Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/280

262 "We 'll rest now," Dan told them at ten o'clock. "The sun is warm enough so that we won't need much of a fire. And we 'll try to get five hours' sleep."

"Too long, if we're going to make it out," Lennox objected.

"That leaves a work-day of nineteen hours," Dan persisted. "Not any too little. Five hours it will be."

He found where the snow had drifted against a great, dead log, leaving the white covering only a foot in depth on the lee side. He began to scrape the snow away, then hacked at the log with his ax until he had procured a piece of comparatively dry wood from its center. They all stood breathless while he lighted the little pile of kindling and heaped it with green wood,—the only wood procurable. But it did n't burn freely. It smoked fitfully, threatening to die out, and emitting very little heat.

But they did n't particularly care. The sun was warm above, as always in the mountain winters of Southern Oregon. Snowbird and Dan cleared spaces beside the fire and slept. Lennox, who had rested on the journey, lay on his sled and with his uninjured arm tried to hack enough wood from the saplings that Dan had cut to keep the fire burning.

At three they got up, still tired and aching