The first day of logging in the He Man country seemed to justify the great logger’s best hopes. The men came out from breakfast with a swinging, swaggering tramp, loudly smacking their lips over the lingering flavors of buffalo milk hot cakes. This potent food made them vigorously he in every action. Each man chewed at least three cans of Copenhagen and a quarter-pound of fire cut during his first twelve hours in the woods. “P-tt-tooey! P-tt-tooey! P-tt-tooey!” sounded everywhere among shouted oaths and coarse bellowing. Every ax stroke buried the bit deeply in the tough sage wood, and brown dust spurted and gushed constantly from every singing saw. Crash! Crash! Crash! The thunder of falling trees sounded like a heavy cannonade. On all the loggers’ backs gray sweat stains spread from under their suspenders, and their hair hung in dripping strings over their red, wet faces. They had got up steam for the first time since leaving the Hickory Hill country, and they were rejoicing in it. Even after the eleventh hour had passed their eyes were bright, though red-rimmed from stinging sweat, though wrinkles of weariness had formed around them. The men were tired indeed; the fallers and swampers were now panting through open mouths, and they were chewing nervously on their tongues, as is the habit of men when they are wearied out; but they never missed a lick, and when Paul Bunyan called them home they could still walk springily. When they were back in camp they did not even complain of the smeared, sticky feeling which always follows great sweats. No one spoke delicately of bathing; the loggers all washed and combed carelessly; and soon they made a trampling, growling host around the cookhouse door. The rafters and beams of the great cookhouse shook at this supper, so savagely did the loggers tackle the platters of bear meat. Even the bones were crushed, ground, and devoured; and Hot Biscuit Slim and his helpers were delighted when all the dishes were left slick and clean. That night no poems were recited in the bunkhouses, but the loggers roared out “The Jam on Garry’s Rock” and other plain old songs. The loggers all crawled into their blankets at an early hour, and every one of them emitted gruff snores as soon as he went to sleep. Paul Bunyan listened to them, and he praised the saints for the He Man country. Had it not been for this region there was no telling what continuous plagues of poetry would have afflicted his simple men. Now they were back to normalcy.