aring out a tune to us on that frosty
winter evening! As I sat there sipping the deliciously rich cocoa,
Mackenzie joined me, and while Lillie cooked the dinner I must tell him
over and over again my story. And in spite of herself the
tender-hearted little housekeeper would cry and cry.

The dinner, which consisted of grouse, potatoes, marmalade, bread, and
tea, was served in the dining room, which was also the living room.
Mackenzie sat at the head of the table, I at the foot, and on a lounge
to one side sat Atikamish, a small Mountaineer Indian hunting dog,
gravely alert for the bones his master would occasionally toss to him.
Atikamish had very good table manners. He caught the bones neatly and
deftly, and he invariably chewed them up without leaving his seat or
changing his position. My appetite was returning, and I ate well; but
it was fully two weeks before I could eat without experiencing distress
later. When that blessed time arrived, I never could get enough;
Lillie was always pressing me to eat, and for a time I had at least six
meals a day.

After dinner Mackenzie got Mark Blake to cut my hair and shave off my
beard. Then he took me to my room upstairs, where a stove was
crackling out a welcome and a big tub of warm water had been prepared
for me. After my bath, he again came up to rub my legs, which were
much swollen from frostbite, and to dress my foot with salve. In a
suit of Mackenzie's flannel pajamas I then went to my soft bed, and lay
snug and warm under the blankets. It was the first real bed I had lain
in for nearly four months, and oh, the luxury of it!

It is impossible for me to express the gratitude I feel towards those
good friends. They nursed me with the tenderest care. Mackenzie's big
Scotch heart and the woman's sympathetic instinct of the little
housekeeper anticipated my every want, and he and she never could seem
to satisfy themselves with doing things for my comfort. When I left
the post with Hubbard I weighed 170 pounds; a week after my return I
weighed ninety-five. But with the care they took of me my general
health was soon restored, and I rapidly put on flesh.

My difficulties, however, were not yet ended. Hubbard's body was still
to be recovered from the wild and repatriated, and during the long
months that ensued before it could be reached I lived in constant dread
lest it should be destroyed by animals, until at length the dread
amounted almost to an obsession. Mor