“I reckon the worst of it’s over,” remarked Sandy, after a time; “but this here rain ain’t goin’ to stop fer an hour or more, and I vote that to while away the ted-ium of this here interval some one o’ you shorthorns tells us a yarn.  You’re all good liars, and yuh ought to be able to make somethin’ up if yuh can’t rec-lect nothin’ thet really happened.”

“Ef it comes t’ that,” exclaimed Chip in a resentful tone, “what’s the matter with you goin’ ahead and turnin’ the trick.  There ain’t nobody here that knows better’n you how to keep the recordin’ angel workin’ double shifts.”

There was a laugh at this, but when it subsided Sandy had his answer ready:  “It ain’t a question o’ lyin’ with me,” he explained.  “I’ve been in so many scrapes that only a man of extraordinary intelligence and iron nerve like myself could ‘a’ pulled out of, that there ain’t no call for me to make up nothin’.”

“That stuff sounds all right as long as you’re sayin’ it,” said Chip skeptically; “but jest to prove it, supposin’ you take the bit in your teeth an’ spiel off one o’ these here adventures o’ yourn.”

“Well, mebbe I will,” replied Sandy thoughtfully, “mebbe I will.”  He paused reflectively a few moments while he filled and lighted his pipe.  The rain still beat steadily against the roof and windows of the bunkhouse, but the wind now came only in fitful gusts.

Everybody, with the exception of the three boys, was smoking, and a blue fog drifted and eddied through the atmosphere.  At last Sandy appeared to have collected his thoughts, and after a few vigorous puffs to get his pipe drawing well began his story.

“What I’m goin’ to tell yuh about,” he said, “happened before I became a cattle puncher.  Then I was workin’ in the lumber business up in the Michigan woods fer Dodd & Robertson, one o’ the biggest concerns in the line.  We’d had a pretty successful winter, the boys were all in good humor, an’ the daily cuts averaged pretty high.  But the weather was cold, mighty cold, I can tell yuh.  We’d swing an axe until we had to take off our coats, and we’d be wet with sweat, but if we stopped work fer as much as a minute we had to skip back into our coats again, or our clothes would freeze on us as we stood there.  Take it from me, boys, it was cold with a capital C.

“But all this ain’t gettin’ me any further along with my yarn.  As I say, the winter was a bitter one, and the wild things, panthers an’ wolves an’ sech, were pretty hard put to it to rastle enough grub to keep them alive.  Natchally, this made ’em plumb ferocious, and they used to come right into the clearin’ around the camp, hopin’, I suppose, to pick up somethin’.  The cook had to watch out to keep the supply house closed up tight, or there’d ‘a’ been a famine in camp, sure.