Meetuck, being deeply engaged with a junk of fat meat at that moment expressed all he had to say in a convulsive gasp, without interrupting his supper.
“Try a bit of the bear,” said Fred to Tom Singleton; “it’s better than the walrus to my taste.”
“I’d rather not,” answered Tom, with a dubious shake of the head.
“It’s a most unconscionable thing to eat a beast o’ that sort,” remarked Saunders gravely.
“Especially one who has been in the habit of living on raisins and sticking-plaster,” said Bolton with a grin.
“I have been thinking about that,” said Captain Guy, who had been for some time listening in silence to the conversation, “and I cannot help thinking that Esquimaux must have found a wreck somewhere in this neighbourhood, and carried away her stores, which Bruin had managed to steal from them.”
“May they not have got some of the stores of the brig we saw nipped some months ago?” suggested Singleton.
“Possibly they may.”
“I dinna think that’s likely,” said Saunders, shaking his head. “Yon brig had been deserted long ago, and her stores must have been consumed, if they were taken out of her at all, before we thought o’ comin’ here.”
For some time the party in the cabin ate in silence.