plan now was to fell the trees and "twitch" them down-hill with
teams to the head of this slip. By rolling the bolts, as they fell from
the saw, down an incline and out on the ice of the lake, we would remove
them from Mrs. Lurvey's land, and thereby comply with the letter of the
law, by aid of which she was endeavoring to rob us and escheat our
rights to the birch.

There were ten of us. Each knew what was at stake, and all worked with
such good-will that by five o'clock we had the saw running. The white
birches there were from a foot up to twenty-two inches in diameter,
having long, straight trunks, clear of limbs from thirty to forty feet
in length. These clear trunks only were used for bolts.

Plying their axes, Halstead, Addison, Thomas and Willis felled upward of
forty trees that night, and these were all sawn by dark. On an average,
five trees were required for a cord of bolts; but with sharp axes such
white-birch trees can be felled fast. Morefield tended the saw and drove
the horses in the horse-power; the rest of us were kept busy sliding the
birch trunks down the slip to the saw, and rolling away the bolts.

By dark we had made a beginning of our hard week's task, and in the
gathering dusk plodded across the lake to the old lumber-camp, expecting
to find Aunt Olive smiling and supper ready.

But here disappointment awaited us. Sylvester, with the sled-load of
supplies, had not come, did not arrive, in fact, till half an hour
later, and then with his oxen only. Disaster had befallen him on the
way. While crossing Lurvey's Stream, the team had broken through the ice
where the current beneath was swift. He had saved the oxen; but the
sled, with our beef pork, beans and potatoes, had been drawn under and
carried away, he knew not how far, under the ice.

A stare of dismay from the entire hungry party followed this
announcement. It looked like no supper--after a hard day's work! Worse
still, to Addison and myself it looked like the crippling of our whole
program for the next five days; for a lumber crew is much like an army;
it lives and works only by virtue of its commissariat.

But now Aunt Olive rose to the emergency. "Don't you be discouraged,
boys!" she exclaimed. "Give me twenty minutes, and you shall have a
supper fit for a king. You shall have _white monkey_ on toast! Toast
thirty or forty slices of this bread, boys," she added, laughing
cheerily. "Toast it good and brown, while I dress the monkey!"