The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the prostrate tree, where they were made fast by means of chains and hooks. Then the puffing and snorting donkey engine near the chute tightened the cable. The log stirred, moved, plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the soil. Small trees and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later it collided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder. The cable strained. Men shouted or waved their arms in signal. The donkey engine ceased coughing. Then the horse pulled the end of the log free. Behind it was left a deep trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil. At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of cars. A more powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and back again, here took up the burden. At a certain point it was broken by two great hooks. One of these, the one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log of the train. The other was dragged behind. Away from the chutes ten feet the returning cable snapped through rude pulleys. The train of logs moved forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways. On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it heaved the mighty timbers from the woods. The drag of the logs was sometimes heavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored by other cables to strong trees. Between these opposing forces--the inertia of the rooted and the fallen--it leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath a canopy knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready from one instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow down, according to the demands of an ever-changing exigence. His was a nervous job, and he earned his repose. At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an axe, chopping into appropriate lengths the dead wood brought in for fuel. Next year it would be possible to utilize old tops for this purpose, but now they were too green. Another boy, in charge of a solemn mule, tramped ceaselessly back and forth between the engine and a spring that had been dug out down the hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer they had worn a trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons of snow failed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On either side the mule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At the spring the boy filled these by means of a pail. Returned to the engine, he replenished the boiler, draining the sacks from the bottom, cast a fleeting glance at the water gauge of the donkey engine, and hastened back to the spring. He had charge of three engines; and was busy. And back along the line of the chutes were other men to fill out this crew of many activities--old men to signal; young men to stand by with slush brush, axe, or bar when things did not go well; axe-men with teams laying accurately new chutes into new country yet untouched.