Dick was terribly hungry, and though the seal blubber did not exactly appeal to his appetite, he found, upon tasting the greasy meat, that it was better than nothing. He awakened Sandy, and together they made their first meal upon raw seal blubber, finding that the more they ate of it the better it tasted.
“It’s not bad when a fellow’s half starved,” Sandy remarked as they finished the last of the blubber.
Dick was about to answer when the sound of voices outside interrupted him. He signaled Sandy to remain quiet and together they listened. But they could not distinguish the words through the thick walls of the igloo, though they recognized the voice of Fred Mistak.
Hoping to learn something of what Mistak intended to do with Sandy and him, Dick motioned to his chum to remain where he was and crawled in the hole that served as the entrance of the igloo. A huge cake of snow had been carelessly pushed up against the outside of the hole and placing one ear against this, Dick could hear Mistak’s voice quite plainly. He seemed to be speaking to the white man in the outfit.
“I tell you zat we cannot bozzer wis zee two young ones. It ees best we put them where zay cannot talk. You see?” Mistak was saying.
The other man swore, then replied loudly: “You know we got enough blood on our hands now, Mistak, to send us over the road for life. It’ll be hangin’ for you an’ me if we put these yonkers out of the way right under the noses of the mounted.”
“Well, zen, what you say we put zem wiz Thalman?”
Thalman! That was the name of the lost corporal! Dick electrified with eagerness to hear more, but the two walked off a little way out of earshot. He crawled back to Sandy, confiding what he had heard.
“According to that, Corporal Thalman must be alive alright,” Sandy observed.
“Yes, but the question is, do we want to go where he is as Mistak hinted. It looks like Thalman is in a pretty tight prison or he’d have gotten out by this time. And we can help him more on the outside than on the inside. Besides I don’t trust this Mistak a little bit. He’d cut our throats in a minute if the white man agreed. We’d better see if we can’t escape.”