“You’re some ga’nted up,” Uncle Bill commented as he eyed him critically. “Don’t hardly look as though you’d winter.”
The shadow of a smile crossed Bruce’s dark face.
“Toy and I proved just about the length of time a man can go without eating, and live.”
“You made it then? You got to Toy—he’s all right?”
“Yes,” briefly, “but none too soon. The snow had broken the tent down, so we made it over the ridge to an old tunnel . . . I killed a porcupine but we ran out of matches and there was no dry wood or sticks to make a fire.”
“I et raw wolf onct in Alasky,” Yankee Sam interjected reminiscently. “’Tain’t a dish you’d call for in a restauraw, and I reckon procupine’s got much the same flavor of damp dog. How did you get the Chinaman down?”
“I rigged up a travois when he could travel and hauled him to the cabin, where’s he’s waiting now. We are nearly out of grub, so I had to come.”
Of the fierce hunger, the wearing, unceasing fight against Arctic cold, and, when weakened and exhausted by both, the dumb, instinctive struggle for life against the combination, Bruce said nothing; but in a dozen commonplace sentences described physical sufferings sufficient for a lifetime—which is the western way.
He walked to the desk, where the gifted tenor, clerk and post-master stood pleased and expectant, pen in hand, waiting for him to register.
“Is there any mail for me?” He tried to speak casually but, to himself the eager note in his voice seemed to shriek and vibrate. Making every allowance for delays and changed addresses he had calculated that by now he should have an answer from Slim’s mother or sister. He did not realize how positively he had counted on a letter until the clerk shook his head.