"Tell the old gentleman to keep his shirt on," he said. "They're no great loss. It means that we'll all have to carry a little more across the portage, that's all."
After breakfast the tents were taken down and stored with the last of the camp impedimenta in the cache. When everything had been put inside, the door was fastened with a hasp and staple removed from one of the boxes, and Jack pocketed the key. The loads were then apportioned and packed, a long job when six of the eight were totally inexperienced. Sir Bryson was still looking over his shoulder apprehensively. At eleven o'clock they finally set out.
It was a quaintly assorted little procession that wound in single file along the firmly beaten brown trail through the willow scrub and among the white-stemmed poplars. There was a lieutenant-governor carrying a pack, and striving ineffectually to maintain his dignity under it; and there was his daughter likewise with a blanket strapped on her shoulders, and an olive-wood jewel-case in her hand, with a gold clasp. Jack smiled a little grimly at the idea of a jewel-case being toted through the bush.
Everybody carried a pack conformable to his strength. Since the two women and Sir Bryson could take so little, the others were fairly well laden. Jean Paul at the head, and Jack bringing up the rear, toted the lion's share. Besides blankets, the outfit consisted of food sufficient for five days, cooking and eating utensils, guns, ammunition, and axes. Jack had a coil of light rope to aid in building his raft.
Jack put Vassall next behind Jean Paul, with a word in his ear to watch the half-breed. Jack felt, somehow, that no serious harm was likely to befall Garrod so long as he had Jean Paul safely under his eye. After Vassall the others strung along the trail, with Humpy Jull, the oddest figure of all, marching in front of Jack, looking like an animated tinware shop with his pots and pans hanging all over him.
They started in good enough spirits, for the sun was shining, and the packs felt of no weight at all. But on the little hills their legs inexplicably caved in; their breath failed them, and the burdens suddenly increased enormously in weight. It was a long time since hard labour had caused Sir Bryson to perspire, and the novel sensation afforded him both discomfort and indignation. Two miles an hour was the best they could do, counting in frequent pauses for rest. The twelve miles stretched out into an all-day affair.
Once, toward the end of the afternoon, they came to the bank of a small stream, and throwing off their burdens, cast themselves down in the grass beside it, all alike and equal in their weariness. Sir Bryson was no longer a knight and a governor, but only the smallest man of the party, rather pathetic in his fatigue. They were too tired to talk; only Jack moved about restlessly. The slowness of the pace had tired him more than the seventy-five pounds he carried.
As Jack passed near Kate and Linda the latter said petulantly: "I'm tired, Jack. I want to talk to you."
Jack's heart sank, but nothing of it showed in his face. The little thing's look of appeal always reproached him. To a man of his type there is something shameful and wrong in not being able to give a woman more than she looks for. "Lord! it's not her fault," he would tell himself; and "As long as I'm going through with it, I must make a good job of it!" So he plumped down beside her.
"Go as far as you like," he said with a kind of hang-dog facetiousness. "Everybody can see, and Mrs. Worsley is standing guard."