before the winter was done of all "the Lower
River."

Spurred on partly by the increased intensity of the cold, partly by the
Colonel's nonsense about the way they did it "down South," Mac roused
himself, and turned out a better piece of masonry for the Big Cabin
than he had thought necessary for his own. But everybody had a share in
the glory of that fireplace. The Colonel, Potts, and the Boy selected
the stone, and brought it on a rude litter out of a natural quarry from
a place a mile or more away up on the bare mountain-side. O'Flynn mixed
and handed up the mud-mortar, while Mac put in some brisk work with it
before it stiffened in the increasing cold.

Everybody was looking forward to getting out of the tent and into the
warm cabin, and the building of the fireplace stirred enthusiasm. It
was two and a half feet deep, three and a half feet high, and four feet
wide, and when furnished with ten-inch hack logs, packed in glowing
ashes and laid one above another, with a roaring good blaze in front of
birch and spruce, that fire would take a lot of beating, as the Boy
admitted, "even in the tat-pine Florida country."

But no fire on earth could prevent the cabin from being swept through,
the moment the door was opened, by a fierce and icy air-current. The
late autumnal gales revealed the fact that the sole means of
ventilation had been so nicely contrived that whoever came in or went
out admitted a hurricane of draught that nearly knocked him down. Potts
said it took a good half-hour, after anyone had opened the door, to
heat the place up again.

"What! You cold?" inquired the usual culprit. The Boy had come in to
put an edge on his chopper. "It's stopped snowin', an' you better come
along with me, Potts. Swing an axe for a couple of hours--that'll warm
you."

"I've got rheumatism in my shoulder to-day," says Potts, hugging the
huge fire closer.

"And you've got something wrong with your eyes, eh, Mac?"

Potts narrowed his and widened the great mouth; but he had turned his
head so Mac couldn't see him.

The Nova Scotian only growled and refilled his pipe. Up in the woods
the Boy repeated the conversation to the Colonel, who looked across at
O'Flynn several yards away, and said: "Hush!"

"Why must I shut up? Mac's _eyes_ do look rather queer and bloodshot. I
should think he'd rather feel we lay it to his eyes than know we're
afraid he's peterin' out altogether."

"I never said I was afraid--"

"No, you ha