“Maw in de plenty-bowl.”

“Yes, maw mush, but no maw syrup.”

The round eyes travelled to the store corner.

“We’ll have to open a fresh can some time—­what’s the odds?”

Mac got up, and not only Kaviak watched him—­for syrup was a luxury not expected 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 hours it would be till breakfast, the Colonel said to the Boy: 

“‘Johnny, get your gun,’ and we’ll go out.”