his eye that was not
usual.

"How d'ye feel?" he asked, solicitously.

"As if I were being pounded with mallets and torn by pincers."

"All over?"

"Yes, all over!" snapped Parker, rather ungraciously.

"That's good," drawled the old man, rubbing more snow briskly on the
aching flesh. "I guess I'm goin' to save ye, down to the last toe."

"If aches will do it I'm saved!" groaned the young man.

"I wouldn't 'a' gi' a copper cent for ye when I got ye here to camp,"
the old man proceeded, "but I've done the very best I could, mister, to
fetch ye round. I hope ye ain't a-goin' to complain on me," he added,
wistfully.

"Complain on you?" Parker demanded. "Do you think I owe myself a grudge
for coming back to life?"

"I should like to ask ye a fair question," said the old man.

"I'll answer any questions."

"Be ye a game-warden?"

"No, sir, I am not."

The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighed
with relief.

"When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden,
sure."

"Look here," Parker demanded, with asperity, "did you sit there and
blaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?"

"Land bless ye, no!" cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity there
was no doubting. "I never harmed any one in all my life. But I was
feelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I was
out this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hard
to keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kitties
starve--no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deer
when I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would have
called a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. What
he was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of course
I fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bob
out any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when I
see what I see--a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head all
tied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me a
start! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, and
struck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now I
can tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' to
have ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears."

He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans from
Parker.

"They're red's pinys. No