above the ground as he is thick through. Now, first, the undercut."

"Looks like an overcut to me."

"Oh, ho! Ah, _oui_, so eet is! But eet is called the undercut. Eet
makes the tree fall the way you want heem!"

The axe gleamed in blow after blow. A deep incision appeared in the
trunk of the tree, and at the base of it Ba'tiste started the saw,
Barry working on the other end with his good arm. Ten minutes of work
and they switched to the other side. Here no "undercut" was made; the
saw bit into the bark and deep toward the heart of the tree in a
smooth, sharp line that progressed farther, farther--

"_Look out_!"

A crackling sound had come from above. Ba'tiste abandoned the saw, and
with one great leap caught Houston and pulled him far to one side, as
with a roar, the spruce seemed to veritably disintegrate, its trunk
spreading in great, splintered slabs, and the tree proper crashing to
the ground in the opposite direction to which it should have fallen,
breaking as it came. A moment Ba'tiste stood, with his arm still about
the younger man, waiting for the dead branches, severed from other
trees, to cease falling, and the disturbed needles and dust of the
forest to settle. Then, pulling his funny little knit cap far down
over his straggly hair, he came forth, to stand in meditation upon the
largest portion of the shattered tree.

"Eet break up like an ice jam!" came at last. "That tree, he is not
made of wood. Peuff! He is of glass!"

Barry joined him, studying the splintered fragments of the spruce,
suddenly to bend forward in wonderment.

"That's queer. Here's a railroad spike driven clear into the heart."

"Huh? What's that?" Ba'tiste bent beside him to examine the rusty
spike, then hurried to a minute examination of the rest of the tree.
"And another," came at last. "And more!"

Four heavy spikes had revealed themselves now, each jutting forth at a
place where the tree had split. Ba'tiste straightened.

"Ah, _oui_! Eet is no wonder! See? The spike, they have been in the
tree for mebbe one, two, t'ree year. And the tree, he is not strong.
When the winter come, last year, he split inside, from the frost, where
the spike, he spread the grain. But the split, he does not show. When
we try to cut heem down and the strain come, blooey, he, what-you-say,
bust!"

"But why the spikes?"

"Wait!" Ba'tiste, suddenly serious, turned away into the woods, to go
slowly from tree to tree, to