In the state of lowered vitality to which the poor, ill-cooked food, the cold and lack of exercise, was slowly reducing them, they talked to one another less and less as time went on, and more and more—­silently and each against his will—­grew hyper-sensitive to the shortcomings and even to the innocent “ways” of the other fellow.

Not Mac’s inertia alone, but his trick of sticking out his jaw became an offence, his rasping voice a torture.  The Boy’s occasional ebullition of spirits was an outrage, the Colonel’s mere size intolerable.  O’Flynn’s brogue, which had amused them, grew to be just part of the hardship and barbarism that had overtaken them like an evil dream, coercing, subduing all the forces of life.  Only Kaviak seemed likely to come unscathed through the ordeal of the winter’s captivity; only he could take the best place at the fire, the best morsel at dinner, and not stir angry passions; only he dared rouse Mac when the Nova Scotian fell into one of his bear-with-a-sore-head moods.  Kaviak put a stop to his staring angrily by the hour into the fire, and set him to whittling out boats and a top, thereby providing occupation for the morrow, since it was one man’s work to break Kaviak of spinning the one on the table during mealtime, and sailing the other in the drinking-water bucket at all times when older eyes weren’t watching.  The Colonel wrote up his journal, and read the midsummer magazines and Byron, in the face of Mac’s “I do not like Byron’s thought; I do not consider him healthy or instructive.”  In one of his more energetic moods the Colonel made a four-footed cricket for Kaviak, who preferred it to the high stool, and always sat on it except at meals.

Once in a while, when for hours no word had been spoken except some broken reference to a royal flush or a jack-pot, or O’Flynn had said, “Bedad!  I’ll go it alone,” or Potts had inquired anxiously, “Got the joker?  Guess I’m euchred, then,” the Boy in desperation would catch up Kaviak, balance the child on his head, or execute some other gymnastic, soothing the solemn little heathen’s ruffled feelings, afterwards, by crooning out a monotonous plantation song.  It was that kind of addition to the general gloom that, at first, would fire O’Flynn to raise his own spirits, at least, by roaring out an Irish ditty.  But this was seldomer as time went on.  Even Jimmie’s brogue suffered, and grew less robust.

In a depressed sort of way Mac was openly teaching Kaviak his letters, and surreptitiously, down in the Little Cabin, his prayers.  He was very angry when Potts and O’Flynn eavesdropped and roared at Kaviak’s struggles with “Ow Farva.”  In fact, Kaviak did not shine as a student of civilisation, though that told less against him with O’Flynn, than the fact that he wasn’t “jolly and jump about, like white children.”  Moreover, Jimmie, swore there was something “bogey” about the boy’s intermittent knowledge of English.  Often for days he would utter nothing but “Farva” or “Maw” when he wanted his plate replenished, then suddenly he would say something that nobody could remember having taught him or even said in his presence.