when they have
made a little progress, they, by an ingenious and simple contrivance,
fix upon the proper direction of the cut, so as to make the tree fall
accurately where they want it. This is necessary, on account of the great
length and weight of the trees, and the roughness of the ground, by reason
of which a tree carelessly felled may in its fall break and split
into pieces, so as to make it entirely worthless. This happens not
unfrequently, in spite of every care.

So skillful are they in giving to the tree its proper direction that they
are able to set a post or stake in the ground a hundred feet or more from
the root of the tree, and drive it down by felling the tree on top of it.

"Can you really drive a stake with a tree?" I asked, and was answered, "Of
course, we do it every day."

The "under-cut" goes in about two-thirds the diameter. When it is finished
the stage is shifted to the opposite side, and then it is a remarkable
sight to see the tall, straight mass begin to tremble as the axe goes in.
It usually gives a heavy crack about fifteen minutes before it means to
fall. The chopper thereupon gives a warning shout, so that all may stand
clear--not of the tree, for he knows very well where that will go, and in
a cleared space men will stand within ten feet of where the top of a tree
is to strike, and watch its fall; his warning is against the branches of
other trees, which are sometimes torn off and flung to a distance by the
falling giant, and which occasionally dash out men's brains.

At last the tree visibly totters, and slowly goes over; and as it goes the
chopper gets off his stage and runs a few feet to one side. Then you hear
and see one of the grandest and most majestic incidents of forest life.
There is a sharp crack, a crash, and then a long, prolonged, thunderous
crash, which, when you hear it from a little distance, is startlingly like
an actual and severe thunder-peal. To see a tree six feet in diameter,
and one hundred and seventy-five feet high, thus go down, is a very great
sight, not soon forgotten.

The choppers expressed themselves as disappointed that they could not just
then show me the fall of a tree ten or twelve feet in diameter, and over
two hundred feet high. In one logging camp I visited there remained a
stump fourteen feet high. At this height the tree was fourteen feet in
diameter, perfectly round and sound, and it had been sawn into seventeen
logs, each twelve feet long. T