"Grub. Bacon, hardtack, tea, cold boiled beans. Why, I never thought of it, but you must all be as hungry as wolves. Well, there's enough for a square meal here, anyhow, and to-morrow we'll find some way of getting those rascals out of the camp."
They built up the camp-fire, and Horace got out his provisions, together with a couple of partridges he had shot late that afternoon. But Macgregor, as medical adviser, refused to let them eat as much as they wanted. A little tea and a few mouthfuls of meat were all he permitted them to have; he promised, however, that they should have a full meal in a couple of hours. He took the same ration himself; but Horace ate heartily.
"But where have you been since you left the cabin?" Fred asked.
"At a lumber camp on the Abitibi, about forty miles from here," Horace replied. "I've been convalescing."
"If we'd only known that there was anything of the sort so near," remarked Peter, "we'd have made for it ourselves."
"I stumbled on it by chance. However, I'd better explain in detail. As you seem to have heard, I came sick to this trappers' shack. I'd been in an Indian camp a week before, on the Nottaway River, where they had had smallpox, but I've been vaccinated four or five times, and never dreamed of danger. I didn't know what the matter with me was, in fact, till the red spots began to appear.
"Of course the trappers were badly scared, especially after one of them caught the disease and died. I can't tell you how sorry I was for that death. I suppose I wasn't to blame, but I felt somehow responsible.
"The Indian cleared out, and I couldn't blame him. But I couldn't afford to let the third man go. I was over the worst of it by that time, but I was as weak as a kitten, and could hardly feed myself. If he'd deserted me I should have died. I offered him any sum of money if he would stick to me, and told him that I'd shoot him if I saw any sign of his making off.
"I couldn't have aimed straight enough to hit him at a yard just then, and I suppose he knew it. Anyhow, he disappeared one morning before I was awake. He didn't take much with him except his gun and ammunition.
"I was gaining strength fast, and I was able to stagger about a little. I could get water, and there was some grub in the shack. I knew that I must get out at once, lest snow should come. I stayed four days; then I took what grub I could carry, my rifle and a dozen cartridges, and started. I left all my specimens, notebooks and everything, for I didn't dare to carry an ounce more than I could help."