“You know we will only use two matches a day after we leave here—one match to start our fire at noon and at night. There will be coals from the night next morning to cook our breakfast by. It’s a mark of bad woodsmanship to have to use more than one match to start a fire, no matter what kind of weather is going.”
“But how about your pipe?” Larry asked. For the old man smoked almost continually during his waking hours.
Old Martin sighed and shook his head. “No more pipe for me after we leave here,” he said, with a little laugh. “The weight in pemmican that I’ll take instead of the tobacco may be just the amount that will decide the question of our getting through alive. Smoking isn’t a necessity, but eating is.”
Larry looked at the old man to see if he were not joking; but he saw that he was thoroughly in earnest. It made the boy realize the serious nature of the task before them to know that the old man was going to sacrifice the greatest solace of his life. But it roused his determination, and his spirits were too buoyant to be long depressed.
All day long Martin kept him busy helping at various things that must be completed before their departure. The toboggans were hauled into the canvas enclosure, where he and the old man packed and unpacked the loads, adding something here, or leaving out something there, working in the glow of the warm fire. Dog harnesses had to be altered and extra ones tucked away on the sleds, snow-shoe lacings examined and re-lashed, and a dozen things attended to that Larry recognized as important when Martin pointed them out. The fire, too, needed considerable tending to keep a huge kettle of beans cooking which Martin declared must simmer all day if they were to be cooked properly.
Toward night the wind subsided, and the clouds cleared away, so that by the time they had finished their heaping plates of pork and beans the stars were out glistening like steel points in the frosty air. Later in the evening they heard howling in the distance—terrifying sounds to the boy, made by a pack of big timber wolves out on a hunt, as Martin explained. And for fear the dogs might start an independent wolf hunt on their own account, Martin tied up the big malamoots after he had fed them.
During the day Martin had brought several armfuls of packages into the tent from the stores under the tarpaulin as he went back and forth at his work. Now that supper was over and the dishes cleaned he lighted his pipe and and seated himself beside the packages. He was always talkative when working by the evening fire, and seemed to find great pleasure in imparting bits of information to the boy from his inexhaustible store of woodland experiences.
To-night as he began fumbling among the packages, he asked:
“Larry, have you decided what you are going to carry in your ditty bag?”
“Ditty bag?” Larry repeated; “I’d know better what I was going to carry in it if I knew what a ‘ditty bag’ was.”