f us. These we warmed on the end of a stick, taking
great care not to heat them enough to permit a single drop of the oil
to escape from the fat; then, half raw as they were, we ate them down
greedily and found them delicious. It was really wonderful how much
happiness that bit of game brought us. As we were eating the giblets
and entrails and drinking the broth, we freely admitted that never
before had we sat down to such a banquet.

"And," remarked Hubbard, "just think how original is our menu. I'll bet
there isn't a menu in New York that contains boiled goose entrails."

On the 25th the fierce northwest gale still blew, and the air was again
filled with snow. But still we pushed onward. Let the wind blow, and
the snow and rain come as they liked, they could not stop us--we were
going home. We portaged this day to another of our old camps by a
small lake. On the evening before we had eaten the wings and feet of
the geese boiled. For breakfast we had half a goose, for luncheon we
had pea soup, and at night we had the other half of the goose left over
from the morning. We scorched the bones in the fire and ate even them.
These meals did not begin to satisfy our appetites, but they were
sufficient to give us a little new life.

While we were sitting around the fire Hubbard wished me to promise to
spend Thanksgiving Day with him that year--if we reached home in time.
For two years I had spent the day at his home, and Thanksgiving, he
said, must be our reunion day always. No matter what happened, we must
always make a special effort to spend that day together in the years to
come. We must never drift apart. We were brothers, comrades--more
than brothers. We had endured the greatest hardships together, had
fought our way through that awful country together, had starved
together; and never had there been misunderstanding, never a word of
dissension.

From this time on we talked less about what we should eat when we
reached civilisation. True, we would sometimes lapse into restaurant
and home-dinner talks, but we fought against it as much as possible,
realising that to permit our thoughts to dwell on good things to eat
accentuated our distress. Gradually we talked more and more of
childhoods days, and incidents, long forgotten, came vividly before us.
It was a psychological phenomenon I cannot account for; but it was the
case with all of us--Hubbard, George, and myself.

During these trying times we had on