“Perhaps we shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.
“It was our only chance,” the girl whispered back. “Our chance for the Eskimos and for ourselves.”
In this she appeared to speak the truth. Johnny lapsed into silence.
Four days had passed since on that bright morning they had left the abandoned trapper’s cabin.
Borrowing blankets and a little food from the cabin, they had started out.
The going had been heavy from the start. The forest had disappeared almost at once. Guided by the dog Tico, they had found themselves following a northerly course over a flat and trackless tundra.
Day after day they had tramped on. For a time there had been plenty of game, ptarmigan on little ridges, rabbits in the bottoms.
As they advanced these had disappeared. And now for an entire twenty-four hours they had eaten nothing.
An hour before they had mounted a narrow rise of land to find themselves gazing upon a curious sight. A broad brown island, long and narrow and weaving in and out, had been moving toward them.
“The caribou! We are too late!” The excitement had been too much for Gordon Duncan. Seized by a sudden heart attack, he had fallen upon the snow. All he could do as his stout hearted companions assured him that all was not lost was to lie flat upon his blankets and struggle painfully for breath.