While Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger and the Big Swede cruised the remaining timber in the Smiling River country, the loggers renewed their affections for the delights of the old home camp. In the mornings they roamed the cool slopes of old Rock Candy, they gorged themselves with ripe fruit from the raspberry trees and strawberry bushes, and, barefooted, they climbed the maple trees and gamboled over the clover fields. In the afternoons Smiling River was splashed with foam for miles as they swarmed into their old swimming holes. Swimming over, the loggers would line up on the banks and shake their right legs to get the water out of their left ears and their left legs to get the water out of their right ears. Then they would angle for the bright-hued butterfish that fluttered among the water flowers. And what exhilarating meals they enjoyed! Now they had all the fresh stuff that the farm could provide. Cream Puff Fatty, the baker, made them strawberry shortcake and raspberry pie twice a day, and he covered these juicy confections with snowy piles of vanilla-flavored whipped cream. The cobs from golden, fat-kerneled roasting ears were soon heaped mountain-high in the kitchen yard. The cream gravy for the rosy new potatoes and bouncing green peas was made from real cream, sweet and thick. The loggers became lighthearted boys again, and as they enjoyed themselves they were happily unconscious of the bitter enviousness of the scissor-bills, who were digging parsnips for twenty hours a day on the other side of Honey Creek. Babe, the blue ox, too, was enjoying life as never before. The stream from the lemonade springs had been diverted to a trough that ran through his manger; and he was surrounded with fresh, green clover, for John Shears, with sinister purpose, had mown all the clover fields on the day after Paul Bunyan’s arrival and had stacked it in and around Babe’s stable. He had hoped that the blue ox would bloat on the green feed, and perish before his master could return from his cruising expedition. But the early harvest had only served to throw the two bees into a rebellious rage; they had been imprisoned in their hive, and there, night and day, they had buzzed wrathfully over their half-filled honey barrels. Babe digested the green clover easily, and ate it with delight, his great blue eyes shining with affection and gratitude for the boss farmer. “Pity ’tain’t alfalfy, ye blame’ hog,” snarled John Shears in disgust. But it wasn’t, so John Shears made the scissor-bills work twenty hours a day in the parsnip patch, and he aided them with his own efforts, for he realized that once Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger had returned a fatal poisoning of the blue ox would be difficult to accomplish. He would not have the courage to attempt it then. Now was the time to strike. Heaven helping him, he should not fail!