“Pretensions, the devil!” said John Rogers Inkslinger peevishly. “If you had the true figurer’s soul you would give me your sympathy instead of unconsoling platitudes.”
Then the tears began to fall from his eyes and made great splashes in the river. Paul Bunyan, saying no more, grasped his arm and marched him toward the camp. The two heroes walked silently until they were out of the timber and had started over the country where Pine Orchard had stood.
Then Paul Bunyan said conversationally, “I found a very original forest here. But it offered splendid logging.... Thunderation again! What ails you anyway?”
For John Rogers Inkslinger had once more burst into yells of agony.
“My stakes!” he cried. “My surveyor’s stakes! Two years’ work ruined, utterly ruined! The stakes that marked my section lines—you have felled them all and dragged them all to the rivers for logs! My stakes that were to have stood forever—gone! gone! gone!”
He choked and gasped, he clutched wildly at nothingness, and then he fainted into the appalled logger’s arms....
That winter was the only period of his career in which Paul Bunyan knew the affliction of a guilty conscience. It was true that he had not injured the great surveyor willfully, but the fact that he had destroyed another man’s work could not be ignored. He had done irreparable damage and for the peace of his soul he must somehow make amends, devise consolations and give heart balm and recompense. He only asked that the surveyor make any demand of him, that he give him any opportunity to do a service that would make up for the loss.
But the winter long John Rogers Inkslinger brooded in the back room of the office and would speak to no one. Each day regret bore heavier on Paul Bunyan’s generous heart; Christmas was a time of deep gloom for him; and when the first sunshine of spring brightened the valley, even the approach of the great double drive did not cheer him. He had abandoned his ledgers, and he spent all of his time in the woods; he had no wish to record the destruction of the surveyor’s work.
The double drive was a huge success, and the rivermen returned from it singing the praises of Paul Bunyan, who had bested his foreman in the grand race. But the great logger himself had only cheerless thoughts as he came to the camp office. Another move must now be made, and the sad business of repaying John Rogers Inkslinger must be attended to at last. He would place his camp and crew, his foreman and the great blue ox, himself and all his august talents unreservedly at the surveyor’s disposal. Better long years of surveying than to leave this blot on his history. It would be wretched work for him and his men, he mused unhappily, as he opened the office door, but he could not oppose conscience. His mind formed the words of a contrite, submissive speech, he tramped on into the office and prepared to utter them; then out of the back room rushed John Rogers Inkslinger; his eyes were shining, his face was flushed with happiness, his hands were raised as though in appeal.
“Paul Bunyan, greatest of Real Americans!” he cried. “I have read your histories, and in the pages of them I have learned the grandeur and glory of your deeds, the extent and influence of your power, the might of your mind! I now know your inventiveness, your heroism, your majestic thoughts, your generous heart! To think that I roared about Paul Bunyan using my miserable stakes! And still you smile upon me! Oh, Glory! I beg pardon humbly and ask only to serve you henceforth in your enterprises——”