Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/229

Rh horn. The sound carries all right when Paul blows her, but it's kinda expensive 'cause every time he blows he knocks down 'bout 'leven acres of standin' timber.

"Well, Paul, he gits these here men all strung 'round th' cornstalk an' he blows th' horn for 'em to start. They slam into th' stalk good an' heavy, fifty of 'em, each sinkin' his axe to th' eye—but—" He sighed and paused. "You see, their choppin' don't do a dime's worth of good, 'cause this here damn stalk grows so fast that they can't hit twice in th' same place to git a chip off."

Joe scowled and rubbed his chin.

"Bad," he muttered. "Pret' bad, with Congress waitin' fer to arrest Paul an' ruin his reppetation.

"So Paul, he does some more thinkin'. Now you recalled 'bout Paul's big saw mill. Pret' good-sized mill. Right fair mill. She'd cut a million feet an hour. To keep this mill in logs he had to build a pret' good railroad. Light steel wouldn't stand his trains 'cause they had to load fairly heavy, so Paul had some special steel made, mite heavier 'n anythin' they'd ever used loggin'. Each rail was a quarter-mile long an' a foot square on th' end.

"Now this road, good as she was, couldn't quite keep th' mill in logs. The' was a Scotchman engineer on th' loggin' train an' he used to roll 'em in pret' fast, but Paul he ain't satisfied, an' he laces into th' Scotchman one day an' tells it to him good an' hard an' says to put on a little steam, wood's cheap, an' travel some. That made the engineer mad—'cause he thought he'd been doin' pret' good. So when he goes out with his empties to th' bankin' ground he opens her wide an' she goes so damn fast that th' draft picks up th' steel an' ties an' rolls 'em