y. Let's make everything out of what we
find in the woods."

"Guess we'll have to visit the Sanger Witch again. She knows all about
plants."

"We'll be the Sanger Indians. We can both be Chiefs," said Yan, not
wishing to propose himself as Chief or caring to accept Sam as his
superior. "I'm Little Beaver. Now what are you?"

"Bloody-Thundercloud-in-the-Afternoon."

"No, try again. Make it something you can draw, so you can make your
totem, and make it short."

"What's the smartest animal there is?"

"I--I--suppose the Wolverine."

"What! Smarter'n a Fox?"

"The books say so."

"Kin he lick a Beaver?"

"Well, I should say so."

"Well, that's me."

"No, you don't. I'm not going around with a fellow that licks me. It
don't fit you as well as 'Woodpecker,' anyhow. I always get _you_
when I want a nice tree spoiled or pecked into holes," retorted Yan,
magnanimously ignoring the personal reason for the name.

"Tain t as bad as _beavering_," answered Sam

"Beavering" was a word with a history. Axes and timber were the
biggest things in the lives of the Sangerites. Skill with the axe was
the highest accomplishment. The old settlers used to make everything
in the house out of wood, and with the axe for the only tool. It was
even said that some of them used to "edge her up a bit" and shave with
her on Sundays. When a father was setting his son up in life he gave
him simply a good axe. The axe was the grand essential of life and
work, and was supposed to be a whole outfit. Skill with the axe was
general. Every man and boy was more or less expert, and did not know
how expert he was till a real "greeny" came among them. There is a
right way to cut for each kind of grain, and a certain proper way of
felling a tree to throw it in any given direction with the minimum of
labour. All these things are second nature to the Sangerite. A Beaver
is credited with a haphazard way of gnawing round and round a tree
till somehow it tumbles, and when a chopper deviates in the least from
the correct form, the exact right cut in the exact right place, he is
said to be "beavering"; therefore, while "working like a Beaver" is
high praise, "beavering" a tree is a term of unmeasured reproach, and
Sam's final gibe had point and force that none but a Sangerite could
possibly have appreciated.

XI

Yan and the Witch

The Sanger Witch hated the Shanty-man's axe
And wildfire, too, they tell,
But the hate that she had fo