“Yah, aye do him noo,” he muttered.
He disrobed swiftly and ran to a rock that jutted from the cliff. Swinging his fists he leaped twice into the air; the second time he flung himself outward in a magnificent dive, his body made a great curve, and then, head first, he plunged downward. But there was no tumultuous surge and splash of waters as a climax of this splendid dive. Instead, the Big Swede’s head struck white canvas with a dull, rending impact. For he had mistaken Paul Bunyan’s tarpaulin for a lake! The force of his plunge drove him through the canvas and half-buried him in the soft earth underneath. His arms were imprisoned, but his legs waved wildly, and his muffled bellows shook the earth. A prowling logger saw what seemed to be shining marble columns dancing in the moonlight and felt the ground trembling under his feet.
“It can’t be,” he thought bravely.
Just then the Big Swede made another heroic effort to yell for help, and the logger was shaken from his feet. He jumped up and ran to Johnny Inkslinger with an alarming tale of dancing ghosts that shook the earth. The timekeeper, after sharpening twenty-seven lead pencils to use in case it was necessary to make a report on the spot, started with his medicine case for the place where the logger had directed him. When nearly there he remembered that he had failed to bring his ten gallon carboy of alcohol, which, next to Epsom salts, he considered the most important medicine in his chest. He ran back for it, and by the time he finally reached the Big Swede, that unfortunate’s bellows had diminished to groans, and his legs waved with less and less gusto. After thoroughly examining and measuring the legs, Johnny deemed the proof positive that they belonged to the Big Swede. Then he got busy with paper and pencil and figured for half an hour. “According to the strictest mathematical calculations,” he announced, “the Big Swede cannot continue to exist in his present interred, or, to be exact, half-interred condition; consequently he must be extricated. I have considered all known means by which this may be accomplished, I have figured, proved, and compared results, and I have arrived at a scientific conclusion. I direct that the blue ox and a cable be brought here at once.”
When the loggers had obeyed this command, Johnny made a half-hitch with the cable around the Big Swede’s legs, which were waving very feebly now, and in two seconds, amid a monstrous upheaval of dirt and a further rending of the canvas, the Big Swede was dragged out. For a few moments he spat mud like a river dredge; then the timekeeper proffered him the ten gallon carboy of alcohol. It was drained at a gulp, and then, with aid from Johnny Inkslinger, he was able to stagger to the camp office. When Paul Bunyan reached the camp, the Big Swede was lying on his bunk, bundled in bandages from head to foot. Johnny Inkslinger was still busily attending him; bottles of medicine, boxes of pills, a keg of Epsom salts, rolls of bandages, and surgical implements were heaped about the room. The timekeeper gave a detailed account of what had happened, and then Paul Bunyan questioned the victim, who answered briefly, “Aye yoomped, an’ aye yoomped, an’—yeeminy!”
Johnny Inkslinger gave his chief a voluminous report of the Big Swede’s fractures, sprains and contusions.
“He is also suffering from melancholia because he is still unwashed,” said Johnny. “But I think I’ll restore him. I’ve dosed him with all my medicines and smeared him with all my salves. I’d have manipulated his spine, but, confound him, he strained his back, and he threatens violence when I touch it. But I have many formulae and systems. He shall live.”
“Surely,” said Paul Bunyan. “A man is the hardest thing to kill there is.”
Knowing that the Big Swede’s wounds were nothing in comparison with the ones which he had received in the Dakota battle, Paul Bunyan worried no more about his foreman. He stepped from the camp office, plucked up a young pine tree and brushed his beard, thinking again of his unrealized plan. He remembered the wordless dejection of Hot Biscuit Slim on receiving the scanty supply of deer and bear meat. He determined that the Sunday dinner should yet be as he had planned it; otherwise it would be a bad augury for great achievements in his new enterprise. He thrust the tree into his shirt pocket and walked slowly towards his outdoor headquarters, pondering various schemes that came to mind.
When he reached the white sheet of water he was astonished by its deceptive appearance. It had a silvery glitter in the moonlight, for its surface still held the moisture of the showers. Small wonder, thought Paul Bunyan, that the Big Swede had dived into it; never was a lake more temptingly beautiful or seemingly more deep. He was gazing at the torn canvas and the huge cavity made in the ground by the Big Swede, when he heard a great chorus of shrill and doleful voices in the sky. He looked up and saw an enormous host of black ducks in swerving flight. They had lost their way in the low-hanging clouds at dusk, and now they were seeking a resting place.