Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/202

  McGregor's Angus, and with him came his sister Bella. He was shortly afterward followed by other teams in rapid succession—the Rosses, the McKerachers, the Camerons, both Don and Murdie, the Rory McCuaigs, the McRaes, two or three families of them, the Frasers, and others—till some fifteen teams and forty men, and boys, who thought themselves quite men, lined up in front of the brûle.

The bee was a great affair, for Macdonald Bhain was held in high regard by the people; and besides this, the misfortune that had befallen his brother, and the circumstances under which it had overtaken him, had aroused in the community a very deep sympathy for him, and people were glad of the opportunity to manifest this sympathy. And more than all, a logging bee was an event that always promised more or less excitement and social festivity.

Yankee was "boss" for the day. This position would naturally have fallen to Macdonald Bhain, but at his brother's bee, Macdonald Bhain shrank from taking the leading place.

The men with the axes went first, chopping up the half-burned logs into lengths suitable for the burning-piles, clearing away the brushwood, and cutting through the big roots of the fire-eaten stumps so that they might more easily be pulled. Then followed the teams with their logging-chains, hauling the logs to the piles, jerking out and drawing off the stumps whose huge roots stuck up high into the air, and drawing great heaps of brush-wood to aid in reducing the heavy logs to ashes. At each log-pile stood a