"There!" exclaimed Rafe. "You are a plucky girl. I'm sorry I
got some of that snow down your neck, Nan. Couldn't help it.
But it's the only thing to do when the thermometer is thirty-two
degrees below zero. Why! A fellow went outside with his ears
uncovered at Droomacher's camp one day last winter and after
awhile he began to rub his ears and one of 'em dropped off just
like a cake of ice."
"Stop your lying, boy!" commanded his father. "It isn't as bad
as that, Nan. But you want to watch out for frost bite here in
the woods, just the same as we had to watch out for the
automobiles in crossing those main streets in Chicago."
With a red sun rising over the low ridge of wooded ground to the
east, the camp in the hollow was revealed, the smoke rising in a
pillar of blue from the sheet-iron chimney of the cookhouse;
smoke rising, too, from a dozen big horses being curried before
the stables.
Most of the men had arrived the night before. They were tumbling
out of the long, low bunkhouse now and making good use of the
bright tin washbasins on the long bench on the covered porch.
Ice had been broken to get the water that was poured into the
basins, but the men laved their faces and their hairy arms and
chests in it as though it were summer weather.
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