would be dragged by Babe in much the same fashion; it would be in the
air most of the time, and when it did strike the ground loggers would
be scattered like autumn leaves. The loggers who would hang on until
the woods were reached would have the living daylights shaken out of
them. A common lunch sled would not do; one must be invented that would
hold the road.
So Paul Bunyan devised the serpentine bobsled. It was a long, low-built
contraption; the runners were made in short sections, connected by
double joints. When it was completed and lay in the road that led
from the camp it looked like a squat fence, for it snugly fitted the
contours of the hills and vales over which it extended.
“There’s a rig that’ll hold the road,” said Paul Bunyan with pride.
“Now I’ll invent something equally good to hold Babe to a slow pace.”
Several mechanical devices were tried without passing the first test.
The sled lay idle. The loggers got sore feet, and they traveled so
slowly that they began to take twelve hours to reach the woods. There
was one shift on the road, going, and one coming all of the time. Not a
tree was being felled.
“There’s no way out of it but to try the grizzlies,” Paul Bunyan told
his timekeeper.
Among the other livestock on Paul Bunyan’s farm, which was down the
river from the old home camp, was a herd of grizzly bears. The great
logger often amused himself by playing with them, and he had taught
them many tricks. Not the least of their stunts was for each bear to
hang from a tree with three paws and try to claw Paul Bunyan’s mackinaw
with the other paw as he dodged by.
“I’ll station them at the trees which are left standing along the
road,” said Paul Bunyan, “and when Babe roars by they’ll hook him. They
may only frighten him into a faster run, but I think surely they’ll
slow him down.”
The next morning the loggers, for the most part, joyfully crawled upon
the serpentine bobsled. The timid and cranky among the loggers were
pessimistic, of course, and declared noisily that this would be the end
of them. But Shanty Boy and the other bards laughed at their fears,
and at last every logger in camp was on the sled. Paul Bunyan ordered
the Big Swede to hitch up the blue ox and start in half an hour, and
he departed for the woods with his herd of grizzlies. He stationed one
of them at every tree close to the road. When he reached the timber he
straddled a hogback and sat down to wait for the outcome of his daring
attempt.
In a short time he heard a faint thunder down in the valley, then he
saw enormous balloons of dust twisting up in cyclonic bursts from the
foothills, next he heard the crashing sound of hoofbeats that got
louder and louder.... Through clouds of dust he saw Babe’s tail brush
lifted like a triumphal banner and the glitter of his horns.... The Big
Swede, hanging to Babe’s halter rope, soared and dived....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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