Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-08

hjn1 TGteoatsJy. ation held for the cutting of different lengths of log, how the timber was skillfully decked on the skids in such manner that the pile should not bulge or fall and so that the scaler could easily determine the opposite ends of the same log in short, a thousand and one little details which ordinarily man learns only as the exigencies arise to call in experience. Here, too, he first realized he was in the firing line.
 Thorpe had assigned him as bunk mate the young fellow who assisted Tom Broadhead in the felling. Henry Paul was fresh cpmplexioned, clear eyed, quick hammered young fellow, with an air of steady responsibility about him. He came from the southern part of the state, where during the summer he worked on little home stead farm of his own. After a few days he told Thorpe that he was mar ried, and after few days more he showed his bunk mate the photograph of a sweet faced young woman who looked trustingly out of the picture.
 She's waiting down there for me. and 1t ain't so very long till spring" said Paul wistfulIy. "She's the best lit tie woman a man ever had, and there ain,t nothing too good for her, chnm. my"
 Thorpe, soul sick after his recent exs periences with the charity of the world, discovered real pleasure in this fresh, clear passion.
 Three days after the newcomer had started in at the swamping Paul, dur ing their early morning walk from camp to the scene of their operations, conf1ded in him further.
 Got another letter, chummy,'' said he. Come in yesterday She tells me-" he hesitated, with a blush, and then happy laugh, that they ain't going to be only two of us at the farm next year."
 "You mean?" queried Thorpe
 tYes," laughed Paul, land if it's a girl she gets named after her mother, you bet.''
 The men separated In a moment Thorpe found himself waist deep in the pitchy aromatic top of an old bull sap, clipping away at the projecting branches. After a time he heard PauPs gay halloo. i ''Timber!' came the cry, and then the h-sh-sh-crash of the trees fall
 Thorpe knew that now either Hank or Tom must be climbing with the long measuring pole along the prostrate trunk, marking by means of. shallow ax clips where the saw was to divide the logs. Then Tom shouted. some thing unintelligible. The other men seemed to understand, however, for they dropped their work and ran hasti- ly in the direction of the voice. Thorpe after a moments indecision did the same. He arrived to find a group about a prostrate man. The man was Paul.
 Two of the older woodsmen, kneel- ing, were conducting coolly hasty examination At the front every man is more or less of surgeon.
 "Is he hurt badly?" asked Thorpe. s'What is itY'
 He's dead" answered one of the other men soberly.
 With the skill of ghastly practice some of them wove litter, on which the body was placed. The pathetic little procession moved in the solemn, inscrutable forest.
 When the tree had fallen it had crashed through the top of another, leaving suspended in the branches of the latter long, heavy limb. A slight breeze dislodged it. Henry Paul was impaled as by javelin. This is the chief of the many perils of the woods.
 That evening the camp was unusual ly quiet Taller let his fiddle hang. After supper Thorpe was approached by Purdy, the reptilian redhead with whom he had had the row some even dnRs before.