“Yes, I told you. But you had no right to come back here to steal. Now you’ll be punished for it. You’ll remain with this party, Lamont. You’ll work. You’ll break trail. You’ll guide us. I’ll watch you close, and there’ll be a bullet for you if you try to escape. You won’t have an easy time of it like you had before, Lamont.”
The guide did not answer. He merely sat and glared at his accuser. He was nervous and ill at ease. Dick consulted his watch.
“It’s now four o’clock,” he announced to Toma. “Everyone will be awake in two hours. We might as well stay up.”
Toma rose to his feet.
“I take this fellow over to my tent,” he said winking at his chum. “Him hungry, very hungry, he say. All right, we make him start to work. He get himself big breakfast. Get breakfast for you, me too. Start campfire. Do plenty work.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll go over with you.”
He motioned to Lamont to follow the young Indian outside, then remained behind for a moment to blow out the candle. A short time later, they stood around while Lamont worked.
The guide offered no objections. He was hungry, so hungry indeed, that he would have worked gladly for hours for a mere crust.
Lamont, Toma and Dick were sitting around the fire at breakfast when the camp awoke. Here and there a light flickered through the gloom. The plaintive howling of the malemutes and huskies. Drowsy human voices. The sharp, quick blows of an ax, crackling brush. Ruddy flames leaping up, brighter and brighter. More noise and bustle and confusion.
They were still sitting there, when Dr. Brady and Sandy appeared. The pair of them came up, laughing, but, at sight of Lamont wolfing his food, they paused in sheer wonderment.