644 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
began to rain, the buckskin began to stretch, and by the 
time the ox reached camp the log was out of sight around a 
bend in the road with the tugs stretching back endlessly 
after it. The cook tied the ox and went to dinner. While 
he was eating, the sun came out boiling hot, dried the buck¬ 
skin harness, and hauled the log into camp. Another ver¬ 
sion of this tale is reported to us by Professor Beatty of the 
University of Wisconsin, who heard the story when he was 
a boy in Canada. Whether Professor Beatty’s version is 
simply a detached member of the Bunyan story-cycle or 
whether, conversely, it existed originally as an independent 
tale and was later connected with the blue ox, we do not 
know. The latter explanation seems the probable one. 
One tale of the blue ox had best be told in the words of 
the lumberjack who sent it to a friend of Miss Stewart’s, 
in a letter written with very evident care and with every 
other word capitalized. 
“Paul B Driving a large Bunch of logs Down the Wis¬ 
consin River When the logs Suddenly Jamed. in the Dells. 
The logs were piled Two Hundred feet high at the head. 
And were backed up for One mile up river. Paul was at 
the rear of the Jam with the Blue Oxen And while he was 
coming to the front the Crew was trying to break the Jam 
but they couldent Budge it. When Paul Arrived at the 
Head with the ox he told them to Stand Back. He put the 
Ox in the old Wise, in front of the Jam. And then Standing 
on the Bank Shot the Ox with a 303 Savage Rifle. The Ox 
thought it was flies And began to Switch his Tail. The tail 
commenced to go around in a circle And up Stream And do 
you know That Ox Switching his tail forced that Stream to 
flow Backwards And Eventually the Jam floated back 
Also. He took the ox out of the Stream. And let the 
Stream And logs go on their way.” 
Most of the exploits of Paul Bunyan center at Round River. 
Here Bunyan and his crew labored all one winter to clear 
the pine from a single forty. This was a most peculiar forty 
in that it was shaped like a pyramid with a heavy timber 
growth on all sides. The attention of skeptics who refuse 
to believe in the existence of the pyramid forty is certain to 
be called by the story-teller to a lumberman with a short 
leg, a member, the listener is solemnly assured, of Bunyan’s 
