"The company has always been the best friend I've ever had--except
one--and that's why I've hung to it all these years, trailing the sledges
first as a kid, you know, then trapping, running, and--oh, Lord!"
He stopped to cough, and the little black-frocked missioner, looking
across at Weyman, saw him bite his lips.
"That cough hurts, but it's better," Severn apologized, smiling weakly.
"Funny, ain't it, a man like me coming down with a cough? Why, I've slept
in ice a thousand times, with snow for a pillow and the thermometer down
to fifty. But this last winter it was cold, seventy or lower, an' I
worked in it when I ought to have been inside, warming my toes. But, you
see, I wanted to get the cabin built, an' things all cleared up about
here, before SHE came. It's the cold that got me, wasn't it, doc?"
"That's it," said Weyman, rolling and lighting a cigarette. Then he
laughed, as the sick man finished another coughing spell, and said:
"I never thought you'd have a love affair, Bucky!"
"Neither did I," chuckled Severn. "Ain't it a wonder, doc? Here I'm
thirty-eight, with a hide on me like leather, an' no thought of a woman
for twenty years, until I saw HER. I don't mean it's a wonder I fell in
love, doc--you'd 'a' done that if you'd met her first. The wonder of it
is that she fell in love with me." He laughed softly. "I'll bet Father
Brochet'll go in a heap himself when he marries us! It's goin' to happen
next month.
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