"The makings for a Christmas dinner," he said with a grin.
After he had taken off his mukluks and his frozen socks they wrapped
him in their furs while he toasted before the stove. Mrs. Olson thawed
out the pudding and the chocolates in the oven and made a kind of mush
out of some oats Pete had saved from the horse feed. They ate their
one-sided meal in high spirits. The freeze had saved their lives. If it
held clear till to-morrow they could reach Smith's Crossing on the crust
of the snow.
Swiftwater broke up the chairs for fuel and demolished the legs of the
table, after which he lay down before the stove and fell at once into a
sodden sleep.
Presently Mrs. Olson lay down on the bed and began to snore regularly.
Sheba could not sleep. The boards tired her bones and she was cold.
Sometimes she slipped into cat naps that were full of bad dreams. She
thought she was walking on the snow-comb of a precipice and that Colby
Macdonald pushed her from her precarious footing and laughed at her as
she slid swiftly toward the gulf below. When she wakened with a start it
was to find that the fire had died down. She was shivering from lack of
cover. Quietly the girl replenished the fire and lay down again.
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