"You brought an axe?" Daniel asked, incredulous, as Jack pulled the tarp off the small pile of ropes and tools that were in the back of his truck. It was one thing to find the perfect tree, but then they had to cut it down and get it back to the truck – and that meant ropes and an axe.

"You have any beaver in your bloodlines that I don't know about?"

Ian snickered, and pulled out the coil of rope.

"Don't encourage him, Ian," Daniel said. He turned to Jack once more. "A chainsaw would be a lot faster, don't you think?"

"I don't have a chainsaw, Daniel. I do have an axe."

"You don't know anyone who owns a chainsaw...?"

Jack scowled. Of course he did. He'd just wanted to bring the axe and cut down the damned tree the old-fashioned way. Was that so wrong? It wasn't like he was clearing out farmland for goodness sakes.

Ian looked up at the mountain slopes above them.

"A chainsaw might set off an avalanche or something," he said, shrugging. "An axe won't."

"There, you see?" Jack said, slapping Ian's shoulder and looking at Daniel triumphantly. "An avalanche. Did you think about that? I've been in one avalanche, you know. I don't want to go through it again."

Daniel sighed; he didn't think a chainsaw would set off an avalanche, and he was pretty sure Jack hadn't even thought about an avalanche when he'd brought the axe with him. But he was out-voted two to one, and he wasn't going to win this. Besides, they were already there, and there was no way they were going to go all the way back into town to get a chainsaw.

"Fine. But when you both chop your legs off, don't come running to me."

"We're not going to chop our legs off..." Ian said, as Daniel turned and headed for the closest stand of trees. As nice as it was out here, it was also cold, and he didn't want to be up here any longer than necessary.

"Of course not..." Daniel muttered, mostly to himself. "It'll probably be mine that get chopped off – in some horrific fashion, knowing my luck."

"What?" Jack asked as he and Ian started walking after him.

"Nothing..."

OOOOO

"How about this tree?"

"It's a little big, isn't it?"

They all three looked up at the tree, breathing just a little hard from trekking through the deep snow. Jaffer bounded over to them, and looked up as well, looking to see what they were looking at. In this case it was a twenty-foot pine tree.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Maybe a little..."

"How high is your ceiling?" Ian asked.

"Twelve feet."

"How high is Sally's, Daniel?"

The archeologist shrugged.

"You don't know?" Jack asked, incredulously.

"Who do I look like, Bob Villa?"

"Daniel... how are we supposed to know how big a tree we can get for her if we don't know how high her ceiling is?"

"If I reach up I can just touch it with my fingertips," Daniel said, putting his hand up to demonstrate.

Jack shook his head.

"It's as good a way to measure as any, Jack," Ian said, amused.

"It's the only way we have, apparently."

They continued their walk, Jaffer bouncing through the snow in front of them, every now and then sticking his head into a drift to smell something interesting.

OOOOOOOO

"This one's pretty nice."

"Yeah, it is. How tall would you say it is?"

"Stand up next to it and lift your hand, Daniel."

"Very funny..."

He did it, though, and they saw that his hand was only about 8 inches or so from being level with the top of the tree.

"We could trim the trunk a bit to make it fit."

"Yeah."

"So we'll get this one for Sally?"

"It's a good one."

They all walked around the tree, making sure there weren't any bald spots or brown patches, and then making sure nothing was living in the branches.

"It is a good one."

"Let's chop it down," Jack said, eagerly.

"Go for it, we'll be standing over here."

"Smart asses."

Jack pulled the axe from his shoulder, and took a swing at the tree trunk. The axe barely dented it. He took another whack, with the same results.

"You did think to sharpen your axe before bringing it up to cut down the forest, didn't you?" Daniel asked.

"Of course I did. What do I look like?"

He hadn't done any such thing, of course – and the last time it'd been sharpened was the year before. There had been quite a few split logs and kindling since then, and the blade was definitely dull now that Jack checked it.

"Well, lovely..."

Daniel looked up at the sky. It was already after 11:30, and at this rate, they were going to be up in the mountains until Jesus came back.

"Relax, Daniel I have a whetstone in my truck. I'll go get it."

"I'll get it, Jack," Ian said. "Where is it?"

"You sure? I don't mind going to-"

Ian shook his head – although he didn't bring up an old crack like Daniel half expected him to.

"You guys look around for another tree for Sam, and by the time I'm back, hopefully we'll have two trees to chop down."

"Don't get lost..."

Jack pointed at the footprints left in the virgin snow.

"He can follow them, Daniel. How's he going to get lost? It's not like he's going to wander off – like some people I can think of..."

Ian didn't have a clue what Jack was talking about, but obviously Daniel did, because an expression of long time suffering crossed his features.

"I haven't done that in a long time, Jack..."

"Three weeks ago."

"That's a long time."

"If you're a fruit fly." Jack said. He turned to Ian. "The whetstone's in my glove box, Ian. We'll be somewhere around here. You can follow our tracks."

Ian nodded, and headed back the way they'd come, and Jack and Daniel – with Jaffer leading the way – headed into another stand of pines, hoping to find yet another perfect little tree.