The first thing I did was to get out a set of house logs and a load of dressed lumber, doors, windows, and so forth. The logs I cut near my own land; the lumber I had to haul thirty miles from town. Before the first snow flew, my house and stable were finished. I had dug a good well, broken ten acres and had a liberal supply of firewood on hand. A team of horses, and a couple of heifers, comprised my livestock. Jim was my society. After snow fell I devoted my attention to trapping and fishing.
Winter fishing on Little Trout Lake, about ten miles from my homestead, is not a very sportsmanlike occupation. You simply stick up a tent on the ice, cut a hole and shove in a net. The fish come readily to this ventilator, are caught in the net, dragged out of the water by hand and thrown onto the ice, where they soon freeze solid. This is far from a pleasant operation, as anyone who has tried it will acknowledge.
Between fur and fish I realized a nice little sum for my winter’s work, and was able, when I went to town in the spring, to lay in supplies sufficient to last me all summer and greatly to increase my stock of cattle and implements. I not only cropped the ten acres I had previously broken, but broke and disked ten acres more that summer, besides putting up a new log stable large enough to accommodate two teams of horses and ten head of cattle. It was while engaged on this building that I met with the accident that, but for the intelligence of Jim, must have cost me my life.
A log building, as everybody who has attempted it knows, is not an easy undertaking for one man alone. The cutting, hauling and hewing of the logs is no very difficult matter, of course, but when you come to hoist them one upon another, you will wish you had someone to handle the other end.
I tried to get help but was disappointed, and not to be beaten, determined to try it alone. One afternoon I had gotten pretty near to the last log and was congratulating myself that the worst of the job was over, when, without any warning, the rope I was using as a pulley suddenly snapped and the log I was working on fell, crushing my left leg beneath it, and pinning me helplessly to the ground. For some minutes I was so stunned by the shock that I did not realize what had happened. A thousand fantastic thoughts flashed through my mind and I opened my eyes to find my faithful dog licking my face and uttering gasping, whining noises by way of expressing sympathy. I felt no pain but was powerless to move; the heavy log held my leg as if in a vise, though my right leg was free, as were also both arms. Yet, I was held in such a position that all the strength I could muster failed to move the log half an inch. Whether or not my leg was broken I could not tell until the log was removed. How that was to be done I did not know.
My first impulse was to “holler.”
Then came to me with a new meaning the Scriptural injunction that “It is not good for man to be alone.” I realized that I was very much alone and the chances of anyone coming to my assistance was as one in a thousand. I had not seen a human being for many days, my homestead being miles off the trail that led to the lumber-camps, and as I said before, I had no near neighbors. I shuddered as the thought gripped me that I might lie there until I starved to death, a prey to the prowling wolves against whom I was powerless to put up any kind of a fight for my life.
As this dreadful thought struck me, I glanced helplessly around. My ax lay some little distance away. If I could only reach it! But I might as well have tried to reach the moon. Suddenly I thought of the dog. Poor Jim was sitting on his stumpy tail looking into my face and whining miserably as if in sympathy with my suffering. I had taught him to fetch and carry, to bring the ducks I had shot out of the water, and at this he was as expert as any retriever. If I could only get him to bring the ax within reach! I patted his head, and he leaped upon me eagerly, uttering little barks of joy. I pointed toward the ax and told him to fetch it. He ran off at once in the direction indicated.
“Good boy,” I called. “The ax—fetch it, Jim!”