h 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. Did you ever see her, father--Marie La Corne, over
at the post on Split Lake?"

Severn dropped his head to cough, but Weyman say the sudden look of
horror that leaped into the little priest's face.

"Marie La Corne!"

"Yes, at Split Lake."

Severn looked up again. He had missed what Weyman had seen.

"Yes, I've seen her."

Bucky Severn's eyes lit up with pleasure.

"She's--she's beautiful, ain't she?" he cried in hoarse whisper. "Ain't
it a wonder, father? I come up there with a canoe full of supplies,
last spring about this time, an'--an' at first I hardly dast to look at
her; but it came out all right. When I told her I was coming over here
to build us a home, she wanted me to bring her along to help; but I
wouldn't. I knew it was goin' to be hard this winter, and she's never
goin' to work--never so long as I live. I ain't had much to do with
women, but I've seen 'em and I've watched 'em an' she's never goin' to
drudge like the rest. If she'll let me, I'm even goin' to do the
cookin' an' the dish-washing and scrub the floors! I've done it for
twenty-five years, an' I'm tough. She ain't goin' to do nothin' but sew
for the kids when they come, an' sing, an' be happy. When it comes to
the work that there ain't no fun in, I'll do it. I've planned it all
out. We're goin' to have half an arpent square of flowers, an' she'll
love to work among 'em. I've got the ground cleared--out there--you kin
see it by twisting your head