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"Well, after we'd got settled down on our claim, I went up on the hill lookin' for a likely piece of birch to make an ax-handle out of. But it was pretty hard to find the right kind, and I kept a-goin' and kept a-goin' for nigh on two hours. Wasn't in no hurry to make my choice, you see, for I was headin' down to the Forks, where I was goin' to borrow a log-bit from Old Joe Gee.
She sat opposite her visitor as he made his supper on the simple food she gave him, and told him the story of her adventure into that heartless land, the ax-handle against her knee. A minister's daughter, educated to fit herself for a minister's wife.
It was a labor of extraordinary difficulty, there in those dense and dim-lit thickets, felling a tall spruce, limbing it out and cutting it into three sections. But Stern attacked it like a demon. Now and again he stopped to listen or to jab tile suspended wolf with the ax-handle. "Go on there, you alarm-signal!" he commanded. "Let's have plenty of music, good and loud, too.
Looking for something definite, or just out, like myself, to get a little of the wilderness spirit into your systems?" "Well, I hardly expected to see you up here in the mountains," said Willis. "It seems we have met a good many times since spring. What are you doing up here, anyway?" He turned and surveyed the valley. "Well, I'll tell you," replied the man, as he leaned on his ax-handle.
"Hold the door I'll hit him," put in Sam and he picked up the ax-handle. Stepping forward, struck out heavily, and the bear dropped in a completely dazed and more than half choked to death. By this time the Italian was again at hand.
"I reckon I can do dat!" shouted one of the hostlers, and caught up an ax-handle which stood in one corner. As he approached the bear, the beast uttered a roar of commingled rage and fear, and this was so terrorizing to the colored man that he dropped the ax-handle and ran for his very life. "Come back here!" cried Tom. "Can't do it, boss; he's gwine ter chew me up!" howled the hostler.
This accomplished, he ordered fires built; but there was not a soldier of them all whose hands could clasp an ax-handle, so weak and numbed with cold were they. He was not to be baffled, however. If fire could not be had, exercise must serve its purpose. Hastily pouring some powder into his hand he dampened it and blacked his face.
The strong-armed women, rich brown in tint from the ardent sun, crowned with coil upon coil of heavy hair, bent over the pungent fires. Sturdy children, innocent of raiment, went hither and thither, bearing well filled skins of water. Apart from these were the men of Israel, bearded and grave, stalwart and scantily clad. They repaired a cable or fitted an ax-handle or mended a hoe.
We need it not!" exclaimed Bremilu, stooping above the body of the dead monster to recover his ax. Involuntarily Allan turned the beam upon the horrible creature. There stood Bremilu, his foot upon the hairy shoulder, tugging hard at the ax-handle. Thrice he had to pull with all his might to loosen the blade which had buried itself deep in the shattered skull.
"Those hombres don't appear to be breaking any speed records, I see," Weir remarked, quietly. "Humph," Atkinson grunted. "What do they think this is? A rest cure?" The superintendent's silence suddenly gave way. "I ought to land on 'em with an ax-handle and put the fear of God in their lazy souls," he exclaimed, bitterly. "Well, do it." "What!" "Do it." "Say, am I hearing right?"
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