His trusty rifle stood in the corner of his cabin, and Jim had but to
take it in his hand to excite the expectations of his dog, and to
receive from him, in language as plain as an eager whine and a wagging
tail could express, an offer of assistance. Before night there hung in
front of his cabin a buck, dragged with difficulty through the woods
from the place where he had shot him. A good part of the following day
was spent in cutting from the carcass every ounce of flesh, and packing
it into pails, to be stowed in a spring whose water, summer and winter
alike, was almost at the freezing point.

"He'll need a good deal o' lookin' arter, and I shan't hunt much the
fust few days," said Jim to himself; "an' as for flour, there's a sack
on't, an' as for pertaters, we shan't want many on 'em till they come
agin, an' as for salt pork, there's a whole bar'l buried, an' as for the
rest, let me alone!"

Jim had put off the removal for ten days, partly to get time for all his
preparations, and partly that the rapidly advancing spring might give
him warmer weather for the removal of a delicate patient. He found,
however, at the conclusion of his labors, that he had two or three spare
days on his hands. His mind was too busy and too much excited by his
enterprise to permit him to engage in any regular employment, and he
roamed around the woods, or sat whittling in the sun, or smoked, or
thought of Miss Butterworth. It was strange how, when the business upon
his hands was suspended, he went back again and again, to his brief
interview with that little woman. He thought of her eyes full of tears,
of her sympathy with the poor, of her smart and saucy speech when he
parted with her, and he said again and again to himself, what he said on
that occasion: "she's a genuine creetur!" and the last time he said it,
on the day before his projected expedition, he added: "an' who knows!"