WOLVES. UPON the following morning the poor prisoners had so far recovered from their depression as to be able to plan with some spirit and pleasure for their future comfort. Jacques’s grandfather proposed that they should free the window from the snow which blocked it up, and the boy went to work with vigor, although it was still harder than making the path through the snow: there he was only obliged to throw it to one side and the other, from the window he must throw it upward, so as to afford ready entrance for the light. He would not suffer his grandfather to assist him, fearing he might, by doing so, endanger his precious health. Instead of digging a tunnel, he now had to bore a pit or shaft in the snow. The work progressed but slowly. By the evening of the first day he had, although working hard and steadily, accomplished so little that he could scarcely hope to finish entirely before three or four days at the least. Upon the next day he went to work with renewed energy, and shoveled away with a zeal in which all prudence was forgotten.
