CHAPTER X
BENSON GIVES TROUBLE
It was nearly dark when Blake and Harding led two packhorses through a thin spruce wood, with Benson lagging a short distance behind. They had spent some time crossing a wide stretch of rolling country, dotted with clumps of poplar and birch, which was still sparsely inhabited, and now they had reached the edge of the timber belt that cuts off the prairie from the desolate barrens. The spruces were gnarled and twisted by the wind, a number of them were dead, and many of the rest leaned unsymmetrically athwart each other. The straggling wood had no beauty and in the fading light wore a dreary, forbidding look. Fortunately, however, it was thin enough for the travellers to pick their way among the fallen branches and patches of muskeg, for the ground was marsh and their feet sank among the withered needles.
By and by Blake checked his pony and waited until Benson came up. The man moved with a slack heaviness and his face was worn and tense. He was tired with the journey, for excess had weakened him, and now the lust for drink which he had stubbornly fought against had grown overwhelming.
"I can go no faster. Push on and I'll follow your tracks," he said in a surly tone. "It takes time to get into condition, and I haven't walked much for several years."
"Neither have I," Harding answered cheerfully "I'm more used to riding in elevators and the street cars, but this sort of thing soon makes you fit."
"You're not troubled with my complaint," Benson rejoined, and when Blake started the pony deliberately dropped behind.
"He's in a black mood; we'll leave him to himself," Harding remarked. "So far he's braced up better than I expected, but when a man's been tanking steadily, it's pretty drastic to put him through the total deprivation cure."
"I wonder," Blake said thoughtfully, "whether it is a cure; we have both seen men who made some effort to save themselves go down. Though I'm a long way from being a philanthropist, I hate this waste of good material. Perhaps it's partly an economic objection, because I used to get savage in India when any of the Tommies' lives were thrown away by careless handling."
"It was your soldiers' business to be made use of, wasn't it?"