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The Boy, who was last, held the door open. Mac shook his head. It wasn't one of the bitter nights; they'd get down yonder, and talk by the fire, till he went in and disturbed them. That was all he had wanted. For Mac was the only one who had noticed that Kaviak had waked up. He was lying as still as a mouse.
Whereupon he made a stately circular bow, which ended by his offering Kaviak his hand, in the manner of one who executes a figure in an old-fashioned dance. The smallest of "Our Visitors," still keeping hold of Mac, presented the Colonel with the disengaged half-yard of flannel undershirt on the other side, and the speech went on, very flowery, very hospitable, very Kentuckian.
Tell me the river's hard as iron and the snow's up to the windah? Don' b'lieve a wo'd of it. We're on some plantation, Boy, down South, in the niggah quawtaws." The Boy was turning back the covers, and balancing a moment on the side of the bunk. "Sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta " "Great Caesar's ghost!" He jumped up, and stood staring down at the sleeping Kaviak. "Ah a didn't you know?
The Boy had hoped to go to Pymeut the next day, but his feet refused to carry him. Mac took a diagram and special directions, and went after the rest of elephas, conveying the few clumsy relics home, bit by bit, with a devotion worthy of a pious pilgrim. For three days the Boy growled and played games with Kaviak, going about at first chiefly on hands and knees.
Only Kaviak seemed likely to come unscathed through the ordeal of the winter's captivity; only he could take the best place at the fire, the best morsel at dinner, and not stir angry passions; only he dared rouse Mac when the Nova Scotian fell into one of his bear-with-a-sore-head moods.
O'Flynn began a ditty about the Widdy Malone that woke up Kaviak and made him rub his round eyes with astonishment. He sat up, and hung on to the back of Mac's coat to make sure he had some anchorage in the strange new waters he had so suddenly been called on to navigate.
The Colonel wrote up his journal, and read the midsummer magazines and Byron, in the face of Mac's "I do not like Byron's thought; I do not consider him healthy or instructive." In one of his more energetic moods the Colonel made a four-footed cricket for Kaviak, who preferred it to the high stool, and always sat on it except at meals.
"And you get hungry in the early morning?" Yes, he would go so far as to admit that he did. "You go skylarkin' about, and you remember the syrup can! And you get hold of it didn't you?" "To-malla." "You mean yesterday this morning?" "Sh!" Kaviak blinked. "Wait and think. Yesterday this was full. You remember Mac opened it for you?" Kaviak nodded.
"What's up? You don't know what this is." "Huh! Nicholas know plenty well. Nicholas no touch bones of dead devils." This view of the "fossle" so delighted the company that, acting on a sudden impulse, they pushed the punch-bowl out of the way, and, with a whoop, hoisted the huge thing on the table. Then the Boy seized the whimpering Kaviak, and set him high on the throne.
Mac wheeled round sharply. "Here?" "He didn't come back here for his dinner?" "Haven't seen him since you took him out." Mac made for the door. The Boy followed. "Kaviak!" each called in turn. It was quite light enough to see if he were anywhere about, although the watery sun had sunk full half an hour before. The fantastically huge full-moon hung like a copper shield on a steel-blue wall.
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