entleness:

"If you _like_, I'll make supper to-night;" and the Boy, catching his
breath, ran forward, swaying a little, half blind, but with a different
look in his tired eyes.

"No, no, old man. It isn't as bad as that."

And again it was two friends who slept side by side in the snow.

The next morning the Colonel, who had been kept awake half the night by
what he had been thinking was neuralgia in his eyes, woke late, hearing
the Boy calling:

"I say, Kentucky, aren't you _ever_ goin' to get up?"

"Get up?" said the Colonel. "Why should I, when it's pitch-dark?"

"_What?_"

"Fire clean out, eh?" But he smelt the tea and bacon, and sat up
bewildered, with a hand over his smarting eyes. The Boy went over and
knelt down by him, looking at him curiously.

"Guess you're a little snow-blind, Colonel; but it won't last, you
know."

"Blind!"

"No, no, only _snow_-blind. Big difference;" and he took out his rag of
a handkerchief, got some water in a tin cup, and the eyes were bathed
and bandaged.

"It won't last, you know. You'll just have to take it easy for a few
days."

The Colonel groaned.

For the first time he seemed to lose heart. He sat during breakfast
with bandaged eyes, and a droop of the shoulders, that seemed to say
old age had come upon him in a single night. The day that followed was
pretty dark to both men. The Boy had to do all the work, except the
monotonous, blind, pushing from behind, in whatever direction the Boy
dragged the sled.

Now, snow-blindness is not usually dangerous, but it is horribly
painful while it lasts. Your eyes swell up and are stabbed continually
by cutting pains; your head seems full of acute neuralgia, and often
there is fever and other complications. The Colonel's was a bad case.
But he was a giant for strength and "sound as a dollar," as the Boy
reminded him, "except for this little bother with your eyes, and you're
a whole heap better already."

At a very slow rate they plodded along.

They had got into a region where there was no timber; but, as they
couldn't camp without a fire, they took an extra rest that day at four
o'clock, and regaled themselves on some cold grub. Then they took up
the line of march again. But they had been going only about half an
hour when the Colonel suddenly, without warning, stopped pushing the
sled, and stood stock-still on the trail. The Boy, feeling the removal
of the pressure, looked round, went back to him, and found nothin