And Molly started gingerly down the hill. She pulled the timber, heavy
as an iron safe, here and there through the brush, missing no steps,
making no false moves, backing, and finally getting out of the way of
an unexpected roll with the ease and intelligence of Laveque himself. In
five minutes the burden lay by the travoy road. In two minutes more
one end of it had been rolled on the little flat wooden sledge and, the
other end dragging, it was winding majestically down through the ancient
forest. The little Frenchman stood high on the forward end. Molly
stepped ahead carefully, with the strange intelligence of the logger's
horse. Through the tall, straight, decorative trunks of trees the little
convoy moved with the massive pomp of a dead warrior's cortege. And
little Fabian Laveque, singing, a midget in the vastness, typified the
indomitable spirit of these conquerors of a wilderness.

When Molly and Fabian had travoyed the log to the skidway, they drew
it with a bump across the two parallel skids, and left it there to be
rolled to the top of the pile.

Then Mike McGovern and Bob Stratton and Jim Gladys took charge of it.
Mike and Bob were running the cant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the
great pile of logs already decked. A slender, pliable steel chain, like
a gray snake, ran over the top of the pile and disappeared through a
pulley to an invisible horse,--Jenny, the mate of Molly. Jim threw
the end of this chain down. Bob passed it over and under the log and
returned it to Jim, who reached down after it with the hook of his
implement. Thus the stick of timber rested in a long loop, one end of
which led to the invisible horse, and the other Jim made fast to the top
of the pile. He did so by jamming into another log the steel swamp-hook
with which the chain was armed. When all was made fast, the horse
started.

"She's a bumper!" said Bob. "Look out, Mike!"

The log slid to the foot of the two parallel poles laid slanting up the
face of the pile. Then it trembled on the ascent. But one end stuck
for an instant, and at once the log took on a dangerous slant. Quick as
light Bob and Mike sprang forward, gripped the hooks of the cant-hooks,
like great thumbs and forefingers, and, while one held with all his
power, the other gave a sharp twist upward. The log straightened. It was
a master feat of power, and the knack of applying strength justly.

At the top of the little incline, the timber hovered for a second