nd next with the statement: "I
stay in bed all winter . . . or nearly so. It's the only thing to do.
I used to get up, and go for my mail occasionally . . . at least, I did
a few years ago, but too many times I walked the forty miles to the
Hudson's Bay Company's Flying Post at Elbow Creek only to find no
letters for me . . . so I chucked it all. Then, too, the first few
winters I was here I used to do a little shooting, but I get all the
game I want from the Indians now, so I have chucked the shooting, too.
Now the only thing that gets me out of bed, or takes me out of doors,
is to watch which way the wind blows. Two winters ago, when I was away
from here a week, the wind blew steadily from the north for five days
or more, and my cattle ate so far into the south sides of the hay
stacks that two of the stacks fell over on them and in that way I lost
five head--they were smothered."

Oo-koo-hoo, knocking the ashes from his pipe, began to tie his coat;
apparently, he thought it was time we were going. I opened the album
again, and glanced through it once more as I sat upon the edge of my
strange host's bunk. I stopped my turning when I came to a photograph
of a charming gentlewoman whose hair was done in an old-fashioned way
so becoming to her character and beauty. She must have been
twenty-three. He, then, was nearing forty. I thought his hand
lingered a little upon the page. And when I commented on her beauty, I
fancied his voice tremored slightly--anyway his pipe went out.

But Oo-koo-hoo, getting up, broke the silence.

I invited my still-unknown host to pay me a visit. We shook hands
heartily, and as I turned to close the door, I noticed that he had lain
down again, and had covered up his head. As a pleasant parting
salutation--a cheering one as I thought--I exclaimed:

"Perfectly stunning! . . . the most beautiful lot of women I have ever
seen!"

And then from beneath the bed clothes came--

"Y-e-s . . . _the blighters_!"

VII

LIFE AND LOVE RETURN

HYMEN COMES WITH SPRING

"My son, it is ever thus, when spring is on the way," smiled
Oo-koo-hoo, as Granny entered with glee and displayed a new deerskin
work-bag, containing needles, thread, thimble, and scissors; a present
from Shing-wauk--The Little Pine--Neykia's lover.

"Now that Spring and Love are going to hunt together," further remarked
the Indian, "the snow will run away, and the ice begin to tremble when
it hears the home-comin