V

Bob saw that afternoon the chopping contest.  Thorne assigned to each a tree some eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, selecting those whose loss would aid rather than deplete the timber stand, and also, it must be confessed, those whose close proximity to others might make axe swinging awkward.  About twenty feet from the base of each tree he placed upright in the earth a sharpened stake.  This, he informed the axe-man, must be driven by the fall of the tree.

As in the previous contests, three classes of performers quickly manifested themselves—­the expert, the man of workmanlike skill, and the absolute duffer.  The lumberjacks produced the implements they had that noon so carefully ground to an edge.  It was beautiful to see them at work.  To all appearance they struck easily, yet each stroke buried half the blade.  The less experienced were inclined to put a great deal of swift power in the back swing, to throw too much strength into the beginning of the down stroke.  The lumberjacks drew back quite deliberately, swung forward almost lazily.  But the power constantly increased, until the axe met the wood in a mighty swish and whack.  And each stroke fell in the gash of the one previous.  Methodically they opened the “kerf,” each face almost as smooth as though it had been sawn.  At the finish they left the last fibres on one side or another, according as they wanted to twist the direction of the tree’s fall.  Then the trunk crashed down across the stake driven in the ground.

The mountaineers, accustomed to the use of the axe in their backwoods work, did a workmanlike but not expert job on their respective trees.  They felled their trees accurately over the mark, and their axe work was fairly clean, but it took them some time to finish the job.

But some of the others made heavy weather.  Young Elliott was the worst.  It was soon evident that he had probably never had any but a possible and casual wood-pile axe in his hand before.  The axe rarely hit twice in the same place; its edge had apparently no cutting power; the handle seemed to be animated with a most diabolical tendency to twist in mid-air.  Bob, with the wisdom of the woods, withdrew to a safe distance.  The others followed.

Long after the others had finished, poor Elliott hacked away.  He seemed to have no definite idea of possible system.  All he seemed to be trying to do was to accomplish some kind of a hole in that tree.  The chips he cut away were small and ragged; the gash in the side of the tree was long and irregular.

“Looks like somethin’ had set out to chaw that tree down!” drawled a mountain man to his neighbour.

But when the tree finally tottered and crashed to the ground it fairly centred the direction stake!

The bystanders stared; then catching the expression of ludicrous astonishment on Elliott’s face, broke into appreciative laughter.