In the big dining room the factor’s old Indian housekeeper and cook hovered about a long table loaded with the best products of her culinary art. Her stoic face could scarcely conceal the pleasure she derived from witnessing the seemingly insatiable appetites of her master’s nephew and his chum.
Walter McClaren, a big florid Scotchman, sat at the head of the table beaming upon the boys and recalling his own boyhood days. He believed boys should have plenty of excitement and outdoor experience, and as he listened to the ceaseless recounting of their recent adventures with the Eskimos, his smile grew broader and broader, while the roast turkey and dressing vanished along with sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, stewed cranberries, and chocolate pudding.
“We just caught the boat going south,” Dick said between bites. “If we’d been a day later we’d have been held up more than a month before another boat came.”
“I think you fellows have been pretty lucky,” rejoined Sandy’s uncle. “If I’d known for a minute what I was sending you into, I’d never let you go.”
“But I’m glad we went,” returned Sandy. “I wouldn’t go through it again for anything, but just the same after it’s all over, I wouldn’t trade the experience for—for a commission in the mounted police.”
“That just reminds me that from what Inspector Dunbar says, you fellows are slated for some kind of a special medal or something for your services in the Arctic.”
“Medals!” Dick was alive in an instant, his half-eaten turkey drum stick forgotten for the moment. “You don’t mean that, Uncle Sandy!”
“Well, it must be a fact, if Inspector Dunbar said so,” replied the factor. “But that’s not just exactly what I want to discuss with you fellows,” continued the old Scotchman, knocking out his pipe on a leg of his chair and refilling it. “I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition!” exclaimed Dick. “What is it now. A lost mine? Buried treasure? Outlaws? Missing men?”
“Hurry up. Tell us what it really is,” Sandy exclaimed, alive with interest.