ry which did much toward keeping up all their spirits, but her
merriest jokes fell ghastly from her wan, pinched face. Thor, though
weak and ill, was the strongest and did for the others, cooking and
serving each day a simple meal, for they could eat very little,
fortunately, perhaps, as there was very little, and Corney could not
return for another week.

Soon Thor was the only one able to rise, and one morning when he
dragged himself to cut the little usual slice of their treasured bacon
he found, to his horror, that the whole piece was gone. It had been
stolen, doubtless by some wild animal, from the little box on the shady
side of the house, where it was kept safe from flies. Now they were
down to flour and tea. He was in despair, when his eye lighted on the
Chickens about the stable; but what's the use? In his feeble state he
might as well try to catch a Deer or a Hawk. Suddenly he remembered his
gun and very soon was preparing a fat Hen for the pot. He boiled it
whole as the easiest way to cook it, and the broth was the first really
tempting food they had had for some time.

They kept alive for three wretched days on that Chicken, and when it
was finished Thor again took down his gun--it seemed a much heavier gun
now. He crawled to the barn, but he was so weak and shaky that he
missed several times before he brought down a fowl. Corney had taken
the rifle away with him and three charges of gun ammunition were all
that now remained.

Thor was surprised to see how few Hens there were now, only three or
four. There used to be over a dozen. Three days later he made another
raid. He saw but one Hen and he used up his last ammunition to get that.

His daily routine now was a monotony of horror. In the morning, which
was his "well time," he prepared a little food for the household and
got ready for the night of raging fever by putting a bucket of water on
a block at the head of each bunk. About one o'clock, with fearful
regularity, the chills would come on, with trembling from head to foot
and chattering teeth, and cold, cold, within and without. Nothing
seemed to give any warmth--fire seemed to have lost its power. There
was nothing to do but to lie and shake and suffer all the slow torture
of freezing to death and shaking to pieces. For six hours it would keep
up, and to the torture, nausea lent its horrid aid throughout; then
about seven or eight o'clock in the evening a change would come; a
burning fever set in;