was forced to wield his instrument from a constrained position.

The chopped branches and limbs had now to be dragged clear and
piled. While this was being finished, Tom and Hank marked off and
sawed the log lengths, paying due attention to the necessity of
avoiding knots, forks, and rotten places. Thus some of the logs
were eighteen, some sixteen, or fourteen, and some only twelve feet
in length.

Next appeared the teamsters with their little wooden sledges, their
steel chains, and their tongs. They had been helping the skidders
to place the parallel and level beams, or skids, on which the logs
were to be piled by the side of the road. The tree which Tom and
Hank had just felled lay up a gentle slope from the new travoy
road, so little Fabian Laveque, the teamster, clamped the bite of
his tongs to the end of the largest, or butt, log.

"Allez, Molly!" he cried.

The horse, huge, elephantine, her head down, nose close to her
chest, intelligently spying her steps, moved. The log half rolled
over, slid three feet, and menaced a stump.

"Gee!" cried Laveque.

Molly stepped twice directly sideways, planted her fore foot on a
root she had seen, and pulled sharply. The end of the log slid
around the stump.

"Allez!" commanded Laveque.