“Reckon you’ll find that steamer-load down in the ice is worth its weight in gold,” said Potts.

“One must always try,” replied the Father.

He left the doorpost, straightened his bowed back, and laid a hand on the wooden latch.

“But Nicholas—­when you left Pymeut was he—­” began the Boy.

“Oh, he is all right,” the Father smiled and nodded.  “Brother Paul has been looking after Nicholas’s father.  The old chief has enough food, but he has been very ill.  By the way, have you any letters you want to send out?”

“Oh, if we’d only known!” was the general chorus; and Potts flew to close and stamp one he had hardly more than begun to the future Mrs. Potts.

The Boy had thoughtlessly opened the door to have a look at the dogs.

“Shut that da—­Don’t keep the door open!” howled Potts, trying to hold his precious letter down on the table while he added “only two words.”  The Boy slammed the door behind him.

“With all our trouble, the cabin isn’t really warm,” said the Colonel apologetically.  “In a wind like this, if the door is open, we have to hold fast to things to keep them from running down the Yukon.  It’s a trial to anybody’s temper.”

“Why don’t you build a false wall?”

“Well, I don’t know; we hadn’t thought of it.”

“You’d find it correct this draught”; and the priest explained his views on the subject while Potts’s letter was being addressed.  Andrew put his head in.

“Ready, Father!”

As the priest was pocketing the letter the Boy dashed in, put on the Arctic cap he set such store by, and a fur coat and mittens.

“Do you mind if I go a little way with you?” he said.

“Of course not,” answered the priest.  “I will send him back in half an hour,” he said low to the Colonel.  “It’s a hitter day.”

It was curious how already he had divined the relation of the elder man to the youngest of that odd household.

The moment they had gone Mac, with an obvious effort, pulled himself up out of his corner, and, coming towards the Colonel at the fireplace, he said thickly: 

“You’ve put an insult upon me, Warren, and that’s what I stand from no man.  Come outside.”

The Colonel looked at him.

“All right, Mac; but we’ve just eaten a rousing big dinner.  Even Sullivan wouldn’t accept that as the moment for a round.  We’ll both have forty winks, hey? and Potts shall call us, and O’Flynn shall be umpire.  You can have the Boy’s bunk.”

Mac was in a haze again, and allowed himself to be insinuated into bed.

The others got rid of the dinner things, and “sat round” for an hour.

“Doubt if he sleeps long,” says Potts a little before two; “that’s what he’s been doing all morning.”

“We haven’t had any fresh meat for a week,” returns the Colonel significantly.  “Why don’t you and O’Flynn go down to meet the Boy, and come round by the woods?  There’ll be full moon up by four o’clock; you might get a brace of grouse or a rabbit or two.”