All this took time, vastly more time than it takes in the telling. The
logs were ponderous masses. They had to be maneuvered sometimes between
stumps and standing timber, jerked this way and that to bring them into
the clear. By four o'clock Benton and his rigging-slinger had just
finished bunting their second batch of logs down the chute. Stella
watched these Titanic labors with a growing interest and a dawning
vision of why these men walked the earth with that reckless swing of
their shoulders. For they were palpably masters in their environment.
They strove with woodsy giants and laid them low. Amid constant dangers
they sweated at a task that shamed the seven labors of Hercules.
Gladiators they were in a contest from which they did not always emerge
victorious.

When Benton and his helper followed the haul-back line away to the
domain of the falling gang the last time, Stella had so far unbent as to
strike up conversation with the donkey engineer. That greasy individual
finished stoking his fire box and replied to her first comment.

"Work? You bet," said he. "It's real graft, this is. I got the easy end
of it, and mine's no snap. I miss a signal, big stick butts against
something solid; biff! goes the line and maybe cuts a man plumb in two.
You got to be wide awake when you run a loggin' donkey. These woods is
no place for a man, anyway, if he ain't spry both in his head and feet."

"Do many men get hurt logging?" Stella asked. "It looks awfully
dangerous, with these big trees falling and smashing everything. Look at
that. Goodness!"

From the donkey they could see a shower of ragged splinters and broken