"Where's Hubbard?"
"Dead," I said. "Dead of starvation eighty miles from here."
Mark Blake, a breed but not related to Donald, took charge of George, and as Mackenzie and I walked to the post house, I gave him a brief account of Hubbard's death and my rescue. He had been warmly attracted to Hubbard, and his big heart was touched. I saw him hastily brush away a tear. Taking me into the kitchen, he instructed his little housekeeper, Lillie Blake, Mark's niece, to give me a cup of cocoa and some soda biscuit and butter, while he made a fire in the dining-room stove. Lillie cried all the time she was preparing my lunch.
"I feels so sorry for you, sir," she said. "An' 'tis dreadful th' poor man's starvin', an' he were such a pretty man. In th' summer I says, before you went t' th' bush, sir, he's sure a pretty man. 'Tis wonderful sad, 'tis wonderful sad t' have he die so."
Oh, that pleasant kitchen, with the floor and all the woodwork scrubbed white and the rows of shining utensils on the shelves! And the comfort of the great wood-burning stove roaring out a tune to us on that frosty winter evening! As I sat there sipping the deliciously rich cocoa, Mackenzie joined me, and while Lillie cooked the dinner I must tell him over and over again my story. And in spite of herself the tender-hearted little housekeeper would cry and cry.
The dinner, which consisted of grouse, potatoes, marmalade, bread, and tea, was served in the dining room, which was also the living room. Mackenzie sat at the head of the table, I at the foot, and on a lounge to one side sat Atikamish, a small Mountaineer Indian hunting dog, gravely alert for the bones his master would occasionally toss to him. Atikamish had very good table manners. He caught the bones neatly and deftly, and he invariably chewed them up without leaving his seat or changing his position. My appetite was returning, and I ate well; but it was fully two weeks before I could eat without experiencing distress later. When that blessed time arrived, I never could get enough; Lillie was always pressing me to eat, and for a time I had at least six meals a day.
After dinner Mackenzie got Mark Blake to cut my hair and shave off my beard. Then he took me to my room upstairs, where a stove was crackling out a welcome and a big tub of warm water had been prepared for me. After my bath, he again came up to rub my legs, which were much swollen from frostbite, and to dress my foot with salve. In a suit of Mackenzie's flannel pajamas I then went to my soft bed, and lay snug and warm under the blankets. It was the first real bed I had lain in for nearly four months, and oh, the luxury of it!
It is impossible for me to express the gratitude I feel towards those good friends. They nursed me with the tenderest care. Mackenzie's big Scotch heart and the woman's sympathetic instinct of the little housekeeper anticipated my every want, and he and she never could seem to satisfy themselves with doing things for my comfort. When I left the post with Hubbard I weighed 170 pounds; a week after my return I weighed ninety-five. But with the care they took of me my general health was soon restored, and I rapidly put on flesh.
My difficulties, however, were not yet ended. Hubbard's body was still to be recovered from the wild and repatriated, and during the long months that ensued before it could be reached I lived in constant dread lest it should be destroyed by animals, until at length the dread amounted almost to an obsession. Moreover, the gangrene in my foot became worse, and if it had not been for the opportune arrival in that dreary land of an unfortunate young medical student, it in all likelihood would have killed me.