CHAPTER VII. BROTHERLY LOVE.
"I don't wonder that you look like you was half tickled to death," was the way in which Dan began the conversation with his brother. "Did you ever dream that me and you would have such amazing good luck as has come to us this day? Now, let me tell you, it bangs me completely. Don't it you?"
Joe did not know how to reply to this. He had seldom seen Dan in so high spirits, and he could not imagine what he was referring to when he spoke of the good luck that had fallen to both of them.
"Say—don't it bang you?" repeated Dan. "Ain't me and you going to live like the richest of them this winter?"
"You and I?" said Joe, with no suspicion of the truth in his mind.
"That's what I remarked," exclaimed Dan, who could hardly keep from dancing in the excess of his joy. "I tell you, Joe," he added, confidentially, "if there's anything in life I take pleasure in, it's living in the woods during the winter, when you've got a tight roof to shelter you and plenty of firewood to burn, so't you don't have to go through the deep snow to cut it. That's what I call living, that is."
"I don't see how you happen to know so much about it. You never tried it."