The Blazed Trail

e distant forest. He had imagination. No business man succeeds without it. With him the great struggle to wrest from an impassive and aloof nature what

on their litters from the twisting and crushing and breaking inflicted on them by the calm, ruthless enemy; once a dead man bearing still on h

e woods on their plumes and of the north-wind in the somber quality of their voices; rare eagles wheeled gracefully to and fro; snow squalls coquetted with the landscape. At night the many creatures of the forest ventured out across the plains in search of food,-weasels; big white hares; deer, planting daint

when one side has dumped with a rush, of its falling straight down from its original height, so breaking the sleigh; that a thin slice of salt pork well peppered is good when tied about a sore throat; that choking a horse will cause him to swell up and float on the top of the water, thus rendering it easy to slide him out on the ice from a hole he may have broken into; that a tree lodged against another may be brought to the ground by felling a third against it; that snowshoes made of caribou hide do not become baggy, because cari

eigh driven by a man muffled in a fur coat; assisted in loading the sleigh with a variety of things,

ng note. The white was everywhere, concealing jealously beneath rounded uniformity the secrets of the woods. And it was cold. First Thorpe's feet became numb, then his hands, then his nose was nipped, and finally his warm clothes were lifted from him by invisible hands, and he was left naked to shivers and tremblings. He found it torture to sit st

ht," he advised; "better h

ecision. He descended stiffly, conscious o

mink, just like the squirrels' except that the prints were not quite side by side, and that between every other pair stretched the mark of the animal's long, slender body; the delicate tracery of the deer mouse; the fan of the rabbit; the print of a baby's hand that the raccoon left; the broad pad of a lynx; the dog-like trail of wolves;-these, and a dozen others, all equally unknown, gave Thorpe the impression of a great mysterious multitude of living things whic

nd two smaller ones, all built of heavy logs, roofed with plank, and lighted sparsely through one or two windows apiece. The driver pulled up opposite the space

arrels underneath, all filled with cans, loaves of bread, cookies, and pies. The center was occupied by four long bench-flanked tables, down whose middle straggled utensils containing sugar, apple-butter, condiments, and sauces, and whose edges were set with tin

cookee, indicating a box of tobacco the new

k was finished, with the exception of a half dozen other cases, which the driver designated as also for the "van

camp and sit down 'till th

her like cabins of boats, and centered by a huge stove over which hung slender poles. The latter were to dry clothes on.

th' floor if you want to; bu

to the light, could make out a thin, tall, bent old man, with bare cranium, two vi

ps, Thorpe's sur

eivin'!" He sprang up swiftly, seized the toe of his right foot in his left hand, and jumped his l

th' country knows as much about hosses as I do. We ain't had but two sick this f

onfessed

O'Grady, he talks loud but you can bluff him; and Perry, he's only bad when he get

ble points on the camp bullies. The old

, "unless you likes them, and then th

subjective. He inquired so impersonally the significance of whatever was before him, that it lost the human quality both as to itself and himself. To him men were things. This attitude relieved him of self-consciousness. He never bothered his head as to what the other man thought of him, his ignorance,

the trail home again. There were active, clean-built, precise Frenchmen, with small hands and feet, and a peculiarly trim way of wearing their rough garments; typical native-born American lumber-jacks powerful in frame, rakish in air, reckless in manner; big blonde Scandinavians and Swedes, strong men at the sawing; an Indian or so, strangely in contrast to the rest; and a va

ld man in the offi

r. He found himself in a little room containing two bunks, a stove, a counter and desk, and a numb

statistics pencilled on three thin leaves of beech-wood riveted together. In a chair b

said Thorpe directly; "he said

he applicant began to wonder

plied the man

inquired, the humor of th

er worked in

N

smoked s

orning," he concluded, as though t

approached the counter. The writer

t, Albert?

ewin'," wa

shelf a long plug of toba

book. Thorpe went out, after leaving his name for the time book, enlightened as to the method of obtaining supp

the rule. For one thing, supper was a much briefer affair than it would have been had every man felt privileged to take hi

deliberate intonation of a man who does no

orn, mince pie, a variety of cookies and doughnuts, and strong gr

and a vast deal of chaffing. At nine the lights were all out. By daylight he and a dozen oth