CHAPTER XXIV
THE FACTORY
Light snow was driving across the waste before a savage wind when the party sat at breakfast one morning a fortnight after Blake had shot the caribou. They had spent the first two days enjoying a badly needed rest, but the rest of the time had been passed in forced marches which severely taxed their strength. Part of their way, however, had lain across open country, for they were near the northern edge of the timber belt, and the straggling trees, dwarfed and bent by the wind, ran east and west in a deeply indented line. In some places they boldly stretched out towards the Pole in long promontories; in others they fell back in wide bays which Blake, steering by compass, held straight across and afterwards again plunged into the scrub. Three days were spent in struggling through the broadest tongue, but as a rule, a few hours' arduous march brought them out into the open. Even there the ground was very rough and broken, and they were thankful for the numerous frozen creeks and lakes which provided an easier road.
Pushing on stubbornly, camping where they could find shelter and wood, since they could hardly have survived a night spent without a fire in the open, they had made, by calculation, two hundred miles, and Blake believed they might by a determined effort reach the Hudson's Bay post about nightfall. This was necessary since their strength was nearly exhausted, and provisions had run out, but an Indian trapper whom they had met two days before had given them directions and landmarks, some of which they recognized.
Day had broken, but there was little light and Blake, looking out from behind a slab of rock in the shelter of which a few junipers clung, thought that three or four miles would be the longest distance that he could see. This was peculiarly unfortunate, because he understood that their course led across a wide untimbered stretch, on the opposite side of which one or two isolated bluffs would indicate the neighbourhood of the factory. Disastrous consequences might follow the missing of these woods.
A pannikin of weak tea made from leaves which had already been once or twice infused stood among the embers, and by and by Benson, who was dividing the last of the meat, held up a piece.
"I had thought of saving this, but it hardly seems worth while," he said. "If we make the factory, we'll get a good supper."
"You don't mention what will happen if we miss it," Harding remarked with grim humour. "Anyhow, that piece of meat won't make much difference. What do you think, Blake?"
Blake forced a cheerful laugh. "Put it all in; we're going to make the post; as a matter of fact, we have to. How's the leg this morning?"