Ben struggled over the mouthfuls. The meat lay heavy in him, threatening nausea; that passed. He accepted a final wave of darkness--not true darkness, simply a voluntary closing of the eyes. Certainly not unconsciousness, because he could feel Reuben wrapping some cloth around his legs. He wondered what it was, the curiosity not powerful enough to raise his ponderous eyelids. Later he heard Reuben speak--close to his ear maybe; surely not far away, or the words could not have reached him with that sweetness and clarity: "_Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me._" * * * * * The wolves came that night, not with howling but in silence. Through the afternoon, under the long patient drive of snow, Reuben had gone out after more dead wood whenever Ben seemed quiet in his sleep. He had struggled with Ben's tinderbox to the edge of despair, and won a flame at last, the fire then leaping bravely and settling to steadiness under the endless slanting white, the smoke pushed away from the opening of the lean-to by a faint breeze out of the west. When he had gathered all the firewood he could find without going beyond reach of Ben's voice, Reuben used the stolen kitchen knife to hack off a green ash sapling and trim it to a six-foot spear. He was wearing Ben's knife now at his belt, but was unwilling to employ it in such labor--besides, the tedious task of trimming and whittling disposed of much time when there was nothing else to do and he knew it might be dangerous to think. All afternoon he heard only the crackle of his fire, the sustained mild hiss of the snow, and the small sounds of Ben's troubled slumber. His mind heard the wolves, knowing they would come. The hunter-builder had chosen this location cleverly. Thick brambles and a looping confusion of wild grape covered the high bank above the lean-to; a beast could squirm through it, no doubt, but probably would not try, and surely would not jump down from it so long as someone tended a fire below. This fair security in the rear left only a half-circle of territory that needed watching. At the western end of that little arc, where the lean-to itself shut off his view if he sat by the opening, Reuben laid ready a stack of dead wood mixed with evergreen branches. It would be a moment's work to carry a brand to that pile, sending it up in a fine blaze to guard the blind spot. The wolves would not like that.