The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan Part 4

The cook's in Paul's camps used a lot of water and to make things handy, they used to dig wells near the cook shanty. At headquarters on the Big Auger, on top of the hill near the mouth of the Little Gimlet, Paul dug a well so deep that it took all day for the bucket to fall to the water, and a week to haul it up. They had to run so many buckets that the well was forty feet in diameter. It was sh.o.r.ed up with tamarac poles and when the camp was abandoned Paul pulled up this cribbing. Travellers who have visited the spot say that the sand has blown away until 178 feet of the well is sticking up into the air, forming a striking landmark.

WHAT is camp without a dog? Paul Bunyan loved dogs as well as the next man but never would have one around that could not earn its keep. Paul's dogs had to work, hunt or catch rats. It took a good dog to kill the rats and mice in Paul's camps for the rodents picked up sc.r.a.ps of the buffalo milk pancakes and grew to be as big as two year old bears.

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Elmer, the moose terrier, practiced up on the rats when he was a small pup and was soon able to catch a moose on the run and finish it with one shake. Elmer loafed around the cook camp and if the meat supply happened to run low the cook would put the dog out the door and say, "Bring in a moose." Elmer would run into the timber, catch a moose and bring it in and repeat the performance until, after a few minutes work, the cook figured he had enough for a mess and would call the dog in.

Sport, the reversible dog, was really the best hunter. He was part wolf and part elephant hound and was raised on bear milk. One night when Sport was quite young, he was playing around in the horse barn and Paul, mistaking him for a mouse, threw a hand axe at him. The axe cut the dog in two but Paul, instantly realizing what had happened, quickly stuck the two halves together, gave the pup first aid and bandaged him up.

With careful nursing the dog soon recovered and then it was seen that Paul in his haste had twisted the two halves so that the hind legs pointed straight up. This proved to be an advantage for the dog learned to run on one pair of legs for a while and then flop over without loss of speed and run on the other pair. Because of this he never tired and anything he started after got caught. Sport never got his full growth.

While still a pup he broke through four feet of ice on Lake Superior and was drowned.

As a hunter, Paul would make old Nimrod himself look like a city dude lost from his guide. He was also a good fisherman. Oldtimers tell of seeing Paul as a small boy, fis.h.i.+ng off the Atlantic Coast. He would sail out early in the morning in his three-mast schooner and wade back before breakfast with his boat full of fish on his shoulder.

About this time he got his shot gun that required four dishpans full of powder and a keg of spikes to load each barrel. With this gun he could shoot geese so high in the air they would spoil before reaching the ground.

Tracking was Paul's favorite sport and no trail was too old or too dim for him to follow. He once came across the skeleton of a moose that had died of old age and, just for curiosity, picked up the tracks of the animal and spent the whole afternoon following its trail back to the place where it was born.

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The s.h.a.ggy dog that spent most of his time pretending to sleep in front of Johnny Inkslinger's counter in the camp office was Fido, the watch dog. Fido was the bug-bear (not bearer, just bear) of the greenhorns.

They were told that Paul starved Fido all winter and then, just before payday, fed him all the swampers, barn boys and student bull-cooks. The very marrow was frozen in their heads at the thought of being turned into dog food. Their fears were groundless for Paul would never let a dog go hungry or mistreat a human being. Fido was fed all the watch peddlers, tailors' agents, and camp inspectors and thus served a very useful purpose.

WHEN Paul Bunyan took up efficiency engineering he went at the job with all his customary thoroughness. He did not fool around clocking the crew with a stop watch, counting motions and deducting the ones used for borrowing chews, going for drinks, dodging the boss and preparing for quitting time. He decided to cut out labor altogether.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Paul Bunyan says: "I'm going to change "Babe's" name to "Faith" since he moved the mountain."]

"What's the use," said Paul, "of all this sawing, swamping, skidding, decking, grading and icing roads, loading, hauling and landing? The object of the game is to get the trees to the landing, ain't it? Well, why not do it and get it off your mind?"

So he hitched Babe to a section of land and snaked in the whole 640 acres at one drag. At the landing the trees were cut off just like shearing a sheep and the denuded section hauled back to it's original place. This simplified matters and made the work a lot easier. Six trips a day, six days a week just cleaned up a towns.h.i.+p for section 37 was never hauled back to the woods on Sat.u.r.day night but was left on the landing to wash away in the early spring when the drive went out.

Doc.u.mentary evidence of the truth of this is offered by the United States government surveys. Look at any map that shows the land subdivisions and you will never find a towns.h.i.+p with more than thirty-six sections.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Westwood, Cal. Dec. 32 (Special) Hauling in the last section 37 in California today. Brimstone Bill, the bullwhacker in charge of Babe, the Big Blue Ox, met with an accident that would have been fatal but for the prompt action of Paul Bunyan. The section skidded on a bad turn and buried Brimstone against the mountain side. Mr. Bunyan hitched Babe to the mountain and pulled it away, releasing Brimstone who is recovering in the Westwood Hospital.]

The foregoing statement, previously published, has caused some controversy. Mr. T. S. Sowell of Miami, Florida wrote to us citing the towns.h.i.+ps in his State that have sections numbered 37 to 40. He said that the government survey had been complicated by the old Spanish land grants. We put the matter up to Paul Bunyan and from his camp near Westwood came this reply:

Red River Advertising Department.

Dear Sir: Yes sir, I remember those sections and a lot of bother they made me too. One winter when I was starting the White Pine business and snaking sections down to the Atlantic Ocean, a man from Florida came along and ordered a bunch of sections delivered down to his place. He wanted to see if he could grow the same kind of White Pine down there. I yarded out a nice bunch of sections and next summer when my drive was in and I wasn't busy I took a crew of Canada Boys and Mainites and poled them down the coast. When I come to collect they said this man was gone looking for a Fountain of Youth or some fool thing.

I don't know what luck he had with his White Pine ranch. I never seen them again. I had a lot of other things to tend to and clean forgot it till you sent me Mr. Sowell's letter. Maybe that man was a Spaniard I don't know.

Yours respectively,

P. BUNYAN.

FROM 1917 to 1920 Paul Bunyan was busy toting the supplies and building camps for a bunch of husky young fellow-Americans who had a contract on the other side of the Atlantic, showing a certain prominent European (who is now logging in Holland) how they log in the United States.

After his service overseas with the A. E. F., Paul couldn't get back to the States quick enough. Airplanes were too slow so Paul embarked in his Bark Canoe, the one he used on the Big Onion the year he drove logs upstream. When he threw the old paddle into high he sure rambled and the sea was covered with dead fish that broke their backs trying to watch him coming and going.

As he shoved off from France, Paul sent a wireless to New York but pa.s.sed the Statue of Liberty three lengths ahead of the message. From New York to Westwood he travelled on skis. When the home folks asked him if the Allegheney Mountains and the Rockies had bothered him, Paul replied, "I didn't notice any mountains but the trail was a little b.u.mpy in a couple of spots."

BACK in the early days, when his camps were so far from anywhere that the wolves following the tote-teams got lost in the woods, Paul Bunyan made no attempt to keep in touch with the trade. What's the use when every letter that comes in is about things that happened the year before?

Since he came to Westwood Paul has renewed old friends.h.i.+ps, formed new ones and kept close contact with the world. Everyone expects great things of Paul Bunyan and with the Red River outfit back of him he has the chance of his life to make good. Continuous production keeps a full a.s.sortment of stock on hand. Customers in all parts of America find Westwood a dependable source of supply.

Here is an instance. This old friend of Paul's, a prominent furniture manufacturer in the Lake States, was disappointed because an item he wanted for immediate s.h.i.+pment was not in stock in the grade and thickness required. He wrote the letter shown below and was given an explanation of the facts in the case in the accompanying reply.

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PAUL BUNYAN'S PINE

CALIFORNIA WHITE _And_ SUGAR PINES

"_Specified where economy is a vital factor, or where the best is used regardless of cost._"

WHITE FIR INCENSE CEDAR

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"_The old-fas.h.i.+oned White Pine our grandfathers used!_"

How often have you wished for it, the soft, even textured, easy-working wood that took so well and weathered the years without a warp or a check?

Here it is, friends, better than ever,--clear plank 48 inches wide if you want them. Red River products excel in workmans.h.i.+p, precise cutting, perfect seasoning. YARD STOCKS, all items and grades, boards, dimension, moldings, lath and sidings. FACTORY LUMBER, sash and door cuttings and industrial cuttings for any requirement. BOX SHOOKS and crate stocks of every description.

SASH AND DOORS, standard and made to order. PATTERN STOCK, large sizes, easy working, durable.

Saving in working-up costs, by hand or machine; light weight and the superior quality,--grade for grade, make PAUL BUNYAN'S PINES the most profitable to buy, to work or to sell.

Distributed to all parts of America and to foreign countries.

_Largest Manufacturers of California Pines._

"Producers of White Pine for over Half a Century."

The RED RIVER LUMBER CO.