days, when Dannie sat with a book; hearing the talk at Casey's, at the
hotel, and on the streets, had given Jimmy different views of life, and
made his lot seem paltry compared with that of men who had greater
possessions. On days when Jimmy's luck was bad, or when a fever of
thirst burned him, he usually discoursed on some sort of intangible
experience that men had, which he called "seeing life." His rat bag was
unusually light that night, and in a vague way he connected it with the
breaking up of the ice. When the river lay solid he usually carried
home just twice the rats Dannie had, and as he had patronized Dannie
all his life, it fretted Jimmy to be behind even one day at the traps.

"Be Jasus, I get tired of this!" he said. "Always and foriver the same
thing. I kape goin' this trail so much that I've got a speakin'
acquaintance with meself. Some of these days I'm goin' to take a trip,
and have a little change. I'd like to see Chicago, and as far west as
the middle, anyway."

"Well, ye canna go," said Dannie. "Ye mind the time when ye were
married, and I thought I'd be best away, and packed my trunk? When ye
and Mary caught me, ye got mad as fire, and she cried, and I had to
stay. Just ye try going, and I'll get mad, and Mary will cry, and ye
will stay at home, juist like I did."

There was a fear deep in Dannie's soul that some day Jimmy would
fulfill this long-time threat of his. "I dinna think there is ony place
in all the world so guid as the place ye own," Dannie said earnestly.
"I dinna care a penny what anybody else has, probably they have what
they want. What _I_ want is the land that my feyther owned before me,
and the house that my mither kept. And they'll have to show me the
place they call Eden before I'll give up that it beats Rainbow
Bottom--Summer, Autumn, or Winter. I dinna give twa hoops fra the
palaces men rig up, or the thing they call 'landscape gardening'. When
did men ever compete with the work of God? All the men that have
peopled the earth since time began could have their brains rolled into
one, and he would stand helpless before the anatomy of one of the rats
in these bags. The thing God does is guid enough fra me."

"Why don't you take a short cut to the matin'-house?" inquired Jimmy.

"Because I wad have nothing to say when I got there," retorted Dannie.
"I've a meetin'-house of my ain, and it juist suits me; and I've a God,
too, and whether He is spirit or essence, He suits me. I