The choppers have the most important and interesting part of the work. They always work in pairs, and go out against the trees armed with a keen axe apiece and a crosscut-saw between them. Having selected their victim—say a splendid pine, towering more than a hundred feet in the air—they take up their position at each side. Soon the strokes of the axes ring out in quick succession. For some time the yellow chips fly fast, and presently a shiver runs through the tree’s mighty frame. One of the choppers cries warningly to the other, who hastens to get out of the way. A few more strokes are given with nice skill. Then comes a rending crack, whose meaning cannot be mistaken; and the stately tree, after quivering a moment as though uncertain which way to fall, crashes headlong to the ground, making a wide swath through the smaller trees standing near. A good chopper can lay his tree almost exactly where he likes, and yet somehow accidents are of frequent occurrence. Every winter additions are made to the long list of men whom the trees have succeeded in involving in their own ruin. A gust of wind, the proximity of another tree, or some such influence may cause the falling trunk to swerve, and fall with fatal force upon the unwary chopper. The tree felled, the next proceeding is to strip it of its branches, and saw it up into as many logs as can be got from it. Two, three, four, or even as many as five logs may be obtained from a single tree—the length of each being thirteen and a half feet or sixteen and a half according to the quality. The odd half-foot is allowed for the "brooming" of the ends as the logs make their rough journey down the streams to the mills. [Illustration: LUMBERING. _Page_ 266.] Eighty logs felled, trimmed, and sawed is quite an ordinary day’s work for one pair of choppers; and when the choppers have been "striving"—that is, each pair trying its best to outdo the others—six hundred logs have been turned in by a single pair as the splendid result of a week’s work. The logs are at first piled up on "roll-ways," which are simply two tree-trunks placed a little distance apart. Later on, when the road-makers have done their part, the teamsters bear them off to the bank of the stream or out upon the ice of the lake, where they wait the coming of spring to begin their journey by water to the mills. The shantyman leads a free, hearty, healthy life. From dawn until dark he works in the open air, exercising lungs and muscles. When the autumn rains are over, and the snow has come to stay, he breathes for four months the clear, cold, bracing air of the Canadian winter, fragrant with the scent of pine and cedar. No matter how fond of drink he may be, not one drop of liquor can he have, although he may and does drink long and deep from the "cup that cheers."