him; he now had the perfect organization
he had always dreamed about, and there could be no good reason for
another failure. But he had a new responsibility also; he was now more
deeply in debt to this man than ever. For, even as his fists and feet
had won him the faith and loyalty of the Big Swede, so had his mind and
heart, as revealed in his history, won the extravagant devotion of the
greatest figurer. Only mighty works would keep it. Well, he should not
fail. Resolutely he faced the unfortunate surveyor, the restorer of
ruined accounts, the man who should win fame with him as the greatest
figurer of all time.

“Timekeeper Johnny Inkslinger,” he said, “shake hands.”




THE SOURDOUGH DRIVE


Political campaigns remind old loggers of the violent debate that once
raged between Paul Bunyan, the originator of the lumber industry, and
his timekeeper, Johnny Inkslinger. This debate was strictly about
business, however, for there was no politics in those days. It was
poor policy, argued the timekeeper, to increase the varieties and
quantities of edibles grown on Paul Bunyan’s great farm simply to make
more stuffing for the loggers. He recommended that the camp rations be
cut down and that ships be built, in which surplus farm produce could
be shipped to European markets. Johnny Inkslinger was the original
efficiency expert and he had hordes of figures at hand to support
his arguments. Paul Bunyan listened with his usual calm and dignity,
brushing his beard with a fresh pine tree and nodding gravely, until
the timekeeper began to insist that the loggers could do their work
well enough on pea soup and sourdough biscuits; then the great man
erupted.

“Good glory, Johnny!” he exclaimed. “Have you forgotten the Sourdough
Drive?”

“I have not, Mr. Bunyan,” Inkslinger retorted spiritedly. “But I have
figures which show you should have handled it differently.”

“The hell you have!” roared Paul Bunyan, in rare tones of anger. “Damn
figures and figuring men!”

“And damn a man who damns figures!” thundered Johnny Inkslinger,
himself getting angry.

Whereupon Paul Bunyan damned him again in return, and they kept up a
furious argument until the trees began to fall among the bunkhouses.
The sourdough drive was a subject that tormented Paul Bunyan’s feelings
whenever he thought of it; it was always a sore spot with him. But
when he heard the trees tumbling down in the valley he remembered his
dignity and he silenced his timekeeper with a majestic gesture. Then
he gave instructions for a Sunday feast so huge and diversified that
Hot Biscuit Slim, the chief cook, went into a solemn trance of joy upon
receiving the order. The timekeeper could not hide his mortification,
and Paul Bunyan clapped him on the shoulder, saying cheerily, “There,
there, my lad. You live in a world of figures. I could not expect you
to know the soul of the born woodsman. But treasure this always: a
logging crew works on its stomach.”

After Paul Bunyan had invented logging and brought hosts of little
loggers over to Real America to fell trees and drive logs down the
rivers, his most baffling problem sprang from the fact that little
loggers could not live on raw moose meat as he did. They required
cooked food; consequently Paul Bunyan was compelled to build a
cookhouse and import cooks. His first cookhouse was a crude affair
without any notable mechanical equipment. And his first cooks were men
without talent or experience. But Paul Bunyan’s loggers were hardy men
whose appetites had never been pampered, and no one complained of the
camp fare until Pea Soup Shorty took command of the cookhouse.

Pea Soup Shorty was a plump, lazy, complacent rascal, and he made no
attempt to feed the loggers anything but hard-tack and pea soup. He
even made lunches for them by freezing pea soup around a rope and
sending the loggers’ lunches out to them in sticks like big candles.
Even then the loggers did not complain greatly. Not until the winter
in the Bullfrog Lake country were they heard to cry out against their
food. That winter Shagline Bill’s freight sleds broke the ice on the
lake, and the season’s supply of split peas was lost in the water. Pea
Soup Shorty did not try to originate any new food for the loggers;
he simply boiled the lake water and served it to them for pea soup.
Then the bunkhouse cranks began to growl; and finally all the loggers
revolted against Pea Soup Shorty; and they declared against pea soup
also. Paul Bunyan had to look for another kitchen chief. Old Sourdough
Sam was his selection.

The Bunyan histories tell that Sourdough Sam made everything but coffee
out of sourdough. This substance is really fermented dough, having the
rising qualities of yeast. It is said to be an explosive. Modern camp
cooks are always at great pains to warn the new kitchen help away from
the sourdough bowl, telling them of the sad accident of Sourdough Sam,
who had his left arm and right leg blown off in an explosion of the
dangerous concoction.

The old cook brought this misfortune on himself. Sourdough was his
weakness as well as his strength. Had he been content to keep it only
in the kitchen, where it belonged, and to develop it simply as a food,
he, and not his son, Hot Biscuit Slim, might be remembered as the
father of camp cookery, even as the mighty Paul Bunyan is venerated as
the father of logging. But Sam was prey to wild ideas about the uses of
his creation. He declared it could be used for shaving soap, poultices,
eye wash, boot grease, hair tonic, shin plasters, ear muffs, chest
protectors, corn pads, arch supporters, vest lining, pillow stuffing,
lamp fuel, kindling, saw polish and physic. One time he came into the
bunkhouse with a chair cushion made out of sourdough. As bad luck would
have it, Jonah Wiles, the worst of the bunkhouse cranks, was the first
man to sit on it. He always sat hard, and when he dropped on the new
chair cushion, he splashed sourdough as high as his ears. Jonah Wiles
was fearfully proud of his mackinaw pants, for they were the only pair
in camp that had red, green, purple and orange checks. Now the bursted
cushion was splashed over all their gaudy colors. Sam apologized humbly
and begged the privilege of washing them. His rage showing only in the
glitter of his beady blue eyes, Jonah Wiles stripped off the smeared
pants and handed them over to the cook. Sourdough Sam recklessly washed
them in another of his creations, sourdough suds. Not a thread of color
was left in the prized pants; they were a brilliant white when they
were returned. The old cook brought them back reluctantly and he was
tremendously relieved when Jonah Wiles did not tear into him with
oaths and blows. But Jonah Wiles was different from other loggers in
that he always concealed even his strongest feelings. So he put on the
pants without saying a word, though he was blazing with wrath inside.
His rage against the cook was aggravated when his mates began to call
him “the legless logger,” because of his invisibility from the bottom
of his coat to the tops of his boots when he tramped to work. The
brilliant white pants did not show at all against a background of snow.

This unfortunate incident led to the important happenings of the
Sourdough Drive, which was one of the turning points in the history
of logging. For Jonah Wiles now cherished a vicious hostility against
Sourdough Sam; with patient cunning he awaited the time when he might
be avenged for the outrage that had made him known in the camp as “the
legless logger.”

Jonah Wiles was not a great man among the loggers; he was only a
swamper, and Mark Beaucoup, who was a mighty man with both ax and pike
pole, was much more to be feared as a bunkhouse crank. But where Mark
Beaucoup was a roaring grouch, Jonah Wiles was a sly, quiet one; he had
a devilish insinuating gift of making men see and believe uncomfortable
things.

“Too bad yer so hoarse to-night,” he would say to a bunkhouse bard who
had just finished a song. “I’m thinkin’ we’re needin’ more blankets.
Ol’ Paul’ll let us all freeze to death.”

He would lead the bard to think he _did_ have a hoarseness, the
bunkhouse gayety would vanish and a seed of resentment would be sown
against the master logger. Before his pants were ruined Jonah Wiles
had never found a grievance which would serve to keep his instinct
of revolt always inflamed. But now his misfortune was in his mind
constantly. Without openly attacking the culinary methods and creations
of Sourdough Sam, he slyly made a terrible shape of them for his
bunkhouse mates.

“Poor ol’ Sam,” he would say, drawing his lean, gray face into an
expression of pity. “Poor ol’ Sam. He cooks the best he knows how,
maybe. But I’m afeard that sourdough uh his’n ’ll bring us all to an
ontimely end, fin’ly.”

Let a logger complain of corns, and Jonah Wiles would remark that he
had never heard of corns in the woods before sourdough was invented. He
insinuated that everything from ingrown nails and bunions to toothache
and falling hair was due to the loggers’ sourdough meals. Ere long
old Sam was met with silence and bitter looks when he visited the
bunkhouses to show a new use of sourdough. And the loggers’ appetites
fell away; one month after the accident to Jonah Wiles’ pants, Johnny
Inkslinger joyfully reported to Paul Bunyan that the consumption of
flour and soda had been cut in half. The great logger frowned; he had
already learned much about the need his men had for good food rightly
cooked, though it was no necessity for him.

“But I can’t consider this business, now,” he said ruefully. “We’ve
got to get this country logged off before the water drops in Redbottom
Lake. When the spring drive is finished we’ll settle the feeding
problem once and for all time.”

Saying this, he thrust a bundle of sharpened axes and two score new
crosscut saws into his pocket, and, followed by his timekeeper, he
strode for the woods to lay out the work for the next day. Jonah
Wiles was then in the kitchen with Sourdough Sam. Paul Bunyan and his
timekeeper always walked softly, but the wind from their swinging feet
rattled the doors and windows of the cookhouse.

“There they go,” muttered Jonah Wiles. “Now listen, Sam. They’ll be
in the woods for an hour anyway. Now’s yer chance to get in good with
everybody again. I want yeh to keep yer high place, ol’ feller. I’ve
always loved yeh like a brother, an’ yer trouble with the boys is
grievin’ me to a shadder.”

“I shore appreciate your sympathy when all is givin’ me the cold
shoulder,” said the cook disconsolately. “But ’tain’t no use. Nobody
seems willin’ to give sourdough a real chance. Folks could use it fer
ever’thing if they wanted to, an’ now these fool loggers even hate to
eat it.”

Jonah Wiles replied with his usual shrewd arguments. Every evening
when he thought he had made all the mischievous suggestions to the
loggers that it was wise to utter, he would come to the kitchen and,
pretending great sympathy and friendliness, he would urge Sourdough Sam
into enterprises that could only end disastrously. He was now urging
old Sam to dump sourdough into the timekeeper’s ink barrels during
his absence with Paul Bunyan. The cook had long been sure that small
quantities of sourdough would treble the ink supply. But, disheartened
and discouraged, he had not ventured to broach the idea to Johnny
Inkslinger.

“Make it a surprise party,” suggested Jonah Wiles. “Get busy, Sam. It’s
yer chance to win a real name for yerself.”

At last Sourdough Sam yielded to his tempter.

The flunkies had left the kitchen long before. The stoves and cook
tables were dark shapes in the twilight shadows. Only the white
sourdough tanks stood out in the gloom. Jonah Wiles lifted the top
from one of them, and a hissing roar rose from its depths, where the
fermented dough worked and bubbled like quicklime. Jonah Wiles beckoned
to Sourdough Sam. The cook’s eyes shone; he breathed heavily.

“It can’t help but work,” he whispered.

“Now yer my ol’ friend--good ol’ Sourdough Sam!” exclaimed Jonah Wiles
heartily. “Now yer talkin’. You’ll be king of the camp when Johnny
Inkslinger finds his ink barrels all full and wonders how it happened.
Be the hero yeh really are, Sam!”

“By hickory, I will!” declared the cook.

In a moment he was leaving the kitchen, a foaming five gallon bucket of
sourdough in each hand. Jonah Wiles slipped through the shadows until
he reached a big tree. There he lingered and watched. He knew certainly
that this idea would bring evil on the old cook. The sourdough would
ruin the ink as it had ruined everything else. But he had never
dreamed of such a grand disaster as befell. Johnny Inkslinger had two
dozen ink barrels. A hose line ran from each one, and when he did his
most furious figuring it was necessary to attach all of them to his
fountain pen in order to get a sufficient flow of ink. The cook dumped
five gallons of sourdough into the first barrel and five into the
second; then he rushed back to the cookhouse for more. At his sixth
trip the first barrels he had treated were boiling and steaming like
miniature volcanoes.

“They’ll settle after bit,” said Sourdough Sam optimistically.

Vain hope. No sooner were the words uttered than a barrel of ink
exploded with a dull roar. The other treated barrels followed with a
blast that sounded like a salvo of artillery fire. The camp was shaken.
The loggers rushed from the bunkhouses and saw a foaming black torrent
rolling out of the camp office. Sourdough Sam was whirled forth on the
flood. The bravest of the loggers plunged into the boiling black stream
and dragged him to safety. He was unconscious, and his left arm and
right leg had been lost in the explosion. He was gently carried into a
bunkhouse. The head flunky mounted his saddle horse and galloped after
Paul Bunyan.

Jonah Wiles moved inconspicuously among the excited loggers. A hot
exultation was in his heart; he had never hoped for such a completely
triumphant revenge. New powers seemed to surge up in him, too; he felt
that he might bring about even greater disasters than this one. But he
cautiously repressed these freshly burning hopes and carried the air of
a man made dumb by grief. Tobacco crumbs rubbed in his eyes made the
tears trickle down his lean cheeks. As the loggers formed into groups
and began to speak of the sourdough explosion in doleful tones, they
noted the silent, mournful appearance of Jonah Wiles, and, among such
expressions as “I was allus afeard sompin like it ud happen”--“Pore
ol’ Sam, got to be a regular sourdough fanatic”--“Powerful strange,
ain’t it, the way things work out in this life?”--were heard many words
of sympathy for Sourdough’s best friend. “Ol’ Jonah’s takin’ it perty
hard.” “Yeh, you wouldn’t think such an ol’ crab had that much feelin’
in him.”

Jonah Wiles heard them and chuckled evilly. They were making his part
easy for him. When Paul Bunyan and his timekeeper thundered into camp
he was at the fore of the men who pressed around their feet.

Johnny Inkslinger had the unfortunate cook brought into the office,
where he had room to work over him. For half an hour surgical
instruments, bandages and bottles flashed through his hands as he
doctored the cook. Paul Bunyan watched him hopefully; Johnny Inkslinger
was not only the greatest figurer but the greatest doctor of his time
also.

At last he arose. “He’ll pull through, Mr. Bunyan.”

Paul Bunyan thanked him and then fell into a profound contemplation of
the feeding problem. Johnny Inkslinger wiped the blots of ink from the
walls and the puddles from the floor.

“Only two barrels of ink left,” he groaned. “How’ll I get through the
winter, Mr. Bunyan?”

The great logger smiled grimly. “I only wish all my problems were so
simple,” he said. “Just leave off dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s
and you’ll save ink for the necessary writing and figuring. When the
spring ink supply comes in you can go over your books again.”

“Such a mind!” breathed the timekeeper worshipfully.

But Paul Bunyan felt that even his mind was unequal to the perplexing
problem before him. How was he to feed his loggers now? Would they be
content with pea soup? Not for long, certainly. Even sourdough hardly
satisfied them now. And this dangerous stuff, lively as gunpowder--who
would dare to mix, bake, boil, stew and roast it? No sourdough, no
work; and this meant another season in the upper Red River country,
for he had to be ready for the drive before Redbottom Lake sank to its
summer level. Quick action was necessary. Paul Bunyan sent inquiries
among the kitchen help for a man who was familiar with the methods of
Sourdough Sam. The head flunky reported that no one was so intimate
with the old cook as Jonah Wiles, a swamper.

The worst bunkhouse crank came into the presence of Paul Bunyan with
confidence that Sourdough Sam, the soul of loyalty, had not mentioned
him in connection with the explosion. He presented a sorrowful,
tear-streaked countenance.

“Be consoled,” Paul Bunyan said gently. “Your comrade was performing
what he considered to be an act of duty. He shall be remembered with
great honor. And I am offering you, his best friend, the position he
occupied.”

“I’m only a pore swamper, Mr. Bunyan,” said Jonah Wiles, in nasal tones
of humility “an’ I’d never be able to make it in the high job of a
cook.”

Paul Bunyan stroked his beard with a pine tree, as was his habit
in moments of earnest thought. And at the same time Jonah Wiles
was glowing with the fire of dangerous inspiration; he had become
firmly convinced that he was a great originator of damaging ideas. He
remembered that Sourdough Sam had a son; the old cook had often spoken
of him with parental pride and fondness. With the boy in camp his
revenge could go yet farther. Jonah Wiles pounded on Paul Bunyan’s toe
to attract his attention. The great logger again bent down to him.

“Sourdough Sam has a son which he claims is a greater cook than his dad
already,” said the bunkhouse crank. “I expect you could send an’ get
him easy, Mr. Bunyan.”

“Where is he, lad?”

“He’s down in the Corn Pone country. That’s where he’s learnin’ to be a
better cook than Sam, an’----”

Jonah Wiles was bowled over by Paul Bunyan’s jubilant roar. Johnny
Inkslinger was ordered to set out for the Corn Pone country at once
and to return with the young cook, making all speed. The great logger
then called his men together and gave them a rousing speech on the
need for fast logging, promising them that he would have the old
cookhouse going good again in a short time. The loggers cheered him
and went contentedly to bed, where all but Jonah Wiles slept with
good consciences. But to him the bad conscience was the good one; he
rejoiced in evil thoughts. Not a pang of pity did he feel for Sourdough
Sam; he had no regrets; he dreamed only of getting his clutches on the
son of the man who had ruined his bright pants.

While Johnny Inkslinger was speeding after the new cook Paul Bunyan
was struggling with the worst difficulty he had ever encountered. The
kitchen was put in charge of the Galloping Kid, the head flunky, for
the time being. He was a grand horseman, a mighty figure, as he rode
his white horse among the tables at meal time, directing the running
flunkies, but he knew little more about cooking than Paul Bunyan
himself.

His sourdough creations were all failures; the loggers broke their
teeth on them, and what they did swallow was indigestible. All gayety
vanished from the bunkhouses; even the bards, with the noble exception
of the incomparable, unquenchable Shanty Boy, got silent and morose.
Each day less timber was felled. In time the blue ox stood idle most
of the day, waiting for loads of logs to be hauled to the landings.
A successful conclusion of the logging seemed impossible, but Paul
Bunyan would not admit it. A late spring thaw, a great physical revival
when the new cook got into action--he stimulated the men with these
hopes and kept up some semblance of work in the woods.

Jonah Wiles was now enjoying the happiest time of his life. Everyone
was in a state of wretchedness that delighted him. He heard threats of
revolt; disastrous events were surely advancing their shadows on the
camp of Paul Bunyan; he gloated over the evil he would wreck on the son
of his enemy. But he kept his feelings well hidden. His sly suggestions
were the source of many of the bitterest complaints the loggers made
against their life, but he never complained now himself. His small blue
eyes had a watery shine of sympathy for everyone. He spent an hour
each night with Sourdough Sam, pretending to console him, but actually
enjoying his sufferings.

When the new cook arrived in camp Sourdough Sam was able to sit up and
introduce his son to Paul Bunyan--“Hot Biscuit Slim, sir, who’s goin’
to be one uh the greatest cooks uh history.”

The young man leaned nonchalantly against Paul Bunyan’s toe and looked
up calmly at the mighty figure above him.

“I’ll shore be glad to work for you, Mr. Bunyan,” he said. “But you’ll
have to fix things accordin’ to my ideas.”

“Son, the camp is yours,” rumbled Paul Bunyan. “Half of my loggers are
now too weak to lift an ax.”

Whereupon Hot Biscuit Slim shook his father’s good hand, smiled
enigmatically when the old man said, “I’m expectin’ you to succeed
where I failed with sourdough, boy,” and left to inspect the cookhouse.
Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger attended him. When the inspection was
finished he had many recommendations to make. He demanded----

A new cookhouse, ten times the size of the present one.

Steam-power, force-feed batter mixers, and a hot cake griddle large
enough for a battalion of second cooks to make a line around it.

A battery of great ovens for the baking of pies, cakes, puddings and
cookies.

Bins for potatoes and other vegetables.

Fruit and vinegar cellars.

Baking powder and sugar barrels.

Sauerkraut tanks and a frankfurter shed.

An air-tight onion room.

A store of ham, bacon and eggs for the loggers’ breakfasts....

“Hold on a moment!” exclaimed Paul Bunyan in bewilderment. “Please tell
me first: _what_ are hot cakes, pies, cookies, cakes, puddings, ham,
bacon, eggs, potatoes, baking powder, sauerkraut, frankfurters and the
rest of it? Can we get them from somewhere, or must I invent them?”

Hot Biscuit Slim patiently explained them to the great logger.

“Holy mackinaw!” said Paul Bunyan, greatly relieved, “I never imagined
such things could be. I’m delighted that they’ve already been
invented.”

Hot Biscuit Slim told him that they could all be grown or manufactured
on the great farm. Then he went on to recommend that the flunkies be
equipped with roller skates, thus tripling their efficiency. He made
many other suggestions, and Paul Bunyan agreed to all of them.

“Now to work,” said Hot Biscuit Slim. “I’ll have a new sourdough dish
for the loggers’ supper. Sourdough is a contraption that’s seen it’s
day, but I’ll make the best of it while I got to use it. Send me your
blacksmith.”

A unique smell met the loggers when they crowded eagerly into the
cookhouse at suppertime, a delightful odor that overpowered the weakest
among them. And when the flunkies trotted out, carrying huge platters
heaped high with brown, globular mysteries, each one having a curious
hole in the center, the famished loggers all bounced about on their
benches in uncontrollable excitement, and well they might! For they
were being served with the first doughnuts! Doughnut connoisseurs
of to-day would have regarded them as crude; they were made from
sourdough, they were hard as hickory and unsweetened. But Paul Bunyan’s
loggers shouted over them; they discovered to their great leader the
exuberance and expansion of feeling, the exaltation of spirit, the
strengthening of moral qualities, which may develop from grand feeding.
As he listened to the extraordinary uproar in the cookhouse and
considered it he formed one of his great reflections: Meals make the
man.

Jonah Wiles was the one dismal figure among the feasters. The
doughnuts were bitter in his mouth because they were so pleasing to
him. He devoured half a dozen of them and then forced himself to stop,
for he was beginning to feel good-humored. His gaze turned shiftily
towards the kitchen, where Hot Biscuit Slim was frying doughnuts with
astonishing rapidity. The assistant cooks were rolling out the dough;
Big Ole, the blacksmith, bare-armed and streaming with sweat, tossed
the doughnuts on his anvil and punched the holes in them with swift
strokes. Jonah Wiles glowered malignantly on the scene. With one meal
the son of his enemy had brought happiness to the camp and achieved
glory.

“He’ll learn Jonah Wiles has a few tricks yet,” the worst bunkhouse
crank muttered savagely.

After supper he waited for a lull in the bunkhouse merriment. When it
came he emitted a terrific groan.

“I’m afeard them new biscuits with the holes in ’em ain’t goin’ to set
well on the stummick. I’m afeard----”

“Take yer bellyache outside!” yelled the loggers.

They shoved him through the door and began to roar out their favorite
song, “Jack Haggerty.”

“I’ve still got some tricks,” said Jonah Wiles.

He entered the kitchen and greeted Hot Biscuit Slim with a twisted grin
that was supposed to express sympathy and understanding.

“I’m yer pap’s best friend,” he said unctuously, “an’ I shore am glad
to see yeh makin’ sech a fine beginnin’ with sourdough.”

“Yeh?” said Hot Biscuit Slim.

“Yes siree! An’ I allus like to help folks get along, too. I’ve jist
thought uh somethin’ new to try with sourdough. Yeh see, the loggers
been havin’ trouble gettin’ inner soles fer their boots. Now if yer
pap was doin’ it, why he’d jist slip into all the bunkhouses to-night
and put sourdough in every boot, fer.... Here now, don’t yeh go to hit
me! I’m a ailin’ ol’ man, an’ crippled, too. What’s the matter uh yeh,
anyway?”

Hot Biscuit’s face was afire with rage.

“So you’re the pizen ol’ devil what got my ol’ man into all that
trouble, what nearly got him kilt, what ruint his life!”

He grasped a cold doughnut, swung it far behind him, then hurled it
with terrific force at Jonah Wiles’ head. It struck him squarely
between the eyes, and he dropped without a groan.

“There!” panted Hot Biscuit Slim. “You moanin’ ol’ hound--you hissin’
ol’ reptile--you squawlin’ ol’ tomcat!...”

When Jonah Wiles recovered consciousness two months later he discovered
the camp in holiday attire. When he learned the occasion of the
celebration he was bewildered. He saw the loggers forming in a great
crowd on the shore of Redbottom Lake. The water line was low; the
spring thaw had evidently come early, for the lake was black with
logs. The logging had not been finished before the lake sank below its
outlet. Yet the camp was celebrating. Jonah Wiles wondered. Had the
new biscuits made the loggers so idiotically happy that no misfortune
could quench their spirits?

Jonah Wiles saw that a new cookhouse had been built; the old one was
now standing above a rollway on the lake shore. From crevices in its
swelling walls, from the eaves and from the chimneys some thick white
stuff was oozing and bubbling. “Sourdough!” exclaimed Jonah Wiles, yet
more amazed.

At this moment Paul Bunyan lifted Sourdough Sam aloft in his hand that
all the loggers might see him. The old cook waved a new crutch at his
friends. He was dressed in an amazing fine style; he was even wearing a
necktie. He seemed to be the hero of the celebration.

Paul Bunyan now made a speech. He told the loggers of all the marvelous
edibles that Hot Biscuit Slim had revealed to him, and he explained
in detail his latest and greatest invention, the Big Feed. When the
loggers were done cheering Paul Bunyan paid a tribute to Sourdough
Sam; the old cook’s creation had served a great purpose in the logging
industry, he said. Its day was done now, but there remained a last
great work for it to perform, a dramatic work that would keep the
memory of its creator alive forever. It was fitting that Sourdough
Sam should see this before retiring to his old home. Now Paul Bunyan
turned to the big blue ox, who was hitched to blocks supporting the old
cookhouse.

“Yay, Babe!” he commanded.

The blue ox heaved, the old cookhouse tottered, then it crashed down
the rollway. A heaving mass of sourdough rumbled from its cracking
sides and surged like a boiling tidal wave over the lake. The waters
began to hiss and foam; the logs were all hidden from sight; the lake
looked like a heavy white cloud had dropped into its basin. The loggers
all stared prayerfully; hopeful, yet hardly daring to hope. Only
Sourdough Sam had confidence in the rising powers of his sourdough.
In Paul Bunyan’s hand, he shouted joyously and waved his new crutch.
The great logger himself was not absolutely sure of success at first,
but as the tumult of the lake waters increased, he too showed joy and
carefully patted Sourdough Sam’s back with his little finger. The
leader-hero was pleased to share the glory of this enterprise with
such a noble and faithful little man. Now the waters rose so rapidly
that the loggers rushed back in a panic. In half an hour the sourdough
had caused the lake to rise so high that the season’s logs were all
thundering down Red River valley. It was a grand day for everyone; but
it was the grandest that Sourdough Sam had ever known.

Jonah Wiles was sickened by his enemy’s triumph. He contemplated the
magnificence of the new cookhouse, and he realized that there was now
small chance of promoting misery among Paul Bunyan’s loggers. The camp
could be nothing but a hostile place for him in the new dispensation.
A dejected, baffled man, he sneaked away in his white pants before
the loggers returned, and shambled over the hills, traveling towards
Kansas.




THE BLACK DUCK DINNER


Except in the spring, when the log drives were being made down the
rivers, Sunday was a day of rest in Paul Bunyan’s camp. It was a day of
earnest thought, and of cleanliness and pleasure also. For on Sunday
Paul Bunyan planned the next week’s work, thought out his orations,
imagined new inventions, and dreamed of historical exploits for the
future. And on Sunday his loggers made their beds, cleaned their
clothes, and shaved their faces. The pleasures of this day were the
pleasures of the table, for Paul Bunyan, after building his second
cookhouse, and developing his famous kitchen organization around Hot
Biscuit Slim, the chief cook, originated the custom of grand Sunday
dinners.

Every Sunday dinner was a feast; but some of them, of course, were
nobler and more enjoyable than others. His roast pork and plum pudding
dinners always delighted the loggers when they were served on winter
Sundays; they shouted over the baked trout and cherry pie Sunday
dinners that he gave them in the spring; in the summer a vegetable and
strawberry shortcake Sunday dinner made them happy every time; and in
the fall the Sunday dinners of fried chicken and peach cobbler made
them prance and roar with pleasure. And the Thanksgiving and Christmas
dinners of roasted webfooted turkeys, cranberries and chocolate
cake--the loggers were always speechless when they thought about them.

Every Sunday morning would see the loggers performing the ceremonies
of cleanliness as soon as their after-breakfast pipes were smoked.
First, the beds were made; and this was a more trying job than you
would think, especially for the loggers who had poor eyesight. These
unfortunates would throw their blankets into a pile, then shake them
out one at a time, and attempt to replace them in the bunks. Here
difficulties beset them, for Paul Bunyan’s blankets had small square
checks; and it took a sharp eye to detect which was the long way of a
blanket, and which was the wide way. Even the most sharp-eyed loggers
would sometimes lose confidence in their vision when replacing these
perplexing blankets; and they would remove them time and again before
deciding that they were spread correctly. As for the cross-eyed and
near-sighted men, it was sometimes pitiful to behold the most troubled
of them stretching out blankets in their extended hands, turning them
in slow revolutions, doubtfully placing them on the bunks, and then
wearily lifting them again. These unfortunate men never quitted their
Sunday bed-making until they were worn out; and all the following week
they were sure that they had the long way of their blankets on the wide
way of their bunks. They would swear to have them right next time; but
every Sunday their attempts at bed-making would end in as unsatisfying
a manner.

Everyone in the West knows that sheepherders of our time often worry
themselves into insanity in their lonely camps, trying to discover the
wide way and the long way of their quilts and blankets. Fortunately,
Paul Bunyan’s loggers were all strong-minded men, and their blankets
did no more than bedevil them.

After bed-making the loggers heated cans of water over small
fires built out in the timber, and they washed their clothes.
Shaving, boot-greasing, sole-calking, hair-cutting, beard-trimming,
button-sewing, and rip-mending followed; and he was an expert in
these Sunday morning chores who had time to stretch out on his smooth
blankets for a smoke before the dinner gong rang at twelve.

At the ringing of this gong the inexpressible pleasures of Paul
Bunyan’s Sundays began. First, the loggers enjoyed the ecstasy of
eating; and it was an ecstasy they were fitted to enjoy gloriously.
After dinner the loggers would lie on their bunks and dream drowsily
all afternoon of a loggers’ paradise; and the paradise they dreamed
about was none other than Paul Bunyan’s camp; but a camp whose life
began each day with a Sunday dinner, and whose days were all like the
warm drowsy hours of these Sunday afternoons.

But most of the loggers would be awake and hungry again at suppertime,
ready to enjoy the Sunday supper of cold meat, potato salad, doughnuts,
jelly rolls and coffee. Then in the twilight, and for a long time after
the bunkhouse lamps were lit, they would smoke, and talk contentedly
of the delight they got from Paul Bunyan’s cookhouse; and they would
prophesy about the Sunday dinners of the future. There were no
bunkhouse pastimes on Sunday nights. After some hours of low-voiced
contented talk, the loggers would change their underclothes and get
into their newly made beds, rested and inspired for Monday’s labor.

The great cookhouse which so ennobled and cheered Paul Bunyan’s loggers
on their Sundays was the grandest and best planned affair of its kind
ever heard of. The dining hall was so commodious and had so much room
between the tables that four-horse teams hauled wagonloads of salt,
pepper and sugar down the aisles when the shakers and bowls were to be
filled. Conveyor belts carried clean dishes to the tables and returned
the dirty ones to the wash room. The long-legged flunkies wore roller
skates at mealtime, and the fastest among them could sometimes traverse
the dining hall in forty-seven minutes.

But it was the kitchen, the powerhouse of this vast establishment,
which had the most interest. This domain, ruled by the temperamental
culinary genius, Hot Biscuit Slim, was as large as ten Ford plants and
as noisy as the Battle of Gettysburg. The utensils that hung on its
walls, from the steam-drive potato mashers and sleeve-valve, air-cooled
egg beaters to the big armorplate potato kettles, the bigger force-feed
batter mixers and the grandiose stew kettles, in which carcasses of
cattle floated about like chips in a mill pond when beef dinners were
being prepared--these polished utensils glittered even when the ranges
were smoking their worst at hot cake time.

Paul Bunyan had devised the monorail system for this kitchen, and
overhead cranes rattled about at all hours, carrying loads of dishes
from the Dishwashing Department to the Serving Department, loads of
vegetables and meats from the Supply Department to the Preparations
Department, and loads of dressed food from the Preparations Department
to the Finishing Department. The dishes were washed on a carriage like
the log carriages of modern sawmills. The head dishwashers jerked
levers that threw heaps of dirty dishes from the conveyor belts to the
carriage, then the carriage was shot forward until the dishes struck a
sharp-edged stream of soapy water that had dropped one hundred feet.
The clean dishes were bucked off on live rolls, and the head dishwasher
shot the carriage back for another load. Some of the clean dishes were
run through dry kilns, and others were piled for air-drying by Swede
dish-pilers, who wore leather aprons and mittens and could pile sixty
thousand dishes per pair in twelve hours.

A list of the marvels of Paul Bunyan’s kitchen would fill a book as
large as a dictionary. Elevators whirred between the kitchen and the
vegetable bins, and a wide subway held four tracks that led to the
fruit and vinegar cellars. A concrete chute carried the coffee grounds,
eggshells and other waste to the kitchen yard, and from morning till
night it roared like a millrace. Billy Puget, boss over the scraper
gang, often had to work his mules and men fourteen hours a day in order
to keep the kitchen yard cleaned of coffee grounds and eggshells.

Paul Bunyan’s loggers had little understanding of the tremendous
organization that was required for the operation of such an
establishment as the cookhouse. They thanked old Paul for feeding them
so well, and they agreed that Hot Biscuit Slim was a powerful good
cook. Less fortunate loggers of to-day think of Paul Bunyan’s camp life
as a dream of bliss, and they are sure that if they had been there they
would have worshiped Paul Bunyan. His own loggers, however, took the
cookhouse glories as a matter of course, and they never realized what
inventiveness, thought and effort were needed to give them such Sunday
dinners and such Sunday afternoon dreams and content.

Nor did Paul Bunyan expect shouted praises and thanks from his loggers.
He gave so much to them because he expected much from them. He worked
his men twelve hours a day, and, had they thought about it, they would
have been astounded by any idea of working less. And they would have
been perplexed by any other scheme to ease their lot. If there were not
to be great exertions, they would have asked, why their sturdy frames,
their eager muscular force? If they were not meant to face hazards,
why was daring in their hearts? A noble breed, those loggers of Paul
Bunyan’s, greatly worthy of their captain! He himself told them in a
speech he made at the finishing of the Onion River Drive that they were
“a good band of bullies, a fine bunch of savages.” I should like to
quote this speech in its entirety, for it celebrated the accomplishment
of a historical logging enterprise, and it was a master oration which
showed the full range and force of Paul Bunyan’s oratorical powers.
But as nine days and eight nights were required for its delivery, it is
obvious that no publication save the _Congressional Record_ could give
all of it. It was at this time that Paul Bunyan served his great black
duck dinner.

The speech ended on a Tuesday, and until the following Saturday morning
there were no sounds save the snores of weary men and the scratching
of the sleepless Johnny Inkslinger’s fountain pen. By Saturday noon he
had a time check and a written copy of the oration for every man in
camp. After dinner the Big Swede, using a fire hose, a ton of soap, and
a tank of hair tonic began to give the blue ox his spring cleaning,
and Johnny Inkslinger turned in for the three hours of sleep which he
required each week. Paul Bunyan was arranging his personal belongings
for the move to a new job and musing on his recent accomplishment. He
had never driven logs down a rougher or more treacherous stream than
Onion River. And the hills over which the timber had been skidded were
so rocky and steep that they tried even the strength of the blue ox.
Worst of all was the rank growth of wild onions that had covered the
ground. They baffled all attempts to fell the trees at first, for they
brought blinding floods of tears to the loggers’ eyes and made their
efforts not only futile but dangerous. When the Big Swede was standing
on a hillside one day, dreaming of the old country, he failed to
observe a blinded logger come staggering up the slope, and he did not
hear him mumble, “This looks like a good stick.” Not until the logger
had chopped a notch in the leg of his boot had the Big Swede realized
his peril. Paul Bunyan, baffled by such incidents, was about to abandon
the whole operation when the alert Johnny Inkslinger heard of the
failure of the Italian garlic crop. He quickly made a contract with the
Italian government, which sent over shiploads of laborers to dig up the
wild onions and take them home as a substitute for the national relish.
When this had been accomplished it was possible to log off the country.

There had been other difficulties to overcome, too, and as Paul
Bunyan spread out a tarpaulin and prepared to roll up his boots and
workclothes, he remembered them and praised the saints that they were
ended. The next job offered the best promise of easy and simple logging
of any he had ever encountered. For miles the land rose in gentle
slopes from a wide and smoothly flowing river; there was no brush
or noxious vegetation among the clean, straight trees; and, best of
all, the timber was of a species now extinct, the Leaning Pine. The
trees of this variety all leaned in the same direction, and it was
thus possible to fell them accurately without the use of wedges. Paul
Bunyan was sure of a season’s record on this new job. He thought of
the fresh brilliancy it would give his fame, and like a row of snowy
peaks glimpsed through the spaces of a forest, his teeth glittered
through his beard in a magnificent smile. But another thought quickly
sobered his countenance. “Those good bullies of mine!” The words came
in a gusty murmur. He dropped the tarpaulin and strode over to the
cookhouse. Hot Biscuit Slim, the kitchen chief, came forth to meet him.
There was a knowing look in the cook’s eyes.

“It’s to be a great Sunday dinner to-morrer?” he asked, before Paul
Bunyan could speak.

“The greatest Sunday dinner ever heard of,” said Paul Bunyan. “I want
this to be remembered as the noblest meal ever served in a logging
camp. My loggers shall feast like the victorious soldiers of old time.
It is a natural privilege of heroes to revel after conquest. Remember,
as you prepare this feast, that you may also be making immortal glory
for yourself.”

“You jest leave it to me, Mr. Bunyan!” answered Slim. “If the baker’ll
do his part with the cream puffs, cakes and pies, I promise you
I’ll make ’em a meal to remember. First, oyscher stew, an’ then for
vegytables, cream’ cabbage, of course, mash’ potatoes an’ potato cakes,
lettuce an’ onions----”

“No onions!” thundered Paul Bunyan. There was a terrific crash in the
kitchen as hundreds of skillets and kettles were shaken to the floor.

“Uh--I forgot,” stammered Hot Biscuit Slim. “Well, anyway, they’ll be
oyscher soup, vegytables, sauces, puddin’s, hot biscuits, an’ meat in
dumplin’ stew an’ mulligan stew, an’ they’ll be drippin’ roasts, all
tender an’ rich-seasoned--oh, the meat that I’ll give ’em! the meat--”
he paused sharply, shivered as though from a physical shock, and misery
glistened in his eyes--“only--uh--only----”

“Only you have no meat,” said Paul Bunyan gently.

“I’m admittin’ it,” said Slim wretchedly. “Honest, Mr. Bunyan, no
matter how I try I jest _can’t_ remember to order meat, ’specially for
Sunday dinner. I can remember vegytables, fruits an’ greens easy as
pie, but, by doggy, I always forget meat. I ain’t pertendin’ a cook’s
worth keepin’ who can’t remember meat, no matter how good he is at a
fixin’ it. I wouldn’t blame you if you fired me right off, Mr. Bunyan.”

Hot Biscuit Slim leaned against the toe of the hero’s boot and wept.

“That means I must rustle deer and bear,” said Paul Bunyan patiently.
“Well, bear meat and venison will make a royal feast when they have
passed through your kettles and ovens. Light the fires, go ahead with
your plans; you may yet make history to-morrow!”

He turned away, and Hot Biscuit Slim watched him worshipfully until he
was a dim figure on distant hills.

“The best friend me an’ my pap ever had,” he said. “I’d do anything for
a boss like that. I’ll learn to remember meat, by doggy, I will!”

Rumors of the marvelous dinner that was being planned reached the
bunkhouses, and the loggers indulged in greedy imagining of the
promised delights. The day went slowly; the sun seemed to labor down
the western sky. Before it sank soft clouds obscured its light,
bringing showers and early shadows.

At the approach of darkness Paul Bunyan began his return march to the
camp. He was vastly disappointed by the meager results of his hunt.
Although he had gone as far as the Turtle River country, he had snared
but two deer and three small bears. These only filled a corner of one
pocket of his mackinaw, and they would provide but a mere shred of
meat apiece for his men. Paul Bunyan did not feel that he had done his
best; he was not one to rest on feeble consolations. As he journeyed
on he was devising other means to carry out his plans for a memorable
and stupendous feast. And ere he was within an hour of the camp the Big
Swede was unconsciously outlining the solution of the problem for him.

The Big Swede went to the stable some time after supper to see that
Babe was at ease for the night. The clouds were thinning now, and when
he opened the stable door soft light poured in on the blue ox, making
lustrous spots and streaks on his sleek sides. He turned his head, his
bulging blue eyes shining with gentleness and good-will, and his tongue
covered the foreman’s face in a luscious caress.

“Har noo,” remonstrated the Big Swede.

As he solemnly wiped his drenched face he sniffed the fragrance of
Babe’s breath and stared with a feeling of envy at the clean, glowing
hair. When he had finished his inspection and left the stable, it was
evident that he was wrestling with some laborious problem. His whole
face was tense with a terrific frown; his memory groped among the
shadows of some distant happening; he scratched his sides vigorously
and breathed deeply of the air, sweet with the odors of washed earth.
The purity of the spring weather, the fresh cleanliness it gave the
world, and the aroma and sleekness of the blue ox, had brought the
Big Swede to face his own sore need of a washing. He dreaded it as
an ordeal, an exceptional and hazardous undertaking, and for that
reason he wished that he might accomplish it immediately. He wandered
aimlessly on, tormented by an unaccustomed conflict of the soul and
the flesh, and at last he came to the edge of a cliff. He stared in
surprise at the appearance of a lake below. He could not remember so
large a body of water near the camp. But the Big Swede had no room for
more than one emotion at a time, and a violent resolve now smothered
his surprise.

“Yah, aye do him noo,” he muttered.

He disrobed swiftly and ran to a rock that jutted from the cliff.
Swinging his fists he leaped twice into the air; the second time he
flung himself outward in a magnificent dive, his body made a great
curve, and then, head first, he plunged downward. But there was no
tumultuous surge and splash of waters as a climax of this splendid
dive. Instead, the Big Swede’s head struck white canvas with a dull,
rending impact. For he had mistaken Paul Bunyan’s tarpaulin for a lake!
The force of his plunge drove him through the canvas and half-buried
him in the soft earth underneath. His arms were imprisoned, but his
legs waved wildly, and his muffled bellows shook the earth. A prowling
logger saw what seemed to be shining marble columns dancing in the
moonlight and felt the ground trembling under his feet.

“It can’t be,” he thought bravely.

Just then the Big Swede made another heroic effort to yell for help,
and the logger was shaken from his feet. He jumped up and ran to
Johnny Inkslinger with an alarming tale of dancing ghosts that shook
the earth. The timekeeper, after sharpening twenty-seven lead pencils
to use in case it was necessary to make a report on the spot, started
with his medicine case for the place where the logger had directed him.
When nearly there he remembered that he had failed to bring his ten
gallon carboy of alcohol, which, next to Epsom salts, he considered
the most important medicine in his chest. He ran back for it, and by
the time he finally reached the Big Swede, that unfortunate’s bellows
had diminished to groans, and his legs waved with less and less gusto.
After thoroughly examining and measuring the legs, Johnny deemed
the proof positive that they belonged to the Big Swede. Then he got
busy with paper and pencil and figured for half an hour. “According
to the strictest mathematical calculations,” he announced, “the Big
Swede cannot continue to exist in his present interred, or, to be
exact, half-interred condition; consequently he must be extricated. I
have considered all known means by which this may be accomplished, I
have figured, proved, and compared results, and I have arrived at a
scientific conclusion. I direct that the blue ox and a cable be brought
here at once.”

When the loggers had obeyed this command, Johnny made a half-hitch
with the cable around the Big Swede’s legs, which were waving very
feebly now, and in two seconds, amid a monstrous upheaval of dirt and a
further rending of the canvas, the Big Swede was dragged out. For a few
moments he spat mud like a river dredge; then the timekeeper proffered
him the ten gallon carboy of alcohol. It was drained at a gulp, and
then, with aid from Johnny Inkslinger, he was able to stagger to the
camp office. When Paul Bunyan reached the camp, the Big Swede was lying
on his bunk, bundled in bandages from head to foot. Johnny Inkslinger
was still busily attending him; bottles of medicine, boxes of pills,
a keg of Epsom salts, rolls of bandages, and surgical implements were
heaped about the room. The timekeeper gave a detailed account of what
had happened, and then Paul Bunyan questioned the victim, who answered
briefly, “Aye yoomped, an’ aye yoomped, an’--_yeeminy_!”

Johnny Inkslinger gave his chief a voluminous report of the Big Swede’s
fractures, sprains and contusions.

“He is also suffering from melancholia because he is still unwashed,”
said Johnny. “But I think I’ll restore him. I’ve dosed him with all
my medicines and smeared him with all my salves. I’d have manipulated
his spine, but, confound him, he strained his back, and he threatens
violence when I touch it. But I have many formulae and systems. He
shall live.”

“Surely,” said Paul Bunyan. “A man is the hardest thing to kill there
is.”

Knowing that the Big Swede’s wounds were nothing in comparison with the
ones which he had received in the Dakota battle, Paul Bunyan worried no
more about his foreman. He stepped from the camp office, plucked up a
young pine tree and brushed his beard, thinking again of his unrealized
plan. He remembered the wordless dejection of Hot Biscuit Slim on
receiving the scanty supply of deer and bear meat. He determined that
the Sunday dinner should yet be as he had planned it; otherwise it
would be a bad augury for great achievements in his new enterprise. He
thrust the tree into his shirt pocket and walked slowly towards his
outdoor headquarters, pondering various schemes that came to mind.

When he reached the white sheet of water he was astonished by its
deceptive appearance. It had a silvery glitter in the moonlight, for
its surface still held the moisture of the showers. Small wonder,
thought Paul Bunyan, that the Big Swede had dived into it; never was a
lake more temptingly beautiful or seemingly more deep. He was gazing
at the torn canvas and the huge cavity made in the ground by the Big
Swede, when he heard a great chorus of shrill and doleful voices in the
sky. He looked up and saw an enormous host of black ducks in swerving
flight. They had lost their way in the low-hanging clouds at dusk, and
now they were seeking a resting place.

Here, thought Paul Bunyan, is a noble offering of chance. Was a black
duck more acute than the Big Swede, that the bright, moist canvas would
not deceive him also? And once deceived, would not the ensuing dive be
fatal? Wasn’t a black duck’s neck of more delicate structure than the
Big Swede’s, and wouldn’t it surely break when it struck the tarpaulin?
This variety of black duck grew as big as a buzzard, and here they
were so numerous that clouds of them darkened the moon. Now to deceive
them. Paul Bunyan could mimic the voices of all the birds of the air
and all the beasts of the fields and woods, save only that of the blue
ox, who always replied with a jocular wink when his master attempted to
simulate his mellow moo. In his moments of humor Paul Bunyan declared
that he could mimic fish, and one Sunday when he imitated a mother
whale bawling for her calf the loggers roared with merriment for
seventeen hours, and were only sobered then by exhaustion. His voice
had such power that he could not counterfeit the cry of a single small
creature, but only the united cries of flocks and droves. So he now
mimicked perfectly the chorus that rang mournfully in the sky, and at
the same time he grasped the edge of the tarpaulin and fluttered it
gently.

The effect was marvelous. Now indeed was the canvas a perfect imitation
of water. Had you been standing by the sole of Paul Bunyan’s boot and
seen the gentle flutter you would have been sure that you were watching
a breeze make pleasant ripples on the surface of a lake. Ere long the
black ducks were enchanted by the sight and sound, and Paul Bunyan
heard a violent rush of air above him as of a hurricane sweeping a
forest. A vast dark cloud seemed to plunge out of the sky. Another
instant and the canvas was black with feathered forms. Paul Bunyan
grasped the four corners of the tarpaulin, swung the bundle over his
shoulder and strode home to the cookhouse. Hot Biscuit Slim was called
forth, and when he saw the mountainous pile of black ducks that filled
the kitchen yard he became hysterical with delight. He called out
the assistant cooks, the flunkies and dishwashers, and, led by Cream
Puff Fatty, the baker, the white-clad underlings streamed for eleven
minutes from the kitchen door. The chief cook then made them a short
but inspiring speech and fired them with his own fierce purpose to make
culinary history.

Paul Bunyan listened for a moment, and then sought repose, with peace
in his benevolent heart.

All night fires roared in the ranges as preparations went on for
the great dinner. The elevators brought a load of vegetables every
minute from the deep bins, potatoes were pared and washed, kettles and
roasting pans were made ready, and sauces and dressings were devised.
The black ducks were scalded, plucked and cleaned by the Preparations
Department, and by morning the cranemen were bringing them by the
hundreds to the Finishing Department, where the kettles and pans were
waiting for them.

Most of the loggers stayed in their bunks this morning, and those
who did come to breakfast ate sparingly, saving their appetites.
Time passed quietly in the camp. The loggers washed and mended their
clothes and greased their boots, but they did not worry themselves with
bed-making. The other Sunday morning chores finished, they stretched
out on their unmade bunks and smoked. They were silent and preoccupied,
but now and again a breeze blowing from the direction of the cookhouse
would cause them to sigh. What enchantment was in the air, so redolent
with the aroma of roasting duck and stewing cabbages, so sharply sweet
with the fragrance of hot ginger and cinnamon from the bakery where
Cream Puff Fatty fashioned his creations! A logger who was shaving
would take a deep breath of this incense, and the blood would trickle
unnoticed from a slash in his cheek; another, in his bunk would let
his pipe slip from his hand and enjoy ardent inhalations, blissfully
unaware of his burning shirt; yet another, engaged in greasing his
boots, would halt his task and sit in motionless beatitude, his head
thrown back, his eyes closed, quite unconscious of the grease that
poured from a tilted can into a prized boot.

At half past eleven the hungriest of the loggers began to mass before
the cookhouse door, and as the minutes passed the throng swiftly
increased. At five minutes to noon all the bunkhouses were empty and
the furthest fringe of the crowd was far up Onion River valley. The
ground shook under a restless trampling, and the faces of the loggers
were glowing and eager as they hearkened to the clatter and rumble
inside the cookhouse, as four-horse teams hauled in loads of salt,
pepper and sugar for the shakers and bowls. Then the loggers began
to stamp and shout as they heard the flunkies, led by the Galloping
Kid on his white horse, rushing the platters and bowls of food to the
tables. Tantalizing smells wafted forth from the steaming dishes. The
loggers grew more restless and eager; they surged to and fro in a tidal
movement; jests and glad oaths made a joyous clamor over the throng.
This was softened into a universal sigh as the doors swung open and
Hot Biscuit Slim, in spotless cap and apron, appeared wearing the
impressive mien of a conquering general. He lifted an iron bar with a
majestic gesture, paused for dramatic effect amid a breathless hush,
and then struck a resounding note from the steel triangle that hung
from the wall. At the sound a heaving torrent of men began to pour
through the doors in a rush that was like the roaring plunge of water
when the gate of a dam is lifted. The chief cook continued to pound out
clanging rhythms until the last impatient logger was inside.

Then Hot Biscuit Slim reëntered the cookhouse. He was reminded of a
forested plain veiled in thin fog as he surveyed the assemblage of
darkly clad figures, wreathed with white and fragrant blooms of steam.
His impression was made the more vivid when the loggers plunged their
spoons into the deep bowls of oyster soup, for the ensuing sounds
seemed like the soughing of wind in the woods. The chief cook marched
to the kitchen with dignity and pride, glancing to right and left at
the tables that held his masterwork. He asked for no praise or acclaim;
the ecstasy that now transfigured the plainest face was a sufficient
light of glory for him.

The soup bowls pushed aside, the loggers began to fill their plates,
which were of such circumference that even a long-armed man could
hardly reach across one. The black ducks, of course, received first
attention. And great as the plates were, by the time one was heaped
with a brown fried drumstick, a ladle of duck dumplings, several large
fragments of duck fricassee, a slab of duck baked gumbo style, a rich
portion of stewed duck, and a mound of crisp brown dressing, all
immersed in golden duck gravy, a formidable space was covered. Yet
there was room for tender leaves of odorous cabbage beaded and streaked
with creamy sauce; for mashed potatoes which seemed like fluffs of
snow beside the darkness of duck and gravy; for brittle and savory
potato cakes, marvelously right as to texture and thickness; for stewed
tomatoes of a sultry ruddiness, pungent and ticklish with mysterious
spices; for a hot cob of corn as long as a man’s forearm, golden with
sirupy kernels as big as buns; for fat and juicy baked beans, plump
peas, sunny applesauce and buttered lettuce, not to mention various
condiments. Squares of cornbread and hot biscuits were buttered and
leaned against the plate; a pot-bellied coffee-pot was tilted over a
gaping cup, into which it gushed an aromatic beverage of drowsy charm;
a kingly pleasure was prepared. More than one logger swooned with
delight this day when his plate was filled and, red-faced, hot-eyed,
wet-lipped, he bent over it for the first mouthful with the joy of a
lover claiming a first embrace.

In the kitchen the chief cook, the baker and their helpers watched and
listened. At first the volume of sounds that filled the vast room was
like the roar and crash of an avalanche, as dishes were rattled and
banged about. Then the duck bones crackled like the limbs of falling
trees. At last came a steady sound of eating, a sound of seventy
threshing machines devouring bundles of wheat. It persisted far beyond
the usual length of time, and Hot Biscuit Slim brought out his field
glasses and surveyed the tables. The loggers were still bent tensely
over their plates, and their elbows rose and fell with an energetic
movement as they scooped up the food with undiminished vigor.

“Still eatin’ duck,” marveled Hot Biscuit Slim.

“They won’t be more’n able to _smell_ my cream puffs,” said the baker
enviously.

The loggers ate on. They had now spent twice their usual length of time
at the table. Each plate was in a dark shadow from tall rows of slick
black duck bones and heaps of corn cobs. But----

“Still eatin’ duck,” reported Hot Biscuit Slim.

That no one might see his grief Cream Puff Fatty moved to a dark
corner. He was now certain that none of the loggers could have room for
his pastries. They ate on. They had now spent three times their usual
length of time at the table. The baker was sweating and weeping; he was
soaked with despair. Then, suddenly:

“They’re eatin’ cream puffs!” cried Hot Biscuit Slim.

Cream Puff Fatty could not believe it, but a thrill of hope urged him
to see for himself. True enough, the loggers were tackling the pastries
at last. On each plate cream puffs the size of squashes lay in golden
mounds. As the spoons struck them their creamy contents oozed forth
from breaks and crevices. Stimulated by their rich flavor, the loggers
ate on with renewed gusto. They had now stayed four times as long as
usual at the table. Other enchantments still kept them in their seats:
lemon pies with airy frostings, yellow pumpkin pies strewn with brown
spice specks, cherry pies with cracks in their flaky crusts through
which the red fruit winked, custard pies with russet freckles on their
golden faces, fat apple pies all odorous with cinnamon, cool, snowy
cream pies, peach cobblers, chocolate puddings, glittering cakes
of many colors, slabs of gingerbread, sugar-powdered jelly rolls,
doughnuts as large around as saucers and as thick through as cups, and
so soft and toothsome that a morsel from one melted on the tongue like
cream. So endearing were the flavors of these pastries that the loggers
consumed them all.

Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim solemnly shook hands. There was
glory enough for both of them.

At last there were no sounds at the tables save those of heavy
breathing. The loggers arose in a body and moved sluggishly and
wordlessly from the cookhouse. They labored over the ground towards
the bunkhouses as wearily as though they had just finished a day of
deadening toil. Soon Onion River valley resounded with their snores and
groans....

At supper time, when Hot Biscuit Slim rang the gong, Cream Puff
Fatty stood by his side. This was to be the supreme test of their
achievement. For five minutes the chief cook beat the triangle, and
then a solitary logger appeared in the door of a bunkhouse. He stared
at them dully for a moment and then staggered back into the darkness.
This was indeed a triumph! Great as other feasts in the cookhouse had
been, never before had _all_ the loggers been unable to appear for
supper. This was a historic day. Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim
embraced and mingled rapturous tears. It was their high moment. They
would not have traded it for all the glory that was Greece and the
grandeur that was Rome.... They had intimations of immortality....

For five weeks the loggers lay in a delicious torpor, and then Johnny
Inkslinger brought them from their bunks with doses of alcohol and
Epsom salts. By this time the Big Swede had recovered from his
injuries, and Paul Bunyan waited no longer to move his camp. The
buildings, which rested on skids, were chained and cabled together, and
the blue ox hauled them over the hills to the new job.

Nothing marred the beauty of that summer; stirring breezes blew all the
days over the loggers as they felled the Leaning Pine trees in perfect
lines on the grassy slopes. The blue ox waxed fat with the ease of his
labor. Weeks passed without the Big Swede having a serious accident.
Dust gathered on Johnny Inkslinger’s medicine case. Hot Biscuit Slim
never once failed to remember meat. And a record number of logs were
piled above the rollways. Paul Bunyan planned a great drive with
prideful confidence that it would be the glorious climax of a historic
season. But here fortune deserted him, for, after driving the logs for
nine days, and seeing an exact repetition of scenery three times, he
had Johnny Inkslinger survey the placid river. The river was round; it
flowed in a perfect circle; and Paul Bunyan had driven the logs three
times over the same course!

Nothing daunted, he thereupon determined to saw the logs and
transport the lumber overland, and he erected his famed sawmill,
which was nineteen stories high, with each bandsaw and each circular
saw running through all the floors. A description of the original
machines and devices used in this mill would fill the pages of a mail
order catalogue. It is needless to say that it operated perfectly. The
only great difficulty Paul Bunyan had to overcome originated from the
smokestacks. He was compelled to equip them with hinges and drawbridge
machinery so that they could be lowered to let the clouds go by.




THE OLD HOME CAMP


The old home camp of Paul Bunyan, was in the Smiling River country; it
lay in a great plain, between this sunny stream and the flowered banks
of Honey Creek, which lazed on past the camp ere it joined the river.
When the sun got low in the West, the shadow of old Rock Candy Mountain
crept over the camp. On hot summer days the frost-hued mountain was
a freshening sight; at night it looked like a huge dish of white ice
cream. Raspberry trees covered its lower slopes, and in the Junetime
they were heavy with berries as big as apples. The lemonade springs
bubbled from among these trees, and their waters rippled through
blossoming strawberry bushes as they coursed towards the river. In the
twilights of the fruitful season the songs of the jaybirds that nested
in the raspberry trees sank to a soft and sentimental chorus; and their
slumbrous melodies, mingled with the cheery “jemine-e-es” of the jeminy
crickets that lived among the strawberry bushes, made a beauty of sound
harmonious with the spirit of eventide.

[Illustration]

The old home camp had been built in the midst of a grove of maples.
It had been deserted for seven years, and only a few moss-covered
bunkhouses yet remained. Some bare sections of land, deeply corrugated,
showed where the great cookhouse had stood; and trails that had been
packed by the trampling of thousands of calked boots were still marked
through lush growths of grass.

Paul Bunyan’s farm was the source of his supplies; it was ruled by John
Shears and worked by the scissor-bills. It covered the rich bottom
lands below Honey Creek, and it extended for miles over the bordering
hills. Huge red clover blooms tossed and nodded on crowns and slopes
when the warm June breezes blew. When the two happy but sensitive bees,
Bum and Bill, had got enough honey from them to fill the thirty-five
hundred barrels which were required for the loggers’ hot cakes each
winter, John Shears and the scissor-bills mowed the hay and baled it.
Then the milk cows were pastured on the stubble until wintertime. They
did not have such grandiose names as are given to cows nowadays--no
one in Paul Bunyan’s time would have thought of naming a kind, honest
heifer Wondrous Lena Victress or Dairylike Daffodil Sweetbread;--they
were simply called Suke, Boss, Baldy and S’manthy, but they were
queenly milkers. Boss was the great butter cow; John Shears had only
to put salt in her milk, stir it a bit, let it stand for a while, and
he would have tubfuls of the finest butter in the land. Suke’s milk
made wonderful bubbly hot cakes. Baldy’s milk never soured, and it
was especially good in cream gravy. S’manthy’s milk was pretty poor
stuff, but she had a vast hankering for balsam boughs, and in the
winter she would eat them until her milk became the most potent of
cough medicines. It saved Paul Bunyan’s loggers from many an attack
of pneumonia. The grand flocks of poultry, which were ruled by Pat and
Mike, the powerful and bellicose webfooted turkey gobblers, performed
marvels of egg-laying and hatching. The snow hens, for example, would
lay only in the wintertime; they made their nests in the snow and
laid none but hard-boiled eggs. There were great vegetable gardens in
the bottom lands; there the parsnips and carrots grew to such a depth
that the scissor-bills had to use stump-pullers to get them out of the
ground. It took two men an hour and a half to sever the average cabbage
from its stalk. The potatoes grew to such a size that Paul Bunyan
invented the steam shovel for John Shears to use in digging them out.
In the chewing tobacco patch the tobacco grew on the plants in plugs,
shreds and twists, and it was highly flavored by the natural licorice
in the soil.

It would take pages to describe all of the marvels and splendors of
Paul Bunyan’s farm.

For five years now Paul Bunyan had not visited his farm or the old
home camp. He himself knew nothing of farming; first and last he
was a logger, so he had left his farm completely in the control of
John Shears when the great move was made from the old home camp. He
trusted without doubts his boss farmer, who was a powerfully religious
man. Only his violent piety had made him a failure as a woods boss.
The loggers could not _bear_ to be preached to, and John Shears had
insisted on preaching to them through every meal. But he managed the
scissor-bills ably; they were men who had failed to make good as
loggers and who had the calm and meek spirit of born farm hands. John
Shears had easily taught them to venerate him as a prophet, and they
willingly worked sixteen hours a day for him, though the loggers had
never worked more than twelve.

After Paul Bunyan’s departure, John Shears had faithfully improved
the farm, and at last it became so productive that even the endless
freight teams of Shagline Bill could not move all its hay and produce
to the far-away logging enterprises. Then only the simple routine of
farm work remained to be done, and this hardly fetched fourteen hours
of labor a day from the scissor-bills, even in the harvesting season.
John Shears, always a terror for work, got dissatisfied. He began to
dream of strange, tempting projects of irrigation and land-clearing.
He let himself imagine Paul Bunyan’s logging crews digging ditches,
grubbing out stumps, and leveling hills into grand hay and grain
fields. Then his dream became an active idea. If logging could somehow
be prohibited, abolished, totally exterminated--what then? The loggers
would all have to turn farm hands, for farming would be the only
remaining industry. And then he, John Shears, the one and only master
farmer, would become supreme over all of them; he would have Paul
Bunyan’s place, and the great logger would have to take a lesser rôle!
Soon, waking or sleeping, the idea was always in his mind. It was the
root of many plans, and at last it threw out a monstrous growth. John
Shears planned nothing else than to do away with Babe, the blue ox, who
skidded all of Paul Bunyan’s logs to the river landings, who was the
mainspring, the central motive force, of all his logging operations.
Logging without Babe could no more be imagined than rain without
clouds. This plan was the source of the prodigious poison parsnip plot.

Parsnips were Babe’s favorite delicacy, and John Shears was supposed to
ship the parsnip crop to the logging camp each fall. But in the year
in which the monstrous plot was hatched he did not dig the parsnips at
all. He allowed them to go to seed instead, and now the parsnip patch
was rank with a poisonous second growth. John Shears intended to dig
them in another month and ship them to the camp. The blue ox would eat
them and die, and then he, the boss farmer, should attain the power and
triumph of his dreams.

Little Meery, the farm slavey, alone was kept in ignorance of John
Shears’ schemes, not because he was feared or distrusted, but because
he seemed so lowly, abject and unimportant. He had scarcely more
consequence in the farm life than one of the snow hens. He slept on
a hard bunk under the kitchen sink. He was not allowed to associate
with the scissor-bills. The only attention he ever received from them
was when they made him the object of blows and ridicule. One time he
had been Thomas O’Meery, the Irish Orphan, an aspiring young logger.
The rich food served in Paul Bunyan’s cookhouse had been his undoing.
He became obese, rotund, unable to swing an ax. He got such heft and
circumference that he was a nuisance. Whenever he fell down he would
have to roll around until he could find a logger who would lift him
to his feet. He was a danger also. One time he rolled down a hill and
bounced head-on into a column of marching loggers. He flattened every
one, and Johnny Inkslinger, the timekeeper and camp doctor, was busy
all night setting their broken ribs. After this mishap, Paul Bunyan
turned him over to John Shears. The boss farmer gave him the meanest
job on the farm; he put him to washing the dishes and slopping the
pigs. Little Meery finally became resigned to his grievous affliction
and lowly lot, and a spirit of sublime meekness sustained him even when
he was most cruelly treated.

This corpulent child of misfortune had a rare and charming soul.
He alone, of all the toilers on the great farm, felt the pastoral
loveliness of his surroundings. His day of toil done, he would part his
hair, gather a bunch of clover blooms, take Porkums, his little lame
pet pig under his arm, waddle over the footbridge that crossed Honey
Creek, and in the grounds of the old home camp enjoy his one small
pleasure in life. Sitting on an old maple log, he would pretend that
he was a lean, muscular head faller in Paul Bunyan’s camp and one of
the great logger’s favorites. He would see himself as a bunkhouse hero,
walking in the shadows of the blue ox, living a grand, free life. What
delight Little Meery had from such imaginings! What pity that they had
to fade! Little Meery always tried to be bravely cheerful when the
dream was done. He would force back his tears, return the comforting
squeals of Porkums with a trembling smile, then move gently among the
jaybirds, which always gathered trustingly around his feet, and return
to his cruel slavey’s life with only thoughts of kindness and charity
for John Shears and the scissor-bills. If Paul Bunyan could only have
truly known that heart of gold!

One evening in the old home camp Little Meery’s imaginings became
more active than usual. He pretended that he was winning a felling
championship, while Paul Bunyan applauded him.... He made great chips
fly like buckshot, the loggers were a cheering host, he swung the ax
violently at every stroke.... Too late he felt himself slipping from
the maple log, and he rolled helplessly to the ground. As usual, he
could not get back on his feet. He rolled to the footbridge, but he
could not pass between the railings. He lay there until dawn, and no
help came. The morning passed, and still he lay helpless. He was not
found until John Shears came to the farmhouse for dinner and discovered
the breakfast dishes unwashed.

“Did it on puppus, I bet!” roared the boss farmer. “I’d let ye lay
there an’ rot ef ’twarn’t fer the dishes. I got a mind to whale ye
anyhow, hi gravy!”

“Please, oh, please don’t beat me, Mr. Shears,” pleaded Little Meery.
“I tried to roll home, honest I did.”

The boss farmer brought an ellum club into view.

“Oh, _by_ gosh! Mr. Shears----”

“Swearin’, hey?”

“I meant to say ‘my’--honest!”

“Didn’t nuther. Ye used a ‘by’ word, an’ ye know plagued well ye meant
to be profane!”

“Oh! oh! oh’” screamed poor Little Meery, as the blows poured upon him.
John Shears beat him until sundown, taking five minutes out of each
hour for rest.... He raised the ellum club for a last terrific blow,
and Little Meery bravely tried to stifle his sobs, as he waited to
receive it. The cruel blow was never delivered. Two words stopped it.

“Here ... John!”

The words seemed to be calmly spoken, yet the tones that made them
filled the vast plain of the home camp and reverberated in thunderous
echoes among all the hills. The trees shook, the surface of Smiling
River broke into violent waves, the slopes of old Rock Candy were
disturbed by the smoke and roar of an avalanche. John Shears quietly
dropped his ellum club; Little Meery opened his eyes and saw near him
a boot with a toe cap made of an elephant hide. Then he looked up and
beheld the kindly bearded countenance of the good and mighty Paul
Bunyan looming above him. Then John Shears hastily helped him to his
feet and he limped between the boss farmer’s ankles and out on the
footbridge. There he stopped to look worshipfully on his hero, his
lord, his king, Paul Bunyan, who shook hands solemnly with John Shears.

“I didn’t expect ye to ketch me a frolickin’ with one o’ my men,” said
John Shears attempting a grin. “But I do like to frolic once in a
while, jest like your loggers do.”

“I’m glad that you have learned to play, John,” said Paul Bunyan
gently. “The playful spirit of my loggers has helped them to bear
untold perils, griefs and hardships. They are a fine bunch of savages,
worthy of emulation. I intend for them to enjoy the bounties and peace
of home life for a season. We return to log off the rest of the Smiling
River country.”

“Well, now, I’m mighty glad you’re to be with us again, Mr. Bunyan,”
said John Shears effusively.

“Thank you, John. And I wish to commend you for your faithful service.
I hope to reward you fittingly. And I overlook your failure to ship
Babe his parsnips last fall. Your one failure, for which I shall
not reprove you. But you must prepare him acres of them at once.
Understand? Very well. Yay, Babe!”

Johnny Inkslinger, the timekeeper, and the Big Swede, the foreman,
were beside Paul Bunyan. The three moved towards the maple grove, and
the blue ox, who had been straddling the river, stepped on across it,
dragging the cookhouse, the bunkhouses, and the other camp buildings
behind him. He was thin, and the shape of his great ribs showed through
his shaggy blue hide. As he moved through the twilight shadows he
looked like a wrinkled bluff when it is seen dimly in a fog. For half
an hour the bunkhouses flashed by so swiftly that their lighted windows
made an unbroken streak of light. The loggers in them were singing
about the jam on Garry’s Rock and the death of young Munro. As Little
Meery listened to the roaring choruses he felt that he would willingly
give his life for a single day as a real logger. If he could only
be there in one of the bunkhouses, a tough and respected member of
a logging crew, a lean, supple, vigorous axman, a fine and admired
figure! Vain, vain desire! Poor Little Meery. He abandoned the dream
with a sigh. Then he was startled by a dry, rasping chuckle from John
Shears. Little Meery was astonished, for he had never heard the boss
farmer laugh.

“Parsnips, hey?” he cackled. “Ol’ Paul wants his ox critter to have his
parsnips right now, does he? Dad gum’, ef that ain’t funny! Ho! ho!”

The boss farmer leaped over Honey Creek and strode rapidly towards the
farmhouse. Every hundred yards he would pause and chuckle convulsively.
“Parsnips, hey? Ye dern’ tootin’ I’ll feet him parsnips! It’s Mr.
Bunyan’s pers’nal orders, says I. Heh! heh! Dad burn’, ef that ain’t
funny!”

While Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger and the Big Swede cruised the
remaining timber in the Smiling River country, the loggers renewed
their affections for the delights of the old home camp. In the mornings
they roamed the cool slopes of old Rock Candy, they gorged themselves
with ripe fruit from the raspberry trees and strawberry bushes, and,
barefooted, they climbed the maple trees and gamboled over the clover
fields. In the afternoons Smiling River was splashed with foam for
miles as they swarmed into their old swimming holes. Swimming over,
the loggers would line up on the banks and shake their right legs
to get the water out of their left ears and their left legs to get
the water out of their right ears. Then they would angle for the
bright-hued butterfish that fluttered among the water flowers. And
what exhilarating meals they enjoyed! Now they had all the fresh stuff
that the farm could provide. Cream Puff Fatty, the baker, made them
strawberry shortcake and raspberry pie twice a day, and he covered
these juicy confections with snowy piles of vanilla-flavored whipped
cream. The cobs from golden, fat-kerneled roasting ears were soon
heaped mountain-high in the kitchen yard. The cream gravy for the
rosy new potatoes and bouncing green peas was made from real cream,
sweet and thick. The loggers became lighthearted boys again, and as
they enjoyed themselves they were happily unconscious of the bitter
enviousness of the scissor-bills, who were digging parsnips for twenty
hours a day on the other side of Honey Creek.

Babe, the blue ox, too, was enjoying life as never before. The stream
from the lemonade springs had been diverted to a trough that ran
through his manger; and he was surrounded with fresh, green clover, for
John Shears, with sinister purpose, had mown all the clover fields on
the day after Paul Bunyan’s arrival and had stacked it in and around
Babe’s stable. He had hoped that the blue ox would bloat on the green
feed, and perish before his master could return from his cruising
expedition. But the early harvest had only served to throw the two bees
into a rebellious rage; they had been imprisoned in their hive, and
there, night and day, they had buzzed wrathfully over their half-filled
honey barrels. Babe digested the green clover easily, and ate it with
delight, his great blue eyes shining with affection and gratitude for
the boss farmer.

“Pity ’tain’t alfalfy, ye blame’ hog,” snarled John Shears in disgust.

But it wasn’t, so John Shears made the scissor-bills work twenty hours
a day in the parsnip patch, and he aided them with his own efforts, for
he realized that once Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger had returned
a fatal poisoning of the blue ox would be difficult to accomplish. He
would not have the courage to attempt it then. Now was the time to
strike. Heaven helping him, he should not fail!

During this week Little Meery had been kept within the bounds of the
farmyard by the strict orders of John Shears. His heart was heavy
indeed as he toiled away in the kitchen. Never had the scouring of pots
and pans seemed to be such wretched labor; never had the odors and
steam of dishwater seemed so detestable. When he went out to slop the
pigs at eventide he heard the jaybirds’ songs no more; he had ears only
for the shouts, laughter and harmonies that sounded in the old home
camp. Next week the grand life of logging would begin; all summer he,
poor unfortunate, would suffer the misery of vain longings. Poor Little
Meery; he looked in vain for a silver lining to his cloud.

Saturday came, and only one more holiday remained for the loggers to
enjoy. As Little Meery listened to their exuberant noise, he was unable
to drive away his despondency with songs or cheerful thoughts. Hour by
hour his spirits got lower; his optimism left him, and his mind was
dark with dismal shades. When he went to bed under the kitchen sink he
did not fall into a sound sleep at once, as he usually did; his misery
and dejection kept him awake. For two hours he lay there, soaking his
pillow with tears, then the droning murmurs from the settin’-room
were hushed, and, after a pause, John Shears began a speech. He fully
revealed his frightful scheme to the scissor-bills, and he exhorted
them to be true to his cause, which was their cause also. When Little
Meery understood that the boss farmer intended to poison the blue ox
and thus do away with the logging industry forever, he gave such a
start of horror that his head banged against the bottom of the sink.
The speech was halted at the sound.

“It’s only Little Meery,” said a scissor-bill contemptuously.

Little Meery did not venture to stir again as John Shears went on
speaking.

“So it’s all fixed to pizen the ox critter to-night,” said John Shears
in conclusion. “Then they’ll be no more wicked loggin’. Loggin’ must
be wicked because it makes wicked men. Farmin’ must be good because it
makes good men. When ol’ Paul Bunyan an’ his loggers has to go farmin’
they’ll nacherlly turn into good men. Then they’ll have to foller us,
hi grabby, because we was farmers an’ good men before they was. I hate
to pizen a pore dumb critter, but this here’s by way of makin’ him a
sackerfice--a sackerfice for the glory of life eternal! Glory! glory!
glory!”

The scissor-bills all shouted “Glory! glory! glory!” after him, and
then Little Meery heard them all move out of the settin’-room. For a
few minutes he did not dare to stir, then he could no longer tolerate
the anxiety of waiting. He slid carefully from his bunk, he took off
his nightgown and slipped on his ragged slavey’s clothes, and then,
pausing cautiously at every heavy step, he approached the kitchen
door. He opened it and peered outside. There was a fair light from a
half-moon, and he could see the scissor-bills standing in rows and
clusters along the barnyard fence. John Shears was already across Honey
Creek. He opened the door of Babe’s stable, and then ran back to the
farmyard. Soon Babe’s head appeared in the stable doorway, his great
gentle eyes looked inquiringly about, then they shone hungrily as they
glimpsed a white heap of the vegetables he loved. Other piles were
scattered at intervals of seven hundred yards. In a short time Babe was
in the parsnip patch, and he began to devour the first mountainous pile
of the deadly vegetables. John Shears and the scissor-bills shouted
halleluiahs of joy and triumph.

Horror, despair, a terrible sense of helplessness, held Little Meery
motionless in the doorway. Hours seemed to pass as he frantically tried
to think of some means to thwart the plot of John Shears and to ward
off the tragic event that was swiftly casting its shadow over the old
home camp. But what could _he_ do? He was only Little Meery, scorned,
despised, held in such contempt that he had been ignored entirely in
the plans. Then a sound that had roared in his ears ever since the
clover was cut for the blue ox startled his mind with a desperate
idea. The sound was the raging hum of two great bees, Bum and Bill,
and Little Meery now resolved to release them from the hive, whatever
the danger to himself. He knew that they would make a savage attack on
the blue ox and perhaps drive him from the perilous parsnip patch. So
he eased himself out of the kitchen and trod as softly as his obesity
permitted towards the beehive. He reached it without being discovered,
then he heaved up desperately on the latch. Up it went--six inches,
twelve, eighteen, thirty-six, sixty--it was over the top of the block!
As Little Meery pantingly threw the door open, the bees began to roar,
then they shot out of the hive with a deafening buzz, their wings
humming so violently that the wind from them stripped the shirt off
his back. The bees zigzagged doubtfully for a moment, then they spied
the blue ox in the parsnip patch. They cracked their wings together
and lit out for him in a beeline. John Shears saw them and bawled for
them to return, but, though they were obedient bees in their gentle
moods, his yells now made them buzz on in a greater rage than ever.
They circled the blue ox three times, then they sat on him and began a
furious stinging of him. Babe bellowed. The scissor-bills were thrown
through the barnyard fence when the wind from that bellow struck them,
but John Shears charged through the vegetable gardens after the bees.
And reached the anguished ox just as he had lifted his hind legs for
a tremendous kick. Babe’s hoof caught the boss farmer squarely between
his eyebrows and his ankles, and he was hurled so high into the air
that he sailed over the cloud-kissed crest of old Rock Candy. Babe
flailed away mightily with his tail, he pawed up clouds of dirt, he
stood on his horns, but the bees remained seated. At last the blue ox
galloped out of the parsnip patch and ran for the sanctuary of his
stable, where the bees dared not follow him.

Babe’s bellow had rolled Little Meery among the scissor-bills, but he
landed on his feet. He lumbered away from them in the direction of the
footbridge, and when the scissor-bills had disentangled themselves from
the splinters of the fence, they set out after him. They caught him
in the center of the bridge, but just as they were beginning to beat
him, the loggers, who had all been shaken from their bunks by Babe’s
anguished bellow, came with a rush from the other side. Then began the
famous Battle of the Footbridge, in which the opposing forces vainly
attempted to reach each other over the obese form of Little Meery, who
received hundreds of blows a minute. All through the night the battle
raged, while Babe mooed woefully in his stable and Bum and Bill buzzed
gleeful satisfaction in their hive.

Not until sunrise, when Paul Bunyan reached the old home camp, was the
terrible struggle ended. He ordered the loggers and the scissor-bills
into the plain before the maple grove and demanded an explanation. The
combatants were too weary from their terrific struggle to reply, but at
last Little Meery found strength to speak and told his awful story.

“Brave, brave heart,” Paul Bunyan commended him. “And how can I reward
you?”

“I want to be a head faller, Mr. Bunyan.”

“But a head faller must fit into a head faller’s uniform, and you my
fine lad--well, you are Little Meery.”

Then Little Meery staggered triumphantly from among the weary host.
Not a stitch remained on him, he was bruised from head to heels, but
he showed himself with pride. For he was not now the seven hundred and
eighty pound Little Meery of yesterday, but a raw-boned two hundred and
fifty pound logger, lean, solid and strong. During the long battle,
pound by pound, over a quarter of a ton of fat had been pushed,
prodded, punched, pounded, rolled, jerked, squeezed and stamped from
his body. His obesity was gone! Miracle of miracles! Paul Bunyan could
hardly believe his eyes.

“A head faller you shall be,” he said.

John Shears was three weeks returning from the spot whither Babe had
kicked him. Meek, humble, chastened, repentant, he came to Paul Bunyan
and declared himself willing to submit to the dire punishment which
he supposed awaited him. He expected to be made to eat gravel for a
month, at the very least. The good and mighty Paul Bunyan, however,
merely ordered John Shears to get back to the farm. But he put a ban
on parsnips. As for Little Meery, when he heard that John Shears had
returned, he twisted his hat around--his hair was never parted now,--he
took a grand chew of fire cut, hitched up his tin pants and growled.
“Let’s walk on him! Let’s put the calks to him! Let’s cave his head
in!” Little Meery had become a logger indeed, and he lived gloriously
ever after.

[Illustration]




SHANTY BOY


In Paul Bunyan’s time, camp entertainment was of, by and for the
woodsmen. In Paul Bunyan’s camp there were hypnotic story-tellers,
singers who could make you laugh and cry in the same moment, and
steppers who could do a breakdown fit to shatter the frame of a
bunkhouse. “Ol’ Paul” knew the importance of social pleasures for his
loggers, and he made natural provision for them. A good bunkhouse bard
was marked by the great logger’s especial favor; many a man who toiled
poorly was saved from the lowly life of a farm hand by his ability to
dance, whistle and sing. Consequently Paul Bunyan’s Bunkhouse Nights
are as famous in history as his great feasts and labors.

Every night but Sunday, when the twelve hours of toil in the woods
were ended and supper was over, the tired loggers would be cheered
and consoled by the bunkhouse bards. There was one for each shanty,
and each one had his own particular virtues. There was Beeg An’tole,
for example, who made his mates in Bunkhouse 999 hilarious as he told
quaint tales about logging in “dat ver’ fines’ countree, which she’s
t’ree weeks below Quebec.” Angus MacIlroy of Bunkhouse 1313 was made
to sing “The Island Boys” a dozen times a night by his song-loving
comrades. And Tinty Hoolan of Bunkhouse 6000 jigged with such violence
and speed that a modern jazz band would have gone crazy trying to make
music fast enough for him. The rattle of his jigging feet sounded like
the buzz of a big bee. His bunkhouse cronies boasted that he could
imitate any known sound with his feet except a tired logger’s snore.
And this, anyone admitted, defied imitation or description. Tinty
Hoolan was a swamper, and a poor one; his feet, however, saved him from
life among the scissor-bills on Paul Bunyan’s farm.

Now these were three of the greatest of Paul Bunyan’s bards, and no one
has ever found words to describe them or to give them fitting praise.
And if words fail with them, how can they reveal the brightest star of
all Paul Bunyan’s performers? Indeed, Shanty Boy, of Bunkhouse 1, was
more than a star; he was a constellation, for he was an entertainer
with a thousand talents. What old logger does not feel his own soul
dance as he hears, in the Bunyan histories, the soft, vibrant patter
of Shanty Boy’s right foot, the thunderous stamp of his left foot, the
sharp rattle of his heel-cracking in a great breakdown? He not only
danced with his feet, but with his hands and eyes; he had a dancing
grin, too, which would shine now on the right side of his face, now
on the left. Shanty Boy put his whole soul into his dancing. And so
he did with his stories. When he told a Swede story he _was_ a Swede,
and when he told a dirty story he _was_ dirty. He was never content
with mere pretending. He made entertainment of everything, and he did
it naturally. A log would roll over his leg when he was at work. That
night he would hobble down the bunkhouse aisle like an ailing old man,
talking in the mournfullest way. “Oh, lawdy, boys! I ’low I ain’t long
fer _this_ life. Thet new medicine I’m usin’ don’t ’pear to be doin’ my
rheumatiz no good, no good a-tall. I spect I’ll be havin’ to change to
’nuther kind agin.” Then he’d hobble back again, drawing his sore leg
up like a string-halted horse, and groaning, “M-m-m-! M-m-m! I ’low I
feel worse’n anyone thet ever lived in this here world--an’ lived.” If
somebody asked him what time it was, he would take out his old watch,
hold it at arm’s length, throw back his head and squint at the watch
like he was looking at it through glasses. He claimed that “grandpap
carried thet watch fer nigh on forty year, an’ it won’t tell the time
onless I look at it jest like he did.” Sometimes he would sit down by
the stove and eat an apple or a raw turnip. Then he would pull his hat
down over his eyes, and while he chewed away, looking as solemn as a
politician, he would make the hat bob up and down to keep time with his
jaws. No one else could have done this without seeming foolish, but
Shanty Boy always kept a kind of dignity when he was performing that
made men respect him even when they were laughing at him.

But it was his songs and stories which truly endeared him to the
loggers. His renditions of “John Ross,” “Jack Haggerty,” “The Island
Boys,” and “Bung Yer Eye,” were so affecting and inspiring that the
loggers, what with laughing, crying, stamping, clapping and cheering,
often made so much sympathetic noise that the song itself could not be
heard. Shanty Boy only sang two nights a week and then for no longer
than four hours at a time. The other nights he danced, and told true
but thrilling stories of life in the woods. The bards from other
bunkhouses would come to hear him and then give imitations of his
performances. His supremacy was unquestioned, yet he remained unspoiled.

For he was more than a mere entertainer. The mightiest of Paul Bunyan’s
loggers lived in Bunkhouse 1, and as a logger Shanty Boy was the peer
of any of them. He could notch a tree or work in white water with
the best of the fallers and rivermen. He held his own with even Mark
Beaucoup in the rough bunkhouse frolics. He was Paul Bunyan’s favorite
faller, and the great logger often carried him to the woods on his
shoulder. He had an equal rank with Hot Biscuit Slim, the chief cook,
Shagline Bill, the freighter, and Big Ole, the blacksmith. He was a
true hero. And a time came when he reached the greatest height of glory
ever attained by a plain logger. Here is how it came about.

The Year of the Two Winters had been disastrous for Paul Bunyan. Winter
had come again in the summertime that year, and the cold increased in
the succeeding months. At Christmas time there was fifty feet of ice
on Lake Michigan, and by the last of February the lake was frozen to
the bottom. Paul Bunyan was then engaged in logging off the Peninsula
country, and of course his operations were halted. He cut the ice into
blocks and hauled them out on the lake shore with Babe, his big blue
ox, who could pull anything that had two ends on it. This was done
so that the ice would melt more quickly when normal summer weather
returned. Then he moved his outfit to the old home camp in the Smiling
River country, where severe weather was never experienced.

Paul Bunyan had done no logging around his old home camp for seven
years. The remaining timber was so far from the river and on such steep
hills that profitable logging seemed impossible. However, it was the
best to be had, for elsewhere it would be weeks, even months, before
the snow drifts would melt away from the tree tops. Paul Bunyan tackled
the tough logging problems before him with characteristic courage. He
was sure that his inventiveness and resourcefulness would, as always,
triumph over every obstacle.

His most stubborn and difficult problem was that of getting the loggers
to the woods in the morning in time to do any work and getting them
home at night in time to do any sleep. One plan after another was
tried and dropped, failures all. Paul Bunyan began with an attempt to
work one day shift, but the loggers could not get to the woods before
lunch time; lunch finished, they had to start at once for the camp.
Two shifts were then put on, but little work could be done at night,
except when the moon was full. Paul Bunyan then sent the great Johnny
Inkslinger, his timekeeper and man of science, to investigate the
Aurora Borealis as a means of artificial lighting. Johnny reported
that it was pretty but unreliable, and he doubted if even the blue ox
could move it down from the North in less than six months. The learned
Inkslinger then sat down and figured desperately for a week, trying to
devise a method of working three twelve-hour shifts a day. With such
a routine one shift could be doing a day’s work, while a second shift
was coming to work, and a third was going to camp. Johnny Inkslinger
was, beyond a doubt, the greatest man with figures that ever lived, but
here his mathematics failed him. Paul Bunyan then thought of making
a campsite in the timber, and he dug for water in the high hills. He
succeeded in reaching a mighty vein, but it was so deep that it took
a week to draw a bucket of water out of the well. It was out of the
question as a water supply for the camp.

Now Paul Bunyan had to fall back on a last plan, a far-fetched one that
seemed well-nigh hopeless. This was to build a great sled, something
on the order of a lunch sled, and have Babe, the blue ox, haul the
loggers to and from work each day. It was a desperate plan, and no one
but Paul Bunyan would have had the courage to attempt it. It must be
remembered that the blue ox measured forty-two ax handles and a plug
of chewing tobacco between the horns; an ordinary man at his front had
to use a telescope to see what he was doing with his hind legs, he was
so long; he had so much energy and such delight in labor that no one
could hold him when he started for the woods in the mornings; he was
so fast that Paul Bunyan’s foreman, the Big Swede, who was as tall as
the trees, could not begin to keep up with him. Only Paul Bunyan could
travel so fast. Whenever Babe moved the camp he traveled at a careful
pace, but even then some of the loggers were made seasick; and all of
them became so irritable when a move was being made that they fought
constantly among themselves. If the comparatively slow camp-moving pace
of the blue ox thus upset them, his timber-going gallop would be apt to
ruin them completely. Paul Bunyan remembered how the Big Swede, hanging
to Babe’s halter rope, was hurled through the air, only striking the
ground once in every quarter of a mile or so, when the blue ox rushed
to his delightful labor each morning. A lunch sled full of loggers
would be dragged by Babe in much the same fashion; it would be in the
air most of the time, and when it did strike the ground loggers would
be scattered like autumn leaves. The loggers who would hang on until
the woods were reached would have the living daylights shaken out of
them. A common lunch sled would not do; one must be invented that would
hold the road.

So Paul Bunyan devised the serpentine bobsled. It was a long, low-built
contraption; the runners were made in short sections, connected by
double joints. When it was completed and lay in the road that led
from the camp it looked like a squat fence, for it snugly fitted the
contours of the hills and vales over which it extended.

“There’s a rig that’ll hold the road,” said Paul Bunyan with pride.
“Now I’ll invent something equally good to hold Babe to a slow pace.”

Several mechanical devices were tried without passing the first test.
The sled lay idle. The loggers got sore feet, and they traveled so
slowly that they began to take twelve hours to reach the woods. There
was one shift on the road, going, and one coming all of the time. Not a
tree was being felled.

“There’s no way out of it but to try the grizzlies,” Paul Bunyan told
his timekeeper.

Among the other livestock on Paul Bunyan’s farm, which was down the
river from the old home camp, was a herd of grizzly bears. The great
logger often amused himself by playing with them, and he had taught
them many tricks. Not the least of their stunts was for each bear to
hang from a tree with three paws and try to claw Paul Bunyan’s mackinaw
with the other paw as he dodged by.

“I’ll station them at the trees which are left standing along the
road,” said Paul Bunyan, “and when Babe roars by they’ll hook him. They
may only frighten him into a faster run, but I think surely they’ll
slow him down.”

The next morning the loggers, for the most part, joyfully crawled upon
the serpentine bobsled. The timid and cranky among the loggers were
pessimistic, of course, and declared noisily that this would be the end
of them. But Shanty Boy and the other bards laughed at their fears,
and at last every logger in camp was on the sled. Paul Bunyan ordered
the Big Swede to hitch up the blue ox and start in half an hour, and
he departed for the woods with his herd of grizzlies. He stationed one
of them at every tree close to the road. When he reached the timber he
straddled a hogback and sat down to wait for the outcome of his daring
attempt.

In a short time he heard a faint thunder down in the valley, then he
saw enormous balloons of dust twisting up in cyclonic bursts from the
foothills, next he heard the crashing sound of hoofbeats that got
louder and louder.... Through clouds of dust he saw Babe’s tail brush
lifted like a triumphal banner and the glitter of his horns.... The Big
Swede, hanging to Babe’s halter rope, soared and dived....

The bears had failed. Indeed, they had failed terribly, for when Babe
came to a halt in the timber Paul Bunyan saw bears paws hanging from
both sides of him. Only one bear had saved his paw, and he was holding
a tree in a frenzied clutch. Babe had carried away bear, tree and
all. Paul Bunyan rushed back over the road, and as he came to each
unfortunate grizzly he mercifully dispatched him. He carried them all
into camp.

“Bear meat for Sunday dinner,” he said to Hot Biscuit Slim, as he threw
the bears into the kitchen yard.

Paul Bunyan then had Johnny Inkslinger bring his medicine case, and the
two hurried to the woods. But only a slight number of the loggers had
been made truly ill by the terrific speed with which Babe had hauled
them over the hills. The double-jointed sled runners had slipped over
rocks, logs and gullies as easily as a snake glides over a string. Not
once had the sled bounded from the road. Not a logger had suffered a
jolt. Some of them were dazed and breathless, others were choked with
dust, but most of them were no more than badly scared by their terrific
journey.

“Aye tal you it ban no use try hol’ Babe down,” said the Big Swede,
with rare eloquence.

“The sled worked perfectly, at any rate,” said Paul Bunyan. “We can
depend on it. But those good bullies of mine are going to need a lot of
encouragement to stand that ride every morning.”

He was quite right. His loggers thought nothing of the perils of
falling limbs, which are called “widow-makers” to-day in the woods.
Breaking up log jams, jumping rolling logs, dodging butts of trees
which bucked back from the stumps when they fell--all this was in
the day’s work. But even the serpentine bobsled could not banish the
terrors of riding behind the blue ox each morning. “I’d ruther try
ridin’ a peavy handle down the West Branch.” “I’ll tell you Babe went
so fast I acshuly _seen_ the wind, an’ I never seen anything more
sickenin’ in my life!” “What if Babe ud a throwed a shoe now? I bet it
’da tore through us like a cannon ball!”

Paul Bunyan frowned as he hearkened to their complaints. His loggers
seldom thought of anything but their labor when they were in the woods.
If they were complaining now, what would happen when the bunkhouse
cranks got into action after supper? There would be much gloomy
grumbling, and perhaps rebellious talk. When the loggers went to bed
they would brood over the cyclonic morning ride instead of getting
fortifying sleep. Then they would soon balk against riding behind the
blue ox. To avoid such an event he must call on his bards to cajole,
humor and inspire the men until he could devise new methods to solve
his logging problems. With this idea in mind he took Shanty Boy aside,
placed him on his knee and explained the situation.

“I shore will do my best,” said Shanty Boy. “But looky here, Mr.
Bunyan, I ’low I’ll have to lie to ’em right smart.”

“How so, my lad?”

“Well I’ve alus done the best I knowed how when I set out to be
amusin’. So, if I’m goin’ to make my stories any thicker, I’ll jest
about have to stir a few lies into ’em.”

“Son, nobody loves a liar.”

“Thet’s jest it, Mr. Bunyan. I got a powerful good reppytation fer
truth, an’ I can lie quite a spell afore I’m ketched. But if I do get
ketched Mark Beaucoup an’ them Rories’ll chaw me up. You’ve learnt all
the loggers to hate lyin’ jest like you do yourself. I’d probably get
spiled if I was ketched. Besides, I jest nacherly hate to lie. Yet, no
lyin’, no loggin’, seems to be the fact o’ the matter.”

Paul Bunyan pondered doubtfully for some time. Moral issues baffled him
always. But at last he spoke with decision.

“Logging must go on. You may lie, if necessary, during the period of
emergency.”

“Them’s orders, Mr. Bunyan. But what if the gang gets hostile an’
starts to chaw me up?”

Again Paul Bunyan hesitated. It was against his policy to interfere in
the logger’s personal affairs. Then, firmly:

“A man with your talent should not have to lie, Shanty Boy, in order
to entertain his mates. But you know best, of course. If you are
discovered, tell the men that all complaints must be lodged with me
before they act upon them. Be cautious and discreet, and honor and
glory shall be yours.”

“I will, sir. Thank ye, sir, Mr. Bunyan.”

Shanty Boy went bravely to work carrying out the great logger’s
commands. For some time it was not necessary to tell more than two or
three lies a week in order to take the logger’s thoughts off their
sickening morning rides. They were not great lies that he told, either,
but only plausible exaggerations. Most of his stories were still true
ones, and he told them better than ever. He inspired the visiting bards
as never before. Each night he sent his mates smilingly to sleep,
entirely forgetful of the ordeal that awaited them in the morning. But
this was not natural, and of course it couldn’t last. The loggers lost
weight every day, and they began to complain of hurts in their innards.
The bunkhouse cranks got their dismal chorus started, and Shanty Boy
had to tell real big lies to hush it.

He lied wonderfully indeed, once he was well started. He got so funny
that the loggers had to strap themselves into their bunks while they
listened to him. They went to sleep laughing, as a rule, and the night
long they would chuckle in their dreams.

Shanty Boy grew bolder with success. He told, with a bare face, stories
about snakes that had many joints, and how they would separate into
pieces and crawl a dozen ways at once. He called them joint snakes.
He told stories about a snake that would put its tail in its mouth
and roll down hill. He called it a hoop snake. When the loggers got
a little tired of snakes, he told whoppers about possums, then about
coons, and so on. At last he got around to fish, and he told so many
good fish stories that the loggers would not let him switch to another
subject. He ran out of ideas, but the loggers would not let him get
away from fish.

One night as he was trying desperately to invent a tolerable lie about
fish he remembered a story of a whale that he had heard his grandfather
tell, insisting that it was the gospel truth. It was the old story
about Jonah and the whale, and the loggers had never heard it. They
became indignant when Shanty Boy repeated it for the plain truth, and
some of them began to shout at him. For the first time in his life he
got stage fright. He felt that he was telling the gospel truth, but
the memory of his previous lies overwhelmed him. He tried vainly to
continue his narrative about Jonah’s life in the whale’s belly, but
his tongue failed. He dropped his head, and he fixed a shamed gaze
on his feet. First he heard nothing but the pounding of his heart;
then an angry mutter ran along the bunks. It grew into a fierce growl.
Then Shanty Boy heard the tramp of feet, and he looked up to see Mark
Beaucoup and the bunkhouse cranks advancing upon him.

“She’s lie!” yelled Mark Beaucoup. “_Sacre!_ but she’s tell a beeg wan.”

He shook a huge brown fist under Shanty Boy’s nose.

“Now you are feex yourself. Stan’ up w’ile I knock you down!”

The loggers left their bunks and made a pressing crowd around their
discomfited bard and his challenger.

“I was coun’ for you stan’ up. Wan--two--t’ree----”

Then Shanty Boy remembered Paul Bunyan’s “All complaints must be lodged
with me” and courage returned to him.

“You bunkhouse cranks shore give me a misery,” he said contemptuously.
“You jest go an’ tell my story to ol’ Paul an’ see what _he_ says about
it.”

The loggers stared at him with amazement.

“By gar!” exclaimed Mark Beaucoup. “De fool wan’ me tell dees to ol’
Paul! She’s wan’ me tell dees, dat crazy t’ing!”

“Thet’s what I said,” growled Shanty Boy. “Run along afore I get into
one o’ my tantrums.”

Knowing Paul Bunyan’s furious opinion of liars, the loggers were
smitten with horror. Of course this story might not be a lie, but most
likely it was, and what old Paul would do to him for telling it! Mark
Beaucoup was triumphant. Soon Bunkhouse 1 would have another king; it
should know a rule of iron instead of laughter.

“Come wit’ me,” he commanded his friends. The other loggers, except
Shanty Boy, followed them to Paul Bunyan.

As Paul Bunyan listened to Mark Beaucoup he was struck with a powerful
regret for having inspired his greatest bard to leave the path of
truthful narration. Desperate circumstances had seemed to justify the
step. But what a risk he had taken just to save a few weeks logging!
The faith his loggers had in him lay in the balance. Now it seemed that
he must lose this faith or sacrifice a hero. He had never dreamed that
Shanty Boy would recklessly tell such an incredible story. Surely he
had not told it unthinkingly. No doubt he could explain it. Paul Bunyan
sent for him.

It was with a heavy heart that the great bard walked through the lines
of silent, accusing loggers. It looked like the end of everything for
him. But he kept his courage, and, as he walked slowly on, his nimble
mind was leaping from idea to idea, seeking a solid defense. But what
proof could he offer for such a story? His grandfather _knew_ it was
true, but the old man was far away in the Southern mountains. He alone
must prove somehow that he had not lied.... Paul Bunyan’s boots loomed
before him.... He must think hard ... hard....

“This story must be _explained_,” said Paul Bunyan in a stern voice,
at the same time flashing him a look of the utmost sympathy.

“I ’low the story is beyond explainin’, Mr. Bunyan, but I never lied
when I told it,” said Shanty Boy, bravely.

“Prove it!” roared Mark Beaucoup and his followers.

Shanty Boy drew himself up pridefully and he fixed upon the multitude a
gaze of lofty scorn.

“I never lied!” he declared. “I never lied, for when I lie my neck _it
swells_! An’--now--look!”

He jerked open the collar of his shirt and exposed his muscular throat.
There was not a sign of swelling about it. The loggers lifted a mighty
cheer, and Mark Beaucoup, baffled, beaten, completely outwitted, could
only swear:

“She’s don’ swell--by gar!--she’s don’ swell!”

Paul Bunyan could not restrain a windy sigh of relief. The trees bent
before the blast and dust clouds rolled through the ranks of loggers.
Now was the moment to complete the victory.

“Get to your bunkhouses!” Paul Bunyan roared.

Shanty Boy was carried on the shoulders of yelling admirers to
Bunkhouse 1. Mark Beaucoup and the bunkhouse cranks did not venture to
follow them until the lights had gone out. Then, humbled and quiet,
they sneaked into their bunks.

As a result of his troubles Paul Bunyan came near to abandoning logging
operations in the Smiling River Country. But one night he got an idea,
an idea so simple and sound that he was astonished at not thinking of
it before. He put it into practice at once, and when the loggers awoke
the next morning they saw wooded hills at the very door of the camp.
Paul Bunyan had simply thrown a cable around each hill, and the blue
ox, who could pull anything that had a top on it, had snaked every one
into camp. So the logging then went on easily until the new summer had
melted the ice and snow and Lake Michigan was filled with water once
more, and had new fish in it.

Shanty Boy’s triumph was complete. Not only did he have great honors
from Paul Bunyan, but his mates now revered as well as admired him. His
ventures from truth had held off revolt from the bunkhouses. He had
convinced the loggers of the truth of the grand old story of Jonah and
the whale. And he had made them all fear swelled necks as the result of
lying. This last effect persists to this day, for everywhere loggers
are still known as the most truthful of men.




THE KINGDOM OF KANSAS


No region of Real America, save Kansas, boasted of its weather in Paul
Bunyan’s time. In the heyday of the mighty logger the climates and
seasons were not systematized; they came and went and behaved without
rule or reason. There were many years with two winters, and sometimes
all four seasons would come and go in one month. The wind would
frequently blow straight up and then straight down. Sometimes it would
simply stand still and blow in one place. In its most prankish moods it
would blow all ways at once. The weather was indeed powerful strange in
those days and it got itself talked about. And nowhere were its ways
more evil than in Utah.

When Paul Bunyan moved his camp to the state of Utah for the purpose
of logging off its forests of stonewood trees he was not careless of
the climate; he merely failed to suspect its treachery. Besides, other
troubles beset him. The gritty texture of the stonewood timber dulled
the edge of an ax bit in two strokes. At the end of their twelve-hour
day in the woods the loggers had to sharpen axes for seven hours. They
were always fagged out. Then there was only one small river near the
forests, and Babe, the blue ox, who had got hayfever again since coming
West, drank it dry every fifteen minutes. The loggers thirsted, and
they were bedeviled by sand in their blankets and in the beans, for
every time Babe sneezed he raised a dust storm that rolled its clouds
through the cookhouse and the bunkhouses and covered the great plain
and the hills around the camp. A spirit of dark and evil melancholy
settled on the loggers.

Paul Bunyan hoped for an adequate water supply from the December snows.
And he brought all his inventive powers to the problem of felling the
stonewood trees. In eleven days and nights he devised eight hundred and
five systems, machines and implements, and from this galaxy he selected
a noble tool.

Paul Bunyan’s new invention was the double-bitted ax, which is used
everywhere in the woods to-day. Paul Bunyan devised it so that a faller
could chop with one blade, then twist the handle and whet the other
blade on the gritty stonewood with the backward swing.

But even with the new axes the logging went on slowly. The camp supply
of elbow grease gave out, and the loggers suffered stiffened joints.
The December snows were light, and the thirsty blue ox continued to
drink the entire water supply. The bunkhouses came to be dens of
ominous brooding and quiet instead of gay and noisy habitations.
Finally the shipment of webfooted turkeys from the Great Lakes arrived
too late for Christmas dinner. The loggers became dour, gaunt,
embittered men.

Then came New Year’s Day and outrageous fortune. When the loggers went
to work at the first thinning of darkness they attributed the peculiar
oppressive warmth of the morning to an unusual Chinook wind. There
was, however, no wind at all. Then the rising sun shot blazing rays
into a cloudless sky. Even then the loggers did not realize that they
were witnessing an Event. This was the beginning of a notable year, the
Year of the Hot Winter. As the sun climbed higher the heat grew more
intense. The Christmas snow had vanished at the first burning touch of
day. The ground baked and cracked. The stonewood trees glittered in a
fierce light. Each logger threw off his mackinaw, muffler, sweater,
stagged shirt, woolen overshirt and undershirt; his paraffin pants,
mackinaw pants and overalls and his Arctic socks, heavy wool socks,
light wool socks and cotton socks. All heavy clothing was speedily
thrown aside, and everywhere in the plain, in the valleys, and on the
hillsides were piles of garments, and by each pile a logger toiled,
clad only in drawers and calked boots. But still sweat dripped and
trickled from their bodies; they labored more and more languorously.
Each quarter of an hour the blue ox, with lolling tongue, dashed madly
for the river and drank it dry.

Paul Bunyan was distressed by this change in his affairs, but he was
not daunted. Confident that his loggers would do their best in the
meanwhile, he again retired to solitude, hoping to devise something
that would conquer the hostile and unnatural season. He returned with
the great timber scythe, with which he could fell a full section of
timber with one swing of his mighty arms. Carrying the timber scythe
over his shoulder, Paul Bunyan strode toward his camp. His tread was
vigorous despite the deadening heat. Benevolent ideas stirred his
heart. He himself would do the arduous labor of felling the stonewood
trees; the loggers would be asked only to do the lighter work of
trimming and bucking the trees into logs. They were a fine bunch of
savages; ordinarily they would not allow even Paul Bunyan to do their
natural work. Perhaps they would resist such intrusion now. But the
great logger was sure of his persuasive powers.

As he neared the camp, busy as he was with philanthropic thoughts,
he failed to note an unusual silence in the woods and about the
bunkhouses. Not until he saw Babe and the Big Swede sleeping in the
stable was he made aware of the extraordinary. Paul Bunyan went next to
the camp office. Johnny Inkslinger, that tower of energy, was sleeping
at his desk! His fountain pen had dropped from his hand, and as it
was fed by hose lines from twenty-five barrels of ink, a black stream
gushed from its point and flooded the floor. A chorus of faint snores
came from each bunkhouse. The cookhouse looked gloomy and deserted. In
the woods the axes and saws lay where the loggers had left them. For
one hundred and seventy-nine minutes Paul Bunyan stood silently in the
midst of his camp, tormented by wrath, regret and sorrow. His outfit
had failed him. After all these years of comradeship in labor they had
allowed a mere hot winter to provoke them into faithlessness. He had
left them without an idea that they would be untrue to the job while he
was scheming to make it a success. But they had weakened. Very well,
he thought, after his brief period of emotion, he would perform their
labor for them while they snored. They should awaken to shame.

One stride brought him into the first clearing made among the stonewood
trees. Without losing a second, he threw the timber scythe from his
shoulder, he grasped its handles, then took a long swing, and the first
section of trees thundered to the ground. On he went, making a circular
swath. As he stepped with his right foot the sharp scythe blade crashed
through the trees on the cutting stroke, and as he stepped with his
left he brought the scythe behind him with a vigorous swing. On and
on he labored, his steps coming faster as the circle widened. Every
seven hours he paused to whet the blade of the timber scythe on a
bundle of the stonewood trees which he carried in his hip pocket. The
hot winter drove its fires upon him, but his passion of toil repelled
them with a stronger flame. The great logger’s walk became a run; the
dazzling blade of the timber scythe flashed in strokes of inconceivable
rapidity; the sections of stonewood trees fell in a steady roar.

Then Paul Bunyan began to sweat. He had labored before this, but
never so savagely, nor in such penetrating heat. Only the man who
raises a good sweat for the first time can realize what an astounding
store of perspiration the human body can hold. On occasion it gushes
from innumerable springs, seeming inexhaustible. It streams down the
crevices and valleys of the body and floods the flat spaces; it soaks
the clothing and drips to the ground. Imagine then what happened when
Paul Bunyan’s stored perspiration was unloosed. As he toiled on, ever
more fiercely, his sweat flooded his boots, it surged over their tops
and foamed towards the ground like two Niagaras. His swinging body and
flying arms flung out clouds of spray. These strange waters coursed
over the plains in torrents and gathered in heaving pools. The little
river was submerged, drowned, exterminated. The waters crept towards
the camp. Paul Bunyan, more and more engrossed with his labor as time
went on, did not note the rising flood. His circle grew wider and
wider. It left the plain and swung around the bordering slopes. Section
after section of the trees was felled, only to be covered by water, for
the stonewood timber was too heavy to float. But Paul Bunyan labored
around and around the circle, quite unaware of the tragical consequence
of his efforts.

For five days and nights the loggers lay in their bunks, too lazy to
get up to eat, too lazy to do aught but drowse and dream. But at twelve
o’clock on the fifth night the waters had reached the bunkhouses, and
they learned of their peril. Yells of fear arose from every quarter,
and in a few moments the whole camp, with the exception of Babe, the
Big Swede, and Johnny Inkslinger, was aroused. Fright made the loggers
forget the hot winter, and gave them energy. When they looked out on
a vast lake glittering in the moonlight, and saw in the dim distance
the twin rivers roaring from Paul Bunyan’s boots, they knew that
speedy and efficient action was necessary to save their lives. The
best swimmers swam out to the tool house and brought back hammers,
saws and nails. Each logger then began to build a boat from his bunk,
and for three hours they worked feverishly and silently constructing
the vessels. When the last one was finished the word was passed along
and in a few moments the boats, each one carrying a logger and his
blankets, swarmed from the bunkhouses. Before the armada had gone
twenty feet the boats all filled with water and sank, while the loggers
uttered lamentable cries. These changed to sounds of rejoicing,
however, when it was discovered that the water was only waist deep. The
loggers rescued their bundles from the boats and scampered to the shore
like a holiday host at a beach.

But their joy did not last; it quickly gave way to dread. Paul Bunyan,
toiling more desperately every moment, was rapidly moving around the
circle. In a short time he would be upon them, and at any instant
he might discover the fate of his trees, the flooding of his camp,
his complete disaster. The loggers all understood the reason for the
mighty man’s wrathful labor. Their sense of blame confused them and
smothered their native courage. The host began to move over the hills,
haltingly at first, and with heads bowed like penitents. Then, as the
volleying thunder of Paul Bunyan’s timber scythe sounded nearer and
nearer, they lifted their heads and struck a faster pace. Then guilty
fears possessed them and every logger of the lot began to gallop madly.
Someone yelled, “Ol’ Paul’s a comin’!” and the warning cry was echoed
from thousands of throats all over the hills. The loggers were taken
by panic; the runaway became a stampede. By dawn they were making such
running leaps that each logger would hit his chin with his front knee
and his head with his back heel at every stride. They were so scared
that they never stopped until they got to Kansas.

Now Kansas at that time had the only kingdom that was ever known to
exist in this country. The ruler of Kansas was King Bourbon, and Topeka
was his capital. The Kansas country was then one of the pleasantest in
Real America. It was rolling land, like that everywhere else, but its
heavy vegetation and its forests were beautiful and unique, and the
climate and seasons were always spring; and indeed the history of Paul
Bunyan’s time tells of a year in Kansas that had thirteen months of
spring.

The forests were mostly whisky trees, which grew amid carpets of
cigarette grass and were entwined with beervines. The greatest of these
forests was around Lake Topeka, and by the lake was the capital city,
where the nobility and gentry of Kansas led a pleasurable life and
envied no one.

When Paul Bunyan’s loggers reached Kansas they were so exhausted from
their long run that they had no eyes for the beauties of that region;
they only felt that it invited them to rest and promised them security.
So when they came to the banks of Rolling River they dropped on the
soft and fragrant masses of cigarette grass, and rested in the cool
shade of the spreading whisky trees, with the bliss known only to
the utterly weary. For a long while they were not aware of the virile
odors of the beervine blossoms, and they heard but faintly the melodies
of the huge but gentle piano birds who were everywhere in the forest,
either flitting from bough to bough or sitting in their nests. And
even when they were rested and soothed by the sweet airs and tinkling
melodies the loggers enjoyed the originality of their environment but a
short while, for each one became conscious of a raging hunger.

“Let’s look for a nose bag!” the cry up and down the columns and lines.
The loggers all arose with the intent of foraging in the forest, and
they would no doubt have appeased their hunger at once, if an impulsive
curiosity had not made them take a last look at the river. A great gasp
of astonishment went up, then a terrific crash of laughter shook the
vast forest and silenced the piano birds. The loggers, one and all,
dropped again to the ground and rolled and bounced about in convulsions
of merriment.

Rolling River was a stubborn and valiant stream, and, unlike tamer
rivers, it refused to follow the easiest course. From its source
extended a range of hills which decreased in height until it was merged
in the slope of a far valley. Rolling River made its way up and down
these hills, cleaving each summit. At the place where the loggers were
resting the river always had a hard fight, as one hill was nearly equal
in height to the one that preceded it. Sometimes Rolling River would
fail here; the waters would part at the summit, and one end of the
river would go rushing on and the other end would slide back down the
hill for a fresh start.

It was then that the giddyfish which dwelt in this stream would perform
so clownishly as to tickle any observer into fits. Bewildered by the
waters’ abrupt desertion of them, and perplexed as to which end of
the river it was best to follow, numbers of them would hesitate on
the hilltop, agitated and floundering, then half of them would take
out after the lower end of the river and half of them would take out
after the upper end. They could make great speed by leaping along like
kangaroos, using their long fins and tails. But they traveled clumsily,
and their limber tongues lolled from their mouths as they leaped down
the hillside, all of which made their every action seem inexpressibly
humorous.

There was never an army of men who enjoyed a good laugh more than Paul
Bunyan’s loggers. And when they saw the giddyfish galloping after the
river they laughed till they cried. When the river finally made it up
the hill and began to roll on as usual the loggers could hardly stop
laughing even then. But they remembered their hunger, and they again
got up to search for food. But no sooner had they started than the
river parted again, and once more the loggers rolled and laughed over
the performance of the giddyfish. And indeed for fifty-seven hours the
loggers were unable to get away from the riverside, for no sooner would
they start to leave than the stubborn river and the clownish giddyfish
would repeat their hilarious performance. The loggers would no doubt
have laughed themselves to death, or else starved, had not King Bourbon
come along with his race horses and jockeys and saved them.

King Bourbon had his jockeys make a wall of horseflesh between the
laughing loggers and the river, and they were then able to stagger back
into the safety of the forest. The king then made the loggers a speech
of apology and warning. He told them that the only crimes punishable
by death in Kansas were dealing from the bottom of the deck, throwing
a horse race or a fight, and shooting craps with loaded dice. Those
convicted of such crimes were sentenced to watch the giddyfish until
they laughed themselves to death. The king then asked the loggers at
what games and contests did they excel, and when they told him of their
expertness at spinning logs in rough water his face shone with a joy
that made it brighter than the diamond in his necktie; for this new
sport promised to be a thrilling one. He ordered his lord bookmaker to
bring them on to the capital and find a place for them in the life of
the city. After giving this order, he courteously lifted his plug hat
to the loggers and, followed by his jockeys, he set out for Topeka,
which was over the next hump.

After three days the loggers were themselves again and they began to
explore the delights of the city.

Topeka, under King Bourbon’s rule, was a city of amusements. There
were eleven racetracks, and on each one there were seven races every
afternoon. Each morning there were five baseball games, the first one
beginning at four A. M. Boxing and wrestling matches, swimming and
running races, driving and jumping contests were to be seen each Sunday
in the stadium which faced Lake Topeka. In the time between races and
contests the people played poker, solo, rummy and pool, and shot craps
in the palace, which was the one public building in the city. In its
single vast room there were countless tables for the players, and these
tables were circled by a bar of such circumference that a man would
grow a beard while walking the length of it. The glitter of the glasses
and mirrors back of the bar was so brilliant and the jackets of the
bartenders were so white that a beholder seemed to look on ice and snow
which dazzlingly reflected sunlight. But the eye was soothed indeed
when its gaze dropped to the dusky mahogany bar and searched the amber
depths of a huge glass which frothed with the sharp and fragrant liquid
brewed from foamy beervine blossoms. Even more was the eye delighted
when it caught the jolly winks that bubbled from the most potent and
jovial beverage, the aged sap of the whisky tree. One part of the bar
was a great free lunch counter, which was always loaded with filling
and peppery food. Here the nobility and gentry of Topeka ate and drank,
King Bourbon, his lord bookmaker and his lord bartender among all the
rest. The cooks, waiters and dishwashers had been working three shifts
on the free lunch counter, but King Bourbon generously offered Paul
Bunyan’s kitchen crew employment there, and the lord bartender then had
to divide the day into forty-eight shifts in order to have work for
everyone.

The loggers were royally received into the grand life of Topeka. The
skill they displayed in spinning logs on the lake each Sunday won them
an honored place in the kingdom. They became tireless players of poker,
solo, rummy, craps, and even of pool. They drank huge quantities of
beervine brew and whisky tree sap. The free lunch made them forget
the delights of Paul Bunyan’s dinners. Soon they ceased to consider
themselves as working loggers, and they repelled with scorn proposals
to try a new life of toil, which were slyly made by followers of Duke
Dryface, who was a cousin of the King.

The duke was secretly planning a revolt. He had renounced Topeka life,
and he now lived among the serfs who brewed the beervine blossoms,
aged the sap of the whisky trees, and made all of the materials that
composed the grand life of Topeka. The serfs were called Cornmen, after
a harsh cereal which they had devised, and which they all raised in
clearings among the whisky tree forests. Duke Dryface planned to drive
the king and his nobility and gentry from the country and clear off
the forests, level the hills and make the whole state into a flat corn
country. The king thought him simply a harmless old crank, and would
listen to no warnings against him. But, nevertheless, the duke had a
revolt well planned for the coming Fourth of July celebration. After
bribing the bartenders, he had substituted raw sap for the mild and
gentle aged liquors to be served on that day; he had the Cornmen all
grandly inspired, and perfectly drilled, instructed and armed; though
he had not converted the loggers, he had directed the bartenders to
fill their glasses with triple-distilled, high-powered redeye sap on
the night of the Fourth, and he was sure that he could capture them and
keep them in bondage until the last whisky tree was felled. The duke
did not fear Paul Bunyan, for he thought the loggers’ stories about him
to be drunken exaggerations; he thought of him as some plain leader
whom they had basely deserted, and who would no doubt be happy to see
them punished by slavery. He kept the strength and extensiveness of his
power well hidden, and the loggers lived on blissfully in ignorance of
their real danger.

For many days and nights after the stampede of his loggers Paul Bunyan
had toiled on, swinging his timber scythe with undiminished rapidity.
He had not observed the desertion of his men, or the flooding of his
camp, or the fate of the stonewood trees. But at last his energy and
strength began to fail, his pace slackened, he swung the scythe with
slower strokes, and the intervals between the rolling thunders of
falling trees became longer and longer. Then the timber scythe dropped
from his hands, and he sank to the ground. Now he saw for the first
time the shimmering distances of salt water which covered the stonewood
trees and all but the tallest buildings of his camp. For seven hours he
gazed on the lamentable scene, then his head dropped to the ground. He
was not disheartened; he was only tired. He slept.

Days and nights went by with little change in the unnatural season.
The days of springtime came, but here there was no spring. Summer
days began, the sultriness of the nights got increasingly heavy and
thick, and in the daytime the overpowering blaze of the sun seemed to
make the very hills shrink, while the surface of the lake was veiled
in steaming mists. The slumbers of Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger, the
Big Swede and the blue ox became so deep that the active careers of all
of them might have ended there ingloriously had it not been for Babe’s
appetite, which always tormented him, sleeping or waking. The Big Swede
was couched on the high-piled hay in the manger, and Babe’s chin rested
on his body. Stirred by a hunger that would not be denied, his jaws
began to work mechanically; they closed over the fifty pound plug of
chewing tobacco that the Big Swede always carried in his hip pocket,
and it was swallowed like a blade of grass. Babe gasped, groaned, and
shuddered; then he lunged to his feet, snorting and bellowing, for
chewing tobacco was as poisonous to him as to a circus elephant. He
gouged the Big Swede viciously with his horns until he awoke with yells
of agony and astonishment. And not until he saw, through the stable
door, Paul Bunyan asleep on the far side of the lake did Babe heed the
foreman’s powerful remonstrances. With a last angry toss of his horns,
which threw the Big Swede through the stable window, Babe turned and
plunged into the water. So fast did he run that he threw foaming waves
to the furthest reaches of the lake. When he reached Paul Bunyan he
emitted a joyous bellow and eagerly began licking the great logger’s
neck. For one hour and twenty-seven minutes Babe assiduously tickled
him, and then Paul Bunyan sprang to his feet with a great roar of
laughter. He felt strong and fresh; he smiled cheerfully at the blue
ox, who capered around him. He straddled Babe and rode him across the
lake to the flooded camp. There he awakened Johnny Inkslinger, and,
refusing to listen to his apologies, he sent him out to discover the
trail taken by the loggers. By the time it was found, Paul Bunyan and
the Big Swede had the camp out of the water and ready to move. Babe
was hitched to the buildings and the search for the errant loggers
began. As he traveled on Paul Bunyan said nothing; his head was bowed
in painful meditation. There was still wrath in his heart for his
loggers’ desertion of him, but there was more of loneliness. Excepting
the pleasures of history-making, invention and oratory, there had never
been any joy for him like the joy that comes from the comradeship of
labor, and he wished to feel it again. Then he feared that the loggers
might be completely lost; they were as helpless as sheep, without
understanding guidance. One moment he swore to punish them severely,
then his heart would be softened by sad and gentle thoughts. So
engrossed was he with perplexing ideas and troubling emotions that he
did not notice the decline of heat and the new sweetness in the air as
the balmy clime of Kansas was approached....

A Fourth of July in Topeka during the reign of King Bourbon! Who
would not give his fame and fortune to have participated in one of
those marvelous celebrations! What pale and weakly imitations we
have nowadays of the ball games between the Fats and the Leans, of
the potato races, and of all the other ingeniously devised contests
which made the last day of King Bourbon’s reign a long procession of
glories and wonders! When will we see again parades, marches and drills
performed by uniformed organizations as they were performed by The
Bartenders’ and Bookmakers’ Bands, The Knights of the Spotted Cubes,
The Mystics and Oracles of Fistiana, The Stentorian Order of Umpires,
The Grandiose Guild of Jockeys, The Loyal Legion of Log-burlers and
many others on that historical day in Topeka? The last-named society
was a new organization that was composed of Paul Bunyan’s loggers. They
aroused the wildest enthusiasm when they appeared in the line of march
treading beer kegs, and for this, and for their triumphs in the races,
King Bourbon awarded them the grand prize.

The bar had been closed for the celebration, and when it was opened
in the evening no one in the spruce and jocund throngs which streamed
through its doors suspected that treason was afoot. Clinking of
glasses, guffaws, jigging feet, back-slapping, bellowed songs and
shouted jests made a tumult of rollicking and boisterous noise as the
reveling began. Urged on by the traitorous bartenders, the nobility
and gentry drank nothing but the sap of the whisky trees. It was a
mild, mellow and soothing beverage when properly aged, but the raw
green sap which the conspirators had supplied would suddenly addle
the mind and paralyze the nerves. The loggers, flushed with conceit
over their day’s triumph, boasted that they were champion drinkers
also, and they dared everyone to enter drinking contests with them.
The bartenders, obeying instructions, filled the loggers’ glasses with
triple-distilled, high-powered redeye. So they were the first to get
bleary-eyed, to wilt and to stagger about. By the time the nobility and
gentry had begun to be affected the loggers had all stumbled outside or
had been carried out. Too late the king and his followers realized that
they were the victims of a conspiracy. When the fumes of the powerful
green sap had completely befuddled them the spies of the Cornmen
lighted the signal fires that were to start the attack.

In a short time the hosts of Cornmen, with husking hooks strapped to
their left wrists, and with corn knives swinging from their right
hands, charged, whooping and bounding, into the city. King Bourbon and
his followers, deaf, weak-kneed, color-blind, dumb and addled, could
make no resistance. They were driven through the streets, out of the
city, on through the whisky tree forests and headed towards the far
lands of Kentucky. Duke Dryface remained behind with the greater part
of the Cornmen to secure the loggers, who were laid out in heaps,
rows, circles, squares and fantastic groups all over the city. In
three hours half of the loggers had balls and chains locked to their
legs. Duke Dryface had begun to breathe easily and to enjoy the first
glow of complete triumph when he became conscious of a vast shadow, an
overpowering presence. The light of the moon seemed blotted out, the
ground shook under a monstrous tread; then sounded a bellow of rage
that lifted every Cornman and every logger seven feet into the air and
whirled them all over five times before they struck the ground again.
The rudely awakened and sobered loggers and the affrighted Cornmen then
saw the august figure of Paul Bunyan and the blue ox looming above
them. The good and mighty man was chiding Babe for bellowing so loudly
and was restraining him from attacking the Duke and his followers.

Duke Dryface had the courage of true virtue. He fearlessly stepped
up to Paul Bunyan and began a speech. First he spoke of the sins of
King Bourbon and of the oppressions suffered by the Cornmen; he showed
the necessity for reform. Next, he went on to prove that sin was in
the very soil of Kansas, and that this soil could only be purified by
destroying the evil forests and raising virtuous corn in their stead.
That was his main reason for wanting to make slaves of the loggers,
he said, but he hoped also to make righteous men of them later. Paul
Bunyan nodded gravely for him to go on, and the duke then rose to the
grandest heights of eloquence in describing the moral imperfections of
the loggers. Deserters, braggarts, beer-bibbers, gluttons, cigarette
fiends, and many other evil names he called them. Paul Bunyan listened,
and the loggers got sick with shame and fear. They had surely sinned,
they were indeed lost souls, they felt; they would forever despise
themselves. Then, just when they had reached the lowest depths of
self-loathing and despair, they saw Paul Bunyan give an enormous wink.
Only a wink, but what forgiveness flashed from it, what unshakable
faith seemed fixed in its depths! That one gesture of an eyelid
restored and consoled them, for it spoke pardon and promised to forget.
The duke declaimed until dawn, but the loggers listened complacently,
grinning knowingly at each other. Once more they would toil grandly
in the woods, once more hot cakes, ham and eggs would sizzle for them
on the long kitchen ranges, once more they would be delighted by the
wonders of noble Sunday dinners, for by the wink of his eye Paul Bunyan
had made them his loggers again....

Paul Bunyan contracted for the logging-off of the whisky trees, and
this was easily accomplished by the inspired toil of the loggers. The
country was flattened by hitching Babe to each section of logged-off
land and then turning it over. As Duke Dryface had surmised, the land,
though rolling on _top_ was flat _underneath_. So the one-time sinful
soil of Kansas now lies deeply buried, and only the barest vestiges of
the grand life devised by King Bourbon survive anywhere in the Kansas
country.




ORATORICAL MEDICINE


Before the second season in the Hickory Hill country there had never
been a great sickness in Paul Bunyan’s camp. The health his loggers
constantly enjoyed was due to the skill of Johnny Inkslinger, who
was physician and surgeon, as well as timekeeper, to the good and
mighty Paul Bunyan. His surgical feats were marvelous. When ears were
bitten off, for example, in the playful jousts with which the loggers
amused themselves, it was no trick for Johnny Inkslinger to sew them
on tightly again. And when a logger got his face walked on by calked
boots the timekeeper would fill the resulting cavities with bread
crumbs, slap on some red paint, and the victim of play would return
to the frolic, happy and unmarred. But it was digestive ills which he
understood completely; for Paul Bunyan’s loggers like the laborers
and farmers of to-day, had most of their physical miseries in the
mysterious regions about the stomach. His knowledge was gained by the
most arduous study and extensive research. The timekeeper wrote reports
and figured all day, he dosed the loggers and operated on them in the
evening, and the night long he read doctor books. His Sundays and
holidays he spent among the wild creatures of the forests and seas, and
these he studied shrewdly and patiently. He examined fleas, he explored
whales, he once found the bones of a moose who had died of old age,
and he tracked the animal to its birthplace, noting all its habits and
methods of life on his way. His knowledge was monumental and complete,
but he was content to remain a timekeeper in position and name.

In the second season on Hickory Hill the life of the camp went on as
usual for a long time. For twelve hours each day the axes rang in
the undercuts, the saws sang through bark and grain, and there was
everywhere the death shudder, the topple and crashing fall of lofty
trees. The blue ox placidly snaked the logs to the riverside, following
the Big Swede, who, lost in dreams every trip always walked on into
the water. The fumes and exhalations of the great cookhouse were
never richer with delightful smells. In the evenings the bunkhouses
were loud with gleeful roars as the loggers punched and kicked each
other in their pastimes. As the work went on Paul Bunyan grew certain
that this would be his greatest season among the hardwoods. His heart
warmed toward his men. He planned for them feasts, revels, largesses,
grand rewards. All his thoughts were benevolent ones as he directed
operations. Then, at the height of his record-breaking season, Babe,
the blue ox, got a misery.

It was a sly, slow, deceitful illness. It was first marked in the
decline of his sportiveness and affection. It was his habit, when
yoked and harnessed in the morning, to make for the woods at a roaring
gallop. Always the Big Swede would grip the halter rope and try to
hold the blue ox to a walk; always Babe would plunge on, dragging the
Big Swede after him; and always the dutiful foreman would hit the
ground once in every ninety feet, yell, “Har noo!” and then be yanked
into the air again, for Babe would pay no heed to the bouncing boss. In
the woods the blue ox always had to be closely watched, for he would
chew up the trees in his jestful moments as fast as they were felled,
and on the great drives he would prankishly drink the river dry,
leaving the astounded rivermen mired in the mud of the stream bed. He
was forever gouging the Big Swede with his sharp horns or tickling Paul
Bunyan’s neck with his tongue.

When this playful spirit of his slackened and he began to walk slowly
to the timber each morning, it was first thought to signify the
approach of maturity, with its graver moods. But when Paul Bunyan
discovered him one day, standing with his front feet crossed, his head
bowed, his cud vanished, and with tears rolling from his half-closed
eyes, the great logger was alarmed. He called Johnny Inkslinger from
among his ledgers and ink barrels and ordered him to drop all other
work until Babe’s ailment was diagnosed and cured.

Though he had studied all animals exhaustively, Johnny Inkslinger
had never practised veterinary medicine, except in treating Babe’s
inconsequential attacks of hayfever and asthma. If he took the case
he would be assuming a great responsibility, he told Paul Bunyan; he
must have at least forty-seven hours to consider the matter. The great
logger, having due respect for the scientific temperament, granted him
this, so the timekeeper retired to his office.

Paul Bunyan waited patiently, despite the fears and anguish that smote
him when Babe looked at him with beseeching eyes. Work had been stopped
in the woods, and the anxious loggers spent most of their time around
the stable. The cooks, remembering Babe’s fondness for hot cakes and
fried eggs, brought him tubfuls of them most delicately cooked, but he
would only nibble at them politely, then turn away. Once indeed his
old jestful spirit returned when the Big Swede came near him. He set
his hoof on the foreman’s foot, and at the anguished “Har noo!” he
seemed to smile. But what a difference there was between that shadow of
merriment and the one time gay bellow that always followed the joke!
Paul Bunyan and the loggers were deeply touched.

Johnny Inkslinger finally announced in a scientific speech that he was
prepared to examine and treat the blue ox. He was certain, above all,
that this illness was not caused by indigestion, for Babe’s stomach had
always seemed to be iron-clad, invulnerable. When the hay supply ran
low in the wintertime Paul Bunyan would tie a pair of green goggles
over Babe’s eyes and he would graze for weeks on the snow. He was fond
of the wires that bound his bales of hay, and he had always eaten them
without apparent injury. So Johnny Inkslinger ignored Babe’s stomachs,
but every other part of him, from muzzle to tail brush, was minutely
scrutinized and explored. Nothing escaped observation. Six intrepid
loggers with lanterns were lowered by ropes into his throat to examine
his tonsils when he stubbornly refused to say “Ah!” But no diseased
condition could anywhere be discovered.

Johnny Inkslinger was baffled, but he would not give up. For sixty-one
hours he sat in the stable, watching every movement of the blue ox
and making pages of notes about each one. And all of the time he was
thinking with the full power of his scientific mind, bringing all his
vast medical knowledge to the solution of his problem. Then, just as
he had reached the darkest depths of hopelessness, a flashing idea
saved him with its light. The idea did not spring from his science or
knowledge; indeed, it seemed to be in opposition to them. It was a
simple idea, simply inspired.

His gaze had been fixed for some time on the hump which the blue ox
had on his back. It was such a hump as all ailing animals contrive,
but, unoriginal as it was, it was yet the source of an original and
startling idea, that the hump in a sick animal’s back, instead of
being the _result_ of the sickness, was really the _cause_ of it!
Johnny Inkslinger jumped to his feet with a shout of joy. He saw in the
idea, not only the salvation of Paul Bunyan’s logging enterprises, but
the root of a great fame for himself as a veterinarian as well. His
jubilant calls soon roused the camp.

Paul Bunyan listened somewhat doubtfully as the timekeeper revealed
his idea and plans. But he was not one to oppose a scientific man with
mere logic, so he gave orders that the great treatment devised by
Johnny Inkslinger should be carried out. For five days the loggers
toiled, erecting a scaffold on each side of the blue ox. Runways were
built from the top floors of the scaffolds to Babe’s back. Then all was
ready for the first treatment. For three hours loggers carrying pike
poles, peavys, sledges and mauls climbed the scaffolds and extended in
lines on each side of Babe’s humped spine. Then Paul Bunyan grasped
the horns of the sick creature, Johnny Inkslinger and the Big Swede
seized his tail, the command, “Get ready!” was given, then, “Let’s
go!” Paul Bunyan said, and the army of doctors began the cure. All
that day, through the night, and for seventy-six consecutive hours
thereafter the loggers attacked the hump in Babe’s spine, while Paul
Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger, and the Big Swede attempted to stretch it to
its former shape by tugging on the poor animal’s horns and tail. Babe
mooed dolorously indeed while this treatment was being performed, and
the tears rolled from his saddened eyes in foaming torrents. But he did
not resist. Intelligent animal that he was, he knew that his friends
were only trying to drive away his misery. And kindly of soul as he
was, it was no doubt as much to give them the pleasure of success as
to stop them from prodding, pounding and stretching his spine that he
made a heroic effort to act as cured ox. Pretty deceiver! Once he had
straightened his aching back, how lustily he began to devour bale after
bale of bitter-tasting hay from his manger! How speedily he emptied
tubfuls of hot cakes and fried eggs, while Hot Biscuit Slim, Cream Puff
Fatty and the assistant cooks looked on and cheered! Never did Babe
depart more friskly for the woods than on the morning he was pronounced
cured. The Big Swede, hanging to the halter rope, only hit the dirt
once in every mile and a half!

[Illustration]

The work of logging was soon in its old routine, but Paul Bunyan
was not satisfied. Babe could not hide his spells of trembling; he
moved feverishly; his expression was haggard, his mooings hollow.
Johnny Inkslinger, still flushed with the fire of his grand idea,
was impatient with Paul Bunyan’s worriment. But he could not quiet
the great logger’s fears. When it was noted that Hickory River would
suddenly rise three or four feet above its normal level and as suddenly
fall again, Paul Bunyan set a close watch on the blue ox and discovered
that there were times when the hump in his back became greater than
ever before, and that torrents of tears often poured from his eyes in
fits of weeping, thus flooding the river. Firmly, but without anger,
Paul Bunyan ordered his timekeeper to devise another treatment.

Johnny Inkslinger reluctantly admitted his failure and again brought
his powers of thought to consider the perplexing sickness of the blue
ox. But he did not labor with the materials of his knowledge and
science. He longed to glow again with the tickling heat of originality,
to taste once more the sweet fat of his own ideas. So he sat and
thought, awaiting inspiration, while his doctor books stood unopened on
the towering shelves of the camp office. And at last he was rewarded by
an idea that floated from mysterious darkness like a bubble of golden
light. It was midnight, but his ecstatic shouts awakened the camp. The
loggers, thrilled and alarmed, rolled from their bunks and ran in their
underclothes to the camp office. A white-clad host soon filled the
broad valley and covered the distant hills. Johnny Inkslinger then came
out of the office, carrying a box that had held ninety-five tons of
soap. He mounted this box and began to speak. His eyes flamed, his hair
waved, his hands fanned the air. He was voluble. “Doctor or prophet?”
Paul Bunyan asked himself sadly as he strode away, after listening for
a short time. But the loggers were enchanted as the speech went on.
Johnny Inkslinger ended each period with a mesmeric phrase, and after
he had repeated it thrice at the ending of his speech the loggers made
a chant of it. “Milk of the Western whale! Milk of the Western whale!
Milk of the Western whale!” they roared, as they swayed and danced in
their underclothes. The chant rose in thunders to the sky, it rolled
over the hickory forests, and it shook the rocks of far mountains. It
reëchoed for hours after the loggers had returned to the bunkhouses.

Paul Bunyan considered the situation bravely and calmly. He admitted no
vain regrets that he had never studied doctoring himself. He pronounced
no maledictions on his timekeeper’s puzzling mania. He simply
considered the plain facts of his problem: if Babe died the great
logging enterprises would be halted forever; Johnny Inkslinger was the
only man who had the science and knowledge to cure the sick ox, and if
humored he might return to his senses; a change to the Western coast
might benefit Babe, and the milk of the Western whale would surely do
him no harm. So the mighty logger decided to move his camp to the West,
and there let Johnny Inkslinger give him the whale’s milk cure.

There was great rejoicing in the camp when Paul Bunyan gave orders for
the move. The blue ox, seeming to realize that it was made for his
benefit, acted as though he was in high spirits when he was hitched to
the camp buildings and the bunkhouses loaded with loggers. He skipped
and capered along the trail behind Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger
and the Big Swede all the way to the Mississippi. But there he was
attacked by innumerable squadrons of Iowa horse flies. He smashed them
unmercifully with blows of his tail until the ground for miles around
was strewn with their mangled bodies, but the carnivorous insects
persisted in their assaults until Babe became blindly enraged. He
lowered his head and began a furious charge that did not end until
he reached Colorado, where he fell exhausted. The loggers had been
made violently seasick by their bouncing journey over the hills, and
Paul Bunyan was compelled to call a halt until they and the blue ox
had recovered. While waiting, Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede built a
landmark by heaping dirt around an upright pike pole, and the great
logger was so pleased with the creation that he gave it a name, Pike’s
Peak.

The trip to the coast was made without further misadventures, and the
loggers were set to work at once to build a whale corral, for Paul
Bunyan wished to get the cure over as soon as possible, so that his
stubborn timekeeper would begin to do some real doctoring. The loggers
grumbled loudly at working with picks and shovels; such foreign labor
demeaned them, they said. But the exhortations which Johnny Inkslinger
delivered from his great soap box, and the alarming condition of the
blue ox, who now made no effort to hide his sickness, but lay quietly,
with closed eyes, overwhelmed their prejudices, and they made the
dirt fly in spite of their dislike for shovels and picks. For nine
days and nights they threw dirt like badgers, while Paul Bunyan and
the Big Swede scooped it aside and piled it into big hills. Then the
whale corral was finished, and Paul Bunyan sent the loggers to the
bunkhouses. They were so sleepy and weary that they began to snore
before they had put away their tools.

Paul Bunyan kicked a hole in the seaward side of the corral, and
the waters of the Pacific roared into the basin. When it was filled
he began his famous imitation of the bawl of a lonely whale, and so
perfect was his mimicry that in less than an hour an approaching school
of the leviathans was sighted. They swam hesitatingly about the opening
to the corral for a time, but as Paul Bunyan continued to call ever
more cunningly and appealingly, they at last entered the trap. The Big
Swede then got his stool and milk bucket, while Paul Bunyan scooped
dirt into the corral gate. Johnny Inkslinger was called from the
office, and all was ready for the first milking of a creature of the
seas.

The Big Swede, who had been raised on a dairy farm in the old country,
selected a cow whale that looked like a good milker, and Paul Bunyan,
using all his wiles of manner and tricks of voice, soon had her playing
about his hands. At last she was gentle and quiet, and, while Johnny
Inkslinger held up her tail, the Big Swede came into the water with his
bucket and stool and began milking with all the energy and skill that
had won him the name of Sweden’s greatest milker in his youth. With
the vigorous pressure of his hands, the whale’s milk was soon gushing
into his bucket with such force that a dozen fire engines could not
have equaled the flow. The gentled whale made no resistance, and the
pail was soon filled with healthful, creamy milk. But just as the Big
Swede was about to rise from his stool the whale’s calf, who had been
swimming angrily about, suddenly charged the great milker and upset
him. His head lodged in the milk bucket; he was bent double; and before
he could recover himself, the little whale had butted the breath out
of him and had spanked him blisteringly with his corrugated tail.
This incident frightened the mother whale, and she escaped from Paul
Bunyan’s hands; the Big Swede floundered about and yelled from the
depths of the milk bucket; and the whole school of whales plunged about
the corral in a wild panic. Worst of all, the first milking was spilled.

And indeed they were the whole day securing one bucket of milk. Not
until Paul Bunyan thought of letting a whale calf suck his finger while
the Big Swede was milking its mother were the sea-going dairymen able
to get away from the corral with one milking. But at last the great
milker limped to the shore with a foaming pail. He was breathing in
wheezes, his clothes were in tatters, and the back of him, from head to
heels, was marked from the tail blows of the little whales. He was the
sorriest of sorry sights, but he had a feeble smile, nevertheless, in
return for Paul Bunyan’s praise.

Babe took his first dose of whale’s milk resignedly and then closed his
eyes again in weariness and sighed with pain. Paul Bunyan’s emotions
smothered his caution; he ventured to express his doubts about the
cure. Johnny Inkslinger immediately ran to the office, brought out his
great soap box and mounted it.

“It is a nature cure!” he cried in ringing tones. “It cures slowly
because nature cures slowly, but it cures surely and divinely! It is a
great cure because it is a great idea, a marvelous idea, a heaven-sent
idea, an original idea, my own idea, and it is the idea that will save
us all!”

Paul Bunyan looked for a moment into the glowing eyes of his timekeeper
and sighed. He did not reply.

For a week the three milked the whales twice daily and dosed the blue
ox, while the loggers slept away their weariness. Babe took the whale’s
milk meekly, but at each successive dose he swallowed more sluggishly,
and after the fourth day he would not open his eyes while he drank. On
the day the loggers came from the bunkhouses he refused to drink at
all. Only an occasional twitching of his eyelids showed that life yet
remained with him.

“He is dying,” said Paul Bunyan.

Johnny Inkslinger mounted the great box which had held the ninety-five
tons of soap and began to speak.

“Fellow loggers and Paul Bunyan,” he began. “This miraculous idea, this
saving and transfiguring idea----”

“Silence!” commanded the good and mighty logger.

So compelling was the power of that grave and august voice that the
loggers hardly breathed as it sounded, and the wind subsided until it
made only the faintest whisper among the trees. Then Paul Bunyan made
one of his great orations. He did not require a soap box, he made no
fantastic gestures, and he spoke simply and smoothly. He reviewed his
enterprises and the deeds of his loggers; he dwelt especially on the
achievements and faithfulness of Babe, the blue ox. His plain sincerity
held the loggers spellbound; for sixty-nine hours the speech went on,
and they did not so much as move an eyelash. In conclusion, Paul Bunyan
told them that Babe would surely die, and as logging could not be done
without him, their last labor together would be to dig his grave. He
did not blame Johnny Inkslinger, he said; the best of men may be led
astray by their imaginings and fall into evil ways. He had been a
great doctor once, and he was a noble scribe still. Then Paul Bunyan
solemnly and warningly spoke of the shadowy workings of fate, and in
somber utterance he portrayed the pathos of yearnings, the frailty of
blessings and the ultimate vanity of all endeavor. In the last three
hours of his oration his voice sounded as a tolling bell. Mournfully,
mournfully, the moments marched on, and a darkness came over the hills
and the sea. From the eyes of each motionless logger the tears streamed
unchecked; they formed in puddles around each man’s feet until all of
them stood knee-deep in mud. When the oration was finished and they
had extricated themselves and cleaned their boots, they made ready,
and they left with Paul Bunyan for the North, where he had decided to
dig Babe’s grave. The Big Swede stayed with the dying ox, and Johnny
Inkslinger hid himself in the shadows of his office.

For a long time he remained there in an agony of thought. Remorse
tormented him, though Paul Bunyan had not judged him guilty. But he
suffered most from the humiliation of failure. It was his first,
but--the thought came like a blinding flash of light--had he
failed--yet? His reservoir of ideas was inexhaustible; as long as
breath remained in the blue ox he could try other ideas on him. Think
now! It had become as easy for him to summon grand ideas as for a
magician to conjure rabbits from a hat, and almost instantly he had
one, a superb notion, a glorious thought!

Johnny Inkslinger rushed from the office and roused the Big Swede, who
was sitting in apathetic sadness by the blue ox.

“Listen now!” commanded the timekeeper. “You are to sit here and repeat
continuously in a soothing voice, ‘You are well. You are well. You are
well.’ Do you understand? Well then--no questions now--do as I have
told you and Babe’s life will be saved. Do not fail, for all depends on
your faithfulness! When I have returned with Mr. Bunyan I will finish
the cure myself.”

The timekeeper, exulting in the certainty that his method would
positively restore health to the blue ox, then started out on the trail
of Paul Bunyan and the loggers. They should quit their melancholy task
and return to find Babe on the road to recovery. He would complete the
cure, and logging should go on as before.

The Big Swede at once began to repeat the words, “You ban well,”
according to orders. For thirty-one hours they came from his tongue
without interruption. Then his mouth got dry and hoarseness invaded his
throat. The phrase was uttered with an effort. Then he had to resort to
whispering in Babe’s ear. And finally even his whisper failed him.

The Big Swede had once nearly choked to death after making a high
dive into muddy earth, and he had only been saved by copious doses
of alcohol. The new oratorical cures were not understandable to him,
but he remembered the potency of alcohol in clearing out the throat,
so he got up and ran to the camp office, where he found the great
carboys of the medicine once highly prized by Johnny Inkslinger. Taking
three of them under his arm, the Big Swede returned to the blue ox.
He took a huge drink from one of them, and he was again able to go on
with the treatment. For a few hours it was only necessary for him to
drink once every thirty minutes to drive away the hoarseness, but it
resisted stubbornly, and the periods between the drinks grew shorter
and shorter. By the time the Big Swede had opened the last carboy of
alcohol his brain was addled by the fumes of the liquor, and his heart
was softened by its influence until it beat only with sympathy for the
blue ox. He forgot what he was to say, and instead of repeating, “You
ban well,” he began to sigh, over and over, “Poor ol’ sick feller.
Poor ol’ sick feller.” Fortunately this horrid perversion of Johnny
Inkslinger’s idea did not last. The Big Swede’s vocal cords finally
gave out, the alcohol smothered his will and closed his eyes. He could
not resist the fogginess that crept over his brain, and at last he fell
over and began to snore.

Babe had lain motionless and silent while the Big Swede was treating
him, but when the foreman fell he had knocked over the last carboy of
alcohol, and the liquor poured over the nostrils of the blue ox and
trickled into his mouth. He groaned, he stirred, his legs quivered.
Then he sat up, looking eagerly about for more. He soon spied, through
the open door of the office, the glitter of the other containers of
liquor. Slowly, painfully, he staggered to his feet. His tongue lolling
feverishly, he stumbled towards the office. A desperate swing of his
horns crashed in the side of the building, a flirt of his hoofs knocked
the tops from the remaining carboys, and in nineteen minutes he had
emptied them all. A vat of Epsom salts was cleaned up in seven gulps,
barrels of pills and capsules, and cartons of powders were quickly
devoured; in half an hour there was nothing left of the old time
medicines of Johnny Inkslinger but splinters and broken glass.

Then the alcohol began to surge through the veins of the blue ox. The
frisky, exuberant spirit of his healthy days returned. He pranced and
sashayed. He lifted his tail and bellowed. His breath came in snorts as
he lightly pawed the ground. For a time he was content with such merry
gamboling, frolicking and romping about, then he felt a sentimental
longing for Paul Bunyan and his mates of the woods, and he started out
to find them. But the alcohol mounted to his head, it dimmed his eyes,
and he lost the trail. He wandered into the Wet Desert country and was
caught in a terrific rainstorm. He toiled stubbornly on, though his
befuddled senses had lost all sense of direction and he sank knee-deep
into the desert mud at every step. As he struggled ahead, weaving first
to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, water rolled
from his back and foamed in cataracts down his dragging tail. A river
coursed down the crooked path he left behind him. He grew weak again
after he had plowed through the mud for hours and the fever had left
his blood. When the storm passed his strength left him and he sought
rest on a high plateau.

There Paul Bunyan and the loggers found him, after a three weeks’
search which had begun when the Big Swede brought the news of his
disappearance. At first the loggers were sure he was dead, and groans
of sorrow rose in dismal thunders from the vast host. But Johnny
Inkslinger would not give up hope. He had repelled the lure of grand
ideas at last, and he had his old medicine case with him now. In a
moment he had emptied its store of alcohol and Epsom salts down Babe’s
throat. In a few minutes the blue ox opened his eyes. The loggers
frantically cheered. Babe answered them with a bellow that threw even
the loggers on the farthest hills to the ground. Though the blue ox was
thin and feeble still, the vitality of health was in his voice again.
“He is cured!” said Paul Bunyan.

“He is cured!” shouted the loggers, as they scrambled to their feet.

“Yah,” said the Big Swede blissfully.

Johnny Inkslinger alone said nothing. He, too, was cured.

Say the old loggers:

Ever since he took his drunken course through the Wet Desert a stream
has flowed down the crooked trail made by the blue ox. It is called
Snake River in all the geographies. The great whale corral is known
as Coos Bay. And Babe’s unfinished grave has become the islands and
waters of Pugent Sound. The Cascade Mountains of Washington were made
from the dirt thrown up by the loggers and Paul Bunyan when they began
to dig the grave, and a bitter dispute still rages regarding the name
for the loftiest peak. The loggers and the people of Seattle call it
Mt. Bunyan, the people of Tacoma and the Indians call it Mt. Tacoma,
and the geographers and tourists have named it Mt. Rainier, after the
weather, which is rainier there than in any other part of the country.

So say the old loggers.

And loggers are truthful men.




NEW IOWA


Paul Bunyan, a historian first, an industrialist second, an inventor
third, an orator fourth, was perhaps an artist in the fifth degree of
his importance. Most authorities among the loggers of to-day insist
that he was a great man of only four parts; they declare there was
no art in him. The authorities of the classroom, less reverent and
generous in their judgments, refuse to consider him as more than an
industrialist; but the professors must be doubted a little, because
they are certainly jealous of the great logger’s simple eloquence and
his popularity with the plain people.

In the camps I have heard college loggers quote a teacher whom they
called Professor Sherm Shermson as follows: “Fellows, there is no use
talking. Paul Bunyan was a conscientious logger, I guess. Maybe he
wrote _big_ histories but, fellows, he didn’t write _great_ histories.
And his inventions were only useful in his logging operations; not one
of them has become a universal boon to humanity. I expect he could make
a right good speech; but, mark this point now, there is a _difference_
between a right good speech and eloquence. Eloquence, fellows, must
have morals and ideals in it to _be_ eloquence. And as Paul Bunyan had
French-Canadian blood, I must believe that his orations had more of
Latin emotionalism in them than of Real American ideals and morals.
I guess we’ll agree, fellows, that his Nordic foreman was a man of
greater moral force and of purer mind.”

I do not know the rest of the professor’s argument, as the college
loggers would listen to no doubts against the teachings of Professor
Sherm Shermson. So I would always leave them when they went too far in
their educated talk. Some might think that Professor Sherm Shermson
was misquoted by his boys; but the first thing college loggers hear
when they come to the woods is warnings about the dangers of telling
falsehoods in the bunkhouses; so it is probable that the words which
they attribute to Professor Sherm Shermson are typical of the teachings
about Paul Bunyan in American universities.

But so long as trees are felled the race of loggers will hold to a
staunch faith in Paul Bunyan as the supreme historian and maker of
history, the most resourceful inventor, and the most powerful orator,
as well as the most enterprising industrialist of all time. But they
too question his art. He appreciated the folk songs and tales of his
men, it is admitted, and he had his playhouses, wherein he painted and
sculped about. His Paint Pots are still to be seen in the Yellowstone,
and his wall painting in the Grand Canyon shows that he was clever
with the brush. Most of his sculpture was left unfinished, but it
is impressive, for all that. His beginnings for the busts of Johnny
Inkslinger and the Big Swede, the unfinished works in the Yosemite
which are called North Dome and Half Dome, plainly show that he was no
crude chiseler. But, it is no wonder that loggers have little to say
about their hero’s artistic creations, for these works had nothing to
do with the logging industry, and he had no help from his men in making
them. He only amused himself with art when he had no difficult labors
to perform. Then, it is known that he opposed the teaching and practice
of art among his loggers. He was particularly opposed to the writing
of poetry by his men. He encouraged the making of simple songs and the
telling of true tales by picked men, bunkhouse bards; but even these
favored minstrels dared not attempt the making of grand, grave and
lofty verse.

The earnest and reverent critic who studies Paul Bunyan will come to
reason, however, that the master logger’s Camp Rule 31,721, which
prohibited the writing of poetry, is no fair indication of his own
feeling for noble rimes; it only proves that he thought his loggers
no more fitted for the enjoyment of art than they were fitted for the
understanding of history or the comprehension of scientific inventions.
It is very probable that Paul Bunyan himself wrote tragic blank verse
in his exuberant youth, and happy hunting songs in his elder years of
discouragement. But he kept them to himself. He felt that all art was
dangerous for his loggers; he knew that poetry was especially so. This
he learned in his attempt to log off New Iowa. For there the loggers
all turned poets and nearly ruined the logging industry.

Paul Bunyan’s decision to move to New Iowa developed from the thought
that its healing climate would hasten the convalescence of Babe, the
blue ox, and that its orange palms would give his men the tough logging
which they sorely needed. Babe, having fallen sick, had been near
to perishing from Johnny Inkslinger’s new-fangled cures; but he was
saved when the camp doctor got sense and returned to his old-fashioned
reliable remedies. The blue ox was now cured, but he was far too weak
to begin hard labor at once. So his master was put to it to devise a
plan that would let Babe regain his strength and yet give natural labor
to the loggers.

Since leaving the Hickory Hill country, they had done little of the
grand work for which they were born. They had lost a great deal of
their innocent pride and self-respect in toiling with picks and
shovels; and Johnny Inkslinger’s abandonment of scientific medical
practice for medical oratory had shaken their faith in the integrity
of his knowledge and the scope of his power. In the time when he
had written his figures and made his cures without explaining and
glorifying them the loggers had regarded him as a worker of mysteries
and had been in great awe of him. But now that he had revealed his mind
from a soap box the loggers only remembered his eloquent boasts and his
failure to make good. Alcohol and Epsom salts seemed common to them
now, and they laughed at the camp doctor for having had to go back to
them.

Paul Bunyan heard them poking rough fun at Johnny Inkslinger’s folly on
their first night in the Oregon camp, after the return was made from
the Wet Desert country.

“In words there is a magic poison which is more powerful than the plain
substance of them,” mused Paul Bunyan. “This magic whips emotions and
stuns sense, and it overpowers any mind which is one part sense and
nine parts emotion. And these loggers of mine ... these loggers of
mine....”

Another clamor broke out in the bunkhouses, and Paul Bunyan, smiling
sadly, listened to hear what nonsense his men were talking now. The
bunkhouse cranks were the leaders in the new uproar, and when the
master logger heard their words and the applause that followed, his
eyebrows drew down in a frown which the moonlight could not penetrate,
and his eyes had a hard glitter in the shadows.

For the bunkhouse cranks were saying that it looked like logging
couldn’t last much longer now; the old blue ox was in a bad way and
it was hard to think he’d ever be himself again in this here world;
Johnny Inkslinger was getting so childish that he’d probably lose his
figuring power, just as he had blundered in his doctoring; and old Paul
himself--it looked like even he was losing his hold, as he had started
to dig Babe’s grave before the blue ox was even near dead. Old Paul
would never have given in that soon in the days on Onion River, said
the bunkhouse cranks. Things would surely go from bad to worse, they
agreed, and it was no use to look for the good old times to come back.
The same talk was going on in all the bunkhouses and the bards had
few cheerful arguments against it. The loggers were losing their old
innocent, exuberant, devil-may-care spirit.

Paul Bunyan sat down on six of the high hills above the whale corral,
pulled up a young fir tree and began to brush his beard and ponder. He
had no doubts of his own powers and he felt that Johnny Inkslinger was
as great as ever. The timekeeper’s recent obsessions and eccentricities
were due to the lowness of spirit, the stagnation of soul, which
comes sometime to all mental men. He was now recovered, and he would
certainly do his part in the making of logging history as well as
before, perhaps better. The trouble now was with the loggers. True men
of muscle, the best virtues for them to possess were unquestioning
loyalty and faithfulness to their leaders and simple confidence in
them. Oratory was good for them when it stimulated these virtues, but
ideas were poisonous; for they caused the loggers to become critics
and independent thinkers, and their minds were not fitted for such
occupations.

“Work and discipline will repair the damage,” decided Paul Bunyan.
“Work is the great consoler, for in it men forget the torments and
oppressions of life. And nothing is more tormenting and oppressive to
men of muscle than ideas. My loggers shall forget them. And strong
discipline shall release them from the troublous responsibilities of
independence. Again I shall have a camp of men who toil mightily and
make the hours between supper and sleep jolly with merry songs and
humorous tales.”

Saying this, Paul Bunyan rose and looked over the fir forest which
covered all the hills and threw shadows far over the silent waters
of the whale corral. The great logger regretted that he could not
remain here and fell these splendid trees; but something more than
plain logging was needed for his present purpose. A powerful task must
be set for his men, but a task that would not require arduous labor
from the blue ox. New Iowa best suited his need. There the climate was
as healing and mild as the one which Kansas had possessed before the
turnover of its sinfulness. Paul Bunyan’s maps showed that New Iowa had
great forests of orange palms in its valleys, and his samples proved
that these trees were tough cutting. The start for the New Iowa country
should be made at once.

Paul Bunyan went first to the camp office and called out the Big
Swede. He gave orders for Babe to be harnessed and hitched to the camp
buildings; then he called, “Roll out or roll up!” for the loggers. They
came out slowly, rubbing their eyes and expressing wonder, for they
had been sleeping only a short while. When their leader told them that
he was going to take them down to New Iowa they did not display their
usual childish excitement over a move; but they looked from one to
another with knowing grins and much eye-winking. The bunkhouse cranks
whispered, “Ol’ Paul’s off on another wild goose chase”; and some of
the boldest among them declared that they had never seen better logging
than the Oregon country offered, and if they had their way about it
they’d stay right here.

Paul Bunyan did not reprove them for their doubts and impertinent
remarks. With a shrewd show of patience and forbearance, he made them
a speech in which he cunningly portrayed their unreasoning enthusiasm
for Johnny Inkslinger’s new cures. Had it not been for their applause,
the timekeeper would have quickly abandoned his unscientific notions,
Paul Bunyan said, and the recent troubles would have been avoided. He
hoped they had learned a lesson, the leader continued, that they would
never again look for hurtful ideas in speeches, but for excitement,
jollity and contentment only, as that was the best that oratory could
give them. Their business was not to think, but to fell trees. They
were, beyond a doubt, the greatest tribe of loggers that would ever
march through the woods, he said in conclusion, and as Paul Bunyan’s
men they would have glory in history. But as thinkers they were no
better than prattling children.

“Back to your bunks!” ordered the leader-hero. “And I want no more
nonsense from you about ideas.”

The loggers, blushing with shame and contrition, were quick to obey;
and they all crawled under their blankets and hid their red faces.
The Big Swede had the buildings wired together by this time; the blue
ox was hitched to the cookhouse; Paul Bunyan, the foreman, and the
timekeeper took hold of the traces to help pull the long load, and the
start for New Iowa was made.

Babe had a hard pull over the mountains, and, with all the help that
was given him, he labored slowly up the slopes. He was wearied out when
the Tall Timber country was reached at dawn. Paul Bunyan stopped for a
rest, and the loggers came out to gaze upon the trees whose tops were
as lofty as the clouds. The great logger himself was delighted to
find trees that towered far above his head, and he got an overpowering
desire to try an ax and a saw on them. Here were trees that were too
tall and large for his loggers to work on; this timber was made for him
and it offered him the chance for the historical individual logging
accomplishment that he had always dreamed about. Paul Bunyan swore
loudly that, redeemed loggers or no redeemed loggers, cured ox or
uncured ox, he would send the camp on in charge of the Big Swede and
the timekeeper and enjoy a holiday of powerful, pleasant labor. So he
set up his workshop and built himself a crosscut saw that would span
even the largest trunks, he made a regulation felling ax of a size to
fit his hands, and he devised some wedges from Babe’s old ox shoes.

The next morning the camp was started on its way again; and as it left
the Tall Timber country the loggers looked back on the vanishing figure
of their hero-leader, and their eyes got dim, and a doleful loneliness
whispered in all their hearts.

“Paul Bunyan’s a good and mighty man,” they said sincerely.

Happily, New Iowa was a country of such enchanting colorful aspect that
the loggers were consoled when the camping place on Lavender River was
reached. There had lately been considerable argument in the bunkhouses
as to whether Kansas before the turnover of sinfulness was not a more
ideal country than that around the old home camp. But here was a land
which seemed to surpass both regions. The blue of the sky looked as
though it had been painted there, and the hills, too, huge heaps of
daisies, bluebells, poppies and buttercups, were out of a picture-book.
The river got its name from its lavender color, and its unblemished
stream curved delicately through the forests of orange palm, and the
meadows of pink clover, which were like vast but dainty rugs on the
valley floor. Pale green moss hung over the river banks to hide any
ugliness of soil, and mauve and lemon blooms of water lilies made a
lovely variance of color in the lavender water. The orange palms were
as tall as coconut palms, and they resembled them in shape also. The
foliage, blossoms and fruit were all in the thick crests of the tree
tops; the leaves and blooms were like those of the common orange trees
of to-day; the bark of some of the trees was purple, on others it was
gold, and a few had bark which was wine-red. All were now in heavy
bloom, and the forests were roofed with solid masses of white blossoms,
for the orange palms stood so close together that a logger could hardly
squeeze between their trunks.

All that day Paul Bunyan’s loggers wandered about, savoring the
deliciousness of the scene; at suppertime they could not eat, for the
odors of beans and stewed onions were repugnant, after breathing the
heavy-sweet fragrances of the drowsy New Iowa air. Nor could they enjoy
songs and stories that evening, for they still heard the canaries
singing among the orange blossoms. Neither could they sleep, for their
honest blankets seemed tough and unclean after their rollings of the
day on the pink clover and the daisies and buttercups.

But there was no poetry in the Big Swede’s soul, and he called them
out at sunup with a vulgar “Roll out or roll up, by yeeminy!” He only
thought of the job before him, and he was out to show Paul Bunyan that
the camp had been left in capable hands.

The loggers, beguiled by the charms of their new delicacies, all shaved
and donned clean underclothes before they came out to work, and the Big
Swede growled at them for being late.

“We gat bum yob har noo,” he said. “We gat swamp har first, for, by
yeeminy, these trees too close for fall noo. You gat broosh hooks;
climb tree; an’ aye tank you better swamp first noo. Aye gas so.”

The Big Swede was in a tremble from his greatest oratorical effort, and
he hastened to give the blue ox some hay, that he might recover his
composure. When he had returned, the loggers were moving slowly for the
forests, each man carrying a brush hook over his shoulder. When they
reached the orange palms each man selected a tree and climbed it; and
by noon thousands of purple, gold and wine-red trunks were bare and
glittering in the sun, their tops swamped away. The ground around them
was piled six feet high with blossom-laden boughs. This, though the
loggers had swamped languidly.

For a week the swamping went on with fair progress, and the Big Swede
rejoiced in the thought that he was so conducting operations that Paul
Bunyan would give him high praise.

Then the loggers spent their first Sunday of indolence in this
hyacinthine land. Hot Biscuit Slim, alarmed by the piles of uneaten
food which were left on the tables from each meal, prepared a grand
feast; he and the baker and their helpers used their skill to the
utmost on it; but it was a vain effort, for at dinner-time not one
diner appeared. The loggers had all flocked over the hills, and they
were now swimming in the waters of the Southern Sea--those warm,
crystal waters which lapped languorously on the golden strands of New
Iowa. And the loggers got pink and white sea shells, and when they
heard the soft music of them they began dancing, and when sundown came
they were singing also. Prancing and warbling, they returned to camp in
the moonlight, forgetting their clothes.

Imagine now the wrath and perplexity of the Big Swede next morning when
he saw the loggers running nakedly about, hopping, skipping and posing.
He roared at them till they remembered their work and recovered their
boots and clothes from the sea-shore; but when they were once more
aloft in the orange palms they swamped off few of the blossom-laden
boughs. Instead, most of them brought out pencils and paper and began
to write.

It is certain that Paul Bunyan would never have sent his camp to New
Iowa if he had known that its scenery would evoke longings to write
poetry in even the simplest souls, thus taking their energies from
useful labor. The loggers could not be blamed; for a week now they
had been tramping back and forth through piles of orange blossoms
which reached to their armpits; a sky of painted blue had glittered
above them; lavender waters, pale green banks, pink meadows, hills of
daisies, bluebells, poppies and buttercups had bewitched them also; and
the honied melodies of canaries had poured into their ears from dawn to
dusk each day. The devil himself, coming to such a land, would throw
down his pack of sins and temptations and sit upon it to think out a
sonnet.

But the Big Swede had no soul, and the loggers’ abandonment of labor
puzzled and angered him. He yelled at them until some were shaken from
the trees. But not one lost his pencil and paper. Johnny Inkslinger,
hearing the uproar, left off his figuring and delivered an oration; but
the loggers went on writing dreamily, paying no heed to the timekeeper.

“You will have to give them up,” he said to the Big Swede. “It’s a case
which only Mr. Bunyan can handle.”

He went back to his ledgers, and the foreman reluctantly set out for
the Tall Timber country. The Big Swede found Paul Bunyan in such
happiness over his labor that it seemed evil to tell him disturbing
news. The great logger had all the tall trees felled by now and he was
grubbing out the stumps. He was at work on the last row of them when
the Big Swede found him.

“Needing me already?” he asked jovially. “Well, first help me drag out
these stumps, then tell me your difficulties.”

He said this, seeing the embarrassment of the Big Swede and hoping
to make him easy in mind. The two mighty men then tackled the row of
stumps, and in a short time they were uprooted, leaving an enormous
chasm, the chasm which in this day is called Yosemite.

“Now, there is a historical accomplishment for all to read about,” said
Paul Bunyan, with great satisfaction.

Followed by his foreman, he then strode over to the Bay and washed away
the stains of toil. This done, he sat down and began to brush his beard
with a young redwood tree.

“Now I will listen to you,” he said.

The Big Swede’s account of the loggers’ strange doings astonished him.
The foreman had said nothing about their writing, for he had never
heard of poetry and had hardly noticed the papers and pencils in the
loggers’ hands.

“Aye tank dey yoost gat lazy noo,” he said, nodding sagely.

“I hope it is nothing worse,” said Paul Bunyan. “Laziness I can cure.
But come; we must reach New Iowa before sundown.”

The two great men traveled swiftly, and they reached the orange palm
forests just as the sun was touching fluffy clouds on the Western
horizon. The loggers, gathered in the meadows around the camp, were
reading aloud from pages which they held in their hands. They did not
observe the approach of their leaders, and when Paul Bunyan got within
hearing distance of them he stopped and listened.

   “Blossoms, white blossoms! Oh, orange palm blossoms!
    My heart is afloat on a sea of white blossoms;
    My heart is a-cry with the calls of canaries;
    My heart is a-swoon with the odor of clover”

This was the shouting of one logger.

Another’s roar sounded above the many:

   “A snow of daisies on the hill,
    White drifts all starred with gold.
    But, ah, such snow wilt never chill--
    It never makes thee cold.”

This logger went on yelling about a rain of buttercups that would not
make you wet, and a soft hail of poppy petals, and a wind of bluebells;
but by and by he seemed to get mixed up and his voice got hoarse. Then
another logger made himself heard above the tumult of bawled rhythms.
He cried:

   “From Onion River did I come,
      Seeking a sweet opprobrium,
    A glorious derogatory
      For my rare lust and allegory.

   “When I reached this dear venial state,
      How my heart did debilitate!
    It leered, it fleshed, it energized,
      But its emulsion I disguised.

   “I doffed among the daisies snide
      Till their wan petals mortified.
    Egregious as incessant Noah,
      I swamped in carnal New Iowa.”

“Poetry!” gasped Paul Bunyan. “Thunderation! Holy mackinaw!”

But the loggers did not hear him, and Shanty Boy, the great bunkhouse
bard, now made himself heard above the din.

   “Oho! I am a bully boy,
      I come from Thunder Bay
    At Pokemouche and Sault au Cochon
      I got the right o’ way.”

“That’s more truth than poetry,” murmured Paul Bunyan, somewhat
mollified. He waited to hear more of this piece which sounded like a
bunkhouse ballad; but now Bab Babbitson, who had heretofore been looked
upon as a useless fussbudget around the camp, began to read his poem.
He had the loudest voice of anyone among the common men, and the other
loggers stopped their own reading to listen to him.

He bellowed:

   “Here is the land of opportunity.
    It is a sun-kissed land.
    Flowers bloom on the hills.
    The sun shines every day.
    The fruit grows thick on the trees and a man
    Can pick his breakfast off the trees every morning.
    People will want to buy farms here some day.
    Let’s organize a company and sell shares.

   “Here is the land of opportunity.
    It is a sun-kissed land.
    Flowers bloom on the hills.
    The sun shines every day.
    Here are pink meadows along a lavender river.
    They would make wonderful townsites.
    People will want to buy lots here some day.
    Let’s organize a company and sell shares.

   “Here is the land of opportunity.
    It is a sun-kissed land.
    Flowers bloom on the hills.
    The sun shines every day.
    And I’d bet good money there’s oil in this country.
    Anyway, it’s a wonderful place to dig for it.
    People will want to get in on the ground floor some day.
    Let’s organize a company and sell shares.

   “Yes, this is the land of opportunity.
    People will come here from all over some day
    To buy farms, lots, climate and oil wells.
    Let’s organize a company and sell shares.”

The loggers all nearly fell over when they heard this; they were
tremendously surprised, for they had never imagined that Bab Babbitson
could have it in him. They hid their own poems, for they were ashamed
of them now, and someone lifted a shout, “Hurrah for Bab Babbitson, the
boss poet of Paul Bunyan’s camp!” Everyone cheered and begged for more
verses. Bab Babbitson, gloriously puffed up, was about to comply, when
the loggers saw two great shadows advancing upon them. They looked up
and beheld Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede. The great logger’s brows were
drawn in a terrible frown, and his beard was shaking from his rage as
the forest boughs shake when a swift wind blows among them.

“Are these Paul Bunyan’s loggers?” he roared. “I don’t recognize them!”

The poets were all tumbled from their feet by the force of that
wrathful voice, and all but Bab Babbitson lost their poems in the
scramble.

“Where are my old comrades of labor?” their leader went on more gently.
“Where are the happy bunkhouse gangs that told loggers’ tales and sang
loggers’ songs after their honest twelve hours of labor were done? Are
you still loggers, or have you really degenerated into poets?”

They were shamed and they did not answer; but just then Johnny
Inkslinger came out of his office and told Paul Bunyan of the terrible
effect which the climate and scenery of New Iowa had on the soul after
some living in it.

“Then it is no country for loggers,” declared Paul Bunyan.

He ordered the Big Swede to make the camp ready for an immediate move,
and he sent his men to the bunkhouses.

Then he took the felling ax he had devised for the tall timbers, and
through the forests of orange palms he strode, smashing them into
splinters. Kicks from his calked boots tore up the pink meadows and
filled the lavender river with mud. Next, he demolished the hills,
leaving them in scattered piles of barren sand. He regretted that
he could not dissolve the climate also, thus banishing forever the
enervating prettiness of the land. But he felt that he had done a good
night’s work as it was.

“So much for New Iowa,” he said at last, with a sigh of weariness and
content.

In the dark hour before dawn the camp was speeding Northward. But Bab
Babbitson was not in his bunkhouse. Still clutching his poem, he had
slipped out ere the start was made and hid in the forest wreckage. He
was the one man in all that mighty host who was not a born logger. And
now he had found his own country.




THE HE MAN COUNTRY


In Paul Bunyan’s time the He Man country was far from its present tame
and safe condition. It was then a high, smooth valley which lay between
the Cascade Mountains and the Rockies. The highest peaks towered only
a few hundred feet above it. Down the center of the valley Moron River
flowed, and on each side of this amazing stream the sage trees grew,
the wild horses roved, and the long-eared, stub-tailed high-behinds
sat with lifted front feet and savagely sniffed the air for the scent
of their hereditary enemy, the blond wolf. There, too, the tigermunks
lifted their tails and screamed in the moonlight. The professors
maintain that the tigermunks, the blond wolves and the high-behinds got
their great size from eating prune pits which were thrown out from Paul
Bunyan’s cookhouse, and that they were all shot by the settlers who
followed the great logger. This notion is ridiculous. The truth is that
these animals were cowards at heart, and.... But this should be told at
the end of the story.

Paul Bunyan moved to this region after his disastrous experience in
New Iowa, when his loggers all turned poets. He depended on the He Man
country to make plain, honest men of them again. The super-masculine
sage trees, he was sure, would inspire them to anything but poetry;
and the logging off of these hard forests would be a historical
achievement. But the great logger left nothing to chance. He remembered
a species of animal which his boss farmer, John Shears, had originated,
and he ordered a herd of them to be brought West. John Shears had
proved to him that the virility of buffalo milk was incomparable. So
Paul Bunyan planned to stuff his loggers with buffalo milk hot cakes as
an antidote to any poison of poetry that might remain in them.

Thus the great logger’s first move in the He Man country was to
build a great buffalo corral and milking pen. When it was completed
the buffalos were brought from the old home camp, and a gang of
scissor-bills came along to herd and milk them. After their first
breakfast of the new man food the loggers got some of their old swagger
back, and Paul Bunyan was a picture of cheerfulness as he cruised the
sage trees and planned the work of his men.

Moron River offered a chance for the most eventful and picturesque
drive of logging history. From its source above the Border to its
mouth on the Oregon coast it was like a huge child of a river, for it
flowed ridiculously in every mile of its course. Here it ran smoothly
for a short distance, then it would flow jerkily, making spasmodic
waves; again, its surface would form into vast eddies that whirled like
merry-go-rounds, and from these the waters rushed in heaving rolls
of foam; there were quicksands where the river played hide and seek,
nearly disappearing in places, miles where it turned and ran back and
then curved into its course again, making a perfect figure eight.
Moron River flowed everywhere in zigzags and curlicues, cutting all
manner of capers and didos. Any man but Paul Bunyan would have admitted
the impossibility of making a drive on it. But he only smiled when he
saw it and said: “If my rivermen will forget poetry they can drive it
easily.”

The timber in this high, wide valley reached from the Eastern slopes
of the Cascade Hills to the Western slopes of the Rockies. These sage
trees resembled the desert sagebrush of to-day. They were not large;
few of them were over two hundred feet in height, and not one of them
could give a butt log over nine feet in diameter. But they all had
many massive limbs which were crowded with silver gray leaves, each
leaf being the size of a No. 12 shoe. The brown bark of the sage trees
was thick, loose and stringy; it would have to be peeled from the logs
before they were snaked to the landings by the blue ox.

“Splendid work for the swampers and limbers,” said Paul Bunyan, as he
cruised the timber. “What a noble logging land is the He Man country!
Surely my loggers will be re-born here into even better men than they
were before they fell into an illness of poetry and ideas!”

The first day of logging in the He Man country seemed to justify
the great logger’s best hopes. The men came out from breakfast with
a swinging, swaggering tramp, loudly smacking their lips over the
lingering flavors of buffalo milk hot cakes. This potent food made them
vigorously he in every action. Each man chewed at least three cans
of Copenhagen and a quarter-pound of fire cut during his first twelve
hours in the woods. “P-tt-tooey! P-tt-tooey! P-tt-tooey!” sounded
everywhere among shouted oaths and coarse bellowing. Every ax stroke
buried the bit deeply in the tough sage wood, and brown dust spurted
and gushed constantly from every singing saw. Crash! Crash! Crash! The
thunder of falling trees sounded like a heavy cannonade. On all the
loggers’ backs gray sweat stains spread from under their suspenders,
and their hair hung in dripping strings over their red, wet faces. They
had got up steam for the first time since leaving the Hickory Hill
country, and they were rejoicing in it. Even after the eleventh hour
had passed their eyes were bright, though red-rimmed from stinging
sweat, though wrinkles of weariness had formed around them. The men
were tired indeed; the fallers and swampers were now panting through
open mouths, and they were chewing nervously on their tongues, as is
the habit of men when they are wearied out; but they never missed a
lick, and when Paul Bunyan called them home they could still walk
springily.

When they were back in camp they did not even complain of the smeared,
sticky feeling which always follows great sweats. No one spoke
delicately of bathing; the loggers all washed and combed carelessly;
and soon they made a trampling, growling host around the cookhouse door.

The rafters and beams of the great cookhouse shook at this supper, so
savagely did the loggers tackle the platters of bear meat. Even the
bones were crushed, ground, and devoured; and Hot Biscuit Slim and his
helpers were delighted when all the dishes were left slick and clean.

That night no poems were recited in the bunkhouses, but the loggers
roared out “The Jam on Garry’s Rock” and other plain old songs. The
loggers all crawled into their blankets at an early hour, and every one
of them emitted gruff snores as soon as he went to sleep.

Paul Bunyan listened to them, and he praised the saints for the He Man
country. Had it not been for this region there was no telling what
continuous plagues of poetry would have afflicted his simple men. Now
they were back to normalcy.

The loggers continued to improve as summer passed and the short autumn
of the He Man country ran its course. The first snow of the cold season
fell on a redeemed camp. That snow flew in on a thundering wind; its
flakes quickly made masses of dry snow around the bunkhouse doors;
and these were swept into huge drifts that were window-high in places
when the breakfast gong rang. The loggers roared and cheered when they
rushed out for their buffalo milk hot cakes. Paul Bunyan listened to
their basso growls of hunger, their rumbling jovial cursing, their
bellows of laughter, and he chuckled so heartily that the snow which
had gathered on his beard was shaken over a crowd of loggers, burying
them. They dug themselves out, whooping their appreciation of the
humorous happening, and they jestfully shook their fists at their
chuckling leader. Then, without stopping to dig the snow from their
shirt collars, they galloped on for the steaming cookhouse.

The stamping and banging, the clatter and crash, the smoking, sucking
and grinding of meal time had never sounded with more vigor and power
than on this wild winter morning. Breakfast done, the loggers came
forth wiping their mouths with flourishing swipes of their fists, and
with much snorting thumb-blowing of noses. When they were back in the
bunkhouses, they laced up their boots, arguing loudly the while as to
whether true savages, real tough bullies, would wear mackinaws when it
was only forty below zero.

“Mackinaws?” yelled the majority. “Where’s your red bully blood, you
Hunyoks? Mackinaws! Hell, no, burlies; we won’t even button the collars
of our shirts!”

And then Ford Fordsen, camp tinker, bunkhouse handyman, and prophet,
got an idea which swiftly ran through all the bunkhouses.

“Real rough, red-blooded, burly, bully, savage, dirt-stomping,
ear-chewing, tobacco-loving, whisker-growing, hell-roaring He Men are
not going to wear their boots and pants like we’ve been doing,” said
he. “Look you now: here’s a ten-inch boot top, here are two inches of
wool sock above it; and there’s a pants’ leg all tucked down nice and
pretty inside of it. Mates, it looks too delicate. It is no way for a
fire-eating logger to wear his duds. Here now; watch me and do as I do,
and be a real band of honest-to-God bullies. This way--look!”

He jerked open his horn-handled old knife, and he slashed off the
legs of his tin breeches, his mackinaw pants and his overalls, just
below his knees. He bit off a jaw-full of fire cut and then stood up,
his fists on his hips, an unshaven cheek bulging with pepper-flavored
tobacco, shapeless hat down over one eye, collar unbuttoned, suspenders
stretching over his expanded chest, and--high mark of all high marks,
distinction of distinctions--his pants ending in ragged edges below
his knees. An inch of red drawers’ legs showed below them, there
followed bands of green wool socks, then black boot tops. Stagged
pants! The finishing touch! Poetry was crushed to earth, never to rise
triumphantly again in Paul Bunyan’s camp. The inventive and prophetic
Ford Fordsen had about killed it.

The great leader was delighted beyond words when he saw the loggers
in their new costumes. He smiled indulgently when he heard some of
the more modest among them saying that the brush would not bother
them greatly now, and that Ford Fordsen’s invention was a mighty good
useful one. This is the reason loggers of to-day give for stagging
their pants. But Paul Bunyan knew that his men had all taken up with
the invention because it suited their natures, which had come back
to them. Most of them indeed, admitted it. The loggers of our time
should also be frank and admit that stagged pants spring from the
he-bulliness of their souls. As Paul Bunyan said, “Etiquette, dainty
speech, sweet scents, poetry and delicate clothes belong properly in
the drawing-room, the study and the sanctum. They are hothouse growths.
Loggers should take pride in hard labor and rough living. Anything
that helps their Hesomeness makes them better men. All glory to you,
Ford Fordsen, for the invention of stagged pants.”

He offered the bunkhouse genius his little finger. Ford Fordsen got his
arms a fourth of the way around it, and the two inventors shook hands.

The months went on and the loggers’ rugged virtues continued to gain
strength from the virile buffalo milk hot cakes. They did noble work
among the sage trees and felled so many of them that the Big Swede and
the blue ox had to go in a gallop during their working hours to snake
all the logs to the landings.

Now, this was the year which is mentioned in history as the Year of the
Hard Winter. But the bitterest cold could not now chill the blood of
Paul Bunyan’s He-Men. They had never been so jolly as they were this
Christmas, and they jigged and chortled when Paul Bunyan gave each of
them a knife devised especially for pants-stagging. The great leader
had cut out thousands of these excellent presents from two of Babe’s
old ox shoes. This was the merriest holiday season the camp had ever
known, and even the incredible cold of New Year’s Day did not lessen
the noisy bunkhouse gayety.

On the last night of the old year the mercury in the great thermometer
which hung on the camp office had dropped to four hundred degrees below
zero. Then the tube burst, and no one could tell the temperature, but
it got appreciably colder. The next morning the boiling coffee froze on
the stove, despite the desperate stoking of the kitchen firemen, and
the loggers had to drink hot brown ice for their morning’s breakfast.
But they tramped cheerfully to work, nevertheless, cracking their
mittened hands together and stamping the ground as they went along.
They worked so hard to keep warm on this day that they talked and swore
but little. This was fortunate. For on this incomparable New Year’s Day
every spoken word froze solidly in the air as soon as it was uttered.
The next day the temperature rose, but the words remained frozen, and
many a logger bumped his mouth by walking into the HELLOS and DAMNS
which were solid in the air. But the hardy victims only laughed through
their split lips at such accidents. These words all thawed out at once
on a warmer day; they melted in one long-drawn-out, mournful echoing
shout so unhumanly humorous in sound that the loggers rolled with
laughter to hear it.

Cold as the winter was, Paul Bunyan and his men were reluctant to
see it go, for every day had brought some tickling incident. But at
last the gray frost crystals began to glitter occasionally from rays
of sunshine which filtered through the white winter mists. Then Paul
Bunyan began to plan for the hazardous historical drive down Moron
River. Spring was at hand, and the great logger remembered his old
whimsical query:

“If Springtime comes can Drives be far behind?”

The loggers, too, sensed the approach of the driving season, and every
night the bunkhouses rang with sounds of filing, as the rivermen
sharpened calks, pike poles and peavies. They bellowed the old driving
songs as never before, and the floors shook as they leaped and pranced
to show the marvelous springiness of their legs. They got so comradely
in their merriment and exuberance that the last poet among them
ventured a poem which began:

   “It’s all very well to be profane,
    When life is as dark as night;
    But the man worth a fuss is the man who can cuss
    When everything ’round him is bright.”

He got no further, for in an instant one bully had him down, chewing
savagely on his ear, while others raked his ribs with their calks. It
was the last sigh of poetry in the camp. Paul Bunyan heard about it and
had one of the happiest hours of his life as he rejoiced over the good
news.

“But every silver cloud has its shadows,” he said sensibly, when
his exaltation had passed. “I still expect great troubles and
difficulties.” He was wise indeed in this thought, for he got a
troublous problem at once.

Sure as the great logger had been that the powerful buffalo milk hot
cakes could only do good for his loggers, sure as he was they could
not give his men too much red blood or make them too hellishly He,
Paul Bunyan had yet failed to reckon on the dire effects that the
virile food might have on weaker men. He had given no thought to the
scissor-bills who herded and milked the buffalos. Throughout the fall
these men had shown nothing but their usual tameness and amiability;
during the Hard Winter they had shivered silently by their camp fires;
but now they began to show that the powerful food was having a terrific
effect on them. Many of the buffalos had died during the cold spell,
and the scissor-bills had made pants from the shaggy hides. Some of
the high-behinds had frozen also, and the scissor-bills had taken
their skins and made tall, flapping hats of them. Colds had afflicted
them during the winter, and for convenience they had tied their
handkerchiefs around their necks. They took a fancy to this fashion
and let the handkerchiefs remain after their colds were gone. Their
next outbreak of virility was to unravel one of Babe’s halter ropes and
arrange a long little rope with a noose-end from each thread of it.
They practiced throwing nooses over the posts of the buffalo corral
fence until they became quite expert in casting them. The scissor-bills
then caught wild horses with their ropes and broke them for riding.
They got to be a crazy, noisy gang after this, and Paul Bunyan began to
notice them as they rode through the sage trees, yipping shrilly. And
then one morning they came to the hero-leader and requested that they
be called “scissor-bills” no longer, but “buffalo boys” instead. Paul
Bunyan admired their shaggy pants, their necker-chiefs and their tall
hats, and he thoughtlessly consented to their wishes. He did not feel
that the scissor-bills had it in them to become real He Men, but he was
not a man to discourage worthy ambitions.

But Paul Bunyan soon had reason to remember one of his old sayings,
that the road from the palace of generosity leads through a forest of
perils. His one kindly gesture towards the lowly scissor-bills made
them a powerful faction in the He Man country, and a fierce rivalry
between them and the loggers soon developed. For they insisted on being
called “buffalo boys,” and Paul Bunyan’s best men saw an intolerable
dignity in the title. The buffalo boys painted large B. B’s. on their
hats, they painted the letters on the buffalos and on their horses
also. At calving time they devised some irons in the shape of double
B’s., and they branded the buffalo calves with them. The buffalo boys
grew even bolder; they began to ride among the bunkhouses in the
evenings, yipping and yelling at the men who were earnestly preparing
for the greatest drive of history.

Such impudence was not long tolerated, of course, and it got so that
every morning found buffalo boys mourning for lost ears and doctoring
the wounds made by sharp calks. But buffalo milk was running hot in
their veins, and their new courage carried them to still greater
extremes. One morning when the loggers came to work they found that
every sage tree had B. B. burned into its bark. That day the drive was
not talked about, for the loggers plotted vengeance as they toiled.
This night they turned the buffalos out of the corral, and the buffalo
boys were out until morning rounding up the herd. The following night
they, in turn, galloped past the bunkhouses and roped every stovepipe
that stuck above a roof. They dragged them into the timber and hid
them, and the loggers had to dress by cold stoves the next morning.
That evening, during milking time, the loggers slipped into the buffalo
boys’ tents and poured water into their blankets; the next morning the
loggers found their boots all filled with ice, for the buffalo boys had
played such an evil trick on them during the night. The astonishing
audacity of these lowly creatures was not to be longer endured.

Mark Beaucoup and his followers would not listen to the pleas of the
moderates that the punishment of the buffalo boys be left until the
drive was finished. The bunkhouse cranks had grown savage in the He Man
country, and they now threw aside all restraint. They yelled their rage
until all the loggers got excited; and in a short time the bunkhouses
were empty, and the loggers were marching on the buffalo boys’ camp.
They closed in silently and attacked with lion-like ferocity. The
buffalo boys, their timidity vanished now, stood up and gave vigorous
battle. When Paul Bunyan stepped into camp and called, “Roll out, my
bullies! Roll out for the big drive!” he got no answer. Then he looked
toward the buffalo corral and saw a sea of dust surging over miles of
the valley. All over the gray surface of this sea fists were flashing
up as whitecaps jump and fall on wind-blown waters. Paul Bunyan leaped
towards the scene of conflict.

But the great logger’s endeavors to separate the fighters were vain.
When he got among them he had to stand still for fear of trampling
them; the buffalo boys and the loggers crowded against his feet as
they clinched and punched, and some of them rolled under the arches of
his boots. He ordered the factions to their camps, but they would not
hear. Then Paul Bunyan bellowed. The battlers were all thrown down,
but they bounced up fighting. Ears and fingers were now flying up
everywhere in the dust, and the leader was alarmed by the thought that
a more fearful condition was in sight than even poetry had threatened
to bring about. The ferocious masculinity that his two gangs of men had
got from the virile hot cakes would leave him with camps of earless and
fingerless cripples. Disaster loomed over the logging industry once
more.

His brain racing like a dynamo as it conceived desperate ideas, Paul
Bunyan failed to notice at first that the dust sea had mysteriously
vanished, though the struggle still raged. Not until he saw all the
loggers and buffalo boys stop fighting and throw themselves on the
ground, each man clutching at his own legs and howling with fear,
did he realize that an unnatural happening was saving his men from
exterminating each other. Every frantic fighter was howling, “My boots
is runnin’ over with blood! I’m a goner sure!”

Paul Bunyan heard them with amazement, and with amazement he gazed
on the valleys and hills. A thin mist was rising from the ground. It
vanished soon; then Paul Bunyan saw that rain was springing from the
earth, falling up--if the term may be used--for many feet, and then
dropping back again. The first shower had rained up the legs of the
buffalo boys and the loggers, and they had mistaken it for blood.
Now they were still rolling, moaning and bellowing. Paul Bunyan’s
amazement soon passed, for he was accustomed to unnatural seasons,
climates and happenings. He was all delight that the unusual rain had
stopped the battle, and he saw no harm in it yet; he did not know that
this was a rain of such tremendous force that it had poured through the
earth....

For this was the Spring That the Rain Came Up From China....

Harder and harder the rain came up, and it was not long before the
loggers and the buffalo boys opened their eyes and stopped their
yelling. They were soaked all over now, and they knew that the sudden
warm wetness of their legs had not been from blood. Paul Bunyan laughed
through his beard, which was high and dry, when he saw his men begin
to run for the camp to get out of the strange rain. The fight was
forgotten, and the logging industry was saved.

The ground hissed as the rain came up with new violence. The drops
became streams ... the streams doubled ... trebled ... and in an hour
there were ten streams where only one had come up before. The rain
became a downpour--or an up-pour, rather. It got the proportions of a
cloudburst--or, perhaps it should be said, an earthburst. The hillocks
and hummocks had forests of small fountains. In the low places pools
were forming, and these boiled with muddy foam as myriads of miniature
geysers spurted up from them.

Paul Bunyan, feeling great satisfaction over the happy ending the rain
had given to the conflict between his two tribes, did not at first
realize the danger to his recent logging operations from the unnatural
rain. When he did think of the logs piled along the river he ran
swiftly to look after them. He was too late. Moron River had already
risen far over its banks, and all of the brown, peeled sage logs, the
fruit of a season’s labor, were now tossing on a muddy flood. The rain
was coming up through the river in sheets; torrents were pouring into
the stream from every small gully. The water was rising at the rate of
a foot a minute. It would soon be in the camp grounds. Paul Bunyan made
no attempt to retrieve his lost logs; he now rushed to save his camp.

The loggers had turned their bunkhouses upside down, because the rain
had come up through the floors. They had then set their bunks on the
rafters, and they were now snug and dry, for the rain could not pour
up through the tight roofs. The loggers left their cozy quarters
reluctantly when they heard Paul Bunyan call, “Roll out or roll Up!”
They could imagine nothing more disagreeable than its raining up their
pants’ legs, rough He Men though they were. But when they saw the river
rising in rushing waves they did not need Paul Bunyan’s orders to make
them run for the cookhouse. Johnny Inkslinger was wiring the camp
office and Babe’s stable to the mammoth building, and the Big Swede
was making his fastest moves since the Dakota days as he hitched up
the blue ox. Paul Bunyan roared, “Yay, Babe!” just as the river waters
thundered into camp. The blue ox plunged towards the Cascade Hills. He
dragged the three greatest buildings of the camp and all the loggers
to safety. But the bunkhouses were rolling over and over in the flood.

Paul Bunyan and his two aides saved two of the buffalo boys, two
buffalos, two high-behinds, two tigermunks, two blond wolves, and two
wild horses, from the raging waters, but all other life perished.

For forty days and forty nights it rained up from China, and then the
flood receded. Paul Bunyan and his men looked down from the Cascades
and saw that all of the old He Man country had been washed away. It was
now a low valley. There was sage in it still, but this sage was only
brush. Ridges and buttes of gray rock were all of the old land that
remained. There was no longer any logging in the greater part of it.
But here on the new slopes of the Cascades was a more cheering sight.
For the old land over these slopes had covered a magnificent forest of
white pine which was even finer than that around the old home camp.
The loggers shouted when they saw it. And was it a tear, that gleam of
moisture in Paul Bunyan’s beard? If so, it was from his new happiness.

“It’s an ill rain,” he chuckled, “that brings no logger wood.”

The two buffalo boys, like the loggers, still heroic from their virile
winter’s diet, had come through their ordeal in good shape and the
buffalos had slept all the forty days and nights. But the other poor
animals! The wild horses were wild no longer; they had become tame and
would now eat sugar out of any man’s hand. The buffalo boys nick-named
them bronchos. The high-behinds, the blond wolves and the tigermunks
were all cowards at heart, and they had been scared out of twenty
years’ growth. Not one of them was knee-high to a logger now. The Big
Swede made his first and only joke about the tigermunks, who had been
scared into the size of chips.

“Tigermunks!” he grinned. “Aye tank these har ban chipmunks!”

And chipmunks they have been called ever since. Paul Bunyan’s history
does not tell how the high-behinds came to be named jack rabbits, or
how the blond wolves came to be named coyotes. No doubt they were also
named humorously, for the loggers were gay when the rain no longer came
up from China. Anyhow, the old names are no longer used in the He Man
country.




EVIL INVENTIONS


Paul Bunyan knew nothing about women, but he had heard of them with
little liking for the stories he heard. History, industry, invention
and oratory were, to his mind, the four grand elements of human life.
And women, as they were revealed in the loggers’ stories, cared little
about these elements. Women seemed to lack inventiveness especially,
and this was man’s greatest quality. Women, the great logger had heard,
were often marvelous cooks; but men had invented both can-openers
and doughnuts. Women were excellent makers of garments; but men
had invented calked boots, mackinaws and stagged pants. Women were
assiduous readers of poetry; but men had invented most of the poetry
that these creatures cared about. Even in the writing of history, where
inventiveness is not allowed (or _was_ not, rather; for nowadays,
such is progress, many historians are good inventors also), women had
apparently done nothing. Paul Bunyan, in the early days of his camp,
often marveled when he heard his loggers hurrahing and stamping as they
talked about the people called pretty women. He himself could not see
their use in the grand parts of life. But when he knew his men better
he decided that women were creations of the loggers’ fancies, that they
were incredible and fabulous.

For Paul Bunyan’s loggers only cared to feel effects; they had no wish
to think about causes. They would make a reality out of any fancy that
delighted them; they never inquired beyond their pleasures. When they
were told that they were making history they heard the statement with
a thrill, but they did not pretend to know what it was all about. As
for inventions, they used them joyfully, but they thought that Paul
Bunyan’s new devices just happened. “We always sharpened our axes by
rollin’ rocks down-hill,” the loggers would say. “We’d run alongside,
holdin’ the ax blades on the stones as they rolled. But in the Big Dust
country they was no rocks an’ no hills, so ol’ Paul made grindstones.”
That was their story of the invention of the grindstone, an invention
to which Paul Bunyan had given weeks of intense thought. And as for
industry, why, a man just went out and did what old Paul told him to
do. Oratory was great stuff; it made a man feel powerful good to listen
to it; but, holy mackinaw! how was a man to remember all the things
that old Paul said? But they did like oratory; yes, they liked it right
well.

Now Paul Bunyan came to know that his men were great only in the
performance of their work. They were not comprehenders and creators.
They could hardly distinguish between knowledge and fancy. Thus the
great logger came to doubt the existence of women. He came to consider
all the loggers’ ideas as fancies and drolleries, little men’s
nonsense. He seldom listened to them; and as time went on he forgot
women along with the other notions with which the loggers amused
themselves. In oration after oration Paul Bunyan emphasized the fact
that logging was the greatest industry, and that loggers, therefore,
were the greatest laborers; they should have no pride or thought
outside the operations of Paul Bunyan. They believed this finally; and
then their bunkhouse songs and stories were all about work in the woods
and the river drives, and women were very seldom thought about. Johnny
Inkslinger’s oratorical medicine swamped them with ideas one time; and
later they were seduced into poetry; but they had become bully loggers
again in the He Man country.

They would have kept the new innocency of their souls, no doubt, had
the forty-day flood been a week shorter. During the first week of
the flood the loggers were excited about the strange rain which was
streaming up from China, then the muddy foaming waters which filled the
valley below their place of refuge became a monotonous sight. Some of
them began to tease the buffalo boys, and others played with the blond
wolves, the high-behinds, the tigermunks and the other animals which
Paul Bunyan had brought into the cookhouse. But these wild creatures
had been so frightened by the flood that they would not learn tricks.
Paul Bunyan invented picture cards for his men and the games of poker,
rummy and cribbage; but the bunkhouse cranks were so violent at play
that it had to be given up. Then the loggers could only tell stories,
and sing and jig for amusement. During the last week of the flood, camp
stories being told out, the loggers remembered women; and they became
so interested in songs and stories about them that they were sorry
when the flood was over and a spring day dawned on a new green land.
This morning Paul Bunyan called, “Roll out or roll up!” but he got no
answer. The surprised leader stopped and looked into the cookhouse. He
saw Shanty Boy and three other bards standing with their arms over each
other’s shoulders. The quartet was singing:

   “Here I sit in jail, with my back to the wall;
    And a red-headed woman was the cause of it all!”

“Red-headed woman?” Paul Bunyan stroked his beard in perplexity.
“Woman? I think I have heard that word before. Woman ... m-m-m-hmm
... now I remember. Those creatures so strangely fascinating to plain
men. I doubted their existence. At any rate, I hope we never meet with
any. I have had difficulties enough from ideas, poetry and floods.
My loggers shall now have hard work again and forget these tempting
memories.”

Once more he roared the noble call to labor. The loggers heeded it this
time, and they came out smiling blushingly. Thereupon Paul Bunyan made
them a straightforward speech, beguiling phrased, however; and when
it was done the loggers thought only of their work tools and of the
handsome, odorous timber which covered the new slopes below them.

They got new tools from the camp office; and when the sunlight made
golden trails among the pine trees the loggers were already wet with
honest sweat, and many trees had dropped from their cutting. They
worked without great exertion, for they were soft from their long rest,
and Paul Bunyan had warned them against sore muscles and exhaustion. As
the sun rose higher the spring air got warm and drowsy, and it breathed
a troublous languor into their beings. The loggers went to extremes
in heeding Paul Bunyan’s cautionary advice; and in the afternoon they
toiled listlessly whenever they worked at all; but most of the time
they leaned on their axes, or against trees, and expressed unusual
wonderings. When the Big Swede remonstrated with them they replied that
they felt weary and sore from their labor even now; old Paul would
roar, they said, if they did not take care of their selves. They went
on arguing loudly, neglecting their work, but the Big Swede had little
time for argument. Babe, the blue ox, was now so exuberantly frisky in
all his motions that the foreman had to watch him constantly. During
this one short argument Babe had knocked down ten acres of trees with
gay swings of his horns and had trampled them into splinters.

“Har noo!” yelled the Big Swede, hastily leaving the lazy loggers. And
as Babe jerked him this way and that way, lashing the foreman with his
lively tail and making playful pokes at him with his horns, the Big
Swede grumbled, “By yeeminy! Aye tank dese crazy t’ings lak rain fall
oop play hal with may yob!”

The Big Swede was easily discouraged, but Paul Bunyan had his usual
hopefulness as he planned the reorganization of his camp. Johnny
Inkslinger had left for the old home camp to discover how John Shears
and the great farm had fared in the flood and to get Shagline Bill’s
endless freight team started with loads of new supplies. The great
logger himself had brought his workbench out of the camp office and set
it up at the edge of the new pine forest. Then he planned a sawmill. It
was not to be such a grand mill as he had erected on Round River in the
Leaning Pine country; but he wanted a good one that would cut at least
10,000,000 feet of lumber in twelve hours. In six months he should have
enough lumber to make a fair set of temporary bunkhouses for his men.
In the meantime, it was good that the spring nights were so cheerful
and warm, as the loggers could sleep in the open air without injury or
even discomfort.

In a week the plans were finished, and, for a millhouse Paul Bunyan
moved the back room of his camp office over to the banks of the Moron
River, which had become a mature, decent, dependable stream since the
flood; and he put a big crew of his loggers to work, making concrete
beds for the saws and edgers and installing the mill machinery. Work
dropped to nearly nothing in the woods. Paul Bunyan left the mill
construction under the supervision of Ford Fordsen, camp tinker and the
only bunkhouse inventor, and he went into the woods to make his men get
out logs for the new mill.

Now Paul Bunyan was astonished and puzzled when he heard his loggers
re-telling the stories with which they had amused themselves during
the last week of the flood. Instead of working, one logger would lean
against a tree and remark that he had always liked a little flesh on
them himself; and his partner would reply that every man had his own
taste, but as for him, give him the cute little kind that a burly could
tuck under one arm. Then a swamper would come up and say that he didn’t
care much about shape, but he did like red hair and a wide mouth. And
a limber would join the group and say that he guessed he was peculiar,
but he didn’t have much use for the frolicksome ones, but he liked them
quiet and sort of dreamy-eyed. Each man would argue at length for his
own inclinations, carefully respecting, however, the preferences of the
others.

Paul Bunyan lost patience upon hearing such nonsense; and he gave
sharp orders that there was to be no more talking in the woods. Logs
were needed for the new mill; his men were to get down to business and
forget their vain imaginings; for it was doubtful if such fantastic
creatures as they talked about really existed.

For the first time in camp history Paul Bunyan’s loggers felt that
their leader was driving them, and they worked sullenly. Their aroused
memories troubled them greatly as the spring got more of languorous
warmth, and it was torment for them to keep their thoughts to
themselves as they worked. But at night they were free to speak; and
as they lay in their blankets among the trees they talked for hours
in soft voices, gazing dreamily at the moon and stars, and sighingly
breathing the warm, odorous air of the spring night. And in their
sleep, memories gave them perilous dreams; and they rolled and tossed
and pulled covers and talked tenderly between snores.

But these memories--if they were _not_ fancies--were not so hurtful
as poetry and ideas, for they allowed the loggers to work, once Paul
Bunyan had stopped conversation about them. When the new mill was
completed, the mill pond was black with logs. Paul Bunyan came in from
the woods, and Ford Fordsen showed him his finished work with pride.
The boilers were loaded with steam, said the bunkhouse genius; the
rollers were in their oiled boxes, the chains were over the sprockets,
and the belts were tight around the pulleys; and the great shining
bandsaw was waiting with sharp teeth for its first bite from a pine log.

Paul Bunyan heard his fellow inventor with admiration, for there was no
room for envy in the great logger’s soul. He had an honest comradely
smile for Ford Fordsen as he lifted his hand and gave the signal for
the sawing to begin. Now the exhausts roared, the main shaft began to
revolve, the chains rattled and squeaked, and the rolls and pulleys
whirled. But the great bandsaw did not move. Ford Fordsen ran into the
mill to discover the trouble; he returned at once, frowning a little,
but not disconcerted.

“A slight mistake, Mr. Bunyan,” he said crisply.

“Yes? Explain this slight mistake, Ford Fordsen.”

“It is only a _slight_ mistake. But we will have to rebuild the mill.”

“Well; I am happy to hear that it is only a _slight_ mistake,” said
Paul Bunyan. “You can rebuild the mill at once, I suppose.”

“In six months perhaps. I prefer to make my own plans and invent some
new machines that match my own ideas. I am rather glad of this _slight_
mistake.”

“Impudence!” roared Paul Bunyan. “Tell me at once what is wrong.”

Ford Fordsen was thrown from his feet, but he got up with dignity.

“You have the advantage of me in size,” he said pounding wrathfully
with his fist on the great logger’s toe. “But I, too, am an inventor
now, and I claim equal rights with you in invention. You may have
history, for history is bunk; you may have oratory, for your voice is
larger than mine; and you may have industry, for you possess the blue
ox. But as for invention----”

“Before you become an orator in spite of yourself tell me, as inventor
to inventor, if you like, about this slight mistake,” said Paul Bunyan
calmly.

“But I have told you that the mill must be rebuilt!” said Ford Fordsen
impatiently. “However, if you must know, the slight mistake is this:
The men who put in the concrete base for the headrig got to talking
about women, and their minds left their job. They ran concrete around
the saw, and now the lower part of this hundred foot band is frozen as
in solid rock. The mill, you see, must be rebuilt; and I must be about
it.”

“Women again!” grumbled Paul Bunyan. “If they do not exist my men soon
will have invented them. If they do exist in other lands it is easy
to see why there is no great industry, no marvelous inventions and no
making of history in any place but my camp. Even as memories or fancies
they are nuisances. But here: I must attend to this cocky little
fellow.”

He reached down and seized Ford Fordsen between his thumb and
forefinger and then raised him to a level with his eyes.

“Your grand and exceptional notions trouble my poor head,” said Paul
Bunyan, “so I must work with my own simple ideas. You shall be at work
with your felling ax once more this afternoon.”

“I warn you that I’ll not do foul, sweaty labor again, Mr. Bunyan,”
said Ford Fordsen composedly. “If you put me back in the woods I’ll
preach the ten-hour day to the loggers. And I ask you to return me to
the ground. I find this high altitude uncomfortable.”

“Audacity!” exclaimed Paul Bunyan, so astonished that he nearly dropped
this astonishing bunkhouse genius. “The ten-hour day! Thunderation!
What an unheard of thing! Is the sun shining? Do I wear whiskers? Do
men chew with their teeth? Is Babe a blue ox? And--do loggers work
twelve hours a day? What devils do trail me! Ideas; poetry; floods;
women; the ten-hour day--what next? By the holy old, roaring old, oily
old----”

What would certainly have been the grandest curse of history was
interrupted by the appearance of Johnny Inkslinger on the summits of
the Cascades. Paul Bunyan’s wrath and chagrin vanished and the light
shone once more into his eyes as his interested gaze followed the
timekeeper’s progress. Shagline Bill’s endless freight team circled
down the mountains behind Johnny Inkslinger. Paul Bunyan dropped Ford
Fordsen carelessly into his pocket and stepped up the slopes to hear
the news.

Johnny Inkslinger had a condensed report of fifteen thousand, seven
hundred and twenty-one pages which dealt with the destruction of the
great farm and the transformation of the Smiling River country in the
unnatural rain. But he gave a more cheerful account of a new country
which he had discovered. It was just over the mountains, he said, in
the region called Nowaday Valley. There he had procured a good load of
camp supplies. There were people in that country, the timekeeper went
on to say, people of a very strange sort. He described them, and he
ended his description by doubting if even one out of a hundred of these
people could become a logger. Some were too ponderous, others were
marvelously fragile, and everyone held an ax awkwardly.

“I have heard of such creatures,” said Paul Bunyan. “They are real,
then. But not another word must be spoken about them. If my loggers
were to hear that some of this species which they remember so ardently
were at hand, I’d have more trouble than poetry gave me. We must keep
this a secret, Johnny Inkslinger.”

Then they rose and walked over to the cookhouse, where the kitchen
crew was unloading the freight wagons. Paul Bunyan had forgotten Ford
Fordsen. But the impertinent bunkhouse genius had escaped from the
pocket during the conversation. He now journeyed towards the woods,
where the loggers were doing little but talk over their memories. And
it is not difficult to imagine how much work was done after the enraged
inventor arrived with his news of Johnny Inkslinger’s discovery.

Paul Bunyan, with energy that was unusual even for him, at once began
to put the mill in a condition to operate. It was a good mill as it
stood, outside of the solid saw, and he did not intend to rebuild it.
That would take time, and he wanted to have new bunkhouses and the
old camp routine as soon as possible. In order to keep his men from
thinking about their troublesome memories it was necessary to have
most of them in the woods again and to be with them himself. Then the
bunkhouse bards would start the camp stories and songs once more, and
the loggers would be protected at night also. So, to work.

Experienced as he was with inventing, Paul Bunyan was not long in
getting an idea which solved his problem. First, he had the loggers who
were detailed on mill construction build blocks of concrete under the
floor beams of the millhouse. While they were completing this labor
he got one of his old inventions and made many new models of it. This
invention was the steam-drive potato masher, which he had devised for
Hot Biscuit Slim, after the chief cook had originated mashed potatoes.
In this invention Paul Bunyan had made the first known use of the steam
cylinder. He now took a battery of steam-drive potato mashers and
installed them on the new concrete blocks under the mill. Steam pipes
were connected between them; and the new mill system was ready for a
trial.

Paul Bunyan wiped the sweat from his dripping eyebrows and wrung out
his beard; then he gave the signal to turn on steam. The potato mashers
pumped up and down perfectly at the rate of five hundred strokes a
minute. Each stroke thrust the mill building up forty feet and down
forty feet. The big carriage moved forward, carrying a pine log; the
solid saw met its bark and grain; then the log carriage, flashing
up and down with the millhouse, moved swiftly ahead, and the first
cant dropped on the rolls. The new mill was a success! Paul Bunyan’s
inventive mind had triumphed again! True, the mill men got a little
seasick from going forty feet up and forty feet down five hundred times
a minute; but they soon got accustomed to this and declared that they
preferred the bouncing saw mill to the ordinary quiet kind.

Now Paul Bunyan remembered Ford Fordsen.

“You would rebuild a mill because of a slight mistake,” he chuckled,
reaching into his pocket for the bunkhouse genius. “Come now; I will
show you how really simple it was to solve the problem of the solid
saw.”

But Ford Fordsen was not in Paul Bunyan’s pocket, of course. He had
not been there for a long time. Paul Bunyan quickly guessed that the
bunkhouse genius had escaped while his leader was seated. The great
logger’s last sitting had happened just one month ago, when he heard
his returning timekeeper’s report. Certainly Ford Fordsen had gone to
the woods with news of Johnny Inkslinger’s discovery.

Knowing the difficulties which the Big Swede had been having with the
blue ox, knowing also the foreman’s lack of oratorical powers, Paul
Bunyan feared greatly for his loggers. He ran at once for the timber
where they were supposed to be working. The loggers were gone, and
their felling tools also. And neither the Big Swede nor the blue ox was
anywhere in the woods. The boughs of the last felled trees were already
dead and dry and the stumps of these trees were browned by the suns
of many days. The woods were still but for the wind whispers, and the
breathing silence of the deserted timberland was mournful to the great
logger. His was a somber, frowning countenance as he returned to camp.
He looked in Babe’s empty stable before he passed, and two dark objects
in the manger attracted him curiously. They were strange engines, and
not of his devising. He had not seen their like before. He could lift
one in his two hands; and he did so, turning it around and around,
observing its upright boiler, its drums and cables, and the hewn logs
to which it was bolted. Wondering how the engines had come to the
manger, Paul Bunyan put them in his two mackinaw pockets and tramped on
over the mountain towards Nowaday Valley, knowing that there he would
find his loggers.

It was late afternoon when the leader-hero reached the Big Fir timber
which covered the slopes around Nowaday Valley. Through the trees he
saw a blue that was bluer than the sky. Babe mooed gently as his
master approached, but his gaze remained fixed on the border where the
green valley floor met the timber. Smoke was rising there; and now Paul
Bunyan saw roofs and people among the firs.

“My loggers and the women folks,” said Paul Bunyan, not very cheerfully.

He strode on through the forest, and ere long he saw that smoke was
coming from such an engine as he had in his pockets. Ford Fordsen was
at the levers; now he jerked one, and a drum revolved swiftly, winding
a cable which whipped and slashed underbrush as it was hauled from the
timber. Then a big log to which the cable was fastened crashed through
the small trees, plowing a deep furrow as it was dragged on. Now Ford
Fordsen jerked another lever, the big log was lifted, and then it
was lowered easily to a car which was standing on two shining steel
rails....

A whistle shrilled. Paul Bunyan saw his loggers coming in droves from
the woods. Ford Fordsen left his engine and approached the great logger.

“So the inventor has become the industrialist also,” said Paul Bunyan
grimly. “I suppose you will now compete with me in oratory----”

“That is my affair.” Ford Fordsen interrupted his old leader coolly.
“My only business with you, Mr. Bunyan, is to inform you that you must
keep your ox away from my donkeys.”

“Donkeys?”

“I have named my skidding machines donkey engines. Your ox, your
skidding machine, made cunning and conscienceless from jealousy, has
escaped from your foreman; he waits until night; then he plunges out
of the woods, seizes my engine in his teeth and makes away with it. He
has stolen two of them. I demand their return.”

Paul Bunyan drew them from his pocket and dropped them to the ground.

“I do not care about your donkeys, your engines, your skidding
machines,” said the great logger. “I have come for my men.”

“Try and get them,” said Ford Fordsen amiably.

“You may have learned inventing and industry,” said Paul Bunyan. “And
you despise history. But I shall now teach you the worth of oratory.”

“I grant you the privilege of attempting it,” said Ford Fordsen
pleasantly. “Instead of giving the loggers oratory I have given them
the ten-hour day. And they have found other things.”

Paul Bunyan would not argue the merits of the ten-hour day with Ford
Fordsen. Regretting that he had ever encouraged this man by praising
his one noble invention, stagged pants, the great logger said no more,
but went on into Nowaday Valley. He stopped at a place where there were
many cottages. They were evidently used for bunkhouses by his loggers,
as the men had come this way after leaving the woods. They were curious
bunkhouses indeed, for the walls of each one were painted in bright
colors; there were curtains in the windows, and every bunkhouse had
a neat and pretty yard of grass and flowers. Paul Bunyan thought it
strange that his bully loggers should tolerate this; but he did not
allow the thought to trouble him. He began to speak with his rarest
eloquence.

If he had delivered such an oration in the old home camp his men would
have listened to him for days without thinking of eating or sleep. They
would have been moved continuously by whatever emotions the sounds of
the orator’s rich phrases evoked; and at the end they would have obeyed
his most extravagant wish.

But now the loggers did not even come out of their bright bunkhouses to
hear him. Now and again a face appeared at a window or in a doorway,
but it was always the face of one of the women folk, seeming hostile
or curious, but otherwise unmoved. Knowing that his oratorical powers
had never been greater, Paul Bunyan was at last affected by a fear that
the loggers were now ruled by a force stronger than his own. He put
even more vigor and color into his oration, but he now spoke with less
confidence....

Then one of the women folk came out of the bunkhouse. She stopped and
looked up at the great logger with brave curiosity; and he in turn was
so perplexed by the strange sight of this creature, who had something
of the appearance of a logger, but was yet so unlike one, that he
studied her and abandoned his oration. Was it possible that such frail
and useless-seeming creatures could have powers surpassing his own?

Then Paul Bunyan did what every true man, whether ditch-digger or king,
has often longed painfully to do. He now did that which men are forever
attempting in their imaginings. He lifted the woman person in his hand
and observed her as a naturalist observes a small kitten or a mouse.

This specimen of the women folk did not seem to mind the liberty which
Paul Bunyan took with her. She sat comfortably in his hand, with her
ankles crossed, and opened a case which hung from her arm; she gazed
unconcernedly into a mirror which was in the lid of this case; then she
patted powder on her nose and cheeks, turning her head first this way
and then that way.

Paul Bunyan could not understand this woman person. She could not be
explained by any of his ideas. She looked even less like a logger, now
that he saw her closely. Her feet, for one thing, were ridiculously
small, and the thin-soled slippers on them would not last a day at work
in the woods. Her socks were of transparent, shimmering stuff, and they
were pink, like the New Iowa clover. He had never seen anything except
a cook’s apron which was like the garment she wore, and he had never
seen anything at all compared with the curving soft shapes revealed
in this garment. Her face was something like a boy logger’s face, but
her eyes were not boy’s eyes; for some different spirit shone in their
brown lights. Her strangely cut hair was combed straight down over her
forehead and its clipped ends made an even line above eyebrows which
were no greater than threads. Her arms were round and white and firmly
fleshed, but they seemed to have little muscle. Her small hands surely
could not reach around an ax handle; nevertheless she was proud of
them, for she now polished her fingernails on her pink socks and then
admired the new glitter of them.

“I still do not understand this woman person,” whispered Paul Bunyan
to himself. “I have observed her closely, but the secret of her power
is not yet known to me. Surely my bully loggers will yet prefer my
oratory to these weak women folk. I must try again.”

The woman person looked up at the gusty murmur; and on her small red
mouth, and in her sunny brown eyes, was a smile. And Paul Bunyan saw
also the tiniest of cups in each of her powdered cheeks. These, too,
were marvelous and new to him.

“I have had an adventure which I can talk about for a long time,” said
the woman person. “Now put me down.”

Paul Bunyan marveled still more at the imperiousness of this voice,
which was yet so soft, so gentle and low. He had seen one logger chew
off another’s ear for less arrogant words. And now that he looked
for them he did not discover ears on this woman person. But she had
certainly not profited by the lesson.

“You have not yet learned bunkhouse courtesy?” asked Paul Bunyan
conversationally.

The woman person shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled her nose. She
seemed to consider this a good enough answer, for she did not speak.
Paul Bunyan wanted to chide her, and he was surprised that he found no
words for it. He felt embarrassment.

“Tell me, please,” he said bashfully, “how you women folk won my
loggers.”

“Oh!” she replied, blushing a little, “we wanted husbands and babies.”

More mysteries! More words without meaning to him! This was an
explanation perhaps, but it explained nothing.

Now the woman person grasped two hairs of Paul Bunyan’s beard, one in
each small hand, and pulled them playfully, smiling such a smile as he
had never seen on any logger’s face.

“You must go away, you know,” she said softly. “We are all so happy
here.”

Paul Bunyan heard a pleading strain in her strange singing voice, but
he could not interpret this sound. He saw her wistfully smiling eyes
and mouth, but he could not read what he saw on her face. He felt the
softness of the woman person in his hand--and he understood her a
little. He learned something of her strength, alien as it was to any
strength he had known. And he thought: I have lost my loggers; for
neither history, invention, industry nor oratory can prevail with them
against this woman person.

Gently Paul Bunyan put her on the ground. The woman person’s walk was
like a dance as she left him. In the door of her bright bunkhouse she
turned and blew him a kiss. And was gone. Paul Bunyan waved his hand.
The gesture was not for the woman person; it was a farewell to his
loggers.

Paul Bunyan spoke no more; but he returned to his camp at once, taking
the blue ox with him over the mountains. He told his remaining men of
the women folk and let them go. Soon or late he would lose them, and
he let them go now, that they might not be held too long from their
desire....

The sinking sun flashed its last blaze of red over a camp that was
deserted of all save the great heroes and the mighty blue ox. The
Big Swede had returned and he slept; Johnny Inkslinger figured; and
Babe mooed dolorously as the shadows clouded the silent timber. And
Paul Bunyan, the supreme inventor, the noble historian, the master
orator, the grand field marshal of industry, mused in sad resignation
on the vanity of man’s enterprises. The logging industry, which he
had invented, would go on as long as trees grew from the earth, and
his name would be heard forever on the tongues of men. He would have
power, but it would be only the power of a vast spirit breathing in the
dark, deep woods. He would have the glory he had dreamed about in his
beginnings ... but glory was a poor consolation ... his life work was
done....

The shadows got dense ... the shapes of the heroes, and the shape of
Babe, the blue ox, and the shapes of buildings, mountains and trees
merged in the darkness. And there history leaves them.

[Illustration]




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not
changed.

Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.

Page 83: “wreck” was printed that way.

Page 186: “Pugent Sound” was printed that way.

Page 209: “vigorously he in every action” was printed that way.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 70060 ***