"To-day's the test," he thought. "All depends on how I manage now. If it goes well, then I can do what I will. But if I've lost my strength and will these years between, then—why, I don't know where to turn."
Eagerly, impatiently, he hurried on, trembling with expectation, and sweating at the brow.
"Maybe I'm taking it too seriously," he thought again. "But, no—it is life or death to me, this. And I don't know yet what I can do—it may go either way…."
He swung the axe in a wide circle from the shoulder, held it out at arm's length, then straight above his head, and swung it to either side. It weighed as lightly as a leaf, and he felt a childish delight—as if he had already passed the first test.
* * * * *
He reached the place at last—a hillside covered with tall, straight-stemmed fir and pine. He flung down coat and hat, never heeding where, glanced up along the stem he had chosen, then the axe was lifted, and the steel sank deep into the red wood—it was his first stroke in his native forest after six years' absence.
The forest answered with a ringing echo from three sides, so loud and strong that Olof checked his second stroke in mid-air, and turned in wonder to see who was there.
And the trees faced him with lifted head and untroubled brow, without nod or smile, but with the greeting of stern men bidding welcome.
"Hei!" Olof answered with a stroke of the axe.
And so they talked together, in question and answer and dispute….