“Bear meat for Sunday dinner,” he said to Hot Biscuit Slim, as he threw the bears into the kitchen yard.
Paul Bunyan then had Johnny Inkslinger bring his medicine case, and the two hurried to the woods. But only a slight number of the loggers had been made truly ill by the terrific speed with which Babe had hauled them over the hills. The double-jointed sled runners had slipped over rocks, logs and gullies as easily as a snake glides over a string. Not once had the sled bounded from the road. Not a logger had suffered a jolt. Some of them were dazed and breathless, others were choked with dust, but most of them were no more than badly scared by their terrific journey.
“Aye tal you it ban no use try hol’ Babe down,” said the Big Swede, with rare eloquence.
“The sled worked perfectly, at any rate,” said Paul Bunyan. “We can depend on it. But those good bullies of mine are going to need a lot of encouragement to stand that ride every morning.”
He was quite right. His loggers thought nothing of the perils of falling limbs, which are called “widow-makers” to-day in the woods. Breaking up log jams, jumping rolling logs, dodging butts of trees which bucked back from the stumps when they fell—all this was in the day’s work. But even the serpentine bobsled could not banish the terrors of riding behind the blue ox each morning. “I’d ruther try ridin’ a peavy handle down the West Branch.” “I’ll tell you Babe went so fast I acshuly seen the wind, an’ I never seen anything more sickenin’ in my life!” “What if Babe ud a throwed a shoe now? I bet it ’da tore through us like a cannon ball!”
Paul Bunyan frowned as he hearkened to their complaints. His loggers seldom thought of anything but their labor when they were in the woods. If they were complaining now, what would happen when the bunkhouse cranks got into action after supper? There would be much gloomy grumbling, and perhaps rebellious talk. When the loggers went to bed they would brood over the cyclonic morning ride instead of getting fortifying sleep. Then they would soon balk against riding behind the blue ox. To avoid such an event he must call on his bards to cajole, humor and inspire the men until he could devise new methods to solve his logging problems. With this idea in mind he took Shanty Boy aside, placed him on his knee and explained the situation.
“I shore will do my best,” said Shanty Boy. “But looky here, Mr. Bunyan, I ’low I’ll have to lie to ’em right smart.”
“How so, my lad?”
“Well I’ve alus done the best I knowed how when I set out to be amusin’. So, if I’m goin’ to make my stories any thicker, I’ll jest about have to stir a few lies into ’em.”
“Son, nobody loves a liar.”