Find out what
gait you can keep up all day and do that. Make your own standard, don't
take another man's."

"But I go so slowly!"

"Want to know it all and do it all the first summer, don't you? Suppose
no one else had to learn? I don't work as hard as you do, though I get
more done. You can't buck up against an old axman. I haven't done this
for some time, but I guess I haven't forgotten how. Go and sit down and
get your breath."

"But I'm not tired--" began Wilbur protestingly.

"Sit down," he was ordered, and the boy, feeling it was better to do
what he was told, did so. After he had a rest, which indeed was very
welcome, the Supervisor called him.

"Loyle," he said, "you know something about a horse, for I've watched
you with them. Handle yourself the same way. You wouldn't force a horse;
don't force yourself."

Moreover, the older man showed the boy many ways wherein to save labor,
explaining that there was a right way and a wrong way of attacking every
different kind of bush. In consequence, when Wilbur started again in the
afternoon he found himself able to do almost half as much again with
less labor. Working steadily all day until sundown, five miles of the
trail had been located, brushed out, and marked.

There was a small lake near by, and thinking that it would be less
fatiguing for the boy to catch fish than to look after the camp, the
Supervisor sent him off to try his luck. Wilbur, delighted to have been
lucky, returned in less than fifteen minutes with four middling-sized
trout, and he found himself hungry enough to eat his two, almost bones
and all. That night they slept under a small Baker tent that Merritt had
brought along on his pack horse, the riding and pack saddles being piled
beside the tent and covered with a slicker.

The following day, by starting work a little after daybreak, the
remaining four miles of the trail were finished before the noonday halt,
which was made late in order to allow the completion of the work.
Wilbur, when he reviewed the fact that they had gone foot by foot over
nine miles of trail, clearing out the brush and piling it, so that it
could be burned and rendered harmless as soon as it was dry, thought it
represented as big a two days' work as he had ever covered.

"Will the pulp-mill be above or below the new Edison plant?" queried
Wilbur on their way home.

"Above," said his companion. "I'll show you just where. You're going to
ride down with me to the site