The sinking sun flashed its last blaze of red over a camp that was deserted of all save the great heroes and the mighty blue ox. The Big Swede had returned and he slept; Johnny Inkslinger figured; and Babe mooed dolorously as the shadows clouded the silent timber. And Paul Bunyan, the supreme inventor, the noble historian, the master orator, the grand field marshal of industry, mused in sad resignation on the vanity of man’s enterprises. The logging industry, which he had invented, would go on as long as trees grew from the earth, and his name would be heard forever on the tongues of men. He would have power, but it would be only the power of a vast spirit breathing in the dark, deep woods. He would have the glory he had dreamed about in his beginnings ... but glory was a poor consolation ... his life work was done.... The shadows got dense ... the shapes of the heroes, and the shape of Babe, the blue ox, and the shapes of buildings, mountains and trees merged in the darkness. And there history leaves them. [Illustration] Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced. Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations. Page 83: “wreck” was printed that way. Page 186: “Pugent Sound” was printed that way. Page 209: “vigorously he in every action” was printed that way.