By the time the rice and bacon were done, and the flap-jack, still raw in the middle, was burnt to charcoal on both sides, the Colonel’s eyes were smarting, in the acrid smoke, and the tears were running down his cheeks.

“Grub’s ready!”

The Boy came up and dropped on his heels in the usual attitude.  The Colonel tore a piece off the half-charred, half-raw pancake.

“Maybe you’ll think the fire isn’t thoroughly distributed, but that’s got to do for bread,” he remarked severely, as if in reply to some objection.

The Boy saw that something he had said or looked 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.”