1: How Trees Are Felled in China A HALF-MILE north from Jo. Dunfer's, on the road from Hutton's to Mexican Hill, the highway dips into a sunless ravine which opens out on either hand in a half-confidential manner, as if it had a secret to impart at some more convenient season. I never used to ride through it without looking first to the one side and then to the other, to see if the time had ar-rived for the revelation. If I saw nothing--and Inever did see anything--there was no feeling of disappointment, for I knew the disclosure was merely withheld temporarily for some good reason which I had no right to question. That I should one day be taken into full confidence I no more doubted than I doubted the existence of Jo. Dunfer himself, through whose premises the ravine ran.
It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect a cabin in some remote part of it, but for some rea-son had abandoned the enterprise and constructed his present hermaphrodite habitation, half residence and half groggery, at the roadside, upon an extreme corner of his estate; as far away as possible, as if on purpose to show how radically he had changed his mind.
This Jo. Dunfer--or, as he was familiarly known in the neighbourhood, Whisky Jo.--was a very im-portant personage in those parts. He was apparently about forty years of age, a long, shock-headed fellow, with a corded face, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like a bunch of prison-keys. He was a hairy man, with a stoop in his walk, like that of one who is about to spring upon something and rend it.
Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local appellation, Mr. Dunfer's most obvious character-istic was a deep-seated antipathy to the Chinese. Isaw him once in a towering rage because one of his herdsmen had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake his thirst at the horse-trough in front of the saloon end of Jo.'s establishment. I ventured faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristian spirit, but he merely explained that there was nothing about Chinamen in the New Testament, and strode away to wreak his displeasure upon his dog, which also, I suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked.
Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his bar-room, I cautiously approached the sub-ject, when, greatly to my relief, the habitual aus-terity of his expression visibly softened into some-thing that I took for condescension.
'You young Easterners,' he said, 'are a mile-and-a-half too good for this country, and you don't catch on to our play. People who don't know a Chileno from a Kanaka can afford to hang out liberal ideas about Chinese immigration, but a fellow that has to fight for his bone with a lot of mongrel coolies hasn't any time for foolishness.'
This long consumer, who had probably never done an honest day's work in his life, sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and with thumb and forefinger forked out a wad like a small haycock.
Holding this reinforcement within supporting dis-tance he fired away with renewed confidence.
'They're a flight of devouring locusts, and they're going for everything green in this God blest land, if you want to know.'
Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when his gabble-gear was again disengaged re-sumed his uplifting discourse.
'I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, and I'll tell you about it, so that you can see the nub of this whole question. I didn't pan out par-ticularly well those days--drank more whisky than was prescribed for me and didn't seem to care for my duty as a patriotic American citizen; so I took that pagan in, as a kind of cook. But when I got religion over at the Hill and they talked of running me for the Legislature it was given to me to see the light.
But what was I to do? If I gave him the go somebody else would take him, and mightn't treat him white.
What was I to do? What would any good Christian do, especially one new to the trade and full to the neck with the brotherhood of Man and the father-hood of God?'
Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of un-stable satisfaction, as of one who has solved a prob-lem by a distrusted method. Presently he rose and swallowed a glass of whisky from a full bottle on the counter, then resumed his story.
'Besides, he didn't count for much--didn't know anything and gave himself airs. They all do that. Isaid him nay, but he muled it through on that line while he lasted; but after turning the other cheek seventy and seven times I doctored the dice so that he didn't last for ever. And I'm almighty glad I had the sand to do it.'
Jo.'s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, was duly and ostentatiously celebrated at the bottle.
'About five years ago I started in to stick up a shack. That was before this one was built, and I put it in another place. I set Ah Wee and a little cuss named Gopher to cutting the timber. Of course Ididn't expect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face like a day in June and big black eyes--I guess maybe they were the damn'dest eyes in this neck o'
woods.'
While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr. Dunfer absently regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partition separating the bar from the living-room, as if that were one of the eyes whose size and colour had incapacitated his servant for good service.
