Tall Timber Tales More Paul Bunyan Stories by Dell J. McCormick
The Giant Mosquitobees
One of the worst times Paul ever had was the time he logged off the country around Red Bottom Lake. It was nearly all swampland, and though Paul didn't know it at the time it was famous breeding ground for mosquitoes. Not the tame, puny little kind you find back in New Jersey, but huge evil-looking insects that measured fifteen or sixteen inches from tip to tip.
The present day mosquitoes are mere pigmies compared to the ones that attacked Paul and his men during the Spring Drive at Red Bottom Lake. They appeared in swarms and began to make life miserable for everyone in camp. It was no use covering the bunks with mosquito netting. The huge insects would dive through it like tissue paper.
Paul told Ole to fit all the doors and windows with heavy chicken wire but even that didn't work. Great holes appeared in it overnight, and soon there were more mosquitoes inside the bunkhouse than outside. The small mosquitoes would crawl through the holes and help the larger ones saw an opening with their sharp beaks, like two sawyers at the ends of a crosscut saw. The beaks were sharp as razor blades in spite of the daily wire cutting, and Paul soon found out the reason. Down behind the blacksmith shop they had set up six grindstones, and while one turned the grindstone the other mosquitoes held their beaks over the wheel until all the rough edges were worn off. They had worn out three of Ole's best grindstones before Paul put a stop to it.
Paul finally decided to fight them with bumblebees and sent Brimstone Bill East for the largest and fiercest bees he could find. Bill did a good job all right and brought back six hundred of the largest bumblebees the men had ever seen. He tied their wings to their backs and took them overland on foot. It was quite a feat at that as he crossed eight hundred miles of desert and never lost a bee.
Paul turned them all loose the day they arrived in camp. Everybody expected a battle royal, but nothing happened. The bumblebees took a liking to the mosquitoes from the start and became as friendly as ants at a picnic. The bachelor mosquitoes took quite a fancy to the young lady bumblebees and soon they were intermarried right and left. The worst of it was that the offspring were twice as bad as either parent. They had stingers fore and aft and got the men both coming and going. It soon became dangerous to go out in the woods alone, and the men armed themselves with peaveys and pike poles to fight off attacks of these savage mosquitobees as the men called them.
These young mosquitobees grew to such a huge size that they began to attack the camp itself and make off with large sacks of flour and barrels of sugar. Hot Biscuit Slim put all the sugar barrels that were left in a small storehouse back of the cook shanty and tightly bolted the door, but a great swarm of the worst mosquitobees came down on it and carried away the sugar-storehouse and all!
Paul, himself was away on a trip with Big Joe, the river boss, and the men didn't know what to do. It became a matter of life and death when the giant insects finally attacked the big dining room and started eating all the food before the men could sit down for dinner. Ole the Big Swede got the men together and led the attack against the mosquitobees, while the Seven Axemen stood at the rear door to prevent an escape. More than half the swarm was killed by the swinging peaveys and cant hooks in the hands of the angry lumberjacks.
The rest escaped through the windows and went for help. Johnnie Inkslinger bound up the wounded men and gave everybody double-bitted axes to beat off an attack should the mosquitobees return. They did not have long to wait. In less than an hour all the giant mosquitobees swarmed down on the camp. They attacked the men in battle formation and drove them from the dining room and bunkhouse. Step by step the men were driven back before the angry mosquitobees. The weary loggers finally hid beneath the giant hotcake griddle where eighteen inches of thick boiler plate would protect them from the savage insects.
The mosquitobees swarmed over the hotcake griddle, and the angry buzzing of their giant wings could be heard for miles. Finally they attacked the griddle from the top. Diving down, they drove their sharp beaks through the boiler plate enough to reach the men huddled beneath. When Ole saw what was happening he had a bright idea.
