“Lots of it,” he cried. “Who’s with me?”
“Better wait a while,” Bobby counseled. “Maybe Mrs. Eskimo wants the stew for dinner. Anyway, I had enough last night. I’d like a change of diet this morning.”
“My, listen to him!” exclaimed Fred, grinning. “Ain’t he fussy? Say, what do you think this is, Bobby? A hotel or something?”
“Maybe our friends won’t come back at all,” ventured Mouser. “And then I bet we’d be pretty glad to eat stew.”
But he had hardly finished speaking when the Eskimo woman arrived.
She came in attired just as she had left the night before, and the boys wondered if she had slept that way all night.
She grinned good-naturedly and went about the business of preparing breakfast as though she were used to having four strange boys as visitors every day of the week.
The boys watched her admiringly as she prepared meal and cut bread in thick slabs for the table. They hung about her eager to help, and her perpetual grin widened as she gave them various small chores to do. She had on hand some provisions brought from the trading station.
When the breakfast was almost ready the two Eskimo men came in, completing the party. They brought with them many things from the longboat.
When the boys, having satisfied their ravenous appetites, tried to thank the Eskimos for their timely help, the latter looked so painfully embarrassed and ill at ease that the boys had to stop.