h
the miscarriage of an invitation. So the danger is averted by the
grapevine telegraph, which simply signals the event in sufficient time
to make it a man's own fault if he is not present. Malcolm had many
friends and there had been great preparations in Capelin Bay. Every
scrap of room was needed to accommodate the guests, and at night
hardly an inch of floor space but lodged some sleeping form wrapped in
a four-point blanket, while the hardier ones with sleeping-bags
contentedly crawled into them out in the snow, as their fashion is
when nothing better offers.

The cooking had to be done in two large net-barking cauldrons over
open fires under the trees; and as the fall deer hunt had been
successful, and pork had not in those days assumed the present
impossible prices, there were all kinds of joints, and no limit to
proteids and carbohydrates. The great plum puddings which served for
wedding cakes were pulled out of the same boiling froth, tightly
wrapped in their cloth jackets, with long fish "pews" or forks.
Unlimited spruce beer, brewed with molasses and fortified with "Old
Jamaica," flowed from a large barrel during the two days that the
celebration lasted.

At twenty below zero a slight increase in the calories consumed or
even in the excess of alcohol over the normal two per cent of spruce
beer leaves little trace on hardy folk; and when on the third morning,
McCrea and his bride fared forth behind their splendid dog-team, every
guest was gathered at the starting-point to "whoop up" the departing
couple.

"'T is early I'll be starting in t' morning, Nancy, for it's nigh a
fortnight since I tailed my traps, and there were good signs, too, by
t' boiling brooks," said Malcolm the first evening they arrived home.
"A fox following t' landwash from t' rattle must surely take t' path
there, for t' cliff fair shoulders him off t' land, and t' ice isn't
fast more'n a foot or so from t' bluff. 'T would be a pity to lose a
good skin, and us just starting in housekeeping."

"What's right's right, Malcolm," answered his wife, pouting just
perceptibly. "Us must end our honeymoon with the journey down. I'll
not be lonely, I reckon, getting t' house to rights." And she laughed
gayly as she noticed the results of Malcolm's sincere but unique
attempts at furnishing.

"It'll be a ration of pork I'll be needing boiled, and a bun or two
for my nonny-bag. I can cover t' path in two days so be t' going's
good; but there's not