The position was one of great strain and responsibility for a youth whose powers of endurance and of organization had never yet been put to so severe a test. But it is in circumstances of difficulty and danger that a man shows of what stuff he is made, and the manner in which Bob braced himself to his task won a good deal of admiration from the ladies. Though his sunken eyes and lined face showed how severely he was being tried, he was always cheery, always hopeful, keeping his anxieties to himself, and ever ready with plausible reasons why his companions should not despair. Mrs. Pottle sang his praises all day long to Ethel, and Ethel listened and said little. Next morning Mrs. Pottle, who had taken charge of Ah-Sam’s stock of grain-food, reported that it was coming to an end. The tea would last perhaps for two days, she said; but there was no fuel save what could be got by breaking up Ah-Sam’s cart. Mrs. Pottle, in spite of herself, was evidently hankering after something more substantial than rice. She began to drop hints. Mules and oxen were both four-footed, she said; there was a great deal in custom; after all, one couldn’t say unless one tried; and so on. Ethel only shuddered. But one mule would not last for ever. What could be done? It seemed to Bob that they must all either starve or submit. More than once during the day he went through the cavern to the farther end, and anxiously scanned the limited horizon—with no defined purpose or expectation of help, for from that direction help could only come to the Russians. He was surprised, indeed, that the enemy had not already been reinforced. The Cossack who had ridden up on the morning of his discovery of the bear had no doubt carried instructions from head-quarters. The only conclusion to be drawn was that the Russians were too fully occupied with the Japanese on the farther bank of the Yalu to spare troops for the purpose of wiping out a band of Chunchuses. The Cossack captain, however, had clearly received orders to keep his quarry cornered, either until he starved them out, or until a further force could be sent to his assistance. Such a force might arrive at any moment.