'I will give thee one short plug.' 'As the Wolf sees fit,' meekly
responded the Fox, stretching out his hand.
The Men of Forty Mile
When Big Jim Belden ventured the apparently innocuous proposition
that mush-ice was 'rather pecooliar,' he little dreamed of what
it would lead to.
Neither did Lon McFane, when he affirmed that anchor-ice was even
more so; nor did Bettles, as he instantly disagreed, declaring
the very existence of such a form to be a bugaboo.
'An' ye'd be tellin' me this,' cried Lon, 'after the years ye've
spint in the land! An' we atin' out the same pot this many's the
day!' 'But the thing's agin reasin,' insisted Bettles.
'Look you, water's warmer than ice--' 'An' little the difference,
once ye break through.'
'Still it's warmer, because it ain't froze. An' you say it
freezes on the bottom?' 'Only the anchor-ice, David, only the
anchor-ice. An' have ye niver drifted along, the water clear as
glass, whin suddin, belike a cloud over the sun, the mushy-ice
comes bubblin' up an' up till from bank to bank an' bind to bind
it's drapin' the river like a first snowfall?' 'Unh, hunh! more'n
once when I took a doze at the steering-oar.
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