"Having annoyed them sufficiently to induce them to attempt an egress from the passage below, the obstacles were removed, after stationing two men, one on either side, with their axes to dispatch them--when the old bear thrust out her head. A severe wound was inflicted, which sent her back growling and gnashing her teeth. Again thrusting the pole through the upper aperture, we punched and jibed her for some minutes before she could be induced to make a second effort to escape; when she did, she was met as before, receiving a second and more deadly wound, which was succeeded with less furious demonstrations of rage than before. A third effort was made to drive them out, but there was no response save the piteous crying of small cubs. We then cut a small hard-wood tree, trimmed off the branches, leaving one prong about six inches long, sharpened out, forming a hook. Enlarging the aperture below, we thrust in the wooden hook, which grappled a heavy but resistless carcass. With much exertion we drew it forth: she was dead. The cubs, four in number--a thing unusual by one half--we took alive, and carried them to the camp, kept them a while, and finally sold them. They were quite small and harmless, of a most beautiful lustrous black, and fat as porpoises. The old dam was uncommonly large; we judged she might weigh about three hundred pounds. Her hide, when stretched out and nailed on to the end of the camp, appeared quite equal to a cow's hide in dimensions." Here in our wild winter quarters, where we delight to dwell during a period of from three to four months, we find much to interest and amuse--much to do, for an equal amount of labor is rarely performed within the same time under any other circumstances, and I may add, too, with less fatigue or disrelish. With incident, romance, story, song, and adventure, time passes rapidly away. CHAPTER V. The Skill and Enterprise of Lumbermen.--Method of taking Logs down Hills and Mountains.--Dry Sluice.--Stern Anchor.--Giant Mountain Steps.--Alpine Lumbering.--Warping a Team down Steeps.--Trial of Skill and Strength.--The rival Load.--Danger and Inconvenience of Hills in Logging Roads.--A distressing Accident.--Solemn Conclusion of a Winter's Work.--Some of the Perils attendant upon Lumbering.--A fearful Wound.--Narrow Escape.--The buried Cap.--The safest Way of Retreat.--A Sabbath in the Logging Camp.--Sunday Morning Naps.-- Domestic Camp Duties.--Letter Writing.--Recreations.--Sable Traps.--Deer and Moose.--Bear Meat.--A rare Joke.--Moose Hunt. --Bewildered Hunters.--Extraordinary Encounter.--Conclusion of Sabbath in the Woods. Lumbermen not only cut and haul from clumps and communities, but reconnoiter the forest, hill, vale, and mountain side for scattering trees; and when they are deemed _worth_ an _effort_, no location in which they may be found, however wild or daring, can oppose the skill and enterprise of our men.