"It's early yet. Let it get quite dark and then we'll go," replied Jig-Leg, without raising his head from his work. Hopeful sighed and began to cough. "Frozen, eh?" inquired his companion after a long pause. "N--n--no ... Something makes me miserable." "Let's hear it!" and Jig-Leg shook his head. "My heart is throbbing." "Sick, eh?" "I suppose so ... but it may be something else." Jig-Leg was silent for a while and then he said: "I say!... don't think!" "Of what?" "Of everything." "Look here now"--Hopeful suddenly seemed to grow alive--"how can I help thinking? I look at her"--he waved his hand towards the horse--"I look at her and I understand--I had such a one also. She was a sorrel, and at all sorts of work--first-class. Once upon a time I even had a pair of them--I worked right well in those days." "What are you driving at?" asked Jig-Leg curtly and coldly. "I don't like this sort of thing in you, you set up the bagpipes and begin to groan!--what's the good?" Hopeful silently threw into the fire a handful of twigs broken up small, and watched the sparks fly upwards and disappear in the damp air. His eyes blinked frequently, and shadows ran swiftly across his face. Presently he turned his head in the direction of the horse and gazed at her for a long time. The horse was standing motionless, as if rooted in the ground; her head, distorted out of recognition by the wrapping, was hanging down. "We must take a single-minded view of things," said Jig-Leg, severely and emphatically, "our life--is a day and a night--twenty-four hours and that's all! If there's food--well and good; if there isn't--well squeak and squeak as much as you like, you'd better leave off, for it does no good. And the way you went on just now isn't nice to listen to. It's because you're sick, that's what it is." "It must be because I'm sick, I suppose," agreed. Hopeful meekly, but, after a brief silence, he added, "But it may be owing to a weak heart." "And that's because your heart is sick," declared Jig-Leg categorically. He bit through the osier-twigs, waved them over his head, cut the air with a shrill whistle, and said severely: "I'm right enough you see--there's nothing of that sort the matter with me." The horse shifted from leg to leg; a branch cracked somewhere; some earth plumped into the stream, introducing some fresh notes into its quiet melody; then from somewhither two little birds started up and flew along the gully, screeching uneasily. Hopeful followed them with his eyes and remarked quietly: "What birds are those? If they are starlings they have no business in this forest. They are mostly around dwelling-places. I suppose they are silk-tails[2] ... lots of 'em about." "They may be cross-bills."[3] [2] Bombycilla garrula. [3] Loxia curvirostra. "It's too early for cross-bills, and besides, what does a cross-bill want in a fir-wood? It has no business there. They can only be silk-tails." "All right--drop 'em."