The Big Otter

Cold comfort is naturally suggested by a bed of snow, yet I have enjoyed great comfort and much warmth in such a bed.
My friend Lumley was particularly fond of warmth and of physical ease, yet he often expressed the opinion, with much emphasis, that there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a night in a snow-bed. Jack Lumley was my chum—a fine manly fellow with a vigorous will, a hardy frame, and a kindly heart. We had a natural leaning towards each other—a sort of undefinable sympathy—which inclined us to seek each other’s company in a quiet unobtrusive way. We were neither of us demonstrative; we did not express regard for each other; we made no protestations of undying friendship, but we drew together, somehow, especially in our hunting expeditions which were numerous.
On holidays—we had two in the week at the outpost in the American backwoods where we dwelt—when the other young fellows were cleaning gulls or arranging snow-shoes for the day’s work, Lumley was wont to say to me:—
“Where d’you intend to shoot to-day, Max?” (Max was an abbreviation; my real name is George Maxby.)
“I think I’ll go up by the willows and round by Beaver Creek.”
“I’ve half a mind to go that way too.”
“Come along then.”
And so we would go off together for the day.
One morning Lumley said to me, “I’m off to North River; will you come?”
“With pleasure, but we’ll have to camp out.”
“Well, it won’t be the first time.”