Читать книгу Gold Hunting in Alaska онлайн

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Redpolls look and act very much like our goldfinches in the States. Rivers made me a bird-table. It is strange, but everybody declared they would "fire" me bodily if I continued to skin birds on the dining-table; that is why Rivers took pity on me and made me the finest table I could wish for, and a chair to match.

We have the saw-mill. Dr. Coffin and Harry Cox, with the aid of others, ran that for several days, and enough boards were ripped out to cover the cabin floor, besides library and cupboard shelves. They declare "whipping" is hard work. I didn't try it myself, as I was cooking at the time. I prefer to run a cross-cut saw. The saw-mill worked "relays," working five minutes, talking fifteen minutes, resting a half hour before the next took its place. Whip-sawing is an interesting process, especially to the man who stands below and looks up into the shower of sawdust. The doctor advised the plan of wearing snow-glasses, so that the sawdust difficulty was obviated, but the hard work was still there. The doctor tried his best to get me into the business, for he said it would surely tend to straighten my back, which stoops from constant skinning of birds at the table. He got such a "crick" in his back from whip-sawing that he could scarcely sleep for several nights.