The business of the day was now resumed in earnest. The teamsters having quickly scattered to their respective teams and brought them with a lively step on to the ground, and having there each received their allotted quota of log-rollers, to pile up the logs as fast as drawn, at once penetrated at different points into the thickest parts of the blackened masses of timber before them, awaiting their sturdy labors. Here the largest log in a given space, and the one the most difficult to be removed, was usually selected as the nucleus of the proposed pile. Then two logs of the next largest size were drawn up on each side, and placed at a little distance in a line parallel with the first, when the intermediate spaces were filled with limbs, knots, and the smallest timber at hand; so that a fire, when the process of burning the piles should be commenced, communicated at the centre thus prepared, would spread through the whole, and not be likely to go out till all the logs were consumed. When this foundation was laid, the next nearest surrounding logs were drawn alongside and rolled up on skids, by the logmen stationed there with their handspikes for the purpose. Then generally commenced a keen strife between the teamster and the log-rollers, to see which should first do their part and keep the others the most closely employed. And the result was that in a very short time a large pile of logs was completed, and a space of ten or fifteen square rods was completely cleared around it. This done, an adjoining thicket of timber was sought out, another pile started, and another space cleared off in the same manner. And thus proceeded the work, with each team and its attendants, in every part of the slash; while the same spirit of rivalry which had thus began to be exhibited between the members of each gang soon took the form of a competition between one gang and another, who were now everywhere seen vieing with each other in the strife to do the most or to build up the largest and greatest number of log-heaps in the shortest space of time. The whole field, indeed, was thus soon made to exhibit the animated but singular spectacle of men, engaged in a wholly voluntary labor, putting forth all the unstinted applications of strength and displaying all the alertness and zeal of men at work for a wager. But, among all the participants in the labors of the day, no one manifested so much interest in advancing the work, no one was so active and laborious, as Gaut Gurley. Not only was he continually inciting and pressing up all others to the labor, but was ever foremost in the heaviest work himself, generally selecting the most difficult parts for himself, and often performing feats of strength that scarcely any two men on the ground were able to perform. Nor was the Herculean strength which he so often displayed before the eyes of the astonished workmen, ever made useless, as is sometimes the case with