“It is a nature cure!” he cried in ringing tones. “It cures slowly because nature cures slowly, but it cures surely and divinely! It is a great cure because it is a great idea, a marvelous idea, a heaven-sent idea, an original idea, my own idea, and it is the idea that will save us all!”
Paul Bunyan looked for a moment into the glowing eyes of his timekeeper and sighed. He did not reply.
For a week the three milked the whales twice daily and dosed the blue ox, while the loggers slept away their weariness. Babe took the whale’s milk meekly, but at each successive dose he swallowed more sluggishly, and after the fourth day he would not open his eyes while he drank. On the day the loggers came from the bunkhouses he refused to drink at all. Only an occasional twitching of his eyelids showed that life yet remained with him.
“He is dying,” said Paul Bunyan.
Johnny Inkslinger mounted the great box which had held the ninety-five tons of soap and began to speak.
“Fellow loggers and Paul Bunyan,” he began. “This miraculous idea, this saving and transfiguring idea——”
“Silence!” commanded the good and mighty logger.
So compelling was the power of that grave and august voice that the loggers hardly breathed as it sounded, and the wind subsided until it made only the faintest whisper among the trees. Then Paul Bunyan made one of his great orations. He did not require a soap box, he made no fantastic gestures, and he spoke simply and smoothly. He reviewed his enterprises and the deeds of his loggers; he dwelt especially on the achievements and faithfulness of Babe, the blue ox. His plain sincerity held the loggers spellbound; for sixty-nine hours the speech went on, and they did not so much as move an eyelash. In conclusion, Paul Bunyan told them that Babe would surely die, and as logging could not be done without him, their last labor together would be to dig his grave. He did not blame Johnny Inkslinger, he said; the best of men may be led astray by their imaginings and fall into evil ways. He had been a great doctor once, and he was a noble scribe still. Then Paul Bunyan solemnly and warningly spoke of the shadowy workings of fate, and in somber utterance he portrayed the pathos of yearnings, the frailty of blessings and the ultimate vanity of all endeavor. In the last three hours of his oration his voice sounded as a tolling bell. Mournfully, mournfully, the moments marched on, and a darkness came over the hills and the sea. From the eyes of each motionless logger the tears streamed unchecked; they formed in puddles around each man’s feet until all of them stood knee-deep in mud. When the oration was finished and they had extricated themselves and cleaned their boots, they made ready, and they left with Paul Bunyan for the North, where he had decided to dig Babe’s grave. The Big Swede stayed with the dying ox, and Johnny Inkslinger hid himself in the shadows of his office.
For a long time he remained there in an agony of thought. Remorse tormented him, though Paul Bunyan had not judged him guilty. But he suffered most from the humiliation of failure. It was his first, but—the thought came like a blinding flash of light—had he failed—yet? His reservoir of ideas was inexhaustible; as long as breath remained in the blue ox he could try other ideas on him. Think now! It had become as easy for him to summon grand ideas as for a magician to conjure rabbits from a hat, and almost instantly he had one, a superb notion, a glorious thought!
Johnny Inkslinger rushed from the office and roused the Big Swede, who was sitting in apathetic sadness by the blue ox.