horses to stop. They need it bad enough."

This was too much for even Farquhar's sluggish blood. "Let them go,
Ranald!" he cried. "Let them go, man! Never you fear for the horses, if
you take down the spunk o' yon crowing cock."

It was just what Ranald needed to spur him on--a taunt from his foe and
leave from Farquhar to push his team.

Before each lay a fallen tree cut into lengths and two or three
half-burned stumps. Ranald's tree was much the bigger. A single length
would have been an ordinary load for the blacks, but their driver felt
that their strength and spirit were both equal to much more than this.
He determined to clear away the whole tree at a single load. As soon as
he heard Farquhar's voice, he seized hold of the whiffletrees, struck
his team a sharp blow with the lines--their first blow that day--swung
them round to the top of the tree, ran the chain through its swivel,
hooked an end round each of the top lengths, swung them in toward the
butt, unhooked his chain, gathered all three lengths into a single
load, faced his horses toward the pile, and shouted at them. The blacks,
unused to this sort of treatment, were prancing with excitement, and
when the word came they threw themselves into their collars with a
fierceness that nothing could check, and amid the admiring shouts of the
crowd, tore the logs through the black soil and landed them safely at
the pile. It was the work of only a few minutes to unhitch the chain,
haul the logs, one by one, into place, and dash back with his team at
the gallop for the stumps, while Aleck had still another load of logs to
draw.

Ranald's first stump came out with little trouble, and was borne at full
speed to the pile. The second stump gave him more difficulty, and before
it would yield he had to sever two or three of its thickest roots.

Together the teams swung round to their last stump. The excitement in
the crowd was intense. Aleck's team was moving swiftly and with the
steadiness of clockwork. The blacks were frantic with excitement and
hard to control. Ranald's last stump was a pine of medium size, whose
roots were partly burned away. It looked like an easy victim. Aleck's
was an ugly-looking little elm.

Ranald thought he would try his first pull without the use of the ax.
Quickly he backed up his team to the stump, passed the chain round a
root on the far side, drew the big hook far up the chain, hitched it so
as to give the shortest possible draught, t