high. Now they went forth with the hatchets, cut many small
spruces, and piled them against the living spruces about the camp
till there was a dense mass of evergreen foliage ten feet high
around them, open only at the top, where was a space five feet
across. With abundance of dry spruce wood, a thick bed of balsam
boughs, and plenty of blankets they were in what most woodmen
consider comfort complete.

They had nothing to do now but wait. Quonab sat placidly smoking,
Rolf was sewing a rent in his coat, the storm hissed, and the
wind-driven ice needles rattled through the trees to vary the
crackle of the fire with a "siss" as they fell on the embers. The
low monotony of sound was lulling in its evenness, when a faint
crunch of a foot on the snow was heard. Rolf reached for his gun,
the fir tree screen was shaken a little, and a minute later there
bounded in upon them the snow covered form of little dog Skookum,
expressing his good-will by excessive sign talk in which every
limb and member had a part. They had left him behind, indeed, but
not with his consent, so the bargain was incomplete.

There was no need to ask now, What shall we do with him? Skookum
had settled that, and why or how he never attempted to explain.

He was wise who made it law that "as was his share who went forth
to battle, so shall his be that abode with the stuff," for the
hardest of all is the waiting. In the morning there was less
doing in the elemental strife. There were even occasional periods
of calm and at length it grew so light that surely the veil was
breaking.