Later, in the autumn when sharp winds told of a long winter ahead, they had cut squares of tough sod and piled them about the cabin until it seemed a sod house. When the question of a heating stove had arisen, they had discovered an abandoned gasoline barrel, had cut one hole for a door, another for the stove-pipe, had done a little drilling and riveting, and thus had made a stove that, fed on crackling fir logs, laughed at the Arctic cold.
“Pioneers!” he whispered. “We are pioneers.” How he loved that thought.
Of a sudden his attention was drawn from past to present by Johnny’s beckoning hand. With a quick twisting glide, he moved silently forward until he was at his companion’s side.
“Look,” Johnny gripped his arm. “There is the fox. He hasn’t started across yet and—”
“And there are the otters!” Lawrence broke in with a shrill whisper.
“Yes,” Johnny agreed. “That’s the queer part of it. They came just so close to the fox, then seemed to shout something at him.”
“Like one boy daring another to come out and fight,” Lawrence laughed low.
“Yes, or inviting him to a game of tag,” whispered Johnny. “And look! There he goes! There goes the fox! Good old otters! They are helping—helping a lot.”
He had spoken the truth, the fox was after one of the otters.
“Little good it will do him,” Lawrence chuckled. “Those otters are more at home on ice and in water than on land.”