"That's getting pretty near home," remarked Ranolf, glancing apprehensively into the gloom behind the camp. "You don't suppose that chap would be waiting around here for you, Stranion? If so, I hope he won't mistake me for you!"
"Let Sam give us something cheerful now!" demanded Magnus.
"Well," said Sam, "I'll give you a story of the lumber-camps. I'll call it--
[Illustration: "With the next Thrust I slid like Lightning down the Middle Channel."--Page 78.]
"As the O. M. is going to dress up our yarns for the cold light of print, I must be allowed to preface the story with a few introductory remarks on the life of the lumbermen in winter. Stranion and the O. M. know all about that; but the rest of you fellows never go to the lumber-camps, you know.
"To one who visits the winter camps here in our backwoods, the life led by the loggers is likely to seem monotonous after the strangeness of it has worn off. The sounds of the chopping, the shouting, the clanking of the teams, afford ample warning to all the wild creatures of the woods, who thereupon generally agree in giving a wide berth to a neighborhood which has suddenly grown so populous and noisy.
"In chopping and hauling logs the lumbermen are at work unremittingly from dawn until sun-down, and at night they have little energy to expend on the hunting of bears or panthers. The bunks and the blankets exert an overwhelming attraction; and by the time the men have concluded their after-supper smoke, and the sound of a few rough songs has died away, the wild beasts may creep near enough to smell the pork and beans, and may prowl about the camp until dawn, with small fear of molestation from the sleepers within.
"At intervals, however, the monotony of camp-life is broken. Something occurs to remind the careless woodsmen that, though in the wilderness, indeed, they are yet not truly of it. They are made suddenly aware of those shy but savage forces which, regarding them ever as trespassers, have been keeping them under an angry and eager surveillance. The spirit of the violated forest makes a swift and sometimes effectual, but always unexpected, stroke for vengeance.
"A yoke of oxen are straining at their load: a great branch reaching down catches the nearest ox by the horn, and the poor brute falls in its track with its neck broken. A stout sapling is bent to the ground by a weight of ice and snow: some thaw or the shock of a passing team releases it, and by the fierce recoil a horse's leg is shattered.