JACK-O'-LANTERN 



glance shows the place impassable for 

 wheels; ten seconds suffice Bebe and the 

 younger Thomas to measure the chasm and 

 set to work. With what swift ease each 

 throws his ax-head deep into a tree that 

 presently falls just as he would have it, is 

 lopped and laid! The smooth kerfs tell how 

 every whistling stroke bites to a hair. 

 Neither word nor motion is wasted from 

 first to last. Again two spruces crash, are 

 cut to length, and the ax-men stand face to 

 face at the ends of a log. The steel buries 

 itself precisely in the centre; the other ax 

 sinks, in line and close beside; the first 

 hisses into the widening split; at the fourth 

 blow the log rends in equal halves — two 

 broad floor-beams. I doubt that the 

 building of this bridge, and of another like 

 it further on, lost us twenty minutes, where, 

 aided by less accustomed hands, the delay 

 would have run to ihours. Thoughtful 

 ever for their beasts, the men threw blan- 

 kets on the waiting; horses — all but the Coq. 

 Someone draws Pommereau's attention to 

 his omission. Scorn is in his gesture: — 

 'Couvrir cet animal-la? — le cheval eter- 

 neir 



After being walled in by forest for mile 

 after mile, the eye leaps across a more ex- 

 157 



