n't afford to look a gift horse in
the mouth so to speak, and no offence intended. I can give you a tip or
two before you trot in, and as for you, why you know, there ain't
nothing equal to being thrown neck and crop into a job.

"The first time I went logging I got one leg broke and my head smashed,
but I haven't ever regretted it. That accident, and the incidental
scare, did more for me than any two successful seasons could have done.
Now, your plunging right into a marrying may prove providential. Sermons
and infant christenings will seem like child's play after. What do you
say?"

Drew was laughing and the tears stood in his eyes.

"I'll--I'll do my level best," he managed to say through his spasms of
mirth. "This seems like a horrible approach to anything so serious, but
it is the way you put it, you know, and--and the air, and the supper.
The laugh comes easy, you see."

"Oh! enjoy yourself." Filmer waved his pipe aloft. "I'm glad you _can_
take life this way, with the handicap of your trade, I don't quite see,
by thunder, how your future parish is going to account for you, but so
far as I'm concerned you can laugh till you bust."

Filmer was delighted. Not in years had he been so taken out of himself.

"Now this here town," he explained, "likes to have its buryings and
weddings set off with a sermon with the principal actor as text. They
like to get their money's worth. See? This girl, what I want spliced,
is a devilish--" he paused--"you don't mind _moderately_ strong
language, do you?" he asked. "We all get flowery up here. What is
lacking in events, talk makes up. I'll hold back when I can--in reason."

"Don't mind me!" Drew was trying to control his mirth.

Filmer nodded appreciatively.

"Well, as I was remarking--and I've got to be open with you--this here
girl will be safer married, and so will some other folks. I ain't much
of a reader of character, but I sense things like all creation, and I
_feel_ that getting the girl in harness as soon as possible is the only
plain common-sense method. She's mettlesome, you know, the kind that
kicks over the traces, and slams any one happening to be handy. She
ain't never done it yet--but she's capable of it."

"Is--is the girl a relation or----?"

Jock flushed.

"Neither. Nor the man. The feller--Jude Lauzoon is his name--I don't
care a durn for, but he's all gone over this girl, and if any one can
steer him straight she can, and when she gets the reins