"From Sweetwater, but we have been up in the timber belt since winter set in. Now we have run out of provisions and my partner's lamed by snowshoe trouble."
"Ay," said the other, "I suspected something o' the kind. But maybe ye'll be wanting supper?"
"I believe, if we were put to it, we could eat half a caribou," Benson told him with a grin.
"It's no to be had," the Scot answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "I can give ye a good thick bannock and some whitefish. Our stores are no so plentiful the now."
They took off their furs and glanced about the place while their host was busy at the stove. The room was large, its walls of narrow logs chinked with clay and moss. Guns and steel traps hung upon them, the floor was made of uneven boards which had obviously been split in the nearest bluff, and the furniture was of the simplest and rudest description. It had, however, an air of supreme comfort to the famishing newcomers, and after the first few minutes they found it delightfully warm. They ate the food given them ravenously and afterwards the agent brought Harding some warm water and examined his leg.
"Ye'll no walk far for a while I'm thinking," he remarked. "Rest it on the chair here and sit ye still."
Harding was glad to comply and lighting their pipes they began to talk. Their host, who told them his name was Robertson, was a rather hard-featured man of middle age.
"I'm all my lone; my clerk's away with the breeds at the Swan lake," he said. "Where are ye making for?"
"For the south," said Blake. "We came here for shelter, badly tired, and want to hire a dog team and a half-breed guide if possible, as soon as my partner's fit to travel. Then we want provisions."
"I'm afraid I cannot supply ye. Our stores are low—we got few fish and caribou the year, and we have not a team to spare."