"Nonsense!" said Mac, with forced cheerfulness. "We were in a far worse fix last winter, and we came out on top."
"The first thing to do is to have some grub," added Horace. "Then we'll talk about it."
Looking with calculating eyes at the lump of meat, he cut the slices of venison very thin. There was about twenty pounds left. They roasted the meat he had cut off, and ate it; then Horace unfolded his pocket map and spread it on the ground.
They were probably forty miles from the Height of Land. It was twelve miles across the long carry, and at least forty more to the nearest inhabited point—almost a hundred miles in all. There was a chance, however, that they might meet some party of prospectors or Indians.
"It's terribly rough traveling afoot," said Horace. "We could hardly make it in less than two weeks. Besides, our shoes are nearly gone now."
"And that piece of venison will never last us for two weeks!" cried Macgregor.
"Oh, you can often knock down a partridge with a stick," said Horace.
"If we only had a canoe!" Mac exclaimed, with a burst of rage. "I'd run those thieves down if I had to follow them to Hudson Bay!"
They all agreed on that point, but it was useless to think of following them without a canoe. The boys would have all they could do to save their own lives; a hundred-mile journey on foot across that wilderness, without arms and with almost no provisions, was a desperate undertaking.
"Well, we've got no choice," said Horace, after a dismal silence. "We must put ourselves on rations of about half a pound of meat a day, and we'll lay a bee-line course by the compass for the trail over the Height of Land."