Chapter VI


Thorpe and four others were set to work on this road, which was
to be cut through a creek bottom leading, he was told, to "seventeen."
The figures meant nothing to him. Later, each number came to possess
an individuality of its own. He learned to use a double-bitted ax.

Thorpe's intelligence was of the practical sort that wonderfully
helps experience. He watched closely one of the older men, and
analyzed the relation borne by each one of his movements to the
object in view. In a short time he perceived that one hand and arm
are mere continuations of the helve, attaching the blade of the ax
to the shoulder of the wielder; and that the other hand directs the
stroke. He acquired the knack thus of throwing the bit of steel into
the gash as though it were a baseball on the end of a string; and so
accomplished power. By experiment he learned just when to slide the
guiding hand down the helve; and so gained accuracy. He suffered
none of those accidents so common to new choppers. His ax did not
twist itself from his hands, nor glance to cut his foot. He
attained the method of the double bit, and how to knock roots by
alternate employment of the edge and flat. In a few days his hands
became hard and used to the cold.

From shortly after daylight he worked. Four other men bore him
company, and twice Radway himself came by, watched their operations
for a moment, and moved on without comment. After Thorpe had caught