“No sort of thing for a girl to be doing,” he grumbled, “packing her way through these wilds.”
An hour later Johnny found himself seated at the corner of a rude stone fireplace. Before the fire, enjoying their pipes, sat Gordon Duncan and the Corporal. From the hearth came delicious odors. From the Corporal’s meager supply of stores Faye had secured the proper ingredients for a cake. It was now browning to a turn in the Dutch oven.
As the boy sat there dreaming and wondering about many things he caught the voice of the Corporal. He was telling of some recent happening.
“What do you suppose happened to the trader?” he demanded of Gordon Duncan.
“Anything might. Snow-blindness, blizzard, wolves, an overflow on the river.”
“Fact is he didn’t arrive.” The Corporal’s voice rose. “Those Caribou Eskimos have come to depend upon him for ammunition. So there they are. And there they’ll be starved in their tents. I can do nothing for them. Should I try to return with supplies it would be too late.”
“It’s as I have always said,” Gordon Duncan’s tone was low and deep. “The natives are better off without us. They lived before we came. How? By the bow, the spear, the snare and the deadfall. But now we have taught them to use firearms and if there is no ammunition they must starve.
“Two hundred miles, did you say?” He rose and began pacing the cabin floor. “It is incredible that men should starve when we are so near. There must be a way.”
“But there is no food here,” said the Corporal. “A dozen rounds of provision here in this cabin. You chanced on a moose yesterday; otherwise you would be hungry, too.”
“But the caribou will be flooding in from the Southwest.”