for I should have perished early in the fight without it. I was also
appreciative. I knew just how much warmer a few more of those soft,
fleecy pockets would make me, especially on those nights when I woke
about the cheerless hour of three, to find the world all hard and white,
with the frost fingers creeping down my shoulder blades and along my
spine. Then it was I would work around and around--slowly and with due
deliberation of movement, for a sleeping-bag is not a thing of sudden
and careless revolution--trying to find some position or angle wherein
the cold would not so easily and surely find my vitals. At such a time,
the desire for real comfort and warmth is acute, and having already one
of Eddie's pockets and realizing its sterling worth--also that no more
than two feet away from me he lay warm and snug, buried in the undue
luxury of still other pockets--I may confess now I was goaded almost to
the point of arising and taking peremptory possession of the few paltry
pockets that would make my lot less hard.

[Illustration: "Nightly he painted my scratches with new skin."]

Sooner or later, I suppose, I should have murdered Eddie for his
blankets if he had not been good to me in so many ways. Daily he gave me
leaders, lines, new flies and such things; nightly he painted my
scratches with new skin. On the slightest provocation he would have
rubbed me generously with liniment, for he had a new, unopened bottle
which he was dying to try. Then there was scarcely an evening after I
was in bed--I was always first to go, for Eddie liked to prepare his bed
unhurriedly--that he did not bring me a drink, and comfort me with
something nice to eat, and maybe sing a little while he was "tickling"
his own bed (there is no other name for it), and when he had finished
with the countless little tappings, and pattings, and final touches
which insured the reposeful comfort of his couch, he would place the
candle lantern just between, where each could see equally well and so
read a little in order that we might compose our minds for rest.

Chapter Sixteen

_Now snug, the camp--the candle-lamp,_
_Alighted stands between--_
_I follow "Alice" in her tramp_
_And you your "Folly Queen."_

Chapter Sixteen

In the matter of Eddie's reading, however, I was not wholly satisfied.
When we had been leaving the little hotel, he had asked me, suddenly,
what I would take for reading in the woods. He added that he