"Awake, Ross?" came from the bunk. "I’m so tired I haven’t dropped off yet and, besides–say, Ross, here I am and there’s dad waiting for me to turn up with that missing five hundred–and then your claims–we’re not exactly in luck, are we? I feel as though I’d like to get my hands on that Weston-Miller fellow’s throat."
"There’s one thing I can do, though–study," muttered Ross. "That I’ve got to hold myself to."
Conversation languished then, and both boys fell asleep, Ross’s last thought being of Weimer watching for their return in the lonely valley of Meadow Creek.
By daylight the following morning the two were up, full of plans for living and doing during the long months of their imprisonment.
"There are some nails, but no hammer," said Ross. "But we can drive ’em with a stick of wood and fix up another bunk out of these two boxes. They’re the longest, and I think they’ll fill the bill for my five feet ten. Then we’ll divide the straw and the blankets, and by keeping up the fire all night, I guess we won’t freeze to death."
On the floor in the corner back of the stove they built the bunk. There were not nails enough nor were the boxes strong enough to allow of making a substantial bunk such as the owner of the shack had built against the side logs.
Until the bunk was completed, Leslie, while working docilely enough under the older boy’s direction, regarded the more comfortable bunk as his permanent possession. He had never been taught to be unselfish. He had from his motherless childhood demanded what he wished and received it until the question arose of his continued attendance in school. There he had taken the course he wished and was now paying for it dearly. It was not until he was dividing the straw in his bunk and had come across Ross’s watch and pocketbook that the idea smote him hard that the other had vacated the easier bunk in a wordless generosity that he, Leslie, had never practiced, and that he had not even thanked the bunk’s former occupant.
"See here, Ross," he began brusquely, "you needn’t think that you’re going to rest your old bones in the new bunk all the time, for you ain’t! I shall try it myself half the time."
"Week and week about, then," Ross agreed. "And this brings us up against a calendar. I brought my watch, thank fortune! But what about a calendar? I want to be sure that I know when the 4th of July gets here, for Steele says you’d never know it except by the calendar, there’s so much snow."
"Snow!" groaned Leslie. "Snow! There’s never a time when there isn’t snow in these mountains, it seems. Well, I know what day to-morrow is, and–have you a pencil?"