forest and began his work. The wood was dense, and what is known all
through the region as a black ash swale, lowland which once reclaimed
from nature makes, with its rich deposits, a wondrous meadow-land. He
"lined" the fence's course and cleared the way rudely through the
forest, a work of days, and then he made the maul.

The mace of the mediaeval knight is the maul of to-day. No longer it
cracks heads or helmets, but there is work for it. And it has
developed into a mighty weapon. There are two sorts of maul in the
lake country. As the stricken eagle is poetically described as
supplying the feather for the arrow by which itself was hurt to death,
the trees furnish forth the thing to rend them. Upon the side of the
curly maple, aristocrat of the sugar bush, grows sometimes a vast wart.
This wart has neither rhyme nor reason. It has no grain defined. It
is twisted, convoluted, a solid, tough and heavy mass, and hard,
almost, as iron. It is sawed away from the trunk with much travail,
and is seasoned well, and from it is fashioned a great head, into which
is set a hickory handle, and the thing will crush a rock if need be.
This is the maul proper.

There is another maul, or mace, made from a cut of heavy iron-wood, a
foot in length and half a foot in thickness, with the hickory handle
set midway between iron bands, sprung on by the country blacksmith.
This is sometimes called the beetle.

The beetle is a monster hammer, the maul a monster mace. Each serves
its purpose well, but the beetle never has the swing and mighty force
of the great heavy maple knot. Grant Harlson bought a seasoned knot of
an old woodman and shaped a maul. He had learned the craft in youth.