below the level, and the approaches had to
be corduroyed to a practicable grade. Others again were humped up like
tom-cats, and had to be pulled apart entirely. In spots the "corduroy"
had spread, so that the horses thrust their hoofs far down into
leg-breaking holes. The experienced animals were never caught, however.
As soon as they felt the ground giving way beneath one foot, they threw
their weight on the other.

Still, that sort of thing was to be expected. A gang of men who followed
the plow carried axes and cant-hooks for the purpose of repairing
extemporaneously just such defects, which never would have been
discovered otherwise than by the practical experience. Radway himself
accompanied the plow. Thorpe, who went along as one of the "road
monkeys," saw now why such care had been required of him in smoothing
the way of stubs, knots, and hummocks.

Down the creek an accident occurred on this account. The plow had
encountered a drift. Three times the horses had plunged at it, and three
times had been brought to a stand, not so much by the drag of the V plow
as by the wallowing they themselves had to do in the drift.

"No use, break her through, boys," said Radway. So a dozen men hurled
their bodies through, making an opening for the horses.

"Hi! YUP!" shouted the three teamsters, gathering up their reins.

The horses put their heads down and plunged. The whole apparatus moved
with a rush, men clinging, animals digging their hoofs in, snow flying.
Suddenly there came a check, then a CRACK, and then the plow shot
forward so suddenly and easily that the horses all but fell on their
noses. The flanging arms of the V, forced in a place too narrow, had
caught between heavy stubs. One of the arms had broken square off.

There was nothing for it but to fell another hemlock and hew out another
beam, which meant a day lost. Radway occupied his men with shovels in
clearing the edge of the road, and started one of his sprinklers over
the place already cleared. Water holes of suitable size had been blown
in the creek bank by dynamite. There the machines were filled. It was
a slow process. Stratton attached his horse to the chain and drove him
back and forth, hauling the barrel up and down the slideway. At the
bottom it was capsized and filled by means of a long pole shackled to
its bottom and manipulated by old man Heath. At the top it turned over
by its own weight. Thus seventy odd times.

Then Fred Green hitched his