drawn melodious call that melted
through the woods into the distance. The swampers ceased work and
withdrew to safety.

But the tree stood obstinately upright. So the saw leaped back and forth
a few strokes more.

"Crack!" called the tree.

Hank coolly unhooked his saw handle, and Tom drew the blade through and
out the other side.

The tree shivered, then leaded ever so slightly from the perpendicular,
then fell, at first gently, afterwards with a crescendo rush, tearing
through the branches of other trees, bending the small timber, breaking
the smallest, and at last hitting with a tremendous crash and bang which
filled the air with a fog of small twigs, needles, and the powder of
snow, that settled but slowly. There is nothing more impressive than
this rush of a pine top, excepting it be a charge of cavalry or the fall
of Niagara. Old woodsmen sometimes shout aloud with the mere excitement
into which it lifts them.

Then the swampers, who had by now finished the travoy road, trimmed the
prostrate trunk clear of all protuberances. It required fairly skillful
ax work. The branches had to be shaved close and clear, and at the same
time the trunk must not be gashed. And often a man was forced to wield
his instrument from a constrained position.

The chopped branches and limbs had now to be dragged clear and piled.
While this was being finished, Tom and Hank marked off and sawed the log
lengths, paying due attention to the necessity of avoiding knots, forks,
and rotten places. Thus some of the logs were eighteen, some sixteen, or
fourteen, and some only twelve feet in length.

Next appeared the teamsters with their little wooden sledges, their
steel chains, and their tongs. They had been helping the skidders to
place the parallel and level beams, or skids, on which the logs were to
be piled by the side of the road. The tree which Tom and Hank had just
felled lay up a gentle slope from the new travoy road, so little Fabian
Laveque, the teamster, clamped the bite of his tongs to the end of the
largest, or butt, log.

"Allez, Molly!" he cried.

The horse, huge, elephantine, her head down, nose close to her chest,
intelligently spying her steps, moved. The log half rolled over, slid
three feet, and menaced a stump.

"Gee!" cried Laveque.

Molly stepped twice directly sideways, planted her fore foot on a root
she had seen, and pulled sharply. The end of the log slid around the
stump.

"Allez!" commanded Laveque.