The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-27

fire, as beftted stout-hearted and stout
bodied woodsmen. myself was one of them,
tasting the sweets of savage life. Yet, possibly
because did not taste those sweets with real
lost the sense that the men regarded me as a
tenderfoot, and had indstinct suspicious of my
eficacy-especially as had ideas of my own,
concerning which did not consult them, re-
quiring not their opinions, but their obedience
But the logger's whole anxiety is never merely
personal one Every lumberman of the gang
is as anxious as the head man and owner of the
enterprise is that it shall prove lucky one; and
he has, perhaps, right to some feeling If his
advice or well known experience is not regarded
Consequently, there was goodly amount OF
grumbling in the camp as the days went by and
we came into the frightening night and the
strengthening cold. A thousand predictions
that the whole winters work would come to
nothing might have been heard. and every one
was on the lookout for omens of disaster. Not
a wolf howled on the lake below, not a cata
mount screeched in the dark depths of the for
ests above, that it did not portend evil, till far
and wide among the hands it was believed that
not a log would 60 down stream that year.
1t made no odds how cheerily whistled as I
heard the logs creaking over the crust in the
bright morning sunlight that fell through the
shafts of the cleared forest, l saw the surface
of the frozen lake covered with them at last, as
saw the forest fairly turning into gold before
my eyes, as saw those stones redeemed, as
Hesters joyous eyes seemed looking into mine
there was no whistle out of Farrars lips no smile
in his eyes; he was an embodied foreboding, and
he was the master spirit of the camp.
Long before the spring opened, a jest or a
laugh had ceased to be heard at night; the stories
told were Of the kind that Farrar told-blood-
curding tales of the supernatural or the recital Of
strange or terrible deeds of violence, with their
dark discussion following. till l found myself at
last taking the contagion, looking upon dark pos
sibilites, seeing no bright side, and plunging
every day more deeply into gloom.
1t was gloom enough to me to be shut off from
the civilized world as was to feel myself re-
turning to the savage, to have no word Of Hester
for weeks and months. All the treasure in the
vaults of the national treasury, thought, would
not tempt me to such another winter of arctic
loneliness except for the treasure was to find
at the fortunate end of it in the possession of my
Hester. And if the end were not fortunate
there shuddered and refused to think. If the
forebodings of Farrar and the rest had any
foundation, mad reason to shudder And so
strongly did the impression of misfortune take
hold of me at last with all its accompanying
gloom and despair, that l felt confident that if /
did not get the logs down / should simply cut
my throat. The woods were dark in their re-
cesses at monday; although surrounded by men,
was alone. In darkness and solitude things
magnify, and take on colossal proportions. If did
not get the means to redeem those stones, I had
better cut my throat
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT SATURDAY.