The child considered deeply. Then his face brightened hopefully.
"Bimeby us digs, Uncle Steve," he said. "Boy likes digging."
Steve held out a hand and Marcel yielded his.
"Boy'll help 'Uncle Steve,' eh?"
"I's always help Uncle Steve."
The spontaneity of the assurance remained unanswerable.
Steve glanced back into the enclosure. Then his hand tightened upon the boy's with gentle pressure.
"Come on, old fellow. We'll get along in, and make that stove, and—wish it wouldn't."
He led the way back to the house.
The snowfall grew in weight and density. Silent, still, the world of Unaga seemed to have lost all semblance of life. White, white, eternal white, and above the heavy grey of an overburdened sky. Solitude, loneliness, desperately complete. It was the silence which well nigh drives the human brain to madness. From minutes to hours; from inches to feet. Day and night. Day and night. Snow, snow all the time, till the tally of days grew, and the weeks slowly passed. It almost seemed as if Nature, in her shame, were seeking to hide up the sight of her own creation.