plain talk. "We have enough food for a few days. After
that, if we stuck on here and did not find more somehow, we'd die like
dogs. Therefore we are going to get ready to beat it out the first
chance we get."

"But if I wouldn't last ten minutes, as you so elegantly put it?"

"Not as you are; not as the snow is. But I'm hoping that before it's too
late we'll get clear weather, a sun, a thaw, and freezing nights. Then
we could tackle it on the crust. And your job now is to get yourself
ready for that one chance."

Her anger at the indignity already done her whipped out the sarcasm:

"By getting ready, I suppose you mean for me to pack my trunk and order
the expressman at the door?"

He looked at her with a long, impersonal stare which bewildered her; she
was at utter loss to read its meaning until he spoke:

"You are to pack what endurance you've got into your muscles. You are to
make up your mind to call up all of the grit that's in you. You'll need
both. And you are to quit lying around and getting weaker every day;
you've got little enough time to harden yourself, so you are going to
take on the job right now."

She gasped, incredulous. He nodded sternly.

"Gloria," he said tersely, "I am going to do all that I can for both of
us. You are going to do all that you can. That is final."

She bit her lips and gave him her scornful silence. The blood was red
and hot in her cheeks.

She ignored him when he called crisply that breakfast was ready. There
were limits to her obedience, she thought rebelliously. To be told do
this, do that, to arise when this man's body was rested, to eat when his
stomach was empty, was intolerable. King looked at her and had the
understanding to grasp something of her thought. So he explained:

"I want you to come outside with me. You'll find it hard work. It would
be a first-rate idea if you'd fortify your strength by the little bit
of nourishment which we can afford to take. No? Well, I'm sorry.--Here."
He offered her the pieces of a sack he had cut in two for her. "Tie
those about your feet to keep them from freezing."

"When I want your advice, I'll ask for it," she retorted icily.

"Very well," he answered. "And I can't make you eat if you don't want
to. After all, perhaps you are not hungry." He set aside her portion.
"You'll have the appetite for that when we get back."

She had the appetite now. But she would prefer to starve, she honestly
thought at the moment, than ea