had been
misinterpreted.

"Hey? Too much fire outside, and not enough in? Well, sir, I'll trust
_my_ stomach to strike a balance. Guess the heat'll get distributed all
right once I've swallowed it."

When the Colonel, mollified, said something about cinders in the rice,
the Boy, with his mouth full of grit, answered: "I'm pretendin' it's
sugar."

Not since the episode of the abandoned rifle had he shown himself so
genial.

"Never in all my bohn life," says the Colonel after eating steadily for
some time--"never in a year, sah, have I thought as much about food as
I do in a day on this----trail."

"Same here."

"And it's quantity, not quality."

"Ditto."

The Boy turned his head sharply away from the fire. "Hear that?"

No need to ask. The Colonel had risen upright on his cramped legs, red
eyes starting out of his head. The Boy got up, turned about in the
direction of the hollow sound, and made one step away from the fire.

"You stay right where you are!" ordered the Colonel, quite in the old
way.

"Hey?"

"That's a bird-song."

"Thought so."

"Mr. Wolf smelt the cookin'; want's the rest of the pack to know
there's something queer up here on the hill." Then, as the Boy moved to
one side in the dark: "What you lookin' for?"

"My gun."

"Mine's here."

Oh yes! His own old 44 Marlin was lying far down the river under
eight-and-fifty hours of snow. It angered him newly and more than ever
to remember that if he had a shot at anything now it must needs be by
favour of the Colonel.

They listened for that sound again, the first since leaving Anvik not
made by themselves.

"Seems a lot quieter than it did," observed the Colonel by-and-bye.

The Boy nodded.

Without preface the Colonel observed: "It's five days since I washed my
face and hands."

"What's the good o' rememberin'?" returned the Boy sharply. Then more
mildly: "People talk about the bare necessaries o' life. Well, sir,
when they're really bare you find there ain't but three--food, warmth,
sleep."

Again in the distance that hollow baying.

"Food, warmth, sleep," repeated the Colonel. "We've about got down to
the wolf basis."

He said it half in defiance of the trail's fierce lessoning; but it was
truer than he knew.

They built up the fire to frighten off the wolves, but the Colonel had
his rifle along when they went over and crawled into their
sleeping-bag. Half in, half out, he laid the gun carefully along the
right on his