Yet these stories were never told lightly, for a true lumberjack will never, by word, look or tone, give any suggestion that these stories are not the exact truth. In fact elaborate precautions are taken to establish their veracity and citation of proof is nearly universal. Sometimes the evidence cited is the word of one from whom the story was heard, for few of the tales are told as the personal experience of the story teller. The story came direct from one of Bunyan's loggers, from a pioneer, the Bull Cook, or some one else equally well informed and reliable. Sometimes the proof is to be found in the continued existence of something connected with the story. Thus the lack of stumps in North Dakota is cited as proof of the fact that Bunyan drove all the stumps into the ground when he logged off that country, while the story that the Mississippi River was started when one of Bunyan's water tanks broke is proven by the fact that the river is still running. According to the best authenticated stories, Paul was born in Maine some time before the Revolutionary War, so far back that a century or so one way or the other made little difference. He had been a lusty infant and a good-sizeable boy, but he did not reach his full growth until he went to Michigan. It was then that he really began his life work of logging off the regions south and west of the Great Lakes. He gained experience and some reputation in his logging operations on the Big Onion, the Big Auger, the Little Gimblet and the Big Tadpole Rivers, but it was the logging of the Dakotas that really made his reputation. Legend has played around this event even more than is usual with Bunyan exploits. This was really done to provide room for the Swedes who were coming to the United States. There were many lesser things which Bunyan did, most of which are mentioned only incidentally, such as the logging of Missouri, the accident when he dragged his skiing pole and so made the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, or the building of Crater Lake or the Island of Cuba. Later Bunyan went to the Pacific Coast where he did many mighty feats of landscape engineering; in fact he largely made the West, but he never seemed to find logging on the West Coast congenial, probably due to the fact that machinery had invaded the Western woods by the time he got there. And Paul never could endure those "pesky" donkey engines. While it was sometimes necessary for him to resort to the use of power machinery in his cook house, he would never have it in the woods. Even when he had a crew so large that it took eight cement mixers to stir the batter for their hot cakes and a stern-wheel steamer to stir their soup, the Blue Ox could easily haul all the logs they could cut without help of any donkey engines or any other such "fandangoes."