n illusion! Nielsen and Copple were the only ones that day who
could saw wholly through the thick log without resting. Later Takahashi
turned out to be as good, if not better, than either of them, but we had
that, as well as many other wonderful facts, to learn about the Jap.

"Come on," said R.C. to me, invitingly. "You've been talking about this
crosscut saw game. I'll bet you find it harder than pulling on a
swordfish."

Pride goes before a fall! I knew that in my condition I could do little
with the saw, but I had to try. R.C. was still fresh when I had to rest.
Perhaps no one except myself realized the weakness of my back, but the
truth was a couple of dozen pulls on that saw almost made me collapse.
Wherefore I grew furious with myself and swore I would do it or die. I
sawed till I fell over--then I rested and went back at it. Half an hour
of this kind of exercise gave me a stab in my left side infinitely
sharper than the pain in my back. Also it made me wringing wet, hot as
fire, and as breathless as if I had run a mile up hill. That experience
determined me to stick to crosscut sawing every day. Next morning I
approached it with enthusiasm, yet with misgivings. I could not keep my
breath. Pain I could and did bear without letting on. But to have to
stop was humiliating. If I tried to keep up with the sturdy Haught boys,
or with the brawny Copple or the giant Nielsen, soon I would be
compelled to keel over. In the sawing through a four-foot section of log
I had to rest eight times. They all had a great deal of fun out of it,
and I pretended to be good natured, but to me who had always been so
vigorous and active and enduring it was not fun. It was tragic. But all
was not gloom for me. This very afternoon Nielsen, the giant, showed
that a stiff climb out of the canyon, at that eight thousand feet
altitude, completely floored him. Yet I accomplished that with
comparative ease. I could climb, which seemed proof that I was gaining.
A man becomes used to certain labors and exercises. I thought the
crosscut saw a wonderful tool to train a man, but it must require time.
It harked back to pioneer days when men were men. Nielsen said he had
lived among Mexican boys who sawed logs for nineteen cents apiece and
earned seven dollars a day. Copple said three minutes was good time to
saw a four-foot log in two pieces. So much for physical condition! As
for firewood, for which our crosscut saw was intended, pitch pine and
yell