After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of that mighty crash had ceased to reecho through the forest, the fellers stepped forward to examine their work.  They took all things into consideration, such as old wind shakes, new decay, twist of grain and location of the limbs.  Then they measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according to the best expediency.  The division points between logs they notched plainly, and, shouldering their axes and their sledge and their long, limber saw, pocketing their wedges and their bottle of coal oil, they moved on to where the next mighty pine had through all the centuries been awaiting their coming.

Now arrived on the scene the “swampers” and cross-cut men, swarming over the prostrate tree like ants over a piece of sugar.  Some of them cut off limbs; others, with axes and crowbars, began to pry away great slabs of bark; still others, with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axe against jamming, commenced the slow and laborious undertaking of sawing apart the logs.

But most interesting and complicated of all were the further processes of handling the great logs after they had been peeled and sawed.

The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the prostrate tree, where they were made fast by means of chains and hooks.  Then the puffing and snorting donkey engine near the chute tightened the cable.  The log stirred, moved, plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the soil.  Small trees and bushes it overrode.  But sooner or later it collided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder.  The cable strained.  Men shouted or waved their arms in signal.  The donkey engine ceased coughing.  Then the horse pulled the end of the log free.  Behind it was left a deep trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil.

At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of cars.  A more powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and back again, here took up the burden.  At a certain point it was broken by two great hooks.  One of these, the one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log of the train.  The other was dragged behind.  Away from the chutes ten feet the returning cable snapped through rude pulleys.  The train of logs moved forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways.

On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it heaved the mighty timbers from the woods.  The drag of the logs was sometimes heavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored by other cables to strong trees.  Between these opposing forces—­the inertia of the rooted and the fallen—­it leaped and trembled.  At its throttle, underneath a canopy knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready from one instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow down, according to the demands of an ever-changing exigence.  His was a nervous job, and he earned his repose.