Held Prisoner By A Tree

Held Prisoner by A Tree 

Terrible Experience Of a Woodman in the Australian Bush

It is difficult for the human mind to imagine a more soul racking experience than that of an Australian bushman who for several days was imprisoned in the heart of the great Australian forest, his hand caught fast in the cleft of a giant tree which he had felled and started to split.

The bushman, now an old man, told the story a short time ago in Melbourne, where he is now a respected citizen and successful business man.

One day he attacked a huge box tree which the squatter desired to have split into planks for building purposes. Having felled the tree, said the bushman, I began the more difficult work of splitting the giant trunk from which I stripped the bark. With my ax I made a gash in the butt, in which a steel wedge was inserted. After driving home, a second wedge was put in and driven home with the head of the ax. Thus using the wedges alternately I made the gap in the fallen tree larger until, to the accompaniment of rending wood, the terrible thing happened, the mere recollection of which even to this day calls forth an involuntary shudder of horror. 

I had driven one of the big wedges into the hard white wood, and, throwing my ax upon one side, for I was tired with the exertion and intended taking a short rest, I put my left hand into the aperture to remove its predecessor. But before I could withdraw it the firm wedge sprang from its position, and, the aperture creaking and narrowing as the wedge slipped upward, the great white mouth of the gaping trunk closed about my hand and held it as in a vise. 

Vainly I attempted to extricate it from the powerful grip of the great log. Then, feeling in my pockets, I found another wedge and, placing it close to my imprisoned hand, turned to grasp the ax with which to drive it into the aperture. This, I could see would sufficiently widen the gap to enable me to withdraw my hand, which by this time was losing its first sensation of numbness and becoming intensely painful. But, to my unspeakable horror, the ax lay upon the ground beyond my reach. 

Then I looked about for a billet of wood with which to drive in the wedge, but there was none within my reach. Even the boughs I had lopped from the fallen tree were lying some distance farther up the great trunk, even farther removed than my ax. Then I caught sight of the wedge which had sprung, and, leaping to my feet, I tore blindly at it in a frenzied attempt to release the lower half of the great log. But it had only sprung half way out of the white wood, and, though I tore at the upper end of the wedge with the strength of despair and until the fingers of my free hand were torn and lacerated by the sharp blurred edges of the oft hammered steel, the grip of the great log was as firm and immovable about the half released wedge as about my crushed and throbbing fingers. Could I but have withdrawn this wedge I might have used it to batter in the other. 

All through that long and terrible night I lay upon the great log and tossed feverishly from side to side with a mind which was fast giving way within me. But one idea possessed me and sent a faint ray of renewed hope tingling through my veins. The trapper! His camp, it is true, was three miles to the eastward, and I know I could not hope to make myself heard at so great a distance. But would he not be abroad early in the morning to gather in his spoils and reset his snares, and might I not hope that by some fortuitous circumstance he might come within the radius of my voice and, responding thereto deliver me from this dreadful death? But the hunter did not come and again the sun dipped down in the west. The night wore on, and the sun rose up to another day.

Again I put forth my feeble voice in a vain endeavor to attract the attention of my neighbor, the trapper. But all to no purpose. Then I began to wonder whether he would be attracted to the spot by the mysterious extinguishing of my fires, which, slowly burning themselves out since my captivity, had now been entirely quenched by the rain. If not, I felt that my extremity was indeed a terrible one. At least ten days must elapse before the arrival of the bullock teams to carry home the log, and I knew I could never last till then. No. My only hope was in the trapper, and even he might fail to reach me until too late.

Another day and another night came and went, and there was no change. And still another day and another night passed over my head, and in the darkness of that night I prayed for death as fervently as some men pray for life. But it came not.

Still another day went by, and in the silence of the night which followed it I heard a rustling sound among the trees, but I knew not whence it came. Again and again I caught the sound, but death had so far claimed me for his own that the power of reasoning out the cause had long since left me, and I could only lie and listen to the sound in a bewildered, apathetic way. But when the morning dawned I almost shrieked for joy, for there upon the ground was a huge possum tugging at a dry, dead bough which were fastened to his body by the trapper's snare. And then I knew no more, for consciousness deserted me, and I sank helpless to the ground. 

I awoke to hear the ring of steel against steel, and, looking up from where I lay, I saw the tall figure of the trapper swinging the ax above his head and driving the wedge deep into the gaping wood. In another moment my hand, crushed almost to a pulp dropped from the widening gap, and the trapper, throwing down his ax, knelt down beside me.

"All right, old chap," he said, with infinite tenderness. "I'll bring some water and a little brandy out of your tent, and then I'll be off to the homestead as fast as my legs can carry me. Keep up till I come back." And, pressing my hand, he was gone almost before I had realized it.

How quickly he went may be judged from the fact that in less than two hours the galloping of horses' feet caught my ear, and I knew that I was saved. A comfortable stretcher of the bark was hastily improvised, and I was conveyed to the homestead. Just before leaving the scene of my ghastly experience I noticed the big opossum still fettered to the trapper. I begged him by signals for I could not speak to let the poor beast go. Comprehending me, he did so, and the sight of that terrified creature scampering off into the dense undergrowth did me more good that I can tell.