This diversion, though rough and dangerous, is never practised on any but green hands or unwary visitors; but all signs fail in dry weather, and for Gillsey no traditions held.
When he had climbed as high as his tormentors thought advisable—which usually was just as high as the top of the tree—a couple of vigorous choppers would immediately attack the tree with their axes.
As the tall trunk began to topple with a sickening hesitation, Gillsey's eyes would stick out and his thin hair seem to stand on end, for to this torture he never grew accustomed. Then, as the men yelled with delight, the mass of dark branches would sweep down with a soft, windy crash into the snow, and Gillsey, pale and nervous, but adorned with that unfailing toothless smile, would pick himself out of the débris and slink off to camp.
The men usually consoled him after such an experience with a couple of plugs of "black-jack" tobacco,—which seemed to him ample compensation.
In camp at night, when the hands had all gone to bed, two or three wakeful ones would sometimes get up to have a smoke in the fire-light. Such a proceeding almost always resulted in skylarking, of which Simon would be the miserable object. Perhaps the arch-conspirator would go to the cook's flour-barrel, fill his mouth with dry flour, and then, climbing to the slumbering Simon's bunk, would blow the dusty stuff in a soft, thin stream all over the sleeper's face and hair and scraggy beard. This process was called "blowing him," and was counted a huge diversion.
On soft nights, when the camp was hot and damp, it made, of course, a sufficiently nasty mess in the victim's hair, but Gillsey, by contrast, deemed rather to enjoy it. It never woke him up.
If the joker's mood happened to be more boisterous, the approved procedure was to softly uncover Gillsey's feet, and tie a long bit of salmon twine to each big toe. After waking all the other hands, the conspirators would retire to their bunks.
Presently some one would give a smart tug on one of the strings, and pass it over hastily to his neighbor. Gillsey would wake up with a nervous yell, and grabbing his toe, seek to extricate it from the loop. Then would come another and sharper pull at the other toe, diverting Gillsey's attention to that member.
The game would be kept up till the bunks were screaming with laughter, and poor Gillsey bathed in perspiration and anxiety. Then the boss would interfere, and Gillsey would be set free.
These are only instances of what the butt was made to endure, though he was probably able to thrash almost any one of his tormentors, and had he mustered spirit to attempt this, all the camp would have seen that he got fair play.