after you,' said Silver with a little look of gratitude. 'I know the
passage through the south channels, and something told me you had
gone that way. It was very cold.'

That was all, no reasoning, no excuse, no embarrassment; the flight of
the little sea-bird straight to its mate.

Life flowed on again in the old channel, Fog quiet, Silver happy, and
Waring in a sort of dream. Winter was full upon them, and the castle
beleaguered with his white armies both below and above, on the water
and in the air. The two men went ashore on the ice now, and trapped
and hunted daily, the dogs following. Fagots were cut and rough roads
made through the forest. One would have supposed they were planning
for a lifelong residence, the young man and the old, as they came and
went together, now on the snow-crust, now plunging through breast-deep
into the light dry mass. One day Waring said, 'Let me see your
reckoning. Do you know that to-morrow will be Christmas?'

'Silver knows nothing of Christmas,' said Fog, roughly.

'Then she shall know,' replied Waring.

Away he went to the woods and brought back evergreen. In the night he
checked the cabin-like room, and with infinite pains constructed a
little Christmas-tree and hung it with everything he could collect or
contrive.

'It is but a poor thing, after all,' he said, gloomily, as he stood
alone surveying his work. It was indeed a shabby little tree, only
redeemed from ugliness by a white cross poised on the green summit;