Chapter V: Part 5

Several mechanical devices were tried without passing the first test. The sled lay idle. The loggers got sore feet, and they traveled so slowly that they began to take twelve hours to reach the woods. There was one shift on the road, going, and one coming all of the time. Not a tree was being felled.

“There’s no way out of it but to try the grizzlies,” Paul Bunyan told his timekeeper.

Among the other livestock on Paul Bunyan’s farm, which was down the river from the old home camp, was a herd of grizzly bears. The great logger often amused himself by playing with them, and he had taught them many tricks. Not the least of their stunts was for each bear to hang from a tree with three paws and try to claw Paul Bunyan’s mackinaw with the other paw as he dodged by.

“I’ll station them at the trees which are left standing along the road,” said Paul Bunyan, “and when Babe roars by they’ll hook him. They may only frighten him into a faster run, but I think surely they’ll slow him down.”

The next morning the loggers, for the most part, joyfully crawled upon the serpentine bobsled. The timid and cranky among the loggers were pessimistic, of course, and declared noisily that this would be the end of them. But Shanty Boy and the other bards laughed at their fears, and at last every logger in camp was on the sled. Paul Bunyan ordered the Big Swede to hitch up the blue ox and start in half an hour, and he departed for the woods with his herd of grizzlies. He stationed one of them at every tree close to the road. When he reached the timber he straddled a hogback and sat down to wait for the outcome of his daring attempt.

In a short time he heard a faint thunder down in the valley, then he saw enormous balloons of dust twisting up in cyclonic bursts from the foothills, next he heard the crashing sound of hoofbeats that got louder and louder.... Through clouds of dust he saw Babe’s tail brush lifted like a triumphal banner and the glitter of his horns.... The Big Swede, hanging to Babe’s halter rope, soared and dived....

The bears had failed. Indeed, they had failed terribly, for when Babe came to a halt in the timber Paul Bunyan saw bears paws hanging from both sides of him. Only one bear had saved his paw, and he was holding a tree in a frenzied clutch. Babe had carried away bear, tree and all. Paul Bunyan rushed back over the road, and as he came to each unfortunate grizzly he mercifully dispatched him. He carried them all into camp.

“Bear meat for Sunday dinner,” he said to Hot Biscuit Slim, as he threw the bears into the kitchen yard.

Paul Bunyan then had Johnny Inkslinger bring his medicine case, and the two hurried to the woods. But only a slight number of the loggers had been made truly ill by the terrific speed with which Babe had hauled them over the hills. The double-jointed sled runners had slipped over rocks, logs and gullies as easily as a snake glides over a string. Not once had the sled bounded from the road. Not a logger had suffered a jolt. Some of them were dazed and breathless, others were choked with dust, but most of them were no more than badly scared by their terrific journey.

“Aye tal you it ban no use try hol’ Babe down,” said the Big Swede, with rare eloquence.

“The sled worked perfectly, at any rate,” said Paul Bunyan. “We can depend on it. But those good bullies of mine are going to need a lot of encouragement to stand that ride every morning.”

He was quite right. His loggers thought nothing of the perils of falling limbs, which are called “widow-makers” to-day in the woods. Breaking up log jams, jumping rolling logs, dodging butts of trees which bucked back from the stumps when they fell--all this was in the day’s work. But even the serpentine bobsled could not banish the terrors of riding behind the blue ox each morning. “I’d ruther try ridin’ a peavy handle down the West Branch.” “I’ll tell you Babe went so fast I acshuly _seen_ the wind, an’ I never seen anything more sickenin’ in my life!” “What if Babe ud a throwed a shoe now? I bet it ’da tore through us like a cannon ball!”

Paul Bunyan frowned as he hearkened to their complaints. His loggers seldom thought of anything but their labor when they were in the woods. If they were complaining now, what would happen when the bunkhouse cranks got into action after supper? There would be much gloomy grumbling, and perhaps rebellious talk. When the loggers went to bed they would brood over the cyclonic morning ride instead of getting fortifying sleep. Then they would soon balk against riding behind the blue ox. To avoid such an event he must call on his bards to cajole, humor and inspire the men until he could devise new methods to solve his logging problems. With this idea in mind he took Shanty Boy aside, placed him on his knee and explained the situation.

“I shore will do my best,” said Shanty Boy. “But looky here, Mr. Bunyan, I ’low I’ll have to lie to ’em right smart.”

“How so, my lad?”

“Well I’ve alus done the best I knowed how when I set out to be amusin’. So, if I’m goin’ to make my stories any thicker, I’ll jest about have to stir a few lies into ’em.”

“Son, nobody loves a liar.”

“Thet’s jest it, Mr. Bunyan. I got a powerful good reppytation fer truth, an’ I can lie quite a spell afore I’m ketched. But if I do get ketched Mark Beaucoup an’ them Rories’ll chaw me up. You’ve learnt all the loggers to hate lyin’ jest like you do yourself. I’d probably get spiled if I was ketched. Besides, I jest nacherly hate to lie. Yet, no lyin’, no loggin’, seems to be the fact o’ the matter.”

Paul Bunyan pondered doubtfully for some time. Moral issues baffled him always. But at last he spoke with decision.

“Logging must go on. You may lie, if necessary, during the period of emergency.”

“Them’s orders, Mr. Bunyan. But what if the gang gets hostile an’ starts to chaw me up?”

Again Paul Bunyan hesitated. It was against his policy to interfere in the logger’s personal affairs. Then, firmly:

“A man with your talent should not have to lie, Shanty Boy, in order to entertain his mates. But you know best, of course. If you are discovered, tell the men that all complaints must be lodged with me before they act upon them. Be cautious and discreet, and honor and glory shall be yours.”

“I will, sir. Thank ye, sir, Mr. Bunyan.”

Shanty Boy went bravely to work carrying out the great logger’s commands. For some time it was not necessary to tell more than two or three lies a week in order to take the logger’s thoughts off their sickening morning rides. They were not great lies that he told, either, but only plausible exaggerations. Most of his stories were still true ones, and he told them better than ever. He inspired the visiting bards as never before. Each night he sent his mates smilingly to sleep, entirely forgetful of the ordeal that awaited them in the morning. But this was not natural, and of course it couldn’t last. The loggers lost weight every day, and they began to complain of hurts in their innards. The bunkhouse cranks got their dismal chorus started, and Shanty Boy had to tell real big lies to hush it.

He lied wonderfully indeed, once he was well started. He got so funny that the loggers had to strap themselves into their bunks while they listened to him. They went to sleep laughing, as a rule, and the night long they would chuckle in their dreams.

Shanty Boy grew bolder with success. He told, with a bare face, stories about snakes that had many joints, and how they would separate into pieces and crawl a dozen ways at once. He called them joint snakes. He told stories about a snake that would put its tail in its mouth and roll down hill. He called it a hoop snake. When the loggers got a little tired of snakes, he told whoppers about possums, then about coons, and so on. At last he got around to fish, and he told so many good fish stories that the loggers would not let him switch to another subject. He ran out of ideas, but the loggers would not let him get away from fish.

One night as he was trying desperately to invent a tolerable lie about fish he remembered a story of a whale that he had heard his grandfather tell, insisting that it was the gospel truth. It was the old story about Jonah and the whale, and the loggers had never heard it. They became indignant when Shanty Boy repeated it for the plain truth, and some of them began to shout at him. For the first time in his life he got stage fright. He felt that he was telling the gospel truth, but the memory of his previous lies overwhelmed him. He tried vainly to continue his narrative about Jonah’s life in the whale’s belly, but his tongue failed. He dropped his head, and he fixed a shamed gaze on his feet. First he heard nothing but the pounding of his heart; then an angry mutter ran along the bunks. It grew into a fierce growl. Then Shanty Boy heard the tramp of feet, and he looked up to see Mark Beaucoup and the bunkhouse cranks advancing upon him.

“She’s lie!” yelled Mark Beaucoup. “_Sacre!_ but she’s tell a beeg wan.”

He shook a huge brown fist under Shanty Boy’s nose.

“Now you are feex yourself. Stan’ up w’ile I knock you down!”

The loggers left their bunks and made a pressing crowd around their discomfited bard and his challenger.

“I was coun’ for you stan’ up. Wan--two--t’ree----”

Then Shanty Boy remembered Paul Bunyan’s “All complaints must be lodged with me” and courage returned to him.

“You bunkhouse cranks shore give me a misery,” he said contemptuously. “You jest go an’ tell my story to ol’ Paul an’ see what _he_ says about it.”

The loggers stared at him with amazement.

“By gar!” exclaimed Mark Beaucoup. “De fool wan’ me tell dees to ol’ Paul! She’s wan’ me tell dees, dat crazy t’ing!”

“Thet’s what I said,” growled Shanty Boy. “Run along afore I get into one o’ my tantrums.”

Knowing Paul Bunyan’s furious opinion of liars, the loggers were smitten with horror. Of course this story might not be a lie, but most likely it was, and what old Paul would do to him for telling it! Mark Beaucoup was triumphant. Soon Bunkhouse 1 would have another king; it should know a rule of iron instead of laughter.

“Come wit’ me,” he commanded his friends. The other loggers, except Shanty Boy, followed them to Paul Bunyan.

As Paul Bunyan listened to Mark Beaucoup he was struck with a powerful regret for having inspired his greatest bard to leave the path of truthful narration. Desperate circumstances had seemed to justify the step. But what a risk he had taken just to save a few weeks logging! The faith his loggers had in him lay in the balance. Now it seemed that he must lose this faith or sacrifice a hero. He had never dreamed that Shanty Boy would recklessly tell such an incredible story. Surely he had not told it unthinkingly. No doubt he could explain it. Paul Bunyan sent for him.

It was with a heavy heart that the great bard walked through the lines of silent, accusing loggers. It looked like the end of everything for him. But he kept his courage, and, as he walked slowly on, his nimble mind was leaping from idea to idea, seeking a solid defense. But what proof could he offer for such a story? His grandfather _knew_ it was true, but the old man was far away in the Southern mountains. He alone must prove somehow that he had not lied.... Paul Bunyan’s boots loomed before him.... He must think hard ... hard....

“This story must be _explained_,” said Paul Bunyan in a stern voice, at the same time flashing him a look of the utmost sympathy.

“I ’low the story is beyond explainin’, Mr. Bunyan, but I never lied when I told it,” said Shanty Boy, bravely.

“Prove it!” roared Mark Beaucoup and his followers.

Shanty Boy drew himself up pridefully and he fixed upon the multitude a gaze of lofty scorn.

“I never lied!” he declared. “I never lied, for when I lie my neck _it swells_! An’--now--look!”

He jerked open the collar of his shirt and exposed his muscular throat. There was not a sign of swelling about it. The loggers lifted a mighty cheer, and Mark Beaucoup, baffled, beaten, completely outwitted, could only swear:

“She’s don’ swell--by gar!--she’s don’ swell!”

Paul Bunyan could not restrain a windy sigh of relief. The trees bent before the blast and dust clouds rolled through the ranks of loggers. Now was the moment to complete the victory.

“Get to your bunkhouses!” Paul Bunyan roared.

Shanty Boy was carried on the shoulders of yelling admirers to Bunkhouse 1. Mark Beaucoup and the bunkhouse cranks did not venture to follow them until the lights had gone out. Then, humbled and quiet, they sneaked into their bunks.

As a result of his troubles Paul Bunyan came near to abandoning logging operations in the Smiling River Country. But one night he got an idea, an idea so simple and sound that he was astonished at not thinking of it before. He put it into practice at once, and when the loggers awoke the next morning they saw wooded hills at the very door of the camp. Paul Bunyan had simply thrown a cable around each hill, and the blue ox, who could pull anything that had a top on it, had snaked every one into camp. So the logging then went on easily until the new summer had melted the ice and snow and Lake Michigan was filled with water once more, and had new fish in it.

Shanty Boy’s triumph was complete. Not only did he have great honors from Paul Bunyan, but his mates now revered as well as admired him. His ventures from truth had held off revolt from the bunkhouses. He had convinced the loggers of the truth of the grand old story of Jonah and the whale. And he had made them all fear swelled necks as the result of lying. This last effect persists to this day, for everywhere loggers are still known as the most truthful of men.

THE KINGDOM OF KANSAS

No region of Real America, save Kansas, boasted of its weather in Paul Bunyan’s time. In the heyday of the mighty logger the climates and seasons were not systematized; they came and went and behaved without rule or reason. There were many years with two winters, and sometimes all four seasons would come and go in one month. The wind would frequently blow straight up and then straight down. Sometimes it would simply stand still and blow in one place. In its most prankish moods it would blow all ways at once. The weather was indeed powerful strange in those days and it got itself talked about. And nowhere were its ways more evil than in Utah.

When Paul Bunyan moved his camp to the state of Utah for the purpose of logging off its forests of stonewood trees he was not careless of the climate; he merely failed to suspect its treachery. Besides, other troubles beset him. The gritty texture of the stonewood timber dulled the edge of an ax bit in two strokes. At the end of their twelve-hour day in the woods the loggers had to sharpen axes for seven hours. They were always fagged out. Then there was only one small river near the forests, and Babe, the blue ox, who had got hayfever again since coming West, drank it dry every fifteen minutes. The loggers thirsted, and they were bedeviled by sand in their blankets and in the beans, for every time Babe sneezed he raised a dust storm that rolled its clouds through the cookhouse and the bunkhouses and covered the great plain and the hills around the camp. A spirit of dark and evil melancholy settled on the loggers.

Paul Bunyan hoped for an adequate water supply from the December snows. And he brought all his inventive powers to the problem of felling the stonewood trees. In eleven days and nights he devised eight hundred and five systems, machines and implements, and from this galaxy he selected a noble tool.

Paul Bunyan’s new invention was the double-bitted ax, which is used everywhere in the woods to-day. Paul Bunyan devised it so that a faller could chop with one blade, then twist the handle and whet the other blade on the gritty stonewood with the backward swing.

But even with the new axes the logging went on slowly. The camp supply of elbow grease gave out, and the loggers suffered stiffened joints. The December snows were light, and the thirsty blue ox continued to drink the entire water supply. The bunkhouses came to be dens of ominous brooding and quiet instead of gay and noisy habitations. Finally the shipment of webfooted turkeys from the Great Lakes arrived too late for Christmas dinner. The loggers became dour, gaunt, embittered men.

Then came New Year’s Day and outrageous fortune. When the loggers went to work at the first thinning of darkness they attributed the peculiar oppressive warmth of the morning to an unusual Chinook wind. There was, however, no wind at all. Then the rising sun shot blazing rays into a cloudless sky. Even then the loggers did not realize that they were witnessing an Event. This was the beginning of a notable year, the Year of the Hot Winter. As the sun climbed higher the heat grew more intense. The Christmas snow had vanished at the first burning touch of day. The ground baked and cracked. The stonewood trees glittered in a fierce light. Each logger threw off his mackinaw, muffler, sweater, stagged shirt, woolen overshirt and undershirt; his paraffin pants, mackinaw pants and overalls and his Arctic socks, heavy wool socks, light wool socks and cotton socks. All heavy clothing was speedily thrown aside, and everywhere in the plain, in the valleys, and on the hillsides were piles of garments, and by each pile a logger toiled, clad only in drawers and calked boots. But still sweat dripped and trickled from their bodies; they labored more and more languorously. Each quarter of an hour the blue ox, with lolling tongue, dashed madly for the river and drank it dry.

Paul Bunyan was distressed by this change in his affairs, but he was not daunted. Confident that his loggers would do their best in the meanwhile, he again retired to solitude, hoping to devise something that would conquer the hostile and unnatural season. He returned with the great timber scythe, with which he could fell a full section of timber with one swing of his mighty arms. Carrying the timber scythe over his shoulder, Paul Bunyan strode toward his camp. His tread was vigorous despite the deadening heat. Benevolent ideas stirred his heart. He himself would do the arduous labor of felling the stonewood trees; the loggers would be asked only to do the lighter work of trimming and bucking the trees into logs. They were a fine bunch of savages; ordinarily they would not allow even Paul Bunyan to do their natural work. Perhaps they would resist such intrusion now. But the great logger was sure of his persuasive powers.

As he neared the camp, busy as he was with philanthropic thoughts, he failed to note an unusual silence in the woods and about the bunkhouses. Not until he saw Babe and the Big Swede sleeping in the stable was he made aware of the extraordinary. Paul Bunyan went next to the camp office. Johnny Inkslinger, that tower of energy, was sleeping at his desk! His fountain pen had dropped from his hand, and as it was fed by hose lines from twenty-five barrels of ink, a black stream gushed from its point and flooded the floor. A chorus of faint snores came from each bunkhouse. The cookhouse looked gloomy and deserted. In the woods the axes and saws lay where the loggers had left them. For one hundred and seventy-nine minutes Paul Bunyan stood silently in the midst of his camp, tormented by wrath, regret and sorrow. His outfit had failed him. After all these years of comradeship in labor they had allowed a mere hot winter to provoke them into faithlessness. He had left them without an idea that they would be untrue to the job while he was scheming to make it a success. But they had weakened. Very well, he thought, after his brief period of emotion, he would perform their labor for them while they snored. They should awaken to shame.

One stride brought him into the first clearing made among the stonewood trees. Without losing a second, he threw the timber scythe from his shoulder, he grasped its handles, then took a long swing, and the first section of trees thundered to the ground. On he went, making a circular swath. As he stepped with his right foot the sharp scythe blade crashed through the trees on the cutting stroke, and as he stepped with his left he brought the scythe behind him with a vigorous swing. On and on he labored, his steps coming faster as the circle widened. Every seven hours he paused to whet the blade of the timber scythe on a bundle of the stonewood trees which he carried in his hip pocket. The hot winter drove its fires upon him, but his passion of toil repelled them with a stronger flame. The great logger’s walk became a run; the dazzling blade of the timber scythe flashed in strokes of inconceivable rapidity; the sections of stonewood trees fell in a steady roar.

Then Paul Bunyan began to sweat. He had labored before this, but never so savagely, nor in such penetrating heat. Only the man who raises a good sweat for the first time can realize what an astounding store of perspiration the human body can hold. On occasion it gushes from innumerable springs, seeming inexhaustible. It streams down the crevices and valleys of the body and floods the flat spaces; it soaks the clothing and drips to the ground. Imagine then what happened when Paul Bunyan’s stored perspiration was unloosed. As he toiled on, ever more fiercely, his sweat flooded his boots, it surged over their tops and foamed towards the ground like two Niagaras. His swinging body and flying arms flung out clouds of spray. These strange waters coursed over the plains in torrents and gathered in heaving pools. The little river was submerged, drowned, exterminated. The waters crept towards the camp. Paul Bunyan, more and more engrossed with his labor as time went on, did not note the rising flood. His circle grew wider and wider. It left the plain and swung around the bordering slopes. Section after section of the trees was felled, only to be covered by water, for the stonewood timber was too heavy to float. But Paul Bunyan labored around and around the circle, quite unaware of the tragical consequence of his efforts.

For five days and nights the loggers lay in their bunks, too lazy to get up to eat, too lazy to do aught but drowse and dream. But at twelve o’clock on the fifth night the waters had reached the bunkhouses, and they learned of their peril. Yells of fear arose from every quarter, and in a few moments the whole camp, with the exception of Babe, the Big Swede, and Johnny Inkslinger, was aroused. Fright made the loggers forget the hot winter, and gave them energy. When they looked out on a vast lake glittering in the moonlight, and saw in the dim distance the twin rivers roaring from Paul Bunyan’s boots, they knew that speedy and efficient action was necessary to save their lives. The best swimmers swam out to the tool house and brought back hammers, saws and nails. Each logger then began to build a boat from his bunk, and for three hours they worked feverishly and silently constructing the vessels. When the last one was finished the word was passed along and in a few moments the boats, each one carrying a logger and his blankets, swarmed from the bunkhouses. Before the armada had gone twenty feet the boats all filled with water and sank, while the loggers uttered lamentable cries. These changed to sounds of rejoicing, however, when it was discovered that the water was only waist deep. The loggers rescued their bundles from the boats and scampered to the shore like a holiday host at a beach.

But their joy did not last; it quickly gave way to dread. Paul Bunyan, toiling more desperately every moment, was rapidly moving around the circle. In a short time he would be upon them, and at any instant he might discover the fate of his trees, the flooding of his camp, his complete disaster. The loggers all understood the reason for the mighty man’s wrathful labor. Their sense of blame confused them and smothered their native courage. The host began to move over the hills, haltingly at first, and with heads bowed like penitents. Then, as the volleying thunder of Paul Bunyan’s timber scythe sounded nearer and nearer, they lifted their heads and struck a faster pace. Then guilty fears possessed them and every logger of the lot began to gallop madly. Someone yelled, “Ol’ Paul’s a comin’!” and the warning cry was echoed from thousands of throats all over the hills. The loggers were taken by panic; the runaway became a stampede. By dawn they were making such running leaps that each logger would hit his chin with his front knee and his head with his back heel at every stride. They were so scared that they never stopped until they got to Kansas.

Now Kansas at that time had the only kingdom that was ever known to exist in this country. The ruler of Kansas was King Bourbon, and Topeka was his capital. The Kansas country was then one of the pleasantest in Real America. It was rolling land, like that everywhere else, but its heavy vegetation and its forests were beautiful and unique, and the climate and seasons were always spring; and indeed the history of Paul Bunyan’s time tells of a year in Kansas that had thirteen months of spring.

The forests were mostly whisky trees, which grew amid carpets of cigarette grass and were entwined with beervines. The greatest of these forests was around Lake Topeka, and by the lake was the capital city, where the nobility and gentry of Kansas led a pleasurable life and envied no one.

When Paul Bunyan’s loggers reached Kansas they were so exhausted from their long run that they had no eyes for the beauties of that region; they only felt that it invited them to rest and promised them security. So when they came to the banks of Rolling River they dropped on the soft and fragrant masses of cigarette grass, and rested in the cool shade of the spreading whisky trees, with the bliss known only to the utterly weary. For a long while they were not aware of the virile odors of the beervine blossoms, and they heard but faintly the melodies of the huge but gentle piano birds who were everywhere in the forest, either flitting from bough to bough or sitting in their nests. And even when they were rested and soothed by the sweet airs and tinkling melodies the loggers enjoyed the originality of their environment but a short while, for each one became conscious of a raging hunger.

“Let’s look for a nose bag!” the cry up and down the columns and lines. The loggers all arose with the intent of foraging in the forest, and they would no doubt have appeased their hunger at once, if an impulsive curiosity had not made them take a last look at the river. A great gasp of astonishment went up, then a terrific crash of laughter shook the vast forest and silenced the piano birds. The loggers, one and all, dropped again to the ground and rolled and bounced about in convulsions of merriment.

Rolling River was a stubborn and valiant stream, and, unlike tamer rivers, it refused to follow the easiest course. From its source extended a range of hills which decreased in height until it was merged in the slope of a far valley. Rolling River made its way up and down these hills, cleaving each summit. At the place where the loggers were resting the river always had a hard fight, as one hill was nearly equal in height to the one that preceded it. Sometimes Rolling River would fail here; the waters would part at the summit, and one end of the river would go rushing on and the other end would slide back down the hill for a fresh start.

It was then that the giddyfish which dwelt in this stream would perform so clownishly as to tickle any observer into fits. Bewildered by the waters’ abrupt desertion of them, and perplexed as to which end of the river it was best to follow, numbers of them would hesitate on the hilltop, agitated and floundering, then half of them would take out after the lower end of the river and half of them would take out after the upper end. They could make great speed by leaping along like kangaroos, using their long fins and tails. But they traveled clumsily, and their limber tongues lolled from their mouths as they leaped down the hillside, all of which made their every action seem inexpressibly humorous.

There was never an army of men who enjoyed a good laugh more than Paul Bunyan’s loggers. And when they saw the giddyfish galloping after the river they laughed till they cried. When the river finally made it up the hill and began to roll on as usual the loggers could hardly stop laughing even then. But they remembered their hunger, and they again got up to search for food. But no sooner had they started than the river parted again, and once more the loggers rolled and laughed over the performance of the giddyfish. And indeed for fifty-seven hours the loggers were unable to get away from the riverside, for no sooner would they start to leave than the stubborn river and the clownish giddyfish would repeat their hilarious performance. The loggers would no doubt have laughed themselves to death, or else starved, had not King Bourbon come along with his race horses and jockeys and saved them.

King Bourbon had his jockeys make a wall of horseflesh between the laughing loggers and the river, and they were then able to stagger back into the safety of the forest. The king then made the loggers a speech of apology and warning. He told them that the only crimes punishable by death in Kansas were dealing from the bottom of the deck, throwing a horse race or a fight, and shooting craps with loaded dice. Those convicted of such crimes were sentenced to watch the giddyfish until they laughed themselves to death. The king then asked the loggers at what games and contests did they excel, and when they told him of their expertness at spinning logs in rough water his face shone with a joy that made it brighter than the diamond in his necktie; for this new sport promised to be a thrilling one. He ordered his lord bookmaker to bring them on to the capital and find a place for them in the life of the city. After giving this order, he courteously lifted his plug hat to the loggers and, followed by his jockeys, he set out for Topeka, which was over the next hump.

After three days the loggers were themselves again and they began to explore the delights of the city.

Topeka, under King Bourbon’s rule, was a city of amusements. There were eleven racetracks, and on each one there were seven races every afternoon. Each morning there were five baseball games, the first one beginning at four A. M. Boxing and wrestling matches, swimming and running races, driving and jumping contests were to be seen each Sunday in the stadium which faced Lake Topeka. In the time between races and contests the people played poker, solo, rummy and pool, and shot craps in the palace, which was the one public building in the city. In its single vast room there were countless tables for the players, and these tables were circled by a bar of such circumference that a man would grow a beard while walking the length of it. The glitter of the glasses and mirrors back of the bar was so brilliant and the jackets of the bartenders were so white that a beholder seemed to look on ice and snow which dazzlingly reflected sunlight. But the eye was soothed indeed when its gaze dropped to the dusky mahogany bar and searched the amber depths of a huge glass which frothed with the sharp and fragrant liquid brewed from foamy beervine blossoms. Even more was the eye delighted when it caught the jolly winks that bubbled from the most potent and jovial beverage, the aged sap of the whisky tree. One part of the bar was a great free lunch counter, which was always loaded with filling and peppery food. Here the nobility and gentry of Topeka ate and drank, King Bourbon, his lord bookmaker and his lord bartender among all the rest. The cooks, waiters and dishwashers had been working three shifts on the free lunch counter, but King Bourbon generously offered Paul Bunyan’s kitchen crew employment there, and the lord bartender then had to divide the day into forty-eight shifts in order to have work for everyone.

The loggers were royally received into the grand life of Topeka. The skill they displayed in spinning logs on the lake each Sunday won them an honored place in the kingdom. They became tireless players of poker, solo, rummy, craps, and even of pool. They drank huge quantities of beervine brew and whisky tree sap. The free lunch made them forget the delights of Paul Bunyan’s dinners. Soon they ceased to consider themselves as working loggers, and they repelled with scorn proposals to try a new life of toil, which were slyly made by followers of Duke Dryface, who was a cousin of the King.

The duke was secretly planning a revolt. He had renounced Topeka life, and he now lived among the serfs who brewed the beervine blossoms, aged the sap of the whisky trees, and made all of the materials that composed the grand life of Topeka. The serfs were called Cornmen, after a harsh cereal which they had devised, and which they all raised in clearings among the whisky tree forests. Duke Dryface planned to drive the king and his nobility and gentry from the country and clear off the forests, level the hills and make the whole state into a flat corn country. The king thought him simply a harmless old crank, and would listen to no warnings against him. But, nevertheless, the duke had a revolt well planned for the coming Fourth of July celebration. After bribing the bartenders, he had substituted raw sap for the mild and gentle aged liquors to be served on that day; he had the Cornmen all grandly inspired, and perfectly drilled, instructed and armed; though he had not converted the loggers, he had directed the bartenders to fill their glasses with triple-distilled, high-powered redeye sap on the night of the Fourth, and he was sure that he could capture them and keep them in bondage until the last whisky tree was felled. The duke did not fear Paul Bunyan, for he thought the loggers’ stories about him to be drunken exaggerations; he thought of him as some plain leader whom they had basely deserted, and who would no doubt be happy to see them punished by slavery. He kept the strength and extensiveness of his power well hidden, and the loggers lived on blissfully in ignorance of their real danger.

For many days and nights after the stampede of his loggers Paul Bunyan had toiled on, swinging his timber scythe with undiminished rapidity. He had not observed the desertion of his men, or the flooding of his camp, or the fate of the stonewood trees. But at last his energy and strength began to fail, his pace slackened, he swung the scythe with slower strokes, and the intervals between the rolling thunders of falling trees became longer and longer. Then the timber scythe dropped from his hands, and he sank to the ground. Now he saw for the first time the shimmering distances of salt water which covered the stonewood trees and all but the tallest buildings of his camp. For seven hours he gazed on the lamentable scene, then his head dropped to the ground. He was not disheartened; he was only tired. He slept.

Days and nights went by with little change in the unnatural season. The days of springtime came, but here there was no spring. Summer days began, the sultriness of the nights got increasingly heavy and thick, and in the daytime the overpowering blaze of the sun seemed to make the very hills shrink, while the surface of the lake was veiled in steaming mists. The slumbers of Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger, the Big Swede and the blue ox became so deep that the active careers of all of them might have ended there ingloriously had it not been for Babe’s appetite, which always tormented him, sleeping or waking. The Big Swede was couched on the high-piled hay in the manger, and Babe’s chin rested on his body. Stirred by a hunger that would not be denied, his jaws began to work mechanically; they closed over the fifty pound plug of chewing tobacco that the Big Swede always carried in his hip pocket, and it was swallowed like a blade of grass. Babe gasped, groaned, and shuddered; then he lunged to his feet, snorting and bellowing, for chewing tobacco was as poisonous to him as to a circus elephant. He gouged the Big Swede viciously with his horns until he awoke with yells of agony and astonishment. And not until he saw, through the stable door, Paul Bunyan asleep on the far side of the lake did Babe heed the foreman’s powerful remonstrances. With a last angry toss of his horns, which threw the Big Swede through the stable window, Babe turned and plunged into the water. So fast did he run that he threw foaming waves to the furthest reaches of the lake. When he reached Paul Bunyan he emitted a joyous bellow and eagerly began licking the great logger’s neck. For one hour and twenty-seven minutes Babe assiduously tickled him, and then Paul Bunyan sprang to his feet with a great roar of laughter. He felt strong and fresh; he smiled cheerfully at the blue ox, who capered around him. He straddled Babe and rode him across the lake to the flooded camp. There he awakened Johnny Inkslinger, and, refusing to listen to his apologies, he sent him out to discover the trail taken by the loggers. By the time it was found, Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede had the camp out of the water and ready to move. Babe was hitched to the buildings and the search for the errant loggers began. As he traveled on Paul Bunyan said nothing; his head was bowed in painful meditation. There was still wrath in his heart for his loggers’ desertion of him, but there was more of loneliness. Excepting the pleasures of history-making, invention and oratory, there had never been any joy for him like the joy that comes from the comradeship of labor, and he wished to feel it again. Then he feared that the loggers might be completely lost; they were as helpless as sheep, without understanding guidance. One moment he swore to punish them severely, then his heart would be softened by sad and gentle thoughts. So engrossed was he with perplexing ideas and troubling emotions that he did not notice the decline of heat and the new sweetness in the air as the balmy clime of Kansas was approached....

A Fourth of July in Topeka during the reign of King Bourbon! Who would not give his fame and fortune to have participated in one of those marvelous celebrations! What pale and weakly imitations we have nowadays of the ball games between the Fats and the Leans, of the potato races, and of all the other ingeniously devised contests which made the last day of King Bourbon’s reign a long procession of glories and wonders! When will we see again parades, marches and drills performed by uniformed organizations as they were performed by The Bartenders’ and Bookmakers’ Bands, The Knights of the Spotted Cubes, The Mystics and Oracles of Fistiana, The Stentorian Order of Umpires, The Grandiose Guild of Jockeys, The Loyal Legion of Log-burlers and many others on that historical day in Topeka? The last-named society was a new organization that was composed of Paul Bunyan’s loggers. They aroused the wildest enthusiasm when they appeared in the line of march treading beer kegs, and for this, and for their triumphs in the races, King Bourbon awarded them the grand prize.

The bar had been closed for the celebration, and when it was opened in the evening no one in the spruce and jocund throngs which streamed through its doors suspected that treason was afoot. Clinking of glasses, guffaws, jigging feet, back-slapping, bellowed songs and shouted jests made a tumult of rollicking and boisterous noise as the reveling began. Urged on by the traitorous bartenders, the nobility and gentry drank nothing but the sap of the whisky trees. It was a mild, mellow and soothing beverage when properly aged, but the raw green sap which the conspirators had supplied would suddenly addle the mind and paralyze the nerves. The loggers, flushed with conceit over their day’s triumph, boasted that they were champion drinkers also, and they dared everyone to enter drinking contests with them. The bartenders, obeying instructions, filled the loggers’ glasses with triple-distilled, high-powered redeye. So they were the first to get bleary-eyed, to wilt and to stagger about. By the time the nobility and gentry had begun to be affected the loggers had all stumbled outside or had been carried out. Too late the king and his followers realized that they were the victims of a conspiracy. When the fumes of the powerful green sap had completely befuddled them the spies of the Cornmen lighted the signal fires that were to start the attack.

In a short time the hosts of Cornmen, with husking hooks strapped to their left wrists, and with corn knives swinging from their right hands, charged, whooping and bounding, into the city. King Bourbon and his followers, deaf, weak-kneed, color-blind, dumb and addled, could make no resistance. They were driven through the streets, out of the city, on through the whisky tree forests and headed towards the far lands of Kentucky. Duke Dryface remained behind with the greater part of the Cornmen to secure the loggers, who were laid out in heaps, rows, circles, squares and fantastic groups all over the city. In three hours half of the loggers had balls and chains locked to their legs. Duke Dryface had begun to breathe easily and to enjoy the first glow of complete triumph when he became conscious of a vast shadow, an overpowering presence. The light of the moon seemed blotted out, the ground shook under a monstrous tread; then sounded a bellow of rage that lifted every Cornman and every logger seven feet into the air and whirled them all over five times before they struck the ground again. The rudely awakened and sobered loggers and the affrighted Cornmen then saw the august figure of Paul Bunyan and the blue ox looming above them. The good and mighty man was chiding Babe for bellowing so loudly and was restraining him from attacking the Duke and his followers.

Duke Dryface had the courage of true virtue. He fearlessly stepped up to Paul Bunyan and began a speech. First he spoke of the sins of King Bourbon and of the oppressions suffered by the Cornmen; he showed the necessity for reform. Next, he went on to prove that sin was in the very soil of Kansas, and that this soil could only be purified by destroying the evil forests and raising virtuous corn in their stead. That was his main reason for wanting to make slaves of the loggers, he said, but he hoped also to make righteous men of them later. Paul Bunyan nodded gravely for him to go on, and the duke then rose to the grandest heights of eloquence in describing the moral imperfections of the loggers. Deserters, braggarts, beer-bibbers, gluttons, cigarette fiends, and many other evil names he called them. Paul Bunyan listened, and the loggers got sick with shame and fear. They had surely sinned, they were indeed lost souls, they felt; they would forever despise themselves. Then, just when they had reached the lowest depths of self-loathing and despair, they saw Paul Bunyan give an enormous wink. Only a wink, but what forgiveness flashed from it, what unshakable faith seemed fixed in its depths! That one gesture of an eyelid restored and consoled them, for it spoke pardon and promised to forget. The duke declaimed until dawn, but the loggers listened complacently, grinning knowingly at each other. Once more they would toil grandly in the woods, once more hot cakes, ham and eggs would sizzle for them on the long kitchen ranges, once more they would be delighted by the wonders of noble Sunday dinners, for by the wink of his eye Paul Bunyan had made them his loggers again....

Paul Bunyan contracted for the logging-off of the whisky trees, and this was easily accomplished by the inspired toil of the loggers. The country was flattened by hitching Babe to each section of logged-off land and then turning it over. As Duke Dryface had surmised, the land, though rolling on _top_ was flat _underneath_. So the one-time sinful soil of Kansas now lies deeply buried, and only the barest vestiges of the grand life devised by King Bourbon survive anywhere in the Kansas country.

ORATORICAL MEDICINE

Before the second season in the Hickory Hill country there had never been a great sickness in Paul Bunyan’s camp. The health his loggers constantly enjoyed was due to the skill of Johnny Inkslinger, who was physician and surgeon, as well as timekeeper, to the good and mighty Paul Bunyan. His surgical feats were marvelous. When ears were bitten off, for example, in the playful jousts with which the loggers amused themselves, it was no trick for Johnny Inkslinger to sew them on tightly again. And when a logger got his face walked on by calked boots the timekeeper would fill the resulting cavities with bread crumbs, slap on some red paint, and the victim of play would return to the frolic, happy and unmarred. But it was digestive ills which he understood completely; for Paul Bunyan’s loggers like the laborers and farmers of to-day, had most of their physical miseries in the mysterious regions about the stomach. His knowledge was gained by the most arduous study and extensive research. The timekeeper wrote reports and figured all day, he dosed the loggers and operated on them in the evening, and the night long he read doctor books. His Sundays and holidays he spent among the wild creatures of the forests and seas, and these he studied shrewdly and patiently. He examined fleas, he explored whales, he once found the bones of a moose who had died of old age, and he tracked the animal to its birthplace, noting all its habits and methods of life on his way. His knowledge was monumental and complete, but he was content to remain a timekeeper in position and name.

In the second season on Hickory Hill the life of the camp went on as usual for a long time. For twelve hours each day the axes rang in the undercuts, the saws sang through bark and grain, and there was everywhere the death shudder, the topple and crashing fall of lofty trees. The blue ox placidly snaked the logs to the riverside, following the Big Swede, who, lost in dreams every trip always walked on into the water. The fumes and exhalations of the great cookhouse were never richer with delightful smells. In the evenings the bunkhouses were loud with gleeful roars as the loggers punched and kicked each other in their pastimes. As the work went on Paul Bunyan grew certain that this would be his greatest season among the hardwoods. His heart warmed toward his men. He planned for them feasts, revels, largesses, grand rewards. All his thoughts were benevolent ones as he directed operations. Then, at the height of his record-breaking season, Babe, the blue ox, got a misery.

It was a sly, slow, deceitful illness. It was first marked in the decline of his sportiveness and affection. It was his habit, when yoked and harnessed in the morning, to make for the woods at a roaring gallop. Always the Big Swede would grip the halter rope and try to hold the blue ox to a walk; always Babe would plunge on, dragging the Big Swede after him; and always the dutiful foreman would hit the ground once in every ninety feet, yell, “Har noo!” and then be yanked into the air again, for Babe would pay no heed to the bouncing boss. In the woods the blue ox always had to be closely watched, for he would chew up the trees in his jestful moments as fast as they were felled, and on the great drives he would prankishly drink the river dry, leaving the astounded rivermen mired in the mud of the stream bed. He was forever gouging the Big Swede with his sharp horns or tickling Paul Bunyan’s neck with his tongue.

When this playful spirit of his slackened and he began to walk slowly to the timber each morning, it was first thought to signify the approach of maturity, with its graver moods. But when Paul Bunyan discovered him one day, standing with his front feet crossed, his head bowed, his cud vanished, and with tears rolling from his half-closed eyes, the great logger was alarmed. He called Johnny Inkslinger from among his ledgers and ink barrels and ordered him to drop all other work until Babe’s ailment was diagnosed and cured.

Though he had studied all animals exhaustively, Johnny Inkslinger had never practised veterinary medicine, except in treating Babe’s inconsequential attacks of hayfever and asthma. If he took the case he would be assuming a great responsibility, he told Paul Bunyan; he must have at least forty-seven hours to consider the matter. The great logger, having due respect for the scientific temperament, granted him this, so the timekeeper retired to his office.

Paul Bunyan waited patiently, despite the fears and anguish that smote him when Babe looked at him with beseeching eyes. Work had been stopped in the woods, and the anxious loggers spent most of their time around the stable. The cooks, remembering Babe’s fondness for hot cakes and fried eggs, brought him tubfuls of them most delicately cooked, but he would only nibble at them politely, then turn away. Once indeed his old jestful spirit returned when the Big Swede came near him. He set his hoof on the foreman’s foot, and at the anguished “Har noo!” he seemed to smile. But what a difference there was between that shadow of merriment and the one time gay bellow that always followed the joke! Paul Bunyan and the loggers were deeply touched.

Johnny Inkslinger finally announced in a scientific speech that he was prepared to examine and treat the blue ox. He was certain, above all, that this illness was not caused by indigestion, for Babe’s stomach had always seemed to be iron-clad, invulnerable. When the hay supply ran low in the wintertime Paul Bunyan would tie a pair of green goggles over Babe’s eyes and he would graze for weeks on the snow. He was fond of the wires that bound his bales of hay, and he had always eaten them without apparent injury. So Johnny Inkslinger ignored Babe’s stomachs, but every other part of him, from muzzle to tail brush, was minutely scrutinized and explored. Nothing escaped observation. Six intrepid loggers with lanterns were lowered by ropes into his throat to examine his tonsils when he stubbornly refused to say “Ah!” But no diseased condition could anywhere be discovered.