Then, happening to glance up, he saw that Dr. Brady was looking at him—looking at him with friendly and yet appraising eyes. And in that moment he felt somehow that his measure was being taken by that genial but worldly-wise physician.
“He provoked me,” said Dick by way of apology. “Lost my temper. He refuses to break trail, to work—to do anything at all except just loaf around and point out the way to Keechewan Mission.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I told him that I didn’t propose to put up with it. I said that he’d have to go. Tonight, when we make camp, I’ll give him rations, send him on his way. He’s through.”
“I don’t blame you. I think you’re doing the right thing,” declared Dr. Brady. “We’ll be better off without him.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Sandy suddenly interjected. “You say we’re better off without him—but are we? When he leaves us, who’ll show us the way? Lamont is the only member of this party who has been to Keechewan. There’s no trail. We can wander miles off our course, get ourselves into all sorts of difficulties and dangers—freeze and starve and heaven knows what. The Barrens is a horrible place in winter, a death-trap if you don’t know it. My Uncle Walter has been there and he told me about it. It makes me shiver to think about it. Well named the Barren Lands. An eternity of snow and utter desolation. You simply travel on and on and on—and get nowhere. Twenty years from now some wandering Eskimo will kick your bleached skeleton out of his path.”
“Can’t help it,” said Dick stubbornly. “That man goes.”
“You’re in charge here, of course. I know it’s hard to put up with his insolence and his bad example, still——”
“Yes,” said Dr. Brady, who had become very much interested in Sandy’s point of view, “tell us the rest of it. I’m very anxious to hear.”
“There’s nothing more to tell,” confessed the young Scotchman. “I’m merely asking Dick to think this thing over very carefully before he comes to a decision. Even if we don’t get lost without a guide, we’re certain to be delayed. You know what that means?”