Paul Bunyan

by James Stevens

Now Paul Bunyan had to fall back on a last plan, a far-fetched one that seemed well-nigh hopeless. This was to build a great sled, something on the order of a lunch sled, and have Babe, the blue ox, haul the loggers to and from work each day. It was a desperate plan, and no one but Paul Bunyan would have had the courage to attempt it. It must be remembered that the blue ox measured forty-two ax handles and a plug of chewing tobacco between the horns; an ordinary man at his front had to use a telescope to see what he was doing with his hind legs, he was so long; he had so much energy and such delight in labor that no one could hold him when he started for the woods in the mornings; he was so fast that Paul Bunyan’s foreman, the Big Swede, who was as tall as the trees, could not begin to keep up with him. Only Paul Bunyan could travel so fast. Whenever Babe moved the camp he traveled at a careful pace, but even then some of the loggers were made seasick; and all of them became so irritable when a move was being made that they fought constantly among themselves. If the comparatively slow camp-moving pace of the blue ox thus upset them, his timber-going gallop would be apt to ruin them completely. Paul Bunyan remembered how the Big Swede, hanging to Babe’s halter rope, was hurled through the air, only striking the ground once in every quarter of a mile or so, when the blue ox rushed to his delightful labor each morning. A lunch sled full of loggers would be dragged by Babe in much the same fashion; it would be in the air most of the time, and when it did strike the ground loggers would be scattered like autumn leaves. The loggers who would hang on until the woods were reached would have the living daylights shaken out of them. A common lunch sled would not do; one must be invented that would hold the road.

So Paul Bunyan devised the serpentine bobsled. It was a long, low-built contraption; the runners were made in short sections, connected by double joints. When it was completed and lay in the road that led from the camp it looked like a squat fence, for it snugly fitted the contours of the hills and vales over which it extended.

“There’s a rig that’ll hold the road,” said Paul Bunyan with pride. “Now I’ll invent something equally good to hold Babe to a slow pace.”

Several mechanical devices were tried without passing the first test. The sled lay idle. The loggers got sore feet, and they traveled so slowly that they began to take twelve hours to reach the woods. There was one shift on the road, going, and one coming all of the time. Not a tree was being felled.

“There’s no way out of it but to try the grizzlies,” Paul Bunyan told his timekeeper.

Among the other livestock on Paul Bunyan’s farm, which was down the river from the old home camp, was a herd of grizzly bears. The great logger often amused himself by playing with them, and he had taught them many tricks. Not the least of their stunts was for each bear to hang from a tree with three paws and try to claw Paul Bunyan’s mackinaw with the other paw as he dodged by.

“I’ll station them at the trees which are left standing along the road,” said Paul Bunyan, “and when Babe roars by they’ll hook him. They may only frighten him into a faster run, but I think surely they’ll slow him down.”

The next morning the loggers, for the most part, joyfully crawled upon the serpentine bobsled. The timid and cranky among the loggers were pessimistic, of course, and declared noisily that this would be the end of them. But Shanty Boy and the other bards laughed at their fears, and at last every logger in camp was on the sled. Paul Bunyan ordered the Big Swede to hitch up the blue ox and start in half an hour, and he departed for the woods with his herd of grizzlies. He stationed one of them at every tree close to the road. When he reached the timber he straddled a hogback and sat down to wait for the outcome of his daring attempt.

In a short time he heard a faint thunder down in the valley, then he saw enormous balloons of dust twisting up in cyclonic bursts from the foothills, next he heard the crashing sound of hoofbeats that got louder and louder.... Through clouds of dust he saw Babe’s tail brush lifted like a triumphal banner and the glitter of his horns.... The Big Swede, hanging to Babe’s halter rope, soared and dived....

The bears had failed. Indeed, they had failed terribly, for when Babe came to a halt in the timber Paul Bunyan saw bears paws hanging from both sides of him. Only one bear had saved his paw, and he was holding a tree in a frenzied clutch. Babe had carried away bear, tree and all. Paul Bunyan rushed back over the road, and as he came to each unfortunate grizzly he mercifully dispatched him. He carried them all into camp.