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They were of many and widely different types; men with keen, sallow faces from eastern cities hastening as though every moment lost was an opportunity wasted; others moving with the tranquillity which proclaimed them Englishmen; bronzed prospectors, and solemn axemen from the shadowy bush, with the stillness of the forest in their eyes; sailors, Japs, and Siwash sealermen.
Nellie Townshead had asked herself the same question over and over again that day when rancher and axemen in somewhat embarrassed fashion tendered her their sympathy.
Each column was provided with a certain number of axemen, selected to act as pioneers; but not one of the necessary implements was in a condition to be used; neither had a single fascine or ladder been provided, although it was well known a deep ditch remained to be passed before the axes, inefficient as they were, could be brought into use.
These ranges were to be surveyed under the superintendence of the chief geographer of the United States, assisted by surveyors appointed from each state, and these surveyors were in turn placed over the different companies of chain carriers and axemen. Congress was making strenuous efforts to open up the western country to purchase and settlement.
In the wardroom and steerage, the bulkheads were all knocked down by the shells, and by the axemen making way for the hose, forming a scene of perfect ruin and desolation. Clothing, books, glass, china, photographs, chairs, bedding, and tables were all mixed in one confused heap.
One afternoon we turned off on a trail known to Old, and rode a few miles to where the Pine family had made its farm. We found the old man and his tall sons inhabiting a large two-roomed cabin situated on a flat. They had already surrounded a field with a fence made of split pickets and rails, and were working away with the tireless energy of the born axemen at enclosing still more.
Where they came from or where they went to blow their stake after leaving Paul's camp no one knows but they are remembered as husky lads and good fellows around camp. After the Seven Axemen had gone down the tote road, never to return, Paul Bunyan was at a loss to find a method of cutting down trees that would give him anything like the output he had been getting.
He was confident that, with tugs and gangs of axemen clearing the way, the gunboats could be taken up the Yazoo River, then into a wide bayou, and finally through a maze of small waterways, until they should reach the Mississippi again below the Vicksburg batteries.
The word was then given, "Back the iron-clad hard;" and the fallen monarch of the forest was soon dragged across the bayou and out of the way So expert did the jackies become in this work, that they were soon able to clear away the trees faster than the enemy could fell them. The tug then went ahead, and for a time put an end to further tree-chopping, and captured several of the negro axemen.
When they got to "Big Dick," as the lumberjacks called Dakota, hills and rocks were so hard to find that Paul rigged up the revolving rock. This was much appreciated by the Seven Axemen as it enabled them to grind an axe in a week, but the grindstone was not much of a hit with the Little Chore Boy whose job it was to turn it.
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