Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Bannatyne and PG Distributed
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It was the big central taproot which baffled them. They had hewedeasily through the great side roots, large as branches, covered withsoft brown bark; they had dug down and cut through the forest oftender small roots below; but when they had passed the main body ofthe stump and worked under it, they found that their hole around thetrunk was not large enough in diameter to enable them to reach to thetaproot and cut through it. They could only reach it feebly with thehatchet, fraying it, but there was no chance for a free swing to severthe tough wood. Instead of widening the hole at once, they keptlaboring at the root, working the stump back and forth, as though theyhoped to crystallize that stubborn taproot and snap it like a wire.Still it held and defied them. They laid hold of it together andtugged with a grunt; something tore beneath that effort, but the stumpheld, and upward progress ceased.
They stopped, too tired for profanity, and gazed down the mountainsideafter the manner of baffled men, who look far off from the thing thattroubles them. They could tell by the trees that it was a highaltitude. There were no cottonwoods, though the cottonwoods willfollow a stream for more than a mile above sea level. Far below them apale mist obscured the beautiful silver spruce which had reached theirupward limit. Around the cabin marched a scattering of the balsam fir.They were nine thousand feet above the sea, at least. Still higher upthe sallow forest of lodgepole pines began; and above these, beyondthe timberline, rose the bald summit itself.
They were big men, framed for such a country, defying the roughnesswith a roughness of their own—these stalwart sons of old BillCampbell. Both Harry and Joe Campbell were fully six feet tall, withmighty bones and sinews and work-toughened muscles to justify theirstature. Behind them stood their home, a shack better suited for thehousing of cattle than of men. But such leather-skinned men as thesewere more tender to their horses than to themselves. They slept andate in the shack, but they lived in the wind and the sun.
Although they had looked down the stern slopes to the lower Rockies,they did not see the girl who followed the loosely winding trail. Shewas partly sheltered by the firs and came out just above them. Theybegan moiling at the stump again, sweating, cursing, and the girlhalted her horse near by. The profanity did not distress her. She wasso accustomed to it that the words had lost all edge and point forher; but her freckled face stirred to a smile of pleasure at the sightof their strength, as they alternately smote at the taproot and thenstrove in creaking, grunting unison to work it loose.
They remained so long oblivious of her presence that at length shecalled, "Why don't you dig a bigger hole, boys?"
She laughed in delight as they jerked up their heads in astonishment.Her laughter was young and sweet to the ear, but there was not a greatdeal outside her laughter that was attractive about her.
However, Joe and Harry gaped and grinned and blushed at her in thetime-old fashion, for she lived in a country where to be a woman issufficient, beauty is an unnecessary luxury, soon taxed out ofexistence by the life. She possessed the main essentials of socialpower; she could dance unflaggingly from dark to dawn at the nearestschoolhouse dance, chattering every minute;