ance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could
run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope
for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen.

"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was
just business to him, you know.

I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I
never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about
such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp.

"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?"

"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling.

I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of
something I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went
and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean
brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees
with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a
huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do
it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper
wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every
one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty
years ago:--

"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I
take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--"

I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the
corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like
"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single
letter I wrote,--not one.

After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs.

Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss.

"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump.

"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick
with his cold."

"_Oh!_" said I.

"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry,"
said he.

I rather think I was, Johnny.

It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get
breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping
the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr.
Cullen had to say.

They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for
going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it
was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the
snow, I m