"You in love! that is capital! ha! ha!" rang out a voice behind the speaker, who, turning round, stood face to face with Edward, who had taken it into his head to share in the sport, and, following their track in the snow, had come up with them unperceived.
"What sent you here? anything the matter at the camp?" they asked in a breath.
"Nothing at all, that is why I came. I mistrusted you had some fun together out here, and I came to share it. Come, uncle, give the whole history of your love making. The bare idea of your being in love is rich," and the merry boy laughed until the woods rang with the joyous peals.
"I shall do no such thing. Do you think because I am old and ugly now, that I have always been so. There has been a day, boy, when——"
"You were once handsome, uncle, that is a fact, and they do say I look just as you used to. Come now, tell us about this affair."
"Well," said the trapper, mollified by the flattery, "when I was about three-and-twenty, I was just about as green as young, and took it into my head to get married, having persuaded myself that I was in love, and that, if I did not, I should not live long. Polly Crane was a nice girl, she could hoe corn, thresh grain, break fractious colts, or shoot a bear, just as well as I could myself. She was just the one for me, and we had got everything all fixed to be married, when a chap came travelling up there, (making mischief I thought) dressed exactly like a minister, only I knew he was not, he used such profane language. Well what does he do but begin making love to Polly, which made me very angry."
"'Never mind, Andy,' said Polly. 'You know I don't care for him or anybody else but you. I am only trying to see how bad he will feel when we are married.'
"'Go ahead then,' I said, 'if that is your game,' and sure enough she did go ahead, as I soon found out. When I was up round Lake Superior, the winter before, trapping with father, we got one night by mistake, into a grizzly bear's den, intending to spend the night. We soon found out our mistake, when we saw some cubs, and got ourselves out of the scrape as soon as we got in; but, as the cubs were such pretty things, I thought what a nice keepsake one of them would make Polly. So I hid one under my jacket unbeknown to father, until the old bear came snarling about us, after we had built a fire and laid down to sleep.'
"'Wonder what's the matter with the beast,' said father, 'guess she has tracked us from her den.'
"'Guess she misses her cub,' said I.