The chopper awoke to the realization of three stone walls and an iron
grating in front. Through this he looked out upon a stone flooring
across which was a row of similar apartments. He neither knew nor cared
where he was. The feeling of imprisonment was no greater than he had
felt on the endless, cheerless streets. He laid himself on the bench
that ran along a side wall, and, closing his eyes, listened to the
babble of the clear stream and the thunder of the "drive" on its
journey. How the logs hurried and jostled! crushing, whirling, ducking,
with the merry lads leaping about them with shouts and laughter.
Suddenly he was recalled by a voice. Some one handed a narrow tin cup
full of coffee and a thick slice of bread through the grating. Across
the way he dimly saw a man eating a similar slice of bread. Men in other
compartments were swearing and singing, He knew these now for the voices
he had heard in his dreams. He tried to force some of the bread down his
parched and swollen throat, but failed; the coffee strangled him, and he
threw himself upon the bench.
The forest again, the night-wind, the whistle of the axe through the
air! Once when he opened his eyes he found it dark! It would soon be
time to go to work. He fancied there would be hoarfrost on the trees
in the morning. How close the cabin seemed! Ha!--here came his little
sister. Her voice sounded like the wind on a spring morning. How loud it
swelled now! "Lu! Lu!" she cried.
The next morning the lock-up keeper opened the cell door. Luther lay
with his head in a pool of blood. His soul had escaped from the thrall
of the forest.
"Well, well!" said the little fat police justice, when he was told of
it. "We ought to have a doctor around to look after such cases."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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