After a prologue for young and old trees and wild geese, the first act opens, after a ballad from the narrator, with the unseen giant, Paul Bunyan, calling together lumberjacks, to be led by Hel Helson. Complaints about food, put into words by Johnny Inkslinger, a poet and book-keeper, and intermediary with the unseen Paul Bunyan, lead to the departure of two bad cooks and the arrival of Slim, a good cook. Bunyan finds a wife his own size and his daughter, Tiny, is introduced, sad at the death of her mother. Hel Helson becomes involved in subversion of Paul Bunyan's benign guidance, when there is a call for farmers, but an off-stage fight finds Helson worsted, then to be reconciled with Paul Bunyan. At a Christmas Eve party the engagement of Slim and Tiny is announced, the latter to run a Manhattan hotel, Helson's practical help in realising the lumberjacks' prospects is acknowledged and Inkslinger is summoned to Hollywood, before Paul Bunyan's final words of farewell.