Stewart — Watt-—Legends of Paul Bunyan. 
651 
days of lumbering in the North more than one man staked 
out a claim on a single forty and, ignoring section lines, cut 
“government pine” for miles around, securing, it was hu¬ 
morously reported by those who knew but winked at the 
robbery, a great deal of timber from one forty. This cut¬ 
ting of government pine appears definitely in at least one 
Bunyan story, the tale of the method adopted by Bunyan 
to pay off his crew. Excepting for stories of this sort, how¬ 
ever, which seem distinctly confined to the lumber districts, 
and which would, indeed, have little reason for existing 
elsewhere, the majority of the Bunyan legends are very 
likely adaptations of tales which have elsewhere an ex¬ 
istence in some form. 
