182 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



and pork and damper. Johnny was an expert at pre- 

 paring the latter ; and nobody troubled that he licked 

 his fingers every time that he burned them, and forgot 

 to wipe them before he handled the food. The break- 

 fast was eaten within the grateful warmth and red light 

 of huge pine-branch fires, and was a wildly picturesque 

 scene. Every man had to finish his meal before there 

 was daylight enough for him to work by, that there 

 might be no loss of time. By daybreak every man was 

 wielding his heavy axe as if working against time. 



I was not without a little experience, and I determined 

 to be no idler. But behold the mighty " Irish Mike." 

 Standing by a pine, two feet in diameter, he raises his 

 huge felling axe, and brings it down with a thud that 

 echoes and re-echoes through the dim glades of the 

 forest. First a cut sloping upwards, then one sloping 

 downwards, and the wedge-shaped chips fly about with 

 a velocity and force that warn the on-looker to stand 

 clear. Those long, wiry arms of Mike's never cease 

 motion, but sway up and down with steady beat, " chip, 

 chop, chip, chop," until the great tree nods to its fall ; 

 and then, with one powerful horizontal stroke, delivered 

 straight into the nick, the woodman finishes his work 

 and slays the tree that has breathed the sweet air of 

 perfect freedom for centuries. Ah me ! am I poetical 

 and far-fetched ! The fall of a tree has always seemed 

 to me strangely like the death of some brave live 

 creature. 



Now I have a try, and the kindly Mike stands by to 

 give " the bhoy " a word of instruction. In spite of my 

 attempts to imitate the measured stroke and fair cut of 

 the true lumber-man, it takes me an hour and a quarter 

 to fell a tree that Mike would ground in ten minutes. 

 But I improve as time goes on, and a month after my 

 arrival in camp, I can fell the tree in twenty-five 

 minutes, or half-an-hour at most. 



Like other trades, there are tricks in that of a mm- 



