me to figure that," answered Jimmy, working in a double
shuffle as he walked. "Thrash around a little, Dannie. It will warm you
up."

"I am no cauld," answered Dannie.

"No cauld!" imitated Jimmy. "No cauld! Come to observe you closer, I do
detect symptoms of sunstroke in the ridness of your face, and the
whiteness about your mouth; but the frost on your neck scarf, and the
icicles fistooned around the tail of your coat, tell a different story.

"Dannie, you remind me of the baptizin' of Pete Cox last winter. Pete's
nothin' but skin and bone, and he niver had a square meal in his life
to warm him. It took pushin' and pullin' to get him in the water, and a
scum froze over while he was under. Pete came up shakin' like the
feeder on a thrashin' machine, and whin he could spake at all, 'Bless
Jasus,' says he, 'I'm jist as wa-wa-warm as I wa-wa-want to be.' So are
you, Dannie, but there's a difference in how warm folks want to be. For
meself, now, I could aisily bear a little more hate."

"It's honest, I'm no cauld," insisted Dannie; and he might have added
that if Jimmy would not fill his system with Casey's poisons, that
degree of cold would not chill and pinch him either. But being Dannie,
he neither thought nor said it. '"Why, I'm frozen to me sowl!" cried
Jimmy, as he changed the rat bag to his other hand, and beat the empty
one against his leg. "Say, Dannie, where do you think the Kingfisher is
wintering?"

"And the Black Bass," answered Dannie. "Where do ye suppose the Black
Bass is noo?"

"Strange you should mintion the Black Bass," said Jimmy. "I was just
havin' a little talk about him with a frind of mine named Chickie-dom,
no, Chickie-dee, who works a grub stake back there. The Bass might be
lyin' in the river bed right under our feet. Don't you remimber the
time whin I put on three big cut-worms, and skittered thim beyond the
log that lays across here, and he lept from the water till we both saw
him the best we ever did, and nothin' but my old rotten line ever saved
him? Or he might be where it slumps off just below the Kingfisher
stump. But I know where he is all right. He's down in the Gar-hole, and
he'll come back here spawning time, and chase minnows when the
Kingfisher comes home. But, Dannie, where the nation do you suppose the
Kingfisher is?"

"No' so far away as ye might think," replied Dannie. "Doc Hues told me
that coming on the train frae Indianapolis on the fifteenth of
December, he saw one f