only kind," smiled Dick. "Don't you like codfish, Hen?"

"Not a little bit," grumbled Dutcher.

"Then you can cut out breakfast, and you'll have a fine appetite at
noon," offered Dan consolingly.

"It seems to me that you fellows use me as meanly as you know how,"
flared Hen. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

"We are," Tom assured the grumbler.

Though the codfish should have been soaked over night, Dick accomplished
much the same effect by repeatedly scalding it. Then he put it on to
cook in boiling water, and next made a flour sauce in the way that his
mother had patiently taught him. The hard boiled eggs, after being
cooled in cold water, were sliced up and put over the dish when it was
ready. This, with potatoes, bread and butter and weak coffee with
condensed milk, made a meal that satisfied all hands. Hen didn't like
the meal, but he ate more of it than any one else.

"What are we going to do to-day for fun?" Dan wanted to know as
breakfast drew to a close.

"Shovel paths and stock up with water and firewood, I guess," smiled
Dick.

"Pshaw! I'm sorry it has to be all work, and that we can't have any
fun," remarked Harry Hazelton. "I've just been longing to go hunting and
get a rabbit for a stew."

"We'll be here for days and days yet," answered Dick. "I guess we'll be
able to find plenty of fun before our camping frolic is over."

"It's fun, just being here and living this way," Darrin declared.

Something beat against one of the windows, causing the boys to look
around curiously.

"Just a twig blown off from some tree," declared Tom.

"Is it?" floated back from Greg, who had leaped up and was now hurrying
toward the window in question. "It's a pigeon--that's what it is. And
the poor thing looks perishing, too."

In truth Mr. Pigeon did seem to be about spent. The poor thing huddled
against the sash, as if trying to shelter itself from the biting wind
and the fine dust of blown snow.

"Bring the tea-kettle, some one," called Greg, and Dick did so.

"Pour the water on so that I can get the window open," Greg directed.
"Just enough to soften the ice so that the sash will move back. Be
careful not to let any of the hot water scald the pigeon's feet."

Working gently, in order not to alarm the spent bird, Dick and Greg soon
had the window open, and Greg drew in the all but frozen little flyer.

"Say, we can have pigeon stew, or pie, if anyone knows how to make a
pie," cried Hen Dutcher.