The ashes of many fires half filling the box met his eyes with silent reproach.

"Say, the Doc ain't fair," he muttered again.

"Them ashes ought to have been out of there long ago." This fact none knew better than himself, inasmuch as there was no other from whom this duty might properly be expected.

Yet it brought some small relief to vent his disgust upon this offending accumulation of many days' neglect.

There was not a moment to lose.