Show u > FALL OF A FOREST MONARCH Sawing Down a Giant Pine Tree In the Minnesota Woods W S Harwood in St Nicholas I had my eye on a grand old pine standing stand-ing a little way from any of his fellows fel-lows a monarch in the forest It must have been 140 feet perhaps more from the topmost point in its glossy green coronal down to the dead goldenrod in the snow at its base It was about three feet in diameter at the ground so tall so strong so straight a noble tree indeed in very truth a king of the forest It was the result of the I life which dwelt in the tiny black winged seed which was lost to view more than a century and a half before I be-fore foreWhile While I was admiring the splendid proportions of the tree three men came toward me One was a brighteyed fellow fel-low short of stature and swarthy of j I skin looking like one of the Chippewa Indians whose home this forest had I been nobody knows how many centuries centu-ries He looked the tree over sharply stepping to this side and to that eyed it critically from various points of view and Then with a small sharp ax cut a keen gash in the trunk about afoot I a-foot above the ton of the dead goldenrod golden-rod in the snow He was an undqrcut ter a man whose business it is to cut i into the tree on the side on which it I should fall so that it may not be broken I bro-ken in the fall or lodge in the crotch of another tree The cut on the side of the tree is the guide for the sawyers saw-yers The other men bearing a big saw I began cutting down the pine sawing steadily and powerfully through the I fragrant yellowishwhite trunk Now I and then the undercutter would step up tothem to see how thew were progressing pro-gressing When their saw had passed the heart of the pine the placed a small bright steel wedge in the path of the saw and drive it in Look out there now came the call of the undercutter as he looked in my direction I made a quick scramble through the deep snow nearly tumbling over a hid I den log and grabbing my camera as I went I had no intention of staying in the immediate vicinity for I had seen trees like this fall before and I knew it was a risky thing to stand hard bv The best directed tree will sometimes veer a little in its fall and woe to the one who stands below it Many an experienced woodman has been killed in just such a place many a one has been paught and plpnioned perhaps to escape with only broken legs or ribs In a second more the noble pine came crashing down through the branches 1 J of the other trees falling upon the frozen fro-zen earth with a noise which drowned all the other noises of the foresta roar which echoed and reechoed through the long dim aisles of the forest for-est like the booming of some mighty I cannonade |