Noonan pulled Cleaver’s head down to him, whispering:
“You’ve seen hungry dogs up here chewin’ the rawhide lashings off sleds, ain’t you? You’ve seen ’em eatin’ the sides outa skin houses, an’ gnawin’ old sealskin boots? Sure. Well, now they’re changin’ the diet; goin’ to scoff our old skin boat.”
Cleaver’s right hand jerked back toward his revolver holster, but before it reached the weapon Tim’s fingers fastened on his wrist.
“Not yet! Not yet!” Tim Noonan urged. “See the whole show. Comic’s comin’. Savvy what it is, Dick? We’ve given the king’s word that there’ll be red meat for the sick Esks in the mornin’ an’ Scarth has passed the talk around that there won’t be any. If there ain’t no meat our name is mud, frozen mud at that. An’ how the heck can we get walrus without a boat?”
Cleaver glared down at the constable’s grinning face. What was he repeating that for, and why the blazes was he so happy about it?
The sergeant wrenched his hand free, thrusting the revolver forward. At the same moment a low oath sounded from one of the two men, and Cleaver’s trigger finger relaxed.
Scarth tugged the lines off the dogs he was leading, kicking one of the starving brutes toward the walrus hide covering the oomiak. But instead of rushing forward and tearing at the skin the dog squatted on the shingle, staring up at its master. Three more of the released huskies lay down and curled up for immediate sleep. Some of the others commenced to wander along the beach. None of the animals took the least notice of the skin boat.
Scarth’s rumbled cursing and the halfbreed’s clucking sounded dimly in the sergeant’s ears as he rolled over to stare in amazement at the bursting Noonan.
“Oh, my fat sides,” Tim groaned. “Seventeen dried fish, eleven tins of bully beef, five lumps of tallow, an’ a chunk of pemmican as big as a battleship. An’ they polished off the whole works. An’ now Scarth’s offerin’ ’em a dried up old walrus skin for dessert. A dog’s life, that’s what it is.”