Dick was too cold to talk, but he made a dive for his cap, and held it in place over some of the excelsior, while shaking Dan miserably felt for another match. This time the tiny flame caught in the excelsior.
"It's a g-g-g-g-go!" chattered Dick.
"M-m-m-me for b-b-b-b-bed!" chattered Dan, racing back to his bunk in the starting light of the fire and diving in under the blankets.
But Dick Prescott stuck at his post. He saw the excelsior blaze briskly. Then the flames licked at the oil over the logs. Thirty seconds after that, and the cabin interior was fairly well lighted by the increasing blaze. Dick wouldn't go back to his bunk, but stood with his back as close as he dared to the fire. Yet the cold air was all around him, and, while his back baked the rest of his body was so cold that his teeth continued to play against each other in six eight time.
"Why don't you get back into bed?" called Tom Reade lazily from his warmth under blankets. But Dick stuck it out. When the first logs were a seething mass of ruddy fire Dick, now chattering less, brought more short logs and piled them on in place. The wind, that day, would take all the wood that was fed to the fire. Gradually Dick stopped chattering. At last he even felt comfortable.
"You fellows can get up now just as well as not," he announced.
Dan was the first to try it.
"Something like," he announced. That brought Dave Darrin out. One by one the other fellows followed—all except Hen.
"You don't catch me out of my bunk until breakfast is ready," announced young Dutcher.
Dick wheeled impatiently, at this hint, but Dave Darrin whispered in his ear: