And this was only the beginning of the day.  Men were persuaded, coaxed, bullied or dragged by main strength from their bunks and forced to dress.  Smoke selected the mildest cases for the burial squad.  Another squad was told off to supply the wood by which the graves were burned down into the frozen muck and gravel.  Still another squad had to chop firewood and impartially supply every cabin.  Those who were too weak for outdoor work were put to cleaning and scrubbing the cabins and washing clothes.  One squad brought in many loads of spruce-boughs, and every stove was used for the brewing of spruce-tea.

But no matter what face Smoke and Shorty put on it, the situation was grim and serious.  At least thirty fearful and impossible cases could not be taken from the beds, as the two men, with nausea and horror, learned; while one, a woman, died in Laura Sibley’s cabin.  Yet strong measures were necessary.

“I don’t like to wallop a sick man,” Shorty explained, his fist doubled menacingly.  “But I’d wallop his block off if it’d make him well.  And what all you lazy bums needs is a wallopin’.  Come on!  Out of that an’ into them duds of yourn, double quick, or I’ll sure muss up the front of your face.”

All the gangs groaned, and sighed, and wept, the tears streaming and freezing down their cheeks as they toiled; and it was patent that their agony was real.  The situation was desperate, and Smoke’s prescription was heroic.

When the work-gangs came in at noon, they found decently cooked dinners awaiting them, prepared by the weaker members of their cabins under the tutelage and drive of Smoke and Shorty.

“That’ll do,” Smoke said at three in the afternoon.  “Knock off.  Go to your bunks.  You may be feeling rotten now, but you’ll be the better for it to-morrow.  Of course it hurts to get well, but I’m going to get you well.”

“Too late,” Amos Wentworth sneered pallidly at Smoke’s efforts.  “They ought to have started in that way last fall.”

“Come along with me,” Smoke answered.  “Pick up those two pails.  You’re not ailing.”

From cabin to cabin the three men went, dosing every man and woman with a full pint of spruce-tea.  Nor was it easy.

“You might as well learn at the start that we mean business,” Smoke stated to the first obdurate, who lay on his back, groaning through set teeth.  “Stand by, Shorty.”  Smoke caught the patient by the nose and tapped the solar-plexus section so as to make the mouth gasp open.  “Now, Shorty!  Down she goes!”

And down it went, accompanied with unavoidable splutterings and stranglings.

“Next time you’ll take it easier,” Smoke assured the victim, reaching for the nose of the man in the adjoining bunk.

“I’d sooner take castor oil,” was Shorty’s private confidence, ere he downed his own portion.  “Great jumpin’ Methuselem!” was his entirely public proclamation the moment after he had swallowed the bitter dose.  “It’s a pint long, but hogshead strong.”