“Maybe you can’t hand it up for more as often as you like, but you’ll always find it there,” he said when McCann came back.  And the laugh went against the dainty pioneer, who to the end of the chapter ate from a plate nailed fast to the table.

“I begin to understand,” says the Colonel to the Boy, under cover of the others’ talk, “why it’s said to be such a devil of a test of a fellow’s decency to winter in this infernal country.”

“They say it’s always a man’s pardner he comes to hate most,” returned the Boy, laughing good-humouredly at the Colonel.

“Naturally.  Look at the row in the Little Cabin.”

“That hasn’t been the only row,” the Boy went on more thoughtfully.  “I say, Colonel”—­he lowered his voice—­“do you know there’ll have to be a new system of rations?  I’ve been afraid—­now I’m sure—­the grub won’t last till the ice goes out.”

“I know it,” said the Colonel very gravely.

“Was there a miscalculation?”

“I hope it was that—­or else,” speaking still lower, “the stores have been tampered with, and not by Kaviak either.  There’ll be a hell of a row.”  He looked up, and saw Potts watching them suspiciously.  It had come to this:  if two men talked low the others pricked their ears.  “But lack of grub,” resumed the Colonel in his usual voice, as though he had not noticed, “is only one of our difficulties.  Lack of work is just about as bad.  It breeds a thousand devils.  We’re a pack o’ fools.  Here we are, all of us, hard hit, some of us pretty well cleaned out o’ ready cash, and here’s dollars and dollars all round us, and we sit over the fire like a lot of God-forsaken natives.”

“Dollars!  Where?”

“Growin’ on the trees, boys; a forest full.”

“Oh, timber.”  Enthusiasm cooled.

“Look at what they say about those fellows up at Anvik, what they made last year.”

“They’ve got a saw-mill.”

“Now they have.  But they cut and sold cord-wood to the steamers two years before they got a mill, and next summer will be the biggest season yet.  We ought to have set to, as soon as the cabins were built, and cut wood for the summer traffic.  But since there are five of us, we can make a good thing of it yet.”

The Colonel finally carried the day.  They went at it next morning, and, as the projector of the work had privately predicted, a better spirit prevailed in the camp for some time.  But here were five men, only one of whom had had any of the steadying grace of stiff discipline in his life, men of haphazard education, who had “chucked” more or less easy berths in a land of many creature comforts ... for this—­to fell and haul birch and fir trees in an Arctic climate on half-rations!  It began to be apparent that the same spirit was invading the forest that had possession of the camp; two, or at most three, did the work, and the rest shirked, got snow-blindness and rheumatism, and let the others do his share, counting securely, nevertheless, on his fifth of the proceeds, just as he counted (no matter what proportion he had contributed) on his full share of the common stock of food.