Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/227

 the windows of the little cabin he knew that it must be true and sprang from his bunk with a  hurrah of delight. The air was of a more bitter cold than anything he had ever imagined, the  breath rose from his nostrils in two columns like  steam and was frozen in white crystals all along  the edge of the blanket where Dick still lay. Nicholas jumped down after him, shook himself by way of making a morning toilet and ran to  sniff and snuffle under the door. There returned to Hugh a vague recollection of the sounds he  had heard in the night, so that he undid the fastenings hurriedly and threw the door open. The dazzling sparkle of the snow almost blinded him  for a moment, while the rush of intense cold made  him draw his breath in quick gasps. Yet nothing could blind his eyes to what lay upon the doorstep—a big sack of flour, a bag of dried  beans and the frozen carcass of a deer.

The sight of food when one is nearly starved has sometimes a strange and disquieting effect. Hugh was ashamed of the savage eagerness with which he fell upon the treasures and dragged