y things go; and her never knowing about
Ben." He laid down his cards. While they plowed through the hard
snow-drifts, swinging their arms against their chests like milkmen, he
blurted out all his secret: that Gertie was the "slickest girl in
town"; that no one appreciated her.

"Ho, ho!" jeered Ben.

"I thought you were crazy about her, and then you start kidding about
her! A swell bunch of chivalry you got, you and your Galahad! You----"

"Don't you go jumping on Galahad, or I'll fight!"

"He was all right, but you ain't," said Carl. "You hadn't ought to
ever sneer at love."

"Why, you said, just this afternoon----"

"You poor yahoo, I was only teasing you. No; about Gertie. It's like
this: she was telling me a lot about how Griffin 's going to be a
lawyer, about how much they make in cities, and I've about decided
I'll be a lawyer."

"Thought you were going to be a mechanical engineer?"

"Well, can't a fellow change his mind? When you're an engineer you're
always running around the country, and you never get shaved or
anything, and there ain't any refining influences----"

The absorbing game of "what we're going to be" made them forget snow
and cold-squeezed fingers. Ben, it was decided, was to own a newspaper
and support C. Ericson, Attorney-at-Law, in his dramatic run for state
senator.

Carl did not mention Gertie again. But it all meant Gertie.

* * * * *

Carl made his round trimming the arc-lights next day, apparently a
rudely healthy young person, but really a dreamer love-lorn and
misunderstood. He had found a good excuse for calling on Gertie, at
noon, and had been informed that Miss Gertrude was taking a nap. He
determined to go up the lake for rabbits. He doubted if he would ever
return, and wondered if he would be missed. Who would care if he froze
to death? He wouldn't! (Though he did seem to be taking certain
precautions, by donning a mackinaw coat, two pairs of trousers, two
pairs of woolen socks, and shoe-packs.)

He was graceful as an Indian when he swept, on skees he had made
himself, across miles of snow covering the lake and dazzling in the
diffused light of an even gray sky. The reeds by the marshy shore were
frost-glittering and clattered faintly. Marshy islands were lost in
snow. Hummocks and ice-jams and the weaving patterns of mink tracks
were blended in one white immensity, on which Carl was like a fly on a
plaster ceiling. The world was desert