"It would take you two weeks to float down," cried Ambrose. "I have only thirty pounds of flour."
Alexander shrugged. "We ongry, anyway," he said. "We lak be ongry on the way."
Ambrose swore savagely under his breath. This was nearly hopeless. He strode up and down, thrashing his brains for a solution.
Alexander, squatting on his heels, waited apathetically for the verdict. He had shifted his burden to the white man.
"Where is your family?" demanded Ambrose.
Alexander looked over his shoulder and spoke a word in Cree. Instantly four heads appeared over the edge of the bank. Job barked once in startled and indignant protest, and went to Ambrose's heels.
Ambrose could not forbear a start of laughter at the suddenness of the apparition. It was like the genii in a pantomime bobbing up through the trapdoors.
"Come down," he said.
A distressful little procession faced him; they were gaunt, ragged, appallingly dirty, and terrified almost into a state of idiocy. First came the mother, a travesty of womanhood, dehumanized except for her tragic, terrified eyes.
A boy of sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he carried the baby in a sling on his back. Two timorous little girls came last.