There were ten of us. Each knew what was at stake, and all worked with
such good-will that by five o'clock we had the saw running. The white
birches there were from a foot up to twenty-two inches in diameter,
having long, straight trunks, clear of limbs from thirty to forty feet
in length. These clear trunks only were used for bolts.
Plying their axes, Halstead, Addison, Thomas and Willis felled upward of
forty trees that night, and these were all sawn by dark. On an average,
five trees were required for a cord of bolts; but with sharp axes such
white-birch trees can be felled fast. Morefield tended the saw and drove
the horses in the horse-power; the rest of us were kept busy sliding the
birch trunks down the slip to the saw, and rolling away the bolts.
By dark we had made a beginning of our hard week's task, and in the
gathering dusk plodded across the lake to the old lumber-camp, expecting
to find Aunt Olive smiling and supper ready.
But here disappointment awaited us. Sylvester, with the sled-load of
supplies, had not come, did not arrive, in fact, till half an hour
later, and then with his oxen only. Disaster had befallen him on the
way.
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