hat must be done as we get on."

Charnock hooked the chain round the smallest log he could find and
started the horses. They slipped and floundered as they plodded through
the soft snow. Sometimes the log ran for a few yards, crushing down the
surface, but it often sank overhead and the team struggled hard to drag
it out. For all that, Charnock reached the top of the slope, and turning
back, widened the trail he had made. The next log ran easier, although
it gave him trouble, but when he stopped at noon he had beaten down a
road.

When they started again he left the team to somebody else and joined the
men who were clearing out a trough down the hill. This was harder work,
but the small contractor finds it pays to give his men a lead instead
of orders, and for a time Charnock used the shovel and his feet. Then
Festing said they had better move a few logs as far as they would go,
and they worked the first trunk down hill with handspikes and tackles.
The lumber scored the bottom of the trough and would not run, and they
struggled through the banked-up snow, lifting the heavy mass when it
sank. Now and then they fixed the tackle to a tree and dragged the log
across short skids thrust under its end, and at length launched it from
the brow of the steeper pitch.

It plunged down some distance, but stopped again, half buried in loose
snow, and they scrambled after it, clinging to small trees. Then the
work got dangerous. One could scarcely stand on the steep bank, and when
the log started it rather leaped than slid. Spikes, torn from the men's
hands, shot into the air, and those in front sprang back for their
lives, but the mass seldom went far before loose snow brought it up and
the struggle with the levers began again. At last, it slipped from a
hummock and glided slowly down, crumpling the snow in front, while a
man, clinging to the butt and shouting hoarse jokes, trailed down the
track behind.

Moving the next was easier, and those that followed ran without much
help for most of the way, while when dark came the bank at the top
was empty and there was a pile of logs held up by the chain at the
waterside. Their descent had worn the channel smooth, and it was now
difficult to stop them going too far. In a day or two Festing brought
the most part of his material to the spot where it would be used, and
got ready to put up the frames.

Stinging frost set in, and on the morning they cleared the ground for
the first post Ch