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Our backs won't take so much as the sled, but the sled can't go loaded till there's snow on the ground, so the moment there is enough of it we'll set off. Before starting, hows'ever, I must go off and try for a deer, for men can't walk well on fish alone; and when I'm away you can be getting the snow-shoes repaired, and the sled-lashings overhauled. We will set about all that to-morrow."
At first Smoke and Shorty shoved and thrust and threw back. Then they used the butt of the dog-whip and their fists on the food-mad crowd. And all this against a background of moaning and wailing women and children. Here and there, in a dozen places, the sled-lashings were cut. Men crawled in on their bellies, regardless of a rain of kicks and blows, and tried to drag out the grub.
The trouble is," he lifted his glass and glanced at it, "the trouble is that suicide of this sort is so easy. I am soft and tender. The thought of the long day's travel with the dogs appalls me; the thought of the keen frost in the morning and of the frozen sled-lashings frightens me " Automatically the glass was creeping toward his lips.
Smoke pulled his snow-shoes from under the sled-lashings, bound them to his moccasined feet, and went to the fore to press and pack the light surface for the dogs. It was heavy work. Dogs and men had been for days on short rations, and few and limited were the reserves of energy they could call upon.
"Don't you?" said Davie in a tone of surprise; "now that is odd. One would have thought that a fellow who keeps his weather-eye so constantly open should know everything." "Don't chaff; boy, but lend a hand to undo the sled-lashings. I see that Mr Saunders is agoin' to anchor here for the night."
The dogs stood in the traces till they saw Shorty begin to undo the sled-lashings and Smoke attack the dead spruce with an ax; whereupon the animals dropped in the snow and curled into balls, the bush of each tail curved to cover four padded feet and an ice-rimmed muzzle. The men worked with the quickness of long practice.
"It's odd," he remarked; "they seems to ha' bin here for some time, and yit they've niver looked near the ship but once. Wot's become on 'em I don't know." "Don't you?" said Davie in a tone of surprise; "now that is odd. One would have thought that a fellow who keeps his weather-eye so constantly open should know everything." "Don't chaff, boy, but lend a hand to undo the sled-lashings.
Keesh had his best dogs in the harness, and shoved under the sled-lashings was his largest and finest pair of snow-shoes. "Where goest thou, O Keesh? Hunting?" Mr. Brown asked, falling into the Indian manner. Keesh looked him steadily in the eyes for a full minute, then started up his dogs. Then again, turning his deliberate gaze upon the missionary, he answered, "No; I go to hell."
A dozen pairs of hands were at the sled-lashings, when the young Le Barge Indian, bending at the same task, suddenly and limply straightened up. In his eyes was a great surprise. He stared about him wildly, for the thing he was undergoing was new to him. He was profoundly struck by an unguessed limitation.
At twelve o'clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; and then began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hours later, into night. It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped the rifle from under the sled-lashings and said: "You keep right on, Henry, I'm goin' to see what I can see." "You'd better stick by the sled," his partner protested.
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