for some stiff weather."

"Haven't a doubt of it. I told Bessie last fall we might expect a
hard winter. Everything indicated it. Look at the thick corn-husks.
The hulls of the nuts from the shell-bark here in the yard were
larger and tougher than I ever saw them. Last October Tige killed a
raccoon that had the wooliest kind of a fur. I could have given you
a dozen signs of a hard winter. We shall still have a month or six
weeks of it. In a week will be ground-hog day and you had better
wait and decide after that."

"I tell you, Eb, I get tired chopping wood and hanging round the
house."

"Aha! another moody spell," said Col. Zane, glancing kindly at his
brother. "Jack, if you were married you would outgrow those
'blue-devils.' I used to have them. It runs in the family to be
moody. I have known our father to take his gun and go into the woods
and stay there until he had fought out the spell. I have done that
myself, but once I married Bessie I have had no return of the old
feeling. Get married, Jack, and then you will settle down and work.
You will not have time to roam around alone in the woods."

"I prefer the spells, as you call them, any day," answered Jonathan,
with a short laugh. "A man with my disposition has no right to get
married. This weather is trying, for it keeps me indoors. I cannot
hunt because we do not need the meat. And even if I did want to hunt
I should not have to go out of sight of the fort. There were three
deer in front of the barn this morning. They were nearly starved.
They ran off a little at sight of me, but in a few moments came back
for the hay I pitched out of the loft. This afternoon Tige and I
saved a big buck from a pack of wolves. The buck came right up to
me. I could have touched him. This storm is sending the deer down
from the hills."

"You are right. It is too bad. Severe weather like this will kill
more deer than an army could. Have you been doing anything with your
traps?"

"Yes, I have thirty traps out."

"If you are going, tell Sam to fetch down another load of fodder
before he unhitches."

"Eb, I have no patience with your brothers," said Col. Zane's wife
to him after he had closed the door. "They are all alike; forever
wanting to be on the go. If it isn't Indians it is something else.
The very idea of going up the river in this weather. If Jonathan
doesn't care for himself he should think of the horses."

"My dear, I was just as wild and discontented as Jack b