The matter of firewood always concerned Nielsen and me more than any one. Nielsen was a Norwegian, raised as a boy to use a crosscut saw; and as for me I was a connoisseur in camp-fires and a lover of them. Hence we had brought a crosscut saw--a long one with two handles. I remembered from the former year a huge dead pine that had towered bleached and white at the edge of the glade. It stood there still. The storms and blasts of another winter had not changed it in the least. It was five feet thick at the base and solid. Nielsen chopped a notch in it on the lower side, and then he and Edd began to saw into it on the other. I saw the first tremor of the lofty top. Then soon it shivered all the way down, gave forth a loud crack, swayed slowly, and fell majestically, to strike with a thundering crash. Only the top of this pine broke in the fall, but there were splinters and knots and branches enough to fill a wagon. These we carried up to our camp-fire.
Then the boys sawed off half a dozen four-foot sections, which served as fine, solid, flat tables for comfort around camp. The method of using a crosscut saw was for two men to take a stand opposite one another, with the log between. The handles of the saw stood upright. Each man should pull easily and steadily toward himself, but should not push back nor bear down. It looked a rhythmic, manly exercise, and not arduous. But what an illusion! Nielsen and Copple were the only ones that day who could saw wholly through the thick log without resting. Later Takahashi turned out to be as good, if not better, than either of them, but we had that, as well as many other wonderful facts, to learn about the Jap.
"Come on," said R.C. to me, invitingly. "You've been talking about this crosscut saw game. I'll bet you find it harder than pulling on a swordfish."
Pride goes before a fall! I knew that in my condition I could do little with the saw, but I had to try. R.C. was still fresh when I had to rest. Perhaps no one except myself realized the weakness of my back, but the truth was a couple of dozen pulls on that saw almost made me collapse. Wherefore I grew furious with myself and swore I would do it or die. I sawed till I fell over--then I rested and went back at it. Half an hour of this kind of exercise gave me a stab in my left side infinitely sharper than the pain in my back. Also it made me wringing wet, hot as fire, and as breathless as if I had run a mile up hill. That experience determined me to stick to crosscut sawing every day. Next morning I approached it with enthusiasm, yet with misgivings. I could not keep my breath. Pain I could and did bear without letting on. But to have to stop was humiliating. If I tried to keep up with the sturdy Haught boys, or with the brawny Copple or the giant Nielsen, soon I would be compelled to keel over. In the sawing through a four-foot section of log I had to rest eight times. They all had a great deal of fun out of it, and I pretended to be good natured, but to me who had always been so vigorous and active and enduring it was not fun. It was tragic. But all was not gloom for me. This very afternoon Nielsen, the giant, showed that a stiff climb out of the canyon, at that eight thousand feet altitude, completely floored him. Yet I accomplished that with comparative ease. I could climb, which seemed proof that I was gaining. A man becomes used to certain labors and exercises. I thought the crosscut saw a wonderful tool to train a man, but it must require time. It harked back to pioneer days when men were men. Nielsen said he had lived among Mexican boys who sawed logs for nineteen cents apiece and earned seven dollars a day. Copple said three minutes was good time to saw a four-foot log in two pieces. So much for physical condition! As for firewood, for which our crosscut saw was intended, pitch pine and yellow pine and spruce were all odorous and inflammable woods, but they did not make good firewood. Dead aspen was good; dead oak the best. It burned to red hot coals with little smoke. As for camp-fires, any kind of dry wood pleased, smoke or no smoke. In fact I loved the smell and color of wood-smoke, in spite of the fact that it made my eyes smart.