Graham confessed that he had been too tired and hungry to remember it, and after drawing it off with some trouble he spent a while in chafing his foot, which he afterward wrapped in a blanket. Then while the men sat silent a long howl came faintly down the bitter breeze.
"A timber wolf," said Carnally. "I saw some tracks this morning and the half-breed told me they'd had a number of the big gray fellows near the factory. They get pretty bold when there's no caribou about, and it's unlucky we haven't struck any caribou. It would help out the grub."
"Three men with a camp-fire going are safe enough," said Graham.
"Oh, yes," Carnally assented. "Still, a timber wolf is a beast I've no kind of use for in winter."
They lay down soon afterward, but Andrew heard the wolves again before he went to sleep. He was very cold when he awakened the next morning and found Carnally busy about the fire. There was no wind, the smoke went straight up, and the snow stretched back from the camp, glistening a faint silvery gray. The firs were very black but indistinct in the growing light.
"Get a move on; we should have been off long ago," Carnally said; and Andrew, rising with cramped limbs and sore shoulders, awkwardly set about rolling up his pack.
He shivered as he did so. The cold bit through him, his mittened hands would hardly bend, but he strapped up his bundle and helped Graham to put on his frozen moccasin. They were careful to hang up their footwear in a warm place at night, but the fire had sunk while they slept. Then they ate a hurried meal and struck out into the white wilderness as the light grew stronger. They made, by estimation, eighteen miles by nightfall, finding a creek and one or two small lakes over which traveling was easy, but most of the way led across hillocks of rounded rock and through tangles of tottering pines, where snow-shoes could not be used. Some of the trees had been partly burned, and others were slanted and distorted by the savage winds.
Toward the end of the march Graham dragged behind, and when they made camp he spent some time rubbing his foot.
"It feels dead," he told them. "I'm afraid I got it nipped a bit, but I don't think it's bad."
"See that you get your moccasin properly dry to-night," Carnally warned him.