In the lulls they could hear the
water streaming off at the side-walls with the noise of small
cataracts. He reached up curiously and touched the wet roof. A burst
of water followed instantly at the point of contact and coursed down
upon the grub-box.
"You mustn't do that!" Frona cried, springing to her feet. She put her
finger on the spot, and, pressing tightly against the canvas, ran it
down to the side-wall. The leak at once stopped. "You mustn't do it,
you know," she reproved.
"Jove!" was his reply. "And you came through from Dyea to-day! Aren't
you stiff?"
"Quite a bit," she confessed, candidly, "and sleepy."
"Good-night," she called to him several minutes later, stretching her
body luxuriously in the warm blankets. And a quarter of an hour after
that, "Oh, I say! Are you awake?"
"Yes," his voice came muffled across the stove. "What is it?"
"Have you the shavings cut?"
"Shavings?" he queried, sleepily. "What shavings?"
"For the fire in the morning, of course. So get up and cut them."
He obeyed without a word; but ere he was done she had ceased to hear
him.
The ubiquitous bacon was abroad on the air when she opened her eyes.
Day had broken, and with it the storm. The wet sun was shining
cheerily over the drenched landscape and in at the wide-spread flaps.
Already work had begun, and groups of men were filing past under their
packs.
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