't of thought any one in
town had ever tried to get away from it all. Even them that thought it
crazy came and stood round and said so. Cousin Egbert Floud said this
Dulcie was some sparrow, but nutty--going out in the cold that way when
nothing drove her out. Dulcie made a great hit with the club this first
day, having the correct Canadian toggery and being entirely fearless in
the presence of a toboggan. She'd zip to the bottom, come tramping back,
shooting on all six, grab a sandwich--for not a morsel of food had passed
her lips since she went down the time before--and do it all over again.
And every last ex-Bohemian, even Edgar Tomlinson, fighting for the chance
to save her from death by starvation! Dulcie played no favourites, being
entranced with 'em all. She said they was the dearest gentleman friends
she'd ever had. The way they was fighting for her favours she could of
called 'em her gentleman frenzy. Ain't I the heinous old madcap, thinking
of jokes like that?

Next day there was a snowshoe trip up to Stender's spring and back by way
of the tie camp. Dulcie hadn't ever snowshoed and it wasn't any light
matter when her shoes threw her down--requiring about three of the
huskiest boys to up-end her--but she was game and the boys was game and
she was soon teaching snowshoeing shoes how to take a joke. And from that
on winter sports ruled in Red Gap. The chamber of commerce even talked of
building an ice palace next year and having a carnival and getting the
town's name in the papers. Oh, there certainly must of been a surprised
lot of snow round there that winter. Nothing like this had ever happened
to it before.

And all being done on nothing stronger than coffee, with hardly a
cigarette and never anything that was by way of being a punk stick in a
closed room. It was certainly a lot healthier than a Latin Quarter for
these young people, and for the old ones, too. Dulcie had sure put one
large crimp into Bohemia, even if she could not be justly called an
intellectual giantess.

And Vernabelle knew who to blame, too, when the little group quit coming
round to get away from it all. She knew it was Dulcie. She said that
Dulcie seemed to be a pampered society butterfly that devoted all her
thoughts to dress. This was repeated to Dulcie by an ex-Bohemian, but she
found no poison in it. She said of course she devoted all her thoughts to
dress; that a young girl with her figure had to if she ever expected to
get anyw