"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!"