The loggers all nearly fell over when they heard this; they were tremendously surprised, for they had never imagined that Bab Babbitson could have it in him. They hid their own poems, for they were ashamed of them now, and someone lifted a shout, “Hurrah for Bab Babbitson, the boss poet of Paul Bunyan’s camp!” Everyone cheered and begged for more verses. Bab Babbitson, gloriously puffed up, was about to comply, when the loggers saw two great shadows advancing upon them. They looked up and beheld Paul Bunyan and the Big Swede. The great logger’s brows were drawn in a terrible frown, and his beard was shaking from his rage as the forest boughs shake when a swift wind blows among them. “Are these Paul Bunyan’s loggers?” he roared. “I don’t recognize them!” The poets were all tumbled from their feet by the force of that wrathful voice, and all but Bab Babbitson lost their poems in the scramble. “Where are my old comrades of labor?” their leader went on more gently. “Where are the happy bunkhouse gangs that told loggers’ tales and sang loggers’ songs after their honest twelve hours of labor were done? Are you still loggers, or have you really degenerated into poets?” They were shamed and they did not answer; but just then Johnny Inkslinger came out of his office and told Paul Bunyan of the terrible effect which the climate and scenery of New Iowa had on the soul after some living in it. “Then it is no country for loggers,” declared Paul Bunyan. He ordered the Big Swede to make the camp ready for an immediate move, and he sent his men to the bunkhouses. Then he took the felling ax he had devised for the tall timbers, and through the forests of orange palms he strode, smashing them into splinters. Kicks from his calked boots tore up the pink meadows and filled the lavender river with mud. Next, he demolished the hills, leaving them in scattered piles of barren sand. He regretted that he could not dissolve the climate also, thus banishing forever the enervating prettiness of the land. But he felt that he had done a good night’s work as it was. “So much for New Iowa,” he said at last, with a sigh of weariness and content. In the dark hour before dawn the camp was speeding Northward. But Bab Babbitson was not in his bunkhouse. Still clutching his poem, he had slipped out ere the start was made and hid in the forest wreckage. He was the one man in all that mighty host who was not a born logger. And now he had found his own country. THE HE MAN COUNTRY