The sun had already set, and in something over an hour darkness would have fallen. His day’s tally of cordwood was stacked on his double-bob sleigh, and his team stood ready and eager for the journey that would terminate at their snug barn.
Ordinarily he would have set out forthwith, and left the next day’s work for the day to which it belonged. But for once in his life he had decided to prolong his labours. The reason was that less than a week ago he had lost half a day’s work because of his charity to an escaping convict, and his spirit rebelled against that loss. So he turned again to the standing timber, determined to employ the last hour of daylight, and make the homeward journey in the darkness.
So the gleaming axe, with its razor edge, kept on at its work of destruction. And in that hour twenty more of the youth of the forest lay sprawled in the clearing. With the fall of the twentieth the tireless man glanced up at the western sky. Already the starry sheen of night was looking down at him.
But he turned back at once to a standing trunk that was a good deal larger than those he had already felled. He measured its height with a swift, upward glance, and ran his thumb over the edge of his axe. Then he hunched himself, and flung his weapon at the work.
It was a strange scene in the growing darkness. The swing of the axe was faultless. There was not an ounce of wasted strength in the blows which fell on the rapidly widening cut at the base of the trunk. There was not a single blow that fell other than where it was intended. Each cut told, and each cut came nearer and nearer to the soft heart of precious white timber. Just for an instant there was a pause, to measure again the fall of the tree. Then he spat on his hands and returned to his work.
The axe swung aloft and descended into the heart of the tree. It rose again. Again it fell. Again and again the cutting edge hewed out the flying chips. Then, in a moment, the snowy crest of foliage swung over, and the tearing of uncut wood crashed sharply. The man stepped to move clear. And then—and then——
It was done in less than a flash of the falling axe. The disaster came before the doomed man could utter a sound. That step back, which had been made a thousand times in the work he knew so well, should have carried him to safety. But the darkness robbed him of that certainty of vision that was always his.
His foot struck heavily against a prone log. It struck with sufficient force to upset his balance. He sought to recover himself and jump clear. It was too late. The falling tree crashed to the ground, bearing him with it. And he lay pinned beneath it, face downwards, with the great trunk crushing his shoulders and chest under its enormous weight.
Night had descended upon the farm, and the lamplight of the living-room threw into relief the slight figure of Molly as she stood in the open doorway. She was talking to Lightning, and her tone was anxious. There was no smile in her eyes. She was urgent, and the trouble in her mind was something which, in all her eighteen years, she had never known before.