llows, scarcely seen for spray.

But he plunged into the water and brought her safe to land
And laid her on a bed of moss, though scarcely he could stand.

But Rose was no worse for the wetting, and I'll be a son of a gun,
If she didn't turn round and marry a Swede named Peterson.

Well, Joe got drunk as a devil and swore he didn't care;
He'd pulled a stunt on the river that no one else would dare;

And a man was a fool to marry, but he hoped the square head Swede,
Would still remember to thank him when he had ten kids to feed.

And wherever the drivers gather and wherever white water calls,
They tell how the crazy Frenchman rode the Sunset Falls.

What is the real significance of these stories? In the first place they
are highly entertaining, with their remarkable flights of fancy and the
introduction of the unexpected. This is enhanced by the tang of the pine
woods and the lure of the great out-of-doors. In the camps they served to
while away many a weary hour and to lighten up the seriousness of many a
knotty problem. They brought the gigantic tasks of the great woods down to
manageable proportions and saved many a logger from an inferiority
complex. Since they have come into civilization many a task has been made
easier by their rare humor.

Perhaps it is pendantry to try to find in these impossible tales of the
illiterate lumberjacks anything except what they consciously put there; a
beautiful fancy to brighten the weary days and nights of the long winters.
But sometimes the unconscious contributions are of more significance than
the conscious, for we often do more than we mean. Such seems to have been
the case here, for these uncouth story tellers have given us some insights
into their lives and their industry. Unconsciously these tales reflect the
absorption of these men in their tasks. The men who made these tales were
men with a far greater interest in the woods than the stake they were to
take out in the spring, whatever might have been true of those who
repeated them. Here is a love of the woods and of a woodsman's life which
has the ring of reality. These were men with a pride in their industry and
in good work. If they had any interest in religion or morals or art it was
likely like that of Jim Bludso, the river engineer, of whom John Hay says:

"And this was all the religion he had,
To treat his engine well,
Never to be passed on the river,
And to mind the pilot's bell