"Yes, it's somewhe'h. But how many thousan' of these creeks, all jest alike, do yo' reckon they is? An' how about grub?"
"I hate to kill a dog," the boy said.
"So do I, but the rest has got to eat. I know them wolf-dawgs; onct they get good an' hongry they'll begin tearin' one another up—then they'll lay fo' us—folks is meat, too, yo' know."
Night overtook them on a small wooded plateau and they camped in the shelter of a dense thicket of larch and stunted spruce. At the very edge of the thicket was a low white mound, its crown rising some three or four feet above the surrounding level. The sleds were drawn up at the foot of this mound, the dogs unharnessed, and, unslinging his axe, Waseche Bill went to the thicket for firewood, leaving Connie to unpack the outfit. The boy noted as he spread the robes that the mound was singularly regular, about twelve feet in diameter at the base and having evenly rounded sides—entirely different from the irregular ridges and spurs of the foothills.
"You're a funny little foothill," he murmured, "way off by yourself. You look lonesome. Maybe you're lost, too—in the big, white Lillimuit."
Waseche returned with the wood and lighted the fire while Connie tossed the last of the fish to the dogs. Supper was finished in silence, the fire replenished, and the two partners lay back on the robes and watched the little red sparks shower upward from among the crackling flames.
"We ain't the first that's camped heah," remarked Waseche, between noisy puffs at his pipe. "Yondeh in the thicket is stubs wheah fiahwood's be'n chopped—an' one place wheah consid'able poles has be'n cut. The axe mawks is weatheh-checked, showin' they was cut green. But it wasn't done this yeah—an' me'be not last."
"I wonder who it was? And what became of them? What did they want with poles?"
"Built a cache, me'be—mout of be'n a sled—but mo'n likely a cache. We'll projec' around a bit in the mo'nin'. Me'be we c'n find out who they was, an' wheah they was headin'. Me'be they'll be a trail map to some cache befo' this or to the divide."
"I hope we will find a cache. Then we wouldn't have to kill a dog."