“I don’t know whether you’re honest or not, or anything about you. You may be what you say you are. Now, if you want to accept a night’s lodging, it’s open to you, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow. James, show these boys to the men’s house.”
“You say you were wrong in calling us thieves?” insisted Paul.
“Perhaps I was. We won’t talk about it now,” and he turned to one of the desks to put an end to the discussion.
“We’ll take that for an apology,” said Paul, somewhat mollified. “Thank you.”
James, the clerk, introduced them to the men’s house, and presently they had their things under cover, secure from the now heavily falling snow, and ate their supper of cold roast lynx from their own larder, supplemented by a pot of hot tea generously donated by the half-breed Indian cook.
CHAPTER XIII
WINTER SHELTER AND HARD WORK
“Paul,” said Dan, after the half-breed cook who brought them the tea had returned to his preparation of supper, “you’re wonderful brave. I’m thinkin’ now you would have hit th’ master if I hadn’t been interferin’.”
“I’m afraid I would, and then he’d have pitched us both out,” admitted Paul. “It wasn’t because I was brave, though, but I was mad all through when he called us thieves. Think of it!”