w blinked
cheerily of nights at those who journeyed late.

The door was kicked open, and Del Bishop staggered in with a load of
fire-wood. His breath had so settled on his face in a white rime that
he could not speak. Such a condition was ever a hardship with the man,
so he thrust his face forthwith into the quivering heat above the
stove. In a trice the frost was started and the thawed streamlets
dancing madly on the white-hot surface beneath. Then the ice began to
fall from is beard in chunks, rattling on the lid-tops and simmering
spitefully till spurted upward in clouds of steam.

"And so you witness an actual phenomenon, illustrative of the three
forms of matter," Vance laughed, mimicking the monotonous tones of the
demonstrator; "solid, liquid, and vapor. In another moment you will
have the gas."

"Th--th--that's all very well," Bishop spluttered, wrestling with an
obstructing piece of ice until it was wrenched from his upper lip and
slammed stoveward with a bang.

"How cold do you make it, Del? Fifty?"

"Fifty?" the pocket-miner demanded with unutterable scorn, wiping his
face. "Quicksilver's been solid for hours, and it's been gittin'
colder an' colder ever since. Fifty? I'll bet my new mittens against
your old moccasins that it ain't a notch below seventy."

"Think so?"

"D'ye want to bet?"

Vance nodded laughingly.

"Centigrade or Fahrenheit?" Bishop asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Oh, well, if you want my old moccasins so badly," Vance rejoined,
feigning to be hurt by the other's lack of faith, "why, you can have
them without betting."

Del snorted and flung himself down on the opposite bunk. "Think yer
funny, don't you?" No answer forthcoming, he deemed the retort
conclusive, rolled over, and fell to studying the moss chinks.

Fifteen minutes of this diversion sufficed. "Play you a rubber of crib
before bed," he challenged across to the other bunk.

"I'll go you." Corliss got up, stretched, and moved the kerosene lamp
from the shelf to the table, "Think it will hold out?" he asked,
surveying the oil-level through the cheap glass.

Bishop threw down the crib-board and cards, and measured the contents
of the lamp with his eye. "Forgot to fill it, didn't I? Too late now.
Do it to-morrow. It'll last the rubber out, sure."

Corliss took up the cards, but paused in the shuffling. "We've a big
trip before us, Del, about a month from now, the middle of March as
near as I can plan it