“Waal, one day the foreman sent me out to look over a section of timber land some distance from the camp, an’ I set off right after breakfast.  I took my axe along, o’ course; no lumberman ever thinks o’ goin’ anywhere without his axe, any more than you boys figure on travelin’ around without packin’ a six-gun with yuh.  I took enough grub with me to last the day out, fer, as I said, it was a longish distance, an’ I didn’t reckon t’ get back much before dark.  It was the middle o’ winter, an’ the days up there in the woods were mighty short.

“The snow was pretty deep, but I traveled on snowshoes, an’ didn’t have much trouble gettin’ along.  I made tol’able time, an’ made a rough survey o’ the timber before I unpacked my grub.  After eatin’ I started back to camp, congratulatin’ myself that I’d reach it with time an’ to spare.  But as some poetry sharp I once heard of says, ’Man proposes, but the Almighty disposes,’ or words that mean the same thing.  I’d gotten pretty well along on the return journey when suddenly I heard somethin’ snap, and before I had time to even jump aside a big dead tree slams down, knockin’ me over an’ catchin’ my left leg under it.

“Waal, I saw stars fer a few minutes, but as soon as my head cleared off a mite I tried to wriggle myself loose.  But the tree couldn’t seem to see it that way.  It had me good an’ tight, and appar’ntly meant to enjoy my company fer a spell.  At first, though, I couldn’t seem to understand that I was really caught hard an’ fast, an’ it took a little time fer the idea t’ sink in.  When it did filter through to me I pretty near went crazy, I guess.  I remember turnin’ and twistin’ until my leg felt like it was goin’ to break clean off, an’ I almost wished it would.  But after a while I pulled myself together a little, an’ tried to think o’ some way out.  As soon as I lay still even fer a minute the cold began to gnaw through me, and I knew I’d have t’ do whatever I was goin’ to do mighty quick, or I’d freeze to death.

“An’ that warn’t the only danger, neither.  It was beginnin’ to get dark, and suddenly, ’way off to the north, I heard the yell of a painter (or a panther, as you lads might call it),” turning toward the three comrades, who were listening intently.

“Waal, when I heard that yell somethin’ that seemed colder even than the icy air clutched at my heart.  O’ course, I didn’t have any weapon with me, except as you might call my axe one.  I looked around fer it, and saw that it had fallen about three feet farther than I could stretch, and lay half buried in the snow, only the haft stickin’ out.

“I made up my mind that I’d have to have that axe, anyway, an’ I set to work gettin’ it.  After thinkin’ a few minutes I took off a long leather belt I was wearin’ and made a loop by runnin’ it through the buckle.  From where I was layin’ it was an almighty hard job to throw that loop around the axe handle, an’ I reckon I must ‘a’ tried twenty times before I finally made to throw it over.  Then I started pullin’ easy-like on the belt to tighten the loop, so it would hold on the slippery handle.  The belt was a leetle stiff, though, an’ the loop wouldn’t tighten very close.  When I tried to pull in on it, the axe stuck in the crust that covered the softer snow underneath, an’ the belt slipped off the handle.