Jim Cardegee loosed the strings of his profanity and fairly outdid
himself. Jacob Kent brought out a stool that he might enjoy it in
comfort. Having exhausted all the possible combinations of his
vocabulary, the sailor quieted down to hard thinking, his eyes constantly
gauging the progress of the sun, which tore up the eastern slope of the
heavens with unseemly haste. His dogs, surprised that they had not long
since been put to harness, crowded around him. His helplessness appealed
to the brutes. They felt that something was wrong, though they knew not
what, and they crowded about, howling their mournful sympathy.

"Chook! Mush-on! you Siwashes!" he cried, attempting, in a vermicular
way, to kick at them, and discovering himself to be tottering on the edge
of a declivity. As soon as the animals had scattered, he devoted himself
to the significance of that declivity which he felt to be there but could
not see. Nor was he long in arriving at a correct conclusion. In the
nature of things, he figured, man is lazy. He does no more than he has
to. When he builds a cabin he must put dirt on the roof. From these
premises it was logical that he should carry that dirt no further than
was absolutely necessary. Therefore, he lay upon the edge of the hole
from which the dirt had been taken to roof Jacob Kent's cabin. This
knowledge, properly utilized, might prolong things, he thought; and he
then turned his attention to the moose-hide thongs which bound him. His
hands were tied behind him, and pressing against the snow, they were wet
with the contact. This moistening of the raw-hide he knew would tend to
make it stretch, and, without apparent effort, he endeavored to stretch
it more and more.

He watched the trail hungrily, and when in the direction of Sixty Mile a
dark speck appeared for a moment against the white background of an ice-
jam, he cast an anxious eye at the sun. It had climbed nearly to the