them within. He kept thinking that they must vanish from his sight even as he held them and wished earnestly that Dick were not asleep that he might ask him whether he saw them too. It seemed too bad to wake him if the gifts did not turn out to be real. Yet the food remained very solid and genuine in his hands, even while he was preparing it for cooking and cutting off a venison steak. It afforded presently a perfume more delicious than all the sweets of Araby, when at last the meat began to broil. Nicholas lay with his nose almost in the fire, his eyes never moving from the feast as Hugh turned it over and over before the blaze.
“You are going to have the first one,” said Hugh. “You deserve it if ever a dog did. You are the only one of the three of us that has not grumbled.”
The second steak was nearly ready, flapjacks were browning in the pan and the beans had been buried in the coals to bake for another meal, when Dick awoke. Hugh laughed delightedly at the sight of him, sitting bolt upright among the blan-
