"We geet hot coffee an' a bite an' den we start, eh?"
"So say we all of us," Jack sang.
Their progress that day was distressingly slow to the boys who were ever fearful that, if they found their uncle at all, it would be too late. But they were obliged to consider the dogs. They were willing to do all that could be asked of them, but there was a limit to their endurance and dragging the heavily loaded sled through the deep snow was no easy task. Still, as Jack put it, they were more than holding their own and, about four o'clock they came to woods and here they decided to make camp, cheered by Lucky's assurance that they would reach the town the next day.
They had brought the rest of the fish Jack had caught, with them and how good a hot meal did taste.
"I tell you, you never appreciate a thing till you have to do without it," Bob declared as he readied for his third helping.
CHAPTER VIII.
TIMBER WOLVES.
The town of Batzahakat is very much like Red Shirt. A few log cabins, one of which serves as a store, huddled together on the bank of the river. It was growing dark when two very tired boys and six nearly played out dogs and an Indian, who acknowledged that he had been more rested, dragged themselves up the bank and made their way along the single short street to the store.
"Do you know the man who keeps the store?" Bob had asked the Indian earlier in the day.
"Oui, Injun know heem. Heem name Jules Lamont. Heem Frenchman, no breed," Lucky told them.