"I know it well. But I never knew anybody yet that froze to death in it."
"Yes, but we're city folks," Jimmie argued. "We wouldn't know how to keep ourselves alive. Don't forget that we've been brought up to hug radiators."
"An' that's the very thing that you must forget. The way to keep warm is not to get cold. Get an ax, there's a good one inside there, and go at the windfall wood here. Agen the time comes when ye'll want the wood for big rousing fires ye'll have a fire up inside of you shootin blood through your veins in a way that'll let you laugh at cold."
"I'm not sure that I'd have the nerve to try it," said Jimmie doubtfully. "But even if I had there are two things that seem to be objections."
"What two things?"
"Well, first, there's—my wife," Jimmie explained a little stiffly, "she couldn't chop wood, so she'd just naturally have to freeze."
"Leave it to a woman to face any dare," said the big man easily. "She'll come through and laugh, when you'll be fit to cry."
"I know that," Jimmie admitted. "But, besides, there's Mr. McQuade to be thought of. He hasn't yet given us any invitation to move into his camp and use his ax."
"Be easy, then," said the big man promptly. "I'll give me word for McQuade. He'll never miss any bit you use. And I'll warrant that he'll be only too glad to have someone gettin' good o' the camp. There's the big sugar house itself stuck in the hill back of us. The boilin' pans are out and the brick furnace is topped over with sheet iron. The very thing. When the real cold comes ye'll just move in there an' lay your open fire in the very door o' the furnace, an' there ye have a camp snug an' dry an' as warm as ever ye'll want to make it. An' there's full an' plenty of blankets there stowed away for the boys."
He went on expatiating at large and generously on the resources of the sugar cabin, while Augusta listened eagerly and dreamed of the snowbound winter nights with the big fire blazing. Jimmie with his eye fixed firmly on his plate was fighting back a grin. If he could have had Donahue's ear for a moment he would have pointed out to him that this making so free of other people's property was good philosophy but that it was rather discouraged by the laws of the state.