cted every day--every neck had craned, every pair of eyes had
followed anxiously to that row of rapidly diminishing tins, all that
was left of the things they all liked best, and they still this side of
Christmas!

"What you rubber-neckin' about?" Mac snapped at the Boy as he came back
with the fresh supply. This unprovoked attack was ample evidence that
Mac was uneasy under the eyes of the camp, angry at his own weakness,
and therefore the readier to dare anybody to find fault with him.

"How can I help watchin' you?" said the Boy. Mac lifted his eyes
fiercely. "I'm fascinated by your winnin' ways; we're all like that."
Kaviak had meanwhile made a prosperous voyage to the plenty-bowl, and
returned to Mac's side--an absurd little figure in a strange
priest-like cassock buttoned from top to bottom (a waistcoat of Mac's),
and a jacket of the Boy's, which was usually falling off (and trailed
on the ground when it wasn't), and whose sleeves were rolled up in
inconvenient muffs. Still, with a gravity that did not seem impaired by
these details, he stood clutching his plate anxiously with both hands,
while down upon the corn-mush descended a slender golden thread,
manipulated with a fine skill to make the most of its sweetness. It
curled and spiralled, and described the kind of involved and
long-looped flourishes which the grave and reverend of a hundred years
ago wrote jauntily underneath the most sober names.

Lovingly the dark eyes watched the engrossing process. Even when the
attenuated thread was broken, and the golden rain descended in slow,
infrequent drops, Kaviak stood waiting, always for just one drop more.

"That's enough, greedy."

"Now go away and gobble."

But Kaviak daintily skimmed off the syrupy top, and left his mush
almost as high a hill as before.

It wasn't long after the dinner, things had been washed up, and the
Colonel settled down to the magazines--he was reading the
advertisements now--that Potts drew out his watch.

"Golly! do you fellers know what o'clock it is?" He held the open
timepiece up to Mac. "Hardly middle o' the afternoon. All these hours
before bedtime, and nothin' to eat till to-morrow!"

"Why, you've just finished--"

"But look at the _time!_"

The Colonel said nothing. Maybe he had been a little previous with
dinner today; it was such a relief to get it out of the way. Oppressive
as the silence was, the sound of Potts's voice was worse, and as he
kept on about how many h