wind and the swift curtaining of clouds, which was drawing across the
sky, threatened a new storm that might even reach down to the shack.

And yet no Bill appeared.

The brothers waited in the shack, and the darkness was increasing. Any
one of a number of things might have happened to their father, but
they were not worried. For one thing, they wasted no love on the stern
old man. They knew well enough that he had plenty of money, but he
kept them here to a dog's life in the shack, and they hated him for
it. Besides, they had a keen grievance which obscured any worry about
Bill--they were hungry, wildly hungry. The darkness set in, and the
feeble light wandered from the smoked chimney of the lantern and made
the window black.

Outside, the wind began to scream, sighing in the distance among the
firs, and then pouncing upon the cabin and shaking it as though in
rage. The fire would smoke in the stove at every one of these blasts,
and the flame leaped in the lantern.

Bull Hunter had to lean closer to the light and frown to make out the
print of his book. The sight of his stolid immobility merely sharpened
their hunger, for there was never any passion in this hulk of a man.
When he relaxed over a book the world went out like a snuffed candle
for him. He read slowly, lingering over every page, for now and again
his eyes drifted away from the print, and he dreamed over what he had
read. In reality he was not reading for the plot, but for the pictures
he found, and he dreaded coming to the end of a book also, for books
were rare in his life. A scrap of a magazine was a treasure. A full
volume was a nameless delight.