was greatly handicapped by lack of men. Winter set in early and
surprised him with several of the smaller branches yet to finish.
The main line, however, was done.

At intervals squares were cut out alongside. In them two long
timbers, or skids, were laid andiron-wise for the reception of the
piles of logs which would be dragged from the fallen trees. They
were called skidways. Then finally the season's cut began.

The men who were to fell the trees, Radway distributed along one
boundary of a "forty." They were instructed to move forward across
the forty in a straight line, felling every pine tree over eight
inches in diameter. While the "saw-gangs," three in number,
prepared to fell the first trees, other men, called "swampers,"
were busy cutting and clearing of roots narrow little trails down
through the forest from the pine to the skidway at the edge of the
logging road. The trails were perhaps three feet wide, and marvels
of smoothness, although no attempt was made to level mere inequalities
of the ground. They were called travoy roads (French "travois").
Down them the logs would be dragged and hauled, either by means of
heavy steel tongs or a short sledge on which one end of the timber
would be chained.

Meantime the sawyers were busy. Each pair of men selected a tree,
the first they encountered over the blazed line of their "forty."
After determining in which direction it was to fall, they set to
work to chop a deep gash in that side of the trunk.

Tom Broadhead and Henry Paul picked out a tremendous pine which
they determined to throw across a little open space in proximity