He laughed softly.
"You ain't afraid, are you?" he asked. "We're goin' to be chums, ain't
we? Yessir, we're goin' to be chums!"
For a full minute the mouse and the man looked steadily at each other.
Then the mouse moved deliberately to a crumb of bannock and began
nibbling at its breakfast.
For ten days there was only an occasional lull in the storm that came
from out of the North. Before those ten days were half over, Jim and the
mouse understood each other. The little mouse itself solved the problem
of their nearer acquaintance by running up Falkner's leg one morning
while he was at breakfast, and coolly investigating him from the strings
of his moccasin to the collar of his blue shirt. After that it showed no
fear of him, and a few days later would nestle in the hollow of his big
hand and nibble fearlessly at the bannock which Falkner would offer it.
Then Jim took to carrying it about with him in his coat pocket. That
seemed to suit the mouse immensely, and when Jim went to bed nights, or
it grew too warm for him in the cabin, he would hang the coat over his
bunk, with the mouse still in it, so that it was not long before the
little creature made up its mind to take full possession of the pocket.
It intimated as much to Falkner on the tenth and last day of the storm,
when it began very business-like operations of building a nest of paper
and rabbits' fur in the coat pocket.
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