Many were the subjects, which they discussed, and great the problems, which they settled. Countless were the tales of woodland adventure, which they told, and mighty were the labours each performed in the telling. Oh, wonderful men, those Seven Axmen — wonderful in brain as well as in muscle. So tireless were their minds that they could listen to the same joke a hundred times a day and laugh each time harder than the last.

And all the time while they rested they smoked their pipes, wonderful old pipes, which they had used constantly through many, many years. Each one used up two bushels of tobacco every time it was filled, and by the time the second day had come to an end the contents of Paul‘s tobacco pouch were almost half gone. The smoke hung over the land like a cloud, and for hundreds of miles there was not a Gumberoo to be found in the woods.

The fierce creatures, sniffing the strangling smoke, which filled the air, had been fooled into thinking that a terrible fire was raging through the forest. Frightened nearly out of their wits, they had scrambled away as fast as they could roll. No one knows how far they went ere their flight ceased, for they were never seen nor heard of again in that part of the country.

Getting rid of the Agropelters was the next task, and this required a little more work. Paul called the Seven Axmen to him, and they were very glad to put away their pipes and gather around him. They had smoked so much that their tongues were sore, and their two-day rest had grown so tiresome that they were anxious to get back to hard work again. "These Agropelters all hide away in the hollows of dead trees," Paul told them. "Now I want you to get your axes and wander through the timber. Every time you see a dead tree, or one with a hollow in it, chop it down and split it open. After you have done that, we’ll start putting up the camp."