FOREST LIFE. 115 



sideratioii turned and fled. . I watched them till their dusky forms 

 disappeared over a neighboring hill ; then, taking ofi' my skates, 

 I wended my way to the house, with feelings better to be imag- 

 ined than described." 



Such annoyances from these migrating beasts, in the vicinity 

 of logging births as above named, are of recent date. Up to 

 1840 I had been much in the wild forests of the northeastern 

 part of Maine, clearing wild land during the summer and log- 

 ging in the winter, and up to this time had never seen a sat- 

 isfactory evidence of their presence. But since this period they 

 'have often been seen, and in such numbers and of such size as 

 to render them objects of dread. 



Every department of labor among the loggers, and in fact, to 

 extend the observation, every department of life, is characterized 

 more or less by adventure and peril. Our men get badly cut 

 sometimes, and then, in the absence of a surgeon, are put upon 

 their own resources to stanch blood and dress wounds. 



I recollect an instance in which a man in one of the neighbor- 

 ing crews, while at work, received the whole bit of an ax into 

 the muscular portion of his thigh, by an accidental blow from 

 an associate. It was indeed a gaping Avound. A wound of such 

 an alarming character, in the absence of suitable medical aid, is 

 deemed a serious matter, and not without just cause. In this 

 instance use was made of handkerchiefs to swathe up the wound, 

 so as to stanch the flowing blood, while they bore him to the 

 camp upon a litter. He was laid upon the deacon seat, and the 

 wound was sewed up by one of the crew with a common sewing- 

 needle. It did well, and in the course of a few weeks he was 

 able to resume his labors. 



Life is constantly endangered in felling the Pine-trees. The 

 tops of other trees seldom oppose any barrier to the giddy plunge 

 of the towering Pine, breaking, splitting, and crushing all com- 

 ing within its range. The broken limbs which are torn from its 



