Part 2

The sun shone at last from a whitish blue sky, and the strange snow fell no more. A snapping cold was in the land; and pine boughs were bangled and brocaded with glittering blue crystals, and crusty blue snow crackled underfoot.

Paul Bunyon strapped on his snow shoes and started out through the Border forests in search of Niagara. His was a kingly figure as he mushed through the pine trees, looming above all but the very tallest of them. He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his glossy hair and beard shone under it with a blackness that blended with the cap’s color perfectly. His unique eyebrows were black also; covering a fourth of his forehead above the eyes, they narrowed where they arched down under his temples, and they ended in thin curls just in front of his ears. His mustache had natural twirls and he never disturbed it. He wore a yellow muffler this morning under his virile curly beard. His mackinaw coat was of huge orange and purple checks. His mackinaw pants were sober-seeming, having tan and light gray checks, but some small crimson dots and crosses brightened them. Green wool socks showed above his black boots, which had buckskin laces and big brass eyelets and hooks. And he wore striped mittens of white and plum color. Paul Bunyon was a gorgeous picture this morning in the frozen fields and forests, all covered with blue snow which sparkled in a pale gold light.

That day and the next, and for five more days, he searched in vain for Niagara; and neither did he see any moose herds in the woods. Only the frost crackles broke the silences of the deserted blue forests. And at last Paul Bunyon returned to his cave, feeling depressed and lonely. He had not thought that the companionship of Niagara could mean so much to him. In his mood of depression he forgot his hunger and made no further effort to find food.

Lonely Paul Bunyon lay sleepless in his blankets this night, his eyes gleaming through hedgelike eyelashes as their gaze restlessly followed the red flares that shot from the fire and streaked the walls and roof of the cave. He did not realize that his first creative idea was now struggling for birth. He could yet feel no shape of it. He was only conscious of an unaccustomed turmoil of mind. Wearied with fruitless thought, he at last fell into a doze. But Paul Bunyon was not fated to sleep this night. A sustained crashing roar, as of the splintering of millions of timbers, brought him up suddenly; it was hushed for a short second; then a thudding boom sounded from Tonnere Bay. Paul Bunyon leaped to the cave door, and in the moonlight he saw a white wave of water rolling over the blue beach. It came near to the cave before it stopped and receded. He pulled on his boots, and two strides brought him down to the bay. It had been covered with ice seven feet thick, and the cakes of this broken ice were now tossing on heaving waters. Now Paul Bunyon saw two ears show sometimes above the billows; they were of the shape of moose ears, but enormous as his two forefingers. Paul Bunyon waded out into the waters, and he reached these ears a mile from shore. He seized them without fear and he lifted ... now a head with closed eyes appeared ... shoulders and forelegs ... body and hips ... rear legs and curled tail. It was a calf, newborn apparently, though it was of such a size that Paul Bunyon had to use both arms to carry it.

“_Nom d’un nom!_” exclaimed Paul Bunyon. “_Pauvre petite bleue bête!_”

For this great baby calf was of a bright blue hue which was neither darker nor lighter than the color of the beautiful strange snow. A blue baby ox calf. For such was its sex. Its ears drooped pitifully, and its scrawny, big-jointed legs hung limply below Paul Bunyon’s arms. A spasmodic shiver ran from its head to its tail, and its savior was glad to feel this shiver, for it showed that life remained. Paul Bunyon was touched with a tenderness that drove out his loneliness. “_Ma bête_,” he said. “_Mon cher bleu bébé ausha._”

He turned back through the waters, and the ice cakes pounded each other into bits as they rolled together in his wake. In thirty seconds Paul Bunyon was back in his cave. He spread out his blankets in front of the fire, and he laid Bébé upon them.

Through the night Paul Bunyon worked over the blue ox calf, nursing him back to warm life; and in the morning Bébé was breathing regularly and seemed to rest. Paul Bunyon leaned over to hear his exhalations, and the blue ox calf suddenly opened his mouth and caressed Paul Bunyon’s neck with his tongue. Paul Bunyon then discovered that he was ticklish in this region, for the caress impelled him to roll and laugh. The serious student Paul Bunyon had never laughed before; and he now enjoyed the new pleasure to the utmost.

“_Eh, Bébé!_” he chuckled. “_Eh, Bébé! Sacre bleu! Bon bleu, mon cher!_” Bébé raised his eyelids with astonishment upon hearing this cave-shaking chuckle, revealing large, bulging orbs which were of even a heavenlier blue than his silken hair. Such affection and intelligence shone in his eyes that Paul Bunyon wished he would keep his eyes opened. But Bébé was weary and weak, and he closed them again.

He is hungry, thought Paul Bunyon; and he went out to find him food. None of the animals he knew about could supply milk for such a calf as this blue Bébé. But he was newborn and his parents should be somewhere in the neighborhood. Paul Bunyon stepped up on the cliff over which Bébé had bounced when he fell into Tonnere Bay. From here a wide swath of smashed timber ran straight up the side of the tallest Northern mountain. It was here that Bébé had made his thunderous roll of the night before.

Six strides brought Paul Bunyon to the mountain-top. One of its jagged peaks was broken off, showing where Bébé had stumbled over it and fallen. Then Paul Bunyon followed the calf tracks down the land side of the mountain. For two hours he trailed them, but they grew fainter as he went on, and in the Big Bay country the last fall of the blue snow had covered them. Paul Bunyon now had no doubt that Bébé’s mother had been frightened by the strange color of the snow and that his blueness was a birthmark. Like Niagara and the fauna of the forest, the parents had stampeded, forgetting the little one. It was no use to search for them.

Paul Bunyon circled back through the forest and gathered a great load of moose moss before he returned to the cave. This rich food would meet the lack of milk. Bébé was asleep before the fireplace when Paul Bunyon returned, and he still slumbered while his friend prepared him some moose moss soup. But when a kettle full of steaming odorous food was set before him, he opened his eyes with amazing energy and sat up. It was then that Bébé first showed the depth and circumference of his natural appetite, an appetite which was to have its effect on history. He drank most of the moose moss soup at three gulps, he seized the rim of the kettle in his teeth and tilted it up until even the last ten gallons were drained out of it; then, looking roguishly at Paul Bunyon the while, he bit off a large section of the kettle rim and chewed it down, switching his pretty tail to show his enjoyment.

“_Eh, Bébé!_” roared Paul Bunyon, doubling up with laughter for the second time in his life. And he praised the blue snow for giving him such a creature, and did not mourn Niagara, who had never been amusing. But now, as Paul Bunyon doubled over for another rare roar of laughter, he got one more surprise. He was struck with terrifical force from the rear and knocked flat. Paul Bunyon hit the cave floor so hard that its walls were shaken, and a cloud of stones dropped from the roof, covering him from his hips to his thighs. Paul Bunyon dug himself out with no displeasure. He was marveling too much to be wrathful.

There is strength in this baby animal, he thought; surely he has the muscle and energy for great deeds; for that was such a tremendous butting he gave me that I am more comfortable standing than sitting. So he stood and admired this strong and energetic ox calf, who was calmly seated on his haunches before the fireplace, now throwing his head to the right as he licked his right shoulder, now throwing his head to the left as he licked his left shoulder. While Paul Bunyon admired, he pondered; then, even as Bébé had given him his first laugh, the ox calf now showed him the outline of his first real idea. The thought struck him that his student’s life was finally over; there was nothing more for him to learn; there was everything for him to do. The hour for action was at hand.

Indeed, if he was to keep this blue ox calf, action was truly necessary. Bébé had shown that his super-abundance of vitality made him dangerous as well as delightful and amusing. This inexhaustible energy of his must be put to work; this vast store of power in an ox-hide should be developed and harnessed to give reality to some one of Paul Bunyon’s vague dreams.

Soon the well-fed blue ox calf lay down and slept contentedly. But Paul Bunyon did not sleep. One after another, occupations, enterprises and industries which would be worthy of his knowledge and his extraordinary mental and physical powers, and which would also offer labor great enough for Bébé when he was grown, were considered by Paul Bunyon; but nothing that he thought about satisfied him in the least. Certainly he would have to invent something new; and as he thought of invention, his imagination blazed up like a fire in a dry forest. He was so unused to it that it got out of control, and its smoky flames hid his idea rather than illuminating it.

Wearied at last, he lay on his side, for he remembered his bruises, and he fell into a troubled doze. Now he dreamed and saw great blazing letters which formed the words REAL AMERICA. He sat up, and his bruises gave him such sudden pain that the dream vanished utterly. But he dreamed again before morning. In this second dream he saw no words, but a forest. A flame like a scythe blade sheared through the trees and they fell. Then Paul Bunyon saw in his dream a forest of stumps, and trees were fallen among them.

For many days Paul Bunyon thought about these dreams as he gathered moose moss for Bébé and seined fish from the bay for himself. And for many nights he tried to dream again, but his sleep was the untroubled sleep of the weary.

Bébé grew wonderfully as the weeks went by, and the moose moss made him saucy as well as fat. His bulging blue eyes got a jovial look that was never to leave them. His bellow already had bass tones in it. He would paw and snort and lift his tail as vigorously as any ordinary ox ten times his age. His chest deepened, his back widened, muscle-masses began to swell and quiver under the fat of his shoulders and haunches. The drifts of the beautiful unnatural snow melted away in streams of blue water, and the marvelous color of this historical winter vanished, but the glittering blue of Bébé’s silken hair remained. His tail brush was of a darker blue; it looked like a heavily foliaged cypress bough in purple twilight; and Bébé was proud of this wonderful tail brush that belonged to him, for he would twist it from behind him and turn his head and stare at it by the hour.

Now spring came and Paul Bunyon determined to start out with his blue ox calf and try to find the meanings of his dreams. The bright warm hours of these days gave him a tormenting physical restlessness; and his imagination ranged through a thousand lands, playing over a thousand activities. It was certainly the time to begin a Life Work.

Each day Paul Bunyon pondered his two dreams without finding substantial meaning in them. The first one indicated that he should go to Real America; and this Paul Bunyon finally resolved to do, hoping that he would discover the Work that was meant for him and the blue ox calf. He knew that he could not fare worse in that land, for few of the fauna of his native country had returned with the spring, and Paul Bunyon could not live well on a fish diet. Bébé’s growing appetite, too, made some move a necessity, for the blue snow had killed the moose grass, and moose moss was a dry food without nourishment in the summer. The more Paul Bunyon thought about Real America, the better he liked the idea of going there. Moose and grass, at least, were to be found across the Border. And no doubt Real America was his Land of Opportunity.

So one fine day Paul Bunyon and Bébé came down to the Border. The blue ox calf frolicked with his master and bellowed happily when he saw the green grass and clover on the hills of Real America. He was for rushing over at once, but Paul Bunyon, the student, was not unmindful of his duty to his new country; he would not enter it without fitting ceremonies and pledges, though Bébé butted him soundly in resenting the delay.

Now Paul Bunyon lifted his hands solemnly and spoke in the rightful language of Real America.

“In becoming a Real American, I become Paul _Bunyan_,” he declared. “I am Paul _Bunyon_ no more. Even so shall my blue ox calf be called Babe, and Bébé no longer. We are now Real Americans both, hearts, souls and hides.”

After uttering these words with feeling and solemnity, an emotion more expansive, more uplifting and more inspiring than any he had ever known possessed Paul Bunyan and transfigured him. His chest swelled, his eyes danced and glittered, and his cheeks shone rosily through the black curls of his beard.

“And I’m glad of it!” he roared. “By the holy old mackinaw, and by the hell-jumping, high-tailed, fuzzy-eared, whistling old jeem cris and seventeen slippery saints, I’m _proud_ of it, too! Gloriously proud!”

Then he felt amazed beyond words that the simple fact of entering Real America and becoming a Real American could make him feel so exalted, so pure, so noble, so good. And an indomitable conquering spirit had come to him also. He now felt that he could whip his weight in wildcats, that he could pull the clouds out of the sky, or chew up stones, or tell the whole world anything.

“Since becoming a Real American,” roared Paul Bunyan, “I can look any man straight in the eye and tell him to go to hell! If I could meet a man of my own size, I’d prove this instantly. We may find such a man and celebrate our naturalization in a Real American manner. We shall see. Yay, Babe!”

Then the two great Real Americans leaped over the Border. Freedom and Inspiration and Uplift were in the very air of this country, and Babe and Paul Bunyan got more noble feelings in every breath. They were greatly exhilarated physically at first; and they galloped over valleys and hills without looking about them, but only breathing this soul-flushing air and roaring and bellowing their delight in it.

But before the day was over, Paul Bunyan discovered that Real America had its sober, matter-of-fact side also. A whisper stirred in his heart: “To work! Take advantage of your opportunity!” The whisper got louder and more insistent every moment; and at last the idea it spoke possessed Paul Bunyan, and he sat down to ponder it, letting Babe graze and roll on the clover-covered hills.

Now the whisper became an insistent cry: “Work! Work! Work!” Paul Bunyan looked up, and he seemed to see the word shining among the clouds; he looked down then into the vast valley, and he seemed to see--by the holy old mackinaw! he did see--the forest of his second dream! And now he knew it: his Life Work was to begin here.

For many days and nights Paul Bunyan pondered on the hillside before the Great Idea came to him. Like all Great Ideas, it was simple enough, once he had thought of it. Real America was covered with forests. A forest was composed of trees. A felled and trimmed tree was a log. Paul Bunyan threw aside his pine tree beard brush and jumped to his feet with a great shout.

“What greater work could be done in Real America than to make logs from trees?” he cried. “Logging! I shall invent this industry and make it the greatest one of all time! I shall become a figure as admired in history as any of the great ones I have read about.”

Paul Bunyan then delivered his first oration. The blue ox calf was his only listener; and this was a pity, for Paul Bunyan’s first oratorical effort, inspired as it was, surely was one of his noblest ones. But we know the outline of this oration, if not the words. It dealt mainly with the logging method which he had devised in the moment, the one which he used in his first work. So he told of his plan to uproot the trees by hand, and to transport the logs overland, binding a bundle of them on one side of Babe, and hanging a sack of rocks from the other side for ballast. It was months after this that he made his first improvement, the using of a second bundle of logs, instead of rocks, for ballast. And at this moment Paul Bunyan, for all his foresight and imagination, could not have dreamed of the superb tools and marvelous logging methods that he was to originate, or of the countless crews of little loggers that he was to import from France, Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, or of the tremendous river drives and the mammoth camp life he was to create. He would have been bewildered then by the fact that he would some day need a foreman as grand as himself for his Life Work; and the notion that he would some day need help in his figuring would have seemed like a far-fetched jest.

No; in this first oration, imaginative and eloquent as it must have been, Paul Bunyan only spoke of simple work for himself and Babe. But he only tells us that the oration was not a long one, for the call to Work came more insistently as he ended each period. At last he had to answer this powerful call. He commanded, “Yay, Babe!” and the baby blue ox and Paul Bunyan descended into the valley to begin the first logging in the Real American woods.

THE BULL OF THE WOODS

“The straw boss is the backbone of industry,” was a favorite saying of Paul Bunyan’s. This sage observation is constantly repeated to-day by industrialists who are so overwhelmed by salesmen, efficiency experts, welfare workers and the like that they are forced to leave production in the hands of the powerful race of foremen.

Paul Bunyan had become a true man of the woods, and paperwork troubled him. He was fortunate in discovering the greatest man with figures that ever lived to do his office work for him, and this man, Johnny Inkslinger, did all the figuring alone after he came to camp. But before the renowned timekeeper was found the keeping of his accounts and records was Paul Bunyan’s largest difficulty. He figured wearily and the smell of ink often made him sick. His logging operations grew more extensive as time went on. He brought crews of great little men from overseas and organized his first logging camp. He cleared off seven hundred townships in the Smiling River country for a big farm, and John Shears, his earnest boss farmer, managed it so efficiently that new companies of loggers had to be added to the camp each season to use up the produce; consequently, more and more timber was being felled as each season ran its course.

At last it got so that figuring occupied all of Paul Bunyan’s time between supper and breakfast, and then he had to take time away from work in the woods for the keeping of his accounts. In vain he tried to increase his speed as a figurer. He learned to write with both hands at once; but this was no use, for the two sets of figures would mix up in his head and result in confusion. He invented the multiplication table, cube root and algebra, but production increased so fast that these short cuts gave him no more time than before for the woods. Then he gave in to necessity and looked about for help. No figurers were anywhere to be discovered, so Paul Bunyan invented bossmen to carry on the work in the woods while he held forth in the office.

His first foreman was Gun Gunderson, commonly known as “Shot” Gunderson because of his explosive nature. He originated the “High-ball System,” which is still used in some logging camps. Much of the loggers’ tough vocabulary has come down from him. His favorite words of encouragement were: “Put a better notch in that stick or I’ll cave your head in!” “Heave harder on that peavy handle, you gizzardless scissor-bill, or I’ll put the calks to you!” He began to lose power when the loggers learned his lingo and came back at him fiercely in his own words. His downfall happened in the second winter on Tadpole River, in the Bullfrog Lake country. That was the winter of the Big Wind, which blew so hard for four months that Shot Gunderson had to yell at the top of his voice to be heard in its howling blasts. His voice cracked under the strain and then, of course, his chief strength as a boss was gone. He became a plain logger again, and Chris Crosshaulsen succeeded him.

This industrious man was a worthy and well-beloved boss, but he, too, had a fatal weakness. Such a passion for river driving did he possess that he could never stop the drive at its destination, but he would run the logs on for miles and then drive them back again. This upstream driving was terrible labor, for each logger had to drive one log at a time; treading it, he would roll it against the current. So much time and energy was wasted for Chris Crosshaulsen’s pleasure that Paul Bunyan was forced to depose him.

The next chief was Ole Olsen. He was so loved that countless loggers have been named after him, but his tender heart made him a failure as a boss. Other bosses were Lars Larsen, Swan Swanson, Pete Peterson, John Johnson, Jens Jensen, Anders Anderson, Hans Hansen, and Eric Ericksen. They were all noble men, and loggers and mill men are still named in their honor. But not one was powerful enough to keep his job as Paul Bunyan’s aide. Once, indeed, it was thought that an ideal foreman had been discovered when a burly man who called himself Murph Murpheson was put on the job. But one night he was heard talking Gaelic in his sleep. Cross-questioned, he admitted that his true name was Pat Murphy; knowing Paul Bunyan’s predilection for Scandinavian foremen he had called himself Murph Murpheson in order to get his high position. Deceit was the one human frailty that the great logger had no tolerance for, and the Irish boss followed his predecessors.

Paul Bunyan was now without a foreman, and he had never had a greater need for a good one. For his next project was to log off the Dakota country, which was then known as the region of the Mountain That Stood On Its Head. Difficulties loomed before him which only he or a better foreman than he had yet discovered could surmount. Unless he discovered either a great figurer or a great foreman success would be improbable.

Then fortune shone on him with sudden, dazzling brightness. For word came down through the woods that the mightiest logger of Sweden was tramping overland for Paul Bunyan’s camp. The gossip that ran before him called him Sweden’s greatest milker also; and some whispered that he was the greatest fisherman and the greatest hunter of that country of superb giants. It was rumored that he was taller than a tree, as tall as Paul Bunyan and as wide, and that he feared no man. The great logger, toiling over his vast ledgers, heard and hoped that the perfect foreman was coming to him at last.

He arrived at the end of a bright June day. The loggers were at supper, happily occupied with pea soup and hard-tack, which were their only rations at that time. The soup bowls before the loggers were emptying fast, and the cookhouse resounded with a hissing rumble, to which the clangor of the spoons striking the bottoms of the bowls was presently added. Then above the noise was heard a slow muffled “boom ... boom ... boom.”