The Blazed Trail | Page 6

the thickets with a discouraging and inextricable
tangle, the clearing of five miles to street width will look like an almost
hopeless undertaking. Not only must the growth be removed, but the
roots must be cut out, and the inequalities of the ground levelled or
filled up. Reflect further that Radway had but a brief time at his
disposal,--but a few months at most,--and you will then be in a position
to gauge the first difficulties of those the American pioneer expects to
encounter as a matter of course. The cutting of the road was a mere
incident in the battle with the wilderness.
The jobber, of course, pushed his roads as rapidly as possible, but was

greatly handicapped by lack of men. Winter set in early and surprised
him with several of the smaller branches yet to finish. The main line,
however, was done.
At intervals squares were cut out alongside. In them two long timbers,
or skids, were laid andiron-wise for the reception of the piles of logs
which would be dragged from the fallen trees. They were called
skidways. Then finally the season's cut began.
The men who were to fell the trees, Radway distributed along one
boundary of a "forty." They were instructed to move forward across the
forty in a straight line, felling every pine tree over eight inches in
diameter. While the "saw-gangs," three in number, prepared to fell the
first trees, other men, called "swampers," were busy cutting and
clearing of roots narrow little trails down through the forest from the
pine to the skidway at the edge of the logging road. The trails were
perhaps three feet wide, and marvels of smoothness, although no
attempt was made to level mere inequalities of the ground. They were
called travoy roads (French "travois"). Down them the logs would be
dragged and hauled, either by means of heavy steel tongs or a short
sledge on which one end of the timber would be chained.
Meantime the sawyers were busy. Each pair of men selected a tree, the
first they encountered over the blazed line of their "forty." After
determining in which direction it was to fall, they set to work to chop a
deep gash in that side of the trunk.
Tom Broadhead and Henry Paul picked out a tremendous pine which
they determined to throw across a little open space in proximity to the
travoy road. One stood to right, the other to left, and alternately their
axes bit deep. It was a beautiful sight this, of experts wielding their
tools. The craft of the woodsman means incidentally such a free swing
of the shoulders and hips, such a directness of stroke as the blade of one
sinks accurately in the gash made by the other, that one never tires of
watching the grace of it. Tom glanced up as a sailor looks aloft.
"She'll do, Hank," he said.

The two then with a dozen half clips of the ax, removed the inequalities
of the bark from the saw's path. The long, flexible ribbon of steel began
to sing, bending so adaptably to the hands and motions of the men
manipulating, that it did not seem possible so mobile an instrument
could cut the rough pine. In a moment the song changed timbre.
Without a word the men straightened their backs. Tom flirted along the
blade a thin stream of kerosene oil from a bottle in his hip pocket, and
the sawyers again bent to their work, swaying back and forth
rhythmically, their muscles rippling under the texture of their woolens
like those of a panther under its skin. The outer edge of the saw-blade
disappeared.
"Better wedge her, Tom," advised Hank.
They paused while, with a heavy sledge, Tom drove a triangle of steel
into the crack made by the sawing. This prevented the weight of the
tree from pinching the saw, which is a ruin at once to the instrument
and the temper of the filer. Then the rhythmical z-z-z! z-z-z! again took
up its song.
When the trunk was nearly severed, Tom drove another and thicker
wedge.
"Timber!" hallooed Hank in a long-drawn melodious call that melted
through the woods into the distance. The swampers ceased work and
withdrew to safety.
But the tree stood obstinately upright. So the saw leaped back and forth
a few strokes more.
"Crack!" called the tree.
Hank coolly unhooked his saw handle, and Tom drew the blade
through and out the other side.
The tree shivered, then leaded ever so slightly from the perpendicular,
then fell, at first gently, afterwards with a crescendo rush, tearing
through the branches of other trees, bending the small timber, breaking

the smallest, and at last hitting with a tremendous crash and bang which
filled the air with a fog of small twigs,