At last Sandy appeared to
have collected his thoughts, and after a few vigorous puffs to get his
pipe drawing well began his story.
"What I'm goin' to tell yuh about," he said, "happened before I became a
cattle puncher. Then I was workin' in the lumber business up in the
Michigan woods fer Dodd & Robertson, one o' the biggest concerns in the
line. We'd had a pretty successful winter, the boys were all in good
humor, an' the daily cuts averaged pretty high. But the weather was cold,
mighty cold, I can tell yuh. We'd swing an axe until we had to take
off our coats, and we'd be wet with sweat, but if we stopped work fer as
much as a minute we had to skip back into our coats again, or our clothes
would freeze on us as we stood there. Take it from me, boys, it was cold
with a capital C.
"But all this ain't gettin' me any further along with my yarn. As I say,
the winter was a bitter one, and the wild things, panthers an' wolves an'
sech, were pretty hard put to it to rastle enough grub to keep them
alive. Natchally, this made 'em plumb ferocious, and they used to come
right into the clearin' around the camp, hopin', I suppose, to pick up
somethin'.
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