in
earth, a condition Bill promised to remedy with hides of moose, once
his buildings were completed. Rudely finished, and lacking much that
would have made for comfort, still it served its purpose, and Hazel
made shift contentedly.

Followed then the erection of a stable to shelter the horses. Midway
of its construction a cloud bank blew out of the northeast, and a foot
of snow fell. Then it cleared to brilliant days of frost. Bill
finished his stable. At night he tied the horses therein. By day they
were turned loose to rustle their fodder from under the crisp snow. It
was necessary to husband the stock of hay, for spring might be late.

After that they went hunting. The third day Bill shot two moose in an
open glade ten miles afield. It took them two more days to haul in the
frozen meat on a sled.

"Looks like one side of a butcher shop," Bill remarked, viewing the
dressed meat where it hung on a pole scaffolding beyond reach of the
wolves.

"It certainly does," Hazel replied. "We'll never eat all that."

"Probably not," he smiled. "But there's nothing like having plenty.
The moose might emigrate, you know. I think I'll add a deer to that
lot for variety--if I can find one."

He managed this in the next few days, and also laid in a stock of
frozen trout by the simple expedient of locating a large pool, and
netting the speckled denizens thereof through a hole in the ice.

So their larder was amply supplied. And, as the cold rigidly tightened
its grip, and succeeding snows deepened the white blanket till
snowshoes became imperative, Bill began to string out a line of traps.

CHAPTER XX

BOREAS CHANTS HIS LAY

December winged by, the days succeeding each other like glittering
panels on a black ground of long, drear nights. Christmas came. They
mustered up something of the holiday spirit, dining gayly off a roast
of caribou. For the occasion Hazel had saved the last half dozen
potatoes. With the material at her command she evolved a Christmas
pudding, serving it with brandy sauce. And after satisfying appetites
bred of a morning tilt with Jack Frost along Bill's trap line, they
spent a pleasant hour picturing their next Christmas. There would be
holly and bright lights and music--the festival spirit freed of all
restraint.

The new year was born in a wild smother of flying snow, which died at
dawn to let a pale, heatless sun peer tentatively over the southern
mountains, his slantin