The Man in the Twilight

by Ridgwell Cullum

The rough creatures stood voiceless and well-nigh breathless. The combatants were well matched and redoubtable, even in a community whose only deity was physical might and courage and the skill of the wielded axe. The lust of it all was burning fiercely in every heart.

The sun poured out its flood of summer upon a world of virgin forest. The sky was without blemish. A dome of perfect azure roofed in the length and breadth of Nature's kingdom. Nevertheless the fairness of the summer day, with its ravishing accompaniment of soft, mystery sounds from an unseen world and the lavish beauty of shadowed woods were fit setting for the pulsing of savage emotions. It was far out in the lost world of Northern Quebec. It was far, far beyond the widest-flung frontiers of civilisation. It was out there where man soon learns to forget his birthright, and readily yields to the animal in him.

It was a scene of mighty slaughter amongst the giants of the forest. Hundreds sprawled in the path of man's gleaming axe. Giants they were, hoary with age, and gnarled with the sinews built up by Nature to resist her fiercest storms. They lay there, in every direction, reaching up with tattered arms outstretched, as though appealing for the light, the warmth, and the sweetness of life they would know no more.

Amidst this carnage a great camp was growing up. There were huts completed. There were huts only in the skeleton. They were dotted about in a fashion apparently without order or purpose. Yet long before the falling of the first snow, order would reign everywhere and man's purpose would be achieved.

The bunkhouses, the stores, the offices, the stables, they must all be ready before the coming of the "freeze-up." Summer is the time of preparation. Winter is the season when the lumber-jack's work must go forward without cessation or break of any sort. Not even the excuse of sickness can be accepted. There is no excuse. The lumber-jack must work, or sink to the dregs of a life that has already created in him a spirit of indifference to the laws of God and man. So the life of the forest is hard and fierce, and the battle of it all is long.

But the men who seek it are more than equal to the task. They are of all sorts, and all races. They drift to the forest from all ranks of life by reason of the spirit driving them. They come from the universities of the world. They come straight from the gates of the penitentiary. They come from the land, the sea, the office. They come from all countries, and they come for every reason. The call of the forest is deep with significance. Its appeal is profound. Its life is free, and shadowed, and afar.

For long moments the clinch of the fighting men remained unbroken. They lay there upon the ground locked in a deadly embrace. A spasmodic jolt, a violent, muscular heave. The result was changed position, while the clinch remained unrelaxed. There were movements of gripping hands. There were changes of position in the intertwined legs clad in their hard cord trousers. The heavily-booted feet stirred and stirred again in response to the impulse of the searching brains of the fighters, and every slight movement had deep meaning for the onlookers.

Yet none of these movements revealed the inspiration of passion. They were calculated and full of purpose. It was devilish purpose driving towards the objects of the fight. The stirring fingers yearned to reach the eyes of the adversary to blind him, and leave his organs of vision gouged from their sockets. The bared, strong teeth were only awaiting that dire chance to close upon the enemy's flesh, whether ear, or nose, or throat. Then the knee and foot. They were striving under ardent will for that inhuman maiming which would leave the victim crippled for life.

Each movement of the fighters was estimated by the onlookers at its due worth. They understood it all, the skill, the chance of it. Not one of them but had fought just such a battle in his time, and not a few carried the scars of it, and would continue to carry the scars of it for the rest of their days.

The moments of quiescence yielded to a spasmodic violence. There was a wild rolling, and the unlocking of mighty, clinging legs. One dishevelled head was raised threateningly. It remained poised for a fraction of time over the upturned face of the man lying in a position of disadvantage. Then it lunged downwards. And as it descended, a sound like the clipping of teeth came back to the taut strung senses of the onlookers. A sigh escaped from a hundred throats.