"There," said the hunter, in the self-congratulatory tone of a man who knows he has got over an awkward piece of business; "let him have his dogs, and give him a cup of tea, and he'll be himself again by the morning."
"Ready for the same game?" asked Batiste, who was presiding over the tea-kettle.
The cup which Mathurin recommended was poured out; the sugar was not spared. Wilfred drank it gladly without speaking. When words were useless silence seemed golden. Yula was on guard beside him, and poor little Kusky, cowed and cringing, was shivering at his feet. They covered him up, and all he had seen and heard seemed as unreal as his dreams.
The now familiar cry of "Lève! lève!" made Yula sit upright. The hunters were astir before the dawn, but Wilfred was left undisturbed for another hour at least, until the rubeiboo was ready—that is, pemmican boiled in water until it makes a sort of soup. Pemmican, as Mr. De Brunier had said, was the hunters' favourite food.
"Now for the best of the breakfast for the lame and tame," laughed Batiste, pulling up Wilfred, and looking at his disfiguring bruises with a whistle.
Wilfred shrank from the prospect before him. Another day of bitter biting cold, and merciless cruelty to his poor dogs. "Oh, if Gaspé knew!—if Kusky could but have run back home!"
Wilfred could not eat much. He gave his breakfast to his dogs, and fondled them in silence. It was enough to make a fellow's blood boil to be called Mathurin's babby, l'enfant endormi (sleepy child), and Pierre the pretty face.
"Can we be such stoics, Yula," he whispered, "as to stand all this another twenty-four hours, and see our poor little Kusky beaten right and left? Can we bear it till to-morrow morning?"
Yula washed the nervous fingers stroking his hair out of his eyes, and looked the picture of patient endurance. There was no escape, but it could not last long. Wilfred set his teeth, and asserted no one but himself should put the harness on his dogs.
"Gently, my little turkey-cock," put in Mathurin. "The puppy may be your own, but the stray belongs to a friend of mine, who will be glad enough to see him back again."