He put his coat and hat on and took the coal pail. Tim silently handed him the flashlight. Mac went out the door and down the hall, while Tim stared into the fire.
Mac did not stay out long, and when he got back he rubbed his hands. “Man alive, but it is cold! Say, the boys have no lantern with them, have they?”
“No, only a flashlight.”
“They couldn’t keep a lantern going, anyway, on a windy night like this.”
Silence again fell between them, and at last it was seven o’clock. Tim looked around the room and then got up. They had put the lamp out and had been sitting in the light of the fire.
“Mac, they aren’t coming, so you and I had better eat something. I know you don’t feel much like eating, and neither do I, but it will do us good to pack something solid away inside of us.”
“I never felt less like eating,” growled Mac.
“I know it. I realize just now how you feel. But we might need our strength later on, and we can do more for the boys on a full stomach than we ever could on an empty one.”
“You’re right,” his brother nodded. “If we only knew something! It is the uncertainty that makes it all so hard.”
Once more they warmed the beans and coffee, and when the food had been placed on their plates and the beverage in the cups, they began to eat. It was a hasty and a silent meal, for they were oppressed, and neither of them possessed any appetite to speak of. The two empty places at the table haunted them, and they found it hard to keep various alarming thoughts out of their heads.