"You bet," replied Hank, briefly.
The Colonel was plainly getting excited. His razor-like back curved sharper than ever as he peered into the intricacies of the board to spy the trap which the fat Squire had set for him. At this point the squeal of boots on the icy walk outside paused, and a moment later Amos Ridings entered, with whiskers covered with ice, and looking like a huge bear in his buffalo coat.
"By Josephus! it's cold," he roared, as he took off his gloves and began to warm his face and hands at the fire.
"Is it?" asked the Judge, comfortably, rising on his tiptoes, only to fall back into his usual attitude legal, legs well spread, shoulders thrown back.
"You bet it is!" replied Amos. "I d'know when I've felt the cold more'n I have t'-day. It's jest snifty; doubles me up like a jack-knife, Judge. How do you stand it?"
"Toler'ble, toler'ble, Amos. But we're agin', we ain't what we were once. Cold takes hold of us."
"That's a fact," answered Amos to the retrospective musings of the Judge. "Time was you an' me would go t' singing-school or sleigh-riding with the girls on a night like this and never notice it."
"Yes, sir; yes, sir!" said the Judge with a sigh. It was a little uncertain in Robie's mind whether the Judge was regretting the lost ability to stand the cold, or the lost pleasure of riding with the girls.
"Great days, those, gentlemen! Lived in Vermont then. Hot-blooded—lungs like an ox. I remember, Sallie Dearborn and I used to go a-foot to singing-school down the valley four miles. But now, wouldn't go riding to-night with the handsomest woman in America, and the best cutter in Rock River."
"Oh! you've got both feet in the grave up t' the ankles, anyway," said Robie, from his desk, but the Judge immovably gazed at the upper shelf on the other side of the room, where the boilers and pans and washboards were stored.