on "Parliamentary Law" piled at the end of the box served as
a pillow. After climbing in and folding himself up into an incredibly
small space, Kaviak managed with superhuman skill to cover himself
neatly with a patchwork quilt of _Munsey, Scribner, Century, Strand_,
and _Overland_ for August, '97. No one would suspect, glancing into
that library, that underneath the usual top layer of light reading, was
matter less august than Law, Poetry, Science, and Revelation.

It was the base Byron, tipping the wink to Mac out of the back of the
bunk, that betrayed Kaviak.

It became evident that "Farva" began to take a dour pride in the Kid's
perseverance. One morning he even pointed out to the camp the strong
likeness between Kaviak and Robert Bruce.

"No, sah; the Scottish chief had to have an object-lesson, but
Kaviak--Lawd!--Kaviak could give points to any spider livin'!"

This was on the morning that the Esquimer thought to escape scrubbing,
even at the peril of his life, by getting up on to the swing-shelf
--how, no man ever knew. But there he sat in terror, like a
very young monkey in a wind-rocked tree, hardly daring to breathe, his
arms clasped tight round the demijohn; but having Mac to deal with, the
end of it was that he always got washed, and equally always he seemed
to register a vow that, s'help him, Heaven! it should never happen
again.

After breakfast came the clearing up. It should have been done (under
this regime) by the Little Cabin men, but it seldom was. O'Flynn was
expected to keep the well-hole in the river chopped open and to bring
up water every day. This didn't always happen either, though to drink
snow-water was to invite scurvy, Father Wills said. There was also a
daily need, if the Colonel could be believed, for everybody to chop
firewood.

"We got enough," was Potts' invariable opinion.

"For how long? S'pose we get scurvy and can't work; we'd freeze to
death in a fortnight."

"Never saw a fireplace swalla logs whole an' never blink like this
one."

"But you got no objection to sittin' by while the log-swallerin' goes
on."

The Colonel or the Boy cooked the eternal beans, bacon and mush dinner,
after whatever desultory work was done; as a matter of fact, there was
extraordinarily little to occupy five able-bodied men. The fun of
snow-shoeing, mitigated by frostbite, quickly degenerated from a sport
into a mere means of locomotion. One or two of the party went hunting,
now and then,