"I reckon," said Campbell, coming up from behind, and grimacing frightfully as he spoke, while the ice shivered on his face with the effort, "this is not much of a picnic, is it?"
It was some minutes before I could reply, and while I strove to coax the muscles of my mouth to relax without doing serious injury to my features, Stewart's hoary visage shook itself clear of its icy sheath with a crackling, splintering sound, and his voice rang out—
"I see the Injun camp! Hurroo! D——!" The last expression was given in a most sorrowful tone as he felt the blood trickle on his cheeks and freeze into icy appendages.
"You've got to think a lot before speaking in this country," I sympathised, but he would not open his mouth again.
Rounding a bluff, we saw, nestling in the shadow of a great pine-forest, an array of mud huts and tepees covered with caribou skins. Many fires were blazing in the vicinity, fed lavishly with logs drawn from the wooded slope behind. A number of King James's subjects superintended operations with unmoved faces; it was a routine to which they had long become accustomed—for bear-fires were very necessary indeed in these parts; Bruin had not yet reconciled himself to his winter slumber, and, as I have noted, the Klondike valley was infested with various species of his kind.
With a sigh of thankfulness I signalled to Mac to draw up alongside the largest fire, and he needed no second bidding. A few moments more and we were all eagerly thawing ourselves before the blaze. Even the dogs crept as close as the burning logs allowed, and warmed their poor frozen bodies on all sides, turning continually, as if on a revolving toast-rack. From the most imposing hut now came rushing towards us King James, with numerous squaws; and while the King congratulated me effusively on my safe arrival, the squaws beamed coquettishly on my companions, who felt in no wise complimented by their attentions.
"They tak' us fur squaws, Stewart!" howled Mac, more in sorrow than in anger; then I heard them both with much deliberation calculate out the value of the Queen squaw's dress as she stood by them, speaking words of welcome in a tongue they could not understand.
"It's a rale guid beaver," I heard Mac say.
"An' what a bonny silver-tip cloak," burst in Stewart.
"An' the moccasins," continued the first speaker, "are faur ow'r guid fur an Injun tae wear."