w," was the response.

The wind was rising, and the tree muttered savagely. Luther thought it
sounded like a menace, and turned pale. No trouble has yet been found
that will keep a man awake in the keen air of the pineries after he
has been swinging his axe all day, but the sleep of the chopper was so
broken with disturbing dreams that night that the beads gathered on
his brow, and twice he cried aloud. He ate his coarse flap-jacks in the
morning and escaped from the smoky shanty as soon as he could.

"It'll bring bad luck, I'm afraid," he muttered as he went to get his
axe from the rack. He was as fond of his axe as a soldier of his musket,
but to-day he shouldered it with reluctance. He felt like a man with his
destiny before him. The tree stood like a sentinel. He raised his axe,
once, twice, a dozen times, but could not bring himself to make a cut
in the bark. He walked backwards a few steps and looked up. The funereal
green seemed to grow darker and darker till it became black. It was the
embodiment of sorrow. Was it not shaking giant arms at him? Did it not
cry out in angry challenge? Luther did not try to laugh at his fears;
he had never seen any humor in life. A gust of wind had someway crept
through the dense barricade of foliage that flanked the clearing,
and struck him with an icy chill. He looked at the sky; the day was
advancing rapidly. He went at his work with an energy as determined as
despair. The axe in his practised hand made clean straight cuts in the
trunk, now on this side, now on that. His task was not an easy one,
but he finished it with wonderful expedition. After the chopping was
finished, the tree stood firm a moment; then, as the tensely-strained
fibres began a weird moaning, he sprang aside, and stood waiting. In the
distance he saw two men hewing a log. The axe-man sent them a shout
and threw up his arms for them to look. The tree stood out clear and
beautiful against the gray sky; the men ceased their work and watched
it. The vibrations became more violent, and the sounds they produced
grew louder and louder till they reached a shrill wild cry. There came a
pause, then a deep shuddering groan. The topmost branches began to move
slowly, the whole stately bulk swayed, and then shot towards the ground.
The gigantic trunk bounded from the stump, recoiled like a cannon,
crashed down, and lay conquered, with a roar as of an earthquake, in a
cloud of flying twigs and chips.

When the dust had c