enthusiasm than of purpose in his speech, for he was still shaken from
the knocks and strokes the Big Swede had given him three weeks before.
The foreman went to sleep at length, but all night Paul Bunyan was
wakeful with troublous fancies and bright but insubstantial ideas. In
the morning, when his mind was calmer and his thoughts more orderly,
only one of the notions that had come to him seemed worth while. This
was the idea of a double drive, one under his direction, and one in the
charge of the Big Swede, but both of them side by side. It should make
a unique race. There was some stuff of history in the idea.
So Paul Bunyan determined to forget the Dakota Disaster and make
practical preparations for the new achievement at once. First, he
inspected the bunkhouses and found that the loggers had set them up and
repaired the bunks. Next, he examined the cookhouse, and he saw to his
pleasure, that the cooks had it clean of dust and that pea soup was
once more bubbling on the stoves. Babe, the big blue ox, was suffering
from hayfever, and he sneezed dolefully at long intervals, but the old
eager, jovial look was in his eyes; they shone like blue moons when
Paul Bunyan looked him over.
Satisfied, the master logger returned to his office. He found the Big
Swede on his feet, and there was only a slight limp in his walk this
morning. It looked indeed like good luck was returning, and Paul Bunyan
thought of the double drive with great hope. In a splendid good humor
he jested with his foreman as he opened his roll-top desk to examine
his papers. But the great logger’s merriment was quickly hushed as the
desk top rolled up and a frightful sight was revealed. The shock of
battle had shaken the ink barrels into pieces, and the shelf on which
they stood was now covered with a black mass of broken staves. Below
were his ledgers. In dismay Paul Bunyan pulled them out and opened
them. Nearly every page was wet and black, and the old figures were
almost illegible. The Ledgers from 1 to 7, for example, seemed to be
entirely ruined. Ledger No. 1111 had black pages up to page 27,000,
and its other sheets were badly smeared. Even Ledger 10,000, the last
one in the row, had streaks and daubs on most of its sheets, and only
the last 3,723 pages remained unstained. Paul Bunyan was appalled,
and only his brave heart could have kept courage in such discouraging
circumstances.
He wished to be alone, so he gave the Big Swede instructions to groom
the blue ox and trim his hooves. When the foreman was gone, Paul Bunyan
sat down, and, having dug a young pine tree out of the earth, he began
to brush his beard and ponder.
The damage done to his precious records was a terrible blow, and he
thought first of how he might repair it. As he had said, his main
desire was to make history; his imagination rose above mere industry.
His records contained the history of all his operations, even to their
most minute details, and if no one could read them his work up to the
present time was all wasted. The loss of his grand history was, to
Paul Bunyan’s mind, the most terrible part of the Dakota Disaster. But
his loggers, of course, were only interested in their work; and the
Big Swede, too, was now anxious to show his conqueror that he would be
an obedient, efficient foreman on the next job. It was Paul Bunyan’s
duty to find a good one for them, and one that would make a fitting
beginning for a new history also. Resolving to devote his energies
solely to realizing this hope, he shook off regret and forced a smile
and a jest.
“It is no use crying over spilled ink,” he said.
So he put the old ledgers away in the chest which held his souvenirs,
and he brought out a set of new ones. In them his new records should be
made, his future history written. It should be an account of splendid
deeds and give him enough glory. He found many gladdening thoughts, and
when he gave orders for a move he showed his men the same cheerful face
that they had always known.
The loggers hustled and bustled, and in a short time the camp buildings
were lined up and fastened together. The grand cookhouse was put in the
lead, Babe was hitched to its skids, and Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede
took stations in front of him. “Yay, Babe!” the leader said, and the
move began.
Happy were the loggers as the camp flew over the prairie, though not
one of them knew where it was going. All were certain, of course, that
they were headed for some vast timberland where great logging could be
enjoyed. They supposed that Paul Bunyan planned a surprise for them,
as he had not given his usual graphic and prophetic speech before the
start was made. The word was passed along that the new job was too
wonderful to tell about. But this was only part of the truth. Paul
Bunyan’s mind was indeed filled with the idea of a unique double drive,
but he did not yet know where the project could be carried out. A wide,
gentle river with timber on both sides of it was needed; and once
found, he would have to use his inventiveness to the utmost in order to
divide the stream so that two drives could be made side by side on it.
Paul Bunyan traveled far with his camp in search of the ideal river.
Powder River looked promising at first; it was a mile wide, but then
it was only a foot deep. It deepened and got narrow in one place, but
this was only a deceitful twist of the stream, for it presently turned
and ran on its edge for the rest of its course, its waters a mile deep
and a foot wide. Hot River, in the Boiling Springs country, flowed
placidly and honestly enough all its way, but it was of a temperature
to scald the calks off the loggers’ boots. And Wild River, though it
was a white water stream, would have served for a double drive; but
it was alive with cougarfish, a species resembling the catfish of the
Mississippi; but the cougarfish were larger and incomparably more
savage and had claws on their tails. Careful Paul Bunyan would not risk
his loggers among them.
At last the master logger had only one hope left. It lay in the Twin
Rivers country. Twin Rivers were ideal for a double drive, as they
were two fat streams which flowed lazily, smoothly, and side by side
through a wide valley. But that country was the scene of Paul Bunyan’s
first logging; it was there that he had invented the industry; and,
having no loggers then, he had uprooted trees by handfuls to get his
logs. Consequently, second growth timber was not to be hoped for in
the greater part of that region. In the lower part of the Twin Rivers
valley there might be some new timber, for there Paul Bunyan had taught
the blue ox the art of skidding; and he had sheared off most of the
trees instead of uprooting them. No doubt there were some new trees on
this land, but most of the logs for a double drive on Twin Rivers would
have to be procured elsewhere. How he was to get them he did not
know. But he was staunch and inflexible in his determination to make
the second event of his new history a tremendously successful one.
[Illustration]
So Babe was turned toward the Twin Rivers country, and in a few hours
the loggers were getting glimpses of familiar scenes as the bunkhouses
sailed over stump-covered valleys and hills. They still had no word of
Paul Bunyan’s intentions, and they were astonished when, at nightfall,
the camp was halted at the upper end of Twin Rivers valley and they
were told that here was to be their camping place for the season.
There was no moon this night, and from the bunkhouses nothing of the
country could be seen except Twin Rivers, which showed surfaces of
blurred, tarnished gray in the darkness; they looked like two wide,
lonely roads with a tall black hedge between them. Heavy grass was
discovered around the camp buildings, but there was no indication
anywhere of timber, or even of brush. But the loggers were too tired to
wonder; they had been riding for two days behind the blue ox, who could
outrun a cyclone, and they were thankful for the chance to rest and
sleep.
Paul Bunyan lay in his camp office and listened to the peaceful
snores of the Big Swede, who could sleep so well because he lacked
imagination. But the great logger’s thoughts and visions banished any
hope of rest for him. Work should begin at once, and a great idea must
precede it. His determination for the double drive was solidly fixed;
he _would_ get a good plan for it. Now then: first, for a drive there
must be logs; next, for logs there must be trees; then, for trees there
must be timberland, as trees cannot be conjured from nothingness. Now,
all around him was nothing but logged-off land; perhaps it would be
possible to invent a way to log off logged-off land.... Thunderation!
what preposterous notions he was getting! But all his ideas seemed to
be as absurd. As the night hours crawled slowly on Paul Bunyan began to
doubt his powers. Had the fight with the Big Swede left him a little
crazy? Perhaps. At dawn his mind was in a turmoil; he felt that he had
brought himself face to face with the supreme crisis of his career,
and it looked like he was not to meet it successfully. If so, the
meanest swamper in camp would despise him. And the Big Swede--how soon
he would lose the humble worship that Paul Bunyan had pounded into
him and be filled with a cold Nordic scorn for this Latin victim of
imagination!... What was wrong with his ideas? Why didn’t they swell
with their usual superb force and burst into a splendor of magnificent
plans? Was this new history of logging, then, to be a history of
failure?...
In a torment of thought, Paul Bunyan could lie still no longer.
Darkness was passing fast now; he threw off his blankets and tramped
to the office door. He drew it open, then--motionless, unblinking,
breathless--he stared for sixty-six minutes. At last he rubbed his
eyes; but then he again stared as woodenly as a heathen idol. He could
only believe that his rebellious imagination was deceiving him, that
the incredible sight before him was certainly unreal. For he saw trees
everywhere; on both sides of the river they reached to the horizon.
They were in exact rows, like trees in an orchard, and each one was a
large, smooth, untapering column, flat-topped and without a trace of
bark or boughs. Again and again Paul Bunyan rubbed his eyes, thinking
to see the strange forest vanish. But it remained, and he rushed out at
last and seized one of the trees. He pulled it up easily, and he was
more amazed than ever, for it had a sharp point instead of roots. He
walked on out into the forest and pulled up others here and there, and
they were all exactly alike in shape and size.
So delighted was Paul Bunyan with his miraculous good fortune that
for a long time he only walked back and forth among the rows of Pine
Orchard--for so he named the forest,--and every moment he found some
new feature of it that was wonderful and enchanting. For one thing, he
could walk through it without difficulty, as there was room between
the rows for one of his feet. He saw that no tedious swamping would be
required for the logging-off of this forest--no cutting of brush and
trimming of limbs. It would be unnecessary to build the usual trails
for the blue ox. As the logs would all be of like size, driving them
down the rivers would be play for his men.
At last he tramped back to camp and called the loggers out of the
bunkhouses. They came forth groaning and yawning, but when they saw
Pine Orchard they too were tremendously enthusiastic about the
beautiful logging it offered, and some of them got their axes and saws
and began felling at once. The trees were as tall and as large as the
medium trees in an ordinary pine forest, but acres of them had been
notched and sawn off when the breakfast gong rang. Paul Bunyan, with
a cyclonic sigh of relief and content retired to the office to do the
first figuring for the new history.
Logging went on at a record-breaking rate during the late summer; early
autumn passed, and the loggers still felt that they were enjoying
the happiest work of their careers. The Big Swede seemed perfectly
contented with his position now; his gentleness and patience with
the blue ox could not be surpassed, and he bossed the felling crews
efficiently when Paul Bunyan had to leave them to toil over the new
ledgers. The great logger himself had not been happier in years, for
the logs being all of a size made the figuring simple now, and he spent
all but three hours a day in the woods.
With the coming of the snapping frosts of late autumn the operations
had reached the lower part of the Twin Rivers valley, and the smooth,
bare trees of Pine Orchard were all piled neatly along the banks of
the stream. Now the second growth of regular pine trees was reached,
and the work of limbing, bucking and swamping again became part of the
loggers’ duties. But they were fat and saucy from their easy months
in Pine Orchard, and the first day’s felling in the old-fashioned
forest brought down a record number of trees. However, it also brought
more figuring for Paul Bunyan, for he now had to keep accounts of
a thousand sizes and lengths of logs. This kept him from the woods,
though the Big Swede really needed him now because of the problems
which develop incessantly in regular logging. Again Paul Bunyan came
to feel the need of a great figurer, recorder and secretary; but where
was one to be found who had both the size and knowledge to care for his
vast bookkeeping system and enormous history books? It was folly to
hope for such a man, so Paul Bunyan stuck bravely to his desk and made
the best of his situation.
And the logging went on without many discouraging incidents until one
morning in November. Then Paul Bunyan looked out and saw that the Twin
River next to the camp had risen six feet, though the other Twin was
at its normal level. Wondering at the unnatural flood and fearing for
the logs piled on the landings, the leader-hero set out at a great
pace to discover what was obstructing the flow of the Left Twin. Where
the river curved around a cliff he saw what appeared to be a boot as
large as his own; it was resting in the stream, and, as it reached from
the cliff to the bank between the Twin Rivers it made a perfect dam,
and the river had not yet risen to the top of it. Paul Bunyan’s gaze
traveled up the bootleg and reached a corduroyed knee; then he saw that
a remarkable figure was seated on the cliff, the figure of a man who
was nearly as large as the master logger.
Remembering the danger to his logs, Paul Bunyan seized the foot that
was damning the river and lifted it without ceremony. The released
waters boiled and thundered as they rolled on, but above the roar Paul
Bunyan heard a voice, soft and mild for all its power, saying, “I beg
your pardon.”
The master logger could not restrain an exclamation of delight.
“Educated! By the holy old mackinaw!”
He pulled aside the trees from which the grand gentlemanly voice had
issued. There sat a man. And such a man!
His long but well-combed hair was level with the tree tops, though he
was seated among them. Some black, straight strands of hair fell over
a forehead of extraordinary height, a forehead which was marked with
deep, grave wrinkles. His black eyebrows resembled nothing so much as
fishhooks, breaking down sharply at his nose. His large, pale eyes
looked through old-fashioned spectacles. His nose was original; it
sloped out to an astonishing length, and a piece of rubber the size of
a barrel was pinched over the end of it. He was certainly an educated
man. He wore a necktie, for one thing; yes, and there were papers
resting on one raised knee; in his right hand was a pencil, and many
others were behind his ears. Now he was figuring with incredible speed;
then he thrust the rubber in his nose against the paper, shook his head
three times and the sheet was clean.
Paul Bunyan wanted to shout and jig like a school-boy, so jubilant was
his logger’s soul made by the sight of this marvelous man. Here was
the one person who was needed to make his camp a perfectly organized
industry, to guarantee the success of his plans to become a maker of
history. By hook or crook he must have him.
He tapped the engrossed figurer on the shoulder.
“Paul Bunyan, the master logger, the maker of history and inventor of
note, the only living Real American leader-hero of industry, addresses
you,” he said impressively.
“I have heard of you,” said the other, extending his hand but not
rising. “I am John Rogers Inkslinger, the master figurer, the one and
only Real American surveyor. But you must excuse me now, for I am
endeavoring to solve the one problem that has ever baffled me. I have
been working on it steadily for two months, and still the answer evades
me.”
He at once began figuring again, and Paul Bunyan, a little awed, had no
words to say at that moment. He had no idea of what a surveyor might
be, and he feared that John Rogers Inkslinger was something greater
than himself. He would find out. So he said:
“I am a figurer also, though not a great one. Yet I might help you.
What is your problem?”
“I am looking for Section 37,” said John Rogers Inkslinger.
“Section 37?”
“Yes. I have only found thirty-six sections in each of the townships
which I have surveyed here. There should be thirty-seven.”
Paul Bunyan was delighted that he could solve the problem so easily.
“When I first logged off lower Twin Rivers valley,” he said, “I had
no logging crews, but only Babe, my big blue ox. The method I used was
to hitch Babe to a section of timber--this ox of mine, Mr. Inkslinger,
can pull anything that man can walk on--, snake it to the river, shear
off the trees, and then haul the logged off land back to its place. I
handled a township a week in this fashion; but I always left Section 37
in the river on Saturday night, and the stream would wash it away. Now
I judge that you survey the land as I measured it; consequently, you
have only found thirty-six sections in each township.”
“Bless my soul!” cried John Rogers Inkslinger admiringly. “I should
have looked you up before. But I supposed you were an ordinary man of
the forests. You would certainly make a great surveyor. You must leave
this common life you are leading and come with me. Together we will
soon have every section of land in the country staked out perfectly.”
“I have a different idea,” said Paul Bunyan.
Whereupon he unloosed his eloquence, and for the rest of the day his
richest phrases were lavished on the surveyor. And this man, sure of
the greatness of his own accomplishments, listened with strong doubts
for a long time. But at last he was convinced that logging was the
greatest of all occupations and that Paul Bunyan towered far above him
as a hero.
“I can only think of you with awe and admiration,” he said at last.
“But I have my own work, inconsequential as it now seems. So I cannot
become your figurer at present. Think, Mr. Bunyan, of Real America’s
uncharted rivers, her unstaked plains, her unplumbed lakes! It is my
mission to--to----”
His speech ended in a yell of fright as a monstrous red tongue was
thrust before his eyes; it passed moistly over his face, it rolled
oozily behind his ear; then he heard a “moo” that was as loud as
muffled thunder, but affectionate and kind. The surveyor wiped his face
and his spectacles and turned fearfully to see Babe, the ox whose hair
was blue as the sky, gazing at him, with a pleading tenderness in his
bulging eyes.
“Even Babe wants you to come with us,” said Paul Bunyan, his beard
shaking in a chuckle. “Such a powerful argument. Now what in
thunderation----”
John Rogers Inkslinger had let out a scream of horror that sent Babe
galloping back through the timber.
“My instruments!” cried he. “Your infernal clumsy ox has trampled them
and demolished every one. What misfortune!” He jumped to his feet and
began looking for his books and papers.
“Gone!” raged the surveyor. “That blue devil has eaten them! All of my
records, the history of my works--gone! gone! gone! Eaten by an ox! His
four stomachs are crammed with them! Gone! gone! gone!”
“Stop that caterwauling,” said Paul Bunyan impatiently. “When my
ledgers were ruined, I simply observed, ‘There is no use crying over
spilled ink.’ The hero is even more heroic in disaster than in triumph.
Be true to your pretensions.”
“Pretensions, the devil!” said John Rogers Inkslinger peevishly. “If
you had the true figurer’s soul you would give me your sympathy instead
of unconsoling platitudes.”
Then the tears began to fall from his eyes and made great splashes in
the river. Paul Bunyan, saying no more, grasped his arm and marched him
toward the camp. The two heroes walked silently until they were out
of the timber and had started over the country where Pine Orchard had
stood.
Then Paul Bunyan said conversationally, “I found a very original forest
here. But it offered splendid logging.... Thunderation again! What ails
you anyway?”
For John Rogers Inkslinger had once more burst into yells of agony.
“My stakes!” he cried. “My surveyor’s stakes! Two years’ work ruined,
utterly ruined! The stakes that marked my section lines--you have
felled them all and dragged them all to the rivers for logs! My stakes
that were to have stood forever--gone! gone! gone!”
He choked and gasped, he clutched wildly at nothingness, and then he
fainted into the appalled logger’s arms....
That winter was the only period of his career in which Paul Bunyan
knew the affliction of a guilty conscience. It was true that he
had not injured the great surveyor willfully, but the fact that he
had destroyed another man’s work could not be ignored. He had done
irreparable damage and for the peace of his soul he must somehow make
amends, devise consolations and give heart balm and recompense. He only
asked that the surveyor make any demand of him, that he give him any
opportunity to do a service that would make up for the loss.
But the winter long John Rogers Inkslinger brooded in the back room
of the office and would speak to no one. Each day regret bore heavier
on Paul Bunyan’s generous heart; Christmas was a time of deep gloom
for him; and when the first sunshine of spring brightened the valley,
even the approach of the great double drive did not cheer him. He had
abandoned his ledgers, and he spent all of his time in the woods; he
had no wish to record the destruction of the surveyor’s work.
The double drive was a huge success, and the rivermen returned from it
singing the praises of Paul Bunyan, who had bested his foreman in the
grand race. But the great logger himself had only cheerless thoughts
as he came to the camp office. Another move must now be made, and the
sad business of repaying John Rogers Inkslinger must be attended to at
last. He would place his camp and crew, his foreman and the great blue
ox, himself and all his august talents unreservedly at the surveyor’s
disposal. Better long years of surveying than to leave this blot on
his history. It would be wretched work for him and his men, he mused
unhappily, as he opened the office door, but he could not oppose
conscience. His mind formed the words of a contrite, submissive speech,
he tramped on into the office and prepared to utter them; then out of
the back room rushed John Rogers Inkslinger; his eyes were shining, his
face was flushed with happiness, his hands were raised as though in
appeal.
“Paul Bunyan, greatest of Real Americans!” he cried. “I have read
your histories, and in the pages of them I have learned the grandeur
and glory of your deeds, the extent and influence of your power, the
might of your mind! I now know your inventiveness, your heroism, your
majestic thoughts, your generous heart! To think that I roared about
Paul Bunyan using my miserable stakes! And still you smile upon me! Oh,
Glory! I beg pardon humbly and ask only to serve you henceforth in your
enterprises----”
“Here now,” said Paul Bunyan, dumfounded, incredulous of his hearing,
greatly embarrassed. “How could you have read my ink-soaked ledgers?”
John Rogers Inkslinger answered him by bringing out one of the volumes
and opening it. On the black pages were figures and letters of white;
with white ink the great figurer had painstakingly traced out the old
dimmed entries, and now every volume was as readable as it had ever
been.
“There!” he declaimed. “There, Mr. Bunyan, is the proof of my worth and
zeal. I found the ledgers, and when you were on the drive I traced out
their messages. From them I learned to worship you. Give me a desk and
let me serve you as well hereafter.”