Paul Bunyan And His Loggers Part 3

The temperature dropped swiftly, it seemed a hundred below; The coals from the fire were frozen before they had ceased to glow.

You've often heard of blue cold and wondered if it was true, But it got so cold that winter that even the snow was blue.

The Blue Ox froze and Bunyan was never the same again, He wandered, G.o.d knows whither, away from the haunts of men.

But clear to the end of history and wherever the loggers may go, You'll hear how perished the Blue Ox in the year of the great Blue Snow.

RIDING SUNSET FALLS

This story is one of the minor cycle, dealing with Bunyan's helpers, but one in which Bunyan himself does not figure. It is the absence of the great hero which makes it possible to introduce the love note here.

Come all you friends of the Red G.o.ds and I will tell you a wonderful tale Of the time when all men were he-men who followed the Wanigan trail.

It happened the year of the big wind up on the river Ski, The snow was deep in the mountains and the river was running high.

Joe McFrau was the boss of the crew and king of the river dogs; He walked like a bear on the solid ground but was light as a cat on the logs.

They had reached the break of the river where Sunset Falls foams white, Where the Red G.o.ds laugh at the might of men and dance in the evening light.

Where the water roars down a devil's chute, pure white like a river of milk, And fairy rainbows come and go like ever changing silk.

The river above is wide and calm and lures like a siren's song, But the crest of the falls is swift and dark and cruel and fierce and strong.

And down below where the water strikes the great waves break like rain And the creamy waters heave and sigh like a river G.o.d in pain.

But close beside the catarack lived the hunter John McGraw With a winsome daughter Rosa who had smiled at Joe McFrau,

She stood below by the water, watching the white foam fly, And the logs that her Joe was driving like straws come whirling by.

And above McFrau was thinking what a picture, fair, she made, How she seemed to love the water and was not a bit afraid.

But even as he watched her he saw her slip and fall; He was stricken dumb and helpless, he could neither move nor call.

But as a press on the trigger came her despairing cry, With one great leap he was riding a log that was drifting by.

Right in the maw of the torrent! My G.o.d! was the man insane?

Few men entered that catarack; none ever came out again.

And now to ride with the log drive! 'Twas crazy suicide!

Who would dream he'd been hit so hard that he'd want to die at her side?

But he rode like a fiend incarnate. They stood with eyes apop.

They knew each plunge would drown him, but ever he rose to the top.

It seemed an age they watched him, a dozen times go down, Each time a little longer, but I guess frogs never drown.

At last he reached the bottom, the men all gave a cheer, But his thoughts were on that curly head and he didn't seem to hear.

And presently he spied her, a dozen feet away, Sometimes lost in the billows, scarcely seen for spray.

But he plunged into the water and brought her safe to land And laid her on a bed of moss, though scarcely he could stand.

But Rose was no worse for the wetting, and I'll be a son of a gun, If she didn't turn round and marry a Swede named Peterson.

Well, Joe got drunk as a devil and swore he didn't care; He'd pulled a stunt on the river that no one else would dare;

And a man was a fool to marry, but he hoped the square head Swede, Would still remember to thank him when he had ten kids to feed.

And wherever the drivers gather and wherever white water calls, They tell how the crazy Frenchman rode the Sunset Falls.

What is the real significance of these stories? In the first place they are highly entertaining, with their remarkable flights of fancy and the introduction of the unexpected. This is enhanced by the tang of the pine woods and the lure of the great out-of-doors. In the camps they served to while away many a weary hour and to lighten up the seriousness of many a knotty problem. They brought the gigantic tasks of the great woods down to manageable proportions and saved many a logger from an inferiority complex. Since they have come into civilization many a task has been made easier by their rare humor.

Perhaps it is pendantry to try to find in these impossible tales of the illiterate lumberjacks anything except what they consciously put there; a beautiful fancy to brighten the weary days and nights of the long winters.

But sometimes the unconscious contributions are of more significance than the conscious, for we often do more than we mean. Such seems to have been the case here, for these uncouth story tellers have given us some insights into their lives and their industry. Unconsciously these tales reflect the absorption of these men in their tasks. The men who made these tales were men with a far greater interest in the woods than the stake they were to take out in the spring, whatever might have been true of those who repeated them. Here is a love of the woods and of a woodsman's life which has the ring of reality. These were men with a pride in their industry and in good work. If they had any interest in religion or morals or art it was likely like that of Jim Bludso, the river engineer, of whom John Hay says:

"And this was all the religion he had, To treat his engine well, Never to be pa.s.sed on the river, And to mind the pilot's bell."

Such were these lumberjacks. Their religion, their whole life, was to cut and haul as many logs as possible, and then in the spring to drive these logs down river to the saw mill. And he was greatest in the camp who could fell a tree most accurately and quickly, pile logs highest on the sleds, or ride a log in the roughest water. And the camp boss had to really be boss: he must be able to handle obstreperous loggers, he must provide for all the needs of his crew without any molly-coddling, and he must be able to get out the round stuff. In all of these ways Paul Bunyan is the idealization of the lumberjack.

But the stories reflect the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the loggers and of the industry. This is best shown in the story of the Death of the Blue Ox, which pictures Paul as a poor business man, opinionated and headstrong, three traits which were by no means rare in the lumber industry. After all, Bunyan never really did grow up, he was always only a boy, with great loyalty to his immediate group, but with but little social responsibility or provision for the future. He was a primitive man, never fully civilized. It is significant that there is not a suggestion of love in the whole cycle of Bunyan stories, and that we must go outside of the genuine Bunyan stories to find anything such. After they left Bunyan some of his helpers might fall in love, but not Bunyan or any of the men while they were with him. To be sure, Bunyan was married, but there is no trace of affection between him and his wife, and she rarely even enters the picture. There was no place for such incongruous things. Bunyan was out of place in the modern world. He was never a conservationist, never a business man; in the pine woods and on the Yukon he was only after the cream.

The reign of Bunyan is over and he has gone. Some say he is dead, others that he has gone to Alaska, some think he has gone to South America or Africa, but nearly all agree that he is no longer in the logging game in the United States. A new era has come, and not the greatest of the revolutions is the subst.i.tution of power machinery for the ox. The logger is coming to recognize his social responsibility, timber is being utilized as a social heritage to be managed for posterity, and the isolation of the camps has been ended. The logging game is becoming civilized and Bunyan was not able to make such great adjustments. He had to retire to other and wilder haunts. The great days are over; the old G.o.ds are dead, and Bunyan is only a myth.