While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the
door,
And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor.

"He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand;
He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand,
And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.

"And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three,
And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea,
Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.

"You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno;
I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go
I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...

"But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring skies
were pale,
Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the trail--
A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a tale--

"A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,
And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it seemed to be
That Hank was a goldarn German--and Hank was rooming with me!

"So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,
I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,
And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.

"I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,