“Have you ever worked in the woods?” “No.” The man smoked silently. “I'll put you on the road in the morning,” he concluded, as though this were the deciding qualification. One of the men entered abruptly and approached the counter. The writer at the desk laid aside his tablets. “What is it, Albert?” he added. “Jot of chewin',” was the reply. The scaler took from the shelf a long plug of tobacco and cut off two inches. “Ain't hitting the van much, are you, Albert?” he commented, putting the man's name and the amount in a little book. Thorpe went out, after leaving his name for the time book, enlightened as to the method of obtaining supplies. He promised himself some warm clothing from the van, when he should have worked out the necessary credit. At supper he learned something else,--that he must not talk at table. A moment's reflection taught him the common-sense of the rule. For one thing, supper was a much briefer affair than it would have been had every man felt privileged to take his will in conversation; not to speak of the absence of noise and the presence of peace. Each man asked for what he wanted. “Please pass the beans,” he said with the deliberate intonation of a man who does not expect that his request will be granted. Besides the beans were fried salt pork, boiled potatoes, canned corn, mince pie, a variety of cookies and doughnuts, and strong green tea. Thorpe found himself eating ravenously of the crude fare. That evening he underwent a catechism, a few practical jokes, which he took good-naturedly, and a vast deal of chaffing. At nine the lights were all out. By daylight he and a dozen other men were at work, hewing a road that had to be as smooth and level as a New York boulevard. Chapter VI Thorpe and four others were set to work on this road, which was to be cut through a creek bottom leading, he was told, to “seventeen.” The figures meant nothing to him. Later, each number came to possess an individuality of its own. He learned to use a double-bitted ax. Thorpe's intelligence was of the practical sort that wonderfully helps experience. He watched closely one of the older men, and analyzed the relation borne by each one of his movements to the object in view. In a short time he perceived that one hand and arm are mere continuations of the helve, attaching the blade of the ax to the shoulder of the wielder; and that the other hand directs the stroke. He acquired the knack thus of throwing the bit of steel into the gash as though it were a baseball on the end of a string; and so accomplished power. By experiment he learned just when to slide the guiding hand down the helve; and so gained accuracy. He suffered none of those accidents so common to new choppers. His ax did not twist itself from his hands, nor glance to cut his foot. He attained the method of the double bit, and how to knock roots by alternate employment of the edge and flat. In a few days his hands became hard and used to the cold.