After scrambling along for some seven hundred feet, the young homesteaders beheld a donkey engine, puffing, snorting, and rocking on its skids from the exertion, close beside a spur of track upon which stood several flat cars.
When the log was abreast of one of them, the hauling cable was released. Others were adjusted, again the “donkey” puffed, and the section of tree trunk was pulled aboard.
“Only think of bringing in a log from where that one lay and loading it on a car without a man’s lifting a pound!” exclaimed Phil. “Wouldn’t it make the Eastern lumbermen open their eyes, though! There, you know, Mr. Anderson, the logs are handled by hand and horses in the woods.”
“We couldn’t afford to do that here, it would take too many men and too much time. But if you think it would surprise them to see how we handle logs, what would they say when they saw our donkey load itself?”
“There is a limit even to our credulity, Mr. Anderson,” smiled Ted.
“But I’m telling you the truth. You notice the ends of the donkey’s skids are hewed like sled-runners, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s so the engine can be pulled along. We simply hitch the cables to trees, the drums wind up, and the donkey pulls itself over the ground. When it is opposite the car on which it is to be loaded, we readjust the cables around other trees and it pulls itself aboard.”
“It’s wonderful,” exclaimed Ted. “You Westerners can certainly show the rest of the country how to do things in a big way.”