Part 71 (1/2)

”Get your dry things!”

”Feet aren't wet.”

”Don't talk foolishness; here are your things.” The Colonel flung in the Boy's direction the usual change, two pairs of heavy socks, the ”German knitted” and ”the felt.”

”Not wet,” repeated the Boy.

”You know you are.”

”Could go through water in these mucklucks.”

”I'm not saying the wet has come in from outside; but you know as well as I do a man sweats like a horse on the trail.”

Still the Boy sat there, with his head sunk between his shoulders.

”First rule o' this country is to keep your feet dry, or else pneumonia, rheumatism--G.o.d knows what!”

”First rule o' this country is mind your own business, or else--G.o.d knows what!”

The Colonel looked at the Boy a moment, and then turned his back. The Boy glanced up conscience-stricken, but still only half alive, dulled by the weight of a crus.h.i.+ng weariness. The Colonel presently bent over the fire and was about to lift off the turbulently boiling pot. The Boy sprang to his feet, ready to shout, ”You do your work, and keep your hands off mine,” but the Colonel turned just in time to say with unusual gentleness:

”If you _like_, I'll make supper to-night;” and the Boy, catching his breath, ran forward, swaying a little, half blind, but with a different look in his tired eyes.

”No, no, old man. It isn't as bad as that.”

And again it was two friends who slept side by side in the snow.

The next morning the Colonel, who had been kept awake half the night by what he had been thinking was neuralgia in his eyes, woke late, hearing the Boy calling:

”I say, Kentucky, aren't you _ever_ goin' to get up?”

”Get up?” said the Colonel. ”Why should I, when it's pitch-dark?”

”_What?_”

”Fire clean out, eh?” But he smelt the tea and bacon, and sat up bewildered, with a hand over his smarting eyes. The Boy went over and knelt down by him, looking at him curiously.

”Guess you're a little snow-blind, Colonel; but it won't last, you know.”

”Blind!”

”No, no, only _snow_-blind. Big difference;” and he took out his rag of a handkerchief, got some water in a tin cup, and the eyes were bathed and bandaged.

”It won't last, you know. You'll just have to take it easy for a few days.”

The Colonel groaned.

For the first time he seemed to lose heart. He sat during breakfast with bandaged eyes, and a droop of the shoulders, that seemed to say old age had come upon him in a single night. The day that followed was pretty dark to both men. The Boy had to do all the work, except the monotonous, blind, pus.h.i.+ng from behind, in whatever direction the Boy dragged the sled.

Now, snow-blindness is not usually dangerous, but it is horribly painful while it lasts. Your eyes swell up and are stabbed continually by cutting pains; your head seems full of acute neuralgia, and often there is fever and other complications. The Colonel's was a bad case.

But he was a giant for strength and ”sound as a dollar,” as the Boy reminded him, ”except for this little bother with your eyes, and you're a whole heap better already.”