After this burst of energy she sank into a chair, amused to watch his
arrangements. Thoroughly idle people--and there is not much question
that Miss Fenimer was idle--learn a variety of methods for keeping other
people at work, and probably the most effective of these is flattery.
Christine may have been ignorant of the feminine arts of cooking and
fire-making; but of the super-feminine art of flattery she was a
thorough mistress.

Now as Riatt finished building his fire, and began to bring in buckets of
snow to supply their need of water, the gentle flow of her flattery
soothed him as the sound of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June.
Nor, strangely enough, did the fact that he dimly apprehended its purpose
in the least interfere with his enjoyment.

"If ever I'm thrown away on a desert island, I speak to be thrown away
with you," she said. "There isn't another man of my acquaintance who
could bring order out of these primitive conditions."

He laughed. "Well, you know," he said, "this isn't really what you'd call
primitive. I was snowed up in Alaska once."

"Alaska! You've been snowed up in Alaska?" she echoed in the tone of a
child who says: was it a _black_ bear?

Oh, yes, it lightened his toil. Nevertheless, he asked for her
assistance in trying to find something to eat. She knew no more about
the kitchen than he did, but she advanced toward a door and opened it
gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. It was the kitchen closet.
She opened a tin box.