"Standing upon the edge of the ice, a man was placed by the side of each ox to keep his head out of the water. We unyoked one at a time, and throwing a rope round the roots of his horns, the warp was carried forward and attached to the little oxen, (a pair that had not broken in,) whose services on this occasion were very necessary. A strong man was placed on the ice at the edge, so that, lifting the ox by his horns, he was able to press the ice down and raise his shoulder up on the edge, when the warp-oxen would pull them out. For half-an-hour we had a lively time of it, and in an almost incredibly short time we had them all safely out, and drove them back upon the point nearly a mile. It was now very dark. We left our sleds in the water with the hay, pulling out a few armsful, which we carried to the shore to rub the oxen down with. Poor fellows! they seemed nearly chilled to death, and shook as if they would fall to pieces." So great is the labour of taking oxen to the forest every Fall--often to a distance of two hundred miles into the interior--that the wood-cutters sometimes leave them, when they go down stream in the spring to get their own living in the wilderness, and hunt them up again in autumn. They thrive finely in the interval, and get very wild and difficult to catch; but when at last subjugated, they evidently recognise their masters, and are pleased to see them. Occasionally they disappear in the course of the summer, and are heard of no more; they are then supposed to have got "mired or cast," or to have been devoured by wolves--or by bears, which also are known to attack oxen.