Part 13 (1/2)

”Mercy!” Agnes murmured, with a gay little laugh. ”Lucky Trix Severn doesn't come up here. She uses rice powder dreadfully, and folks would think she was being frost-bitten.”

”Uh-huh!” agreed Neale.

”But you haven't told me how they fish,” said the girl, as they approached nearer to the huts and she was able to walk better.

”Through the ice of course,” he laughed. ”Only you don't see the holes. They are inside the huts.”

”You don't mean it, Neale?”

”To be sure I mean it! Some of those big shanties house whole families. You see there are children and dogs. They have pot stoves which warm the huts to a certain degree, and on which they cook. And they have bunks built against the walls, with plenty of bedding.”

”Why, I should think they would get their death of cold!” gasped the girl.

”That's just what they don't get,” Neale rejoined. ”You can bet there are no 'white plague' patients here. This atmosphere will kill tubercular germs like a hammer kills a flea.”

”Goodness, Neale!” giggled Agnes. ”Did you ever kill a flea with a hammer?”

”Yep. Sand-flea,” he a.s.sured her, grinning. ”Oh! I'm one quick lad, Aggie.”

She really thought he was joking, however, until she had looked into two or three of the huts. People really did live in them, as she saw.

In the middle of the plank floors was a well, with open water kept clear of frost. The set-lines were fastened to pegs in the planks and the ”flags” announced when a fish was on the hook.

A smiling woman, done up like an Eskimo, invited them into one shack.

She had evidently not seen the scooter arrive from down the lake and thought the boy and girl had walked out from c.o.xford.

”h.e.l.lo!” she said. ”Goin' to try your hands at fis.h.i.+n'? You're town folks, ain't you?”

”Yes,” said Agnes, politely. ”We come from Milton.”

”Lawsy! That's a fur ways,” said the woman. She was peeling potatoes, and a kettle was boiling on the stove at one side. The visitors knew by the odor that there was corned beef in the pot. ”You goin' to try your hands?” the woman repeated.

”No,” said Neale. ”We are with a party that is going up to Red Deer Lodge.”

”Oh! That's the Birdsall place. You can't git up there tonight. It's too fur.”

”I guess we shall stay in c.o.xford,” admitted Neale.

”Didn't know but you an' your sister wanted to fish. Old Manny c.o.x got ketched with rheumatics so that he had to give up fis.h.i.+n' this season.

I can hire you his shanty.”

”No, thank you!” murmured Agnes, her eyes round with interest.

”I let it for a week or more to two gals,” said the woman complacently. ”Got five dollars out of 'em for Manny. He'll be needin'

the money. Better stay awhile and try the fis.h.i.+n'.”

”Goodness! Two girls alone?” asked Agnes.

”Yes. Younger'n you are, too. But they knowed their way around, I guess,” said the woman. ”Good lookin' gals. Nice clo'es. Town folks, I guess. Mebbe they wasn't older'n my Bob, and he's just turned twelve.”