It was a disease with him, for which there was
no cure. In outward appearance he was a typical B.C. specimen of the
obsolete "coureur de bois" of eastern Canada during the seventeenth
century.

The interior of his "dug-out" was more like an Indian kik-willy (ancient
Indian house) than the dwelling of a modern Anglo-Saxon. The walls were
composed of the rough timbers, and the chinks were stuffed with rags and
old newspapers. A few smoke-begrimed pictures were hanging on the walls,
and a calendar of the year 1881 still glared forth in all its ancient
uselessness, leading one back into a past decade. If he broke the rules
of etiquette by eating with his knife, he also smashed those of modesty
by utilizing his air-tight heater as a cuspidor, for it was streaked
white with evaporated saliva.

How this crude bud ever anticipated blooming out into a society blossom
was a conundrum. Perhaps he had some secret method buried in the same
box with his hoarded coin. His long evenings were passed reading the
_Family Herald and Weekly Star_ and the _Ashcroft Journal_ by
candle-light; for those were the only papers he would subscribe for. His
bed consisted of, first, boards, then straw, then sacking; and it had
remained so long without being frayed out that it had become packed as
hard as terra firma. His blankets had not seen the light of day, nor
enjoyed the fresh cool breezes for many long years. His one window was
opaque with the smoke of many years' accumulation. Although his chickens
had a coop of their own where they roosted at night, they ran about the
floor of his "dug-out" in the daytime looking for crumbs that fell from
the poor man's table; and his cat, through years of criminal impunity,
would sit on the table at mealtime and help himself to the victuals just
as the spirit moved him. A stump had been left standing when the cabin
was built; it had been hewn at the appropriate elevation of a chair.
This was near his air-tight heater, and his favorite position was to sit
there with his feet propped against the stove and smoke by candle-light;
and sometimes he would sit in the dark to save candles. His other
furniture consisted of "Reindeer" brand condensed milk and blue-mottled
soap boxes, which he had acquired at times from F.W. Foster's general
store at Clinton.

Hard Times Hance was living on first principles; but then, if a man
wishes to save any coin in this world he must make great personal
sacrifices; and so he was