“Down, Skookum! Down, Culuk!” he yelled. “Get to blazes behind the stove!” He overcame their stubborn resistance and hammered them into submission. “Now stay behind it, you savages!”
He turned apologetically to his guests.
“But hold on!” he exclaimed, noting the drawn parka hoods which allowed only their eyes to be seen. “You’re not for hitting the trail again tonight, eh?”
“We got to,” twanged Jose, the bullet in his mouth altering his voice and causing him to enunciate through his nose. “We got to get along on the jump. My brother’s sick up in the Miner’s Range, up on the headwaters of the Klokhok. We. got to keep going tonight, for I sent him word I’d reach him tomorrow.”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Sark. “That’s different. And I’m sorry. But you eat before you travel. You and your missus need solid grub and steaming drink after yon bath. I was just taking the last bite myself. There’s lots of pilot-bread and moose meat and hot coffee on the stove. Dig in!”
Sark waved a hand toward the laden table.
Blera who, although the parka hood concealed every part of her face but her eyes, could not forbear averting her head, turned slightly and took a sidelong glance at Eric Sark. As she viewed the familiar figure so clear in the candlelight, big of limb and of chest, blue-eyed, granite-featured, with the raven-black in his beard and hair, she had an almost unconquerable desire to cry out or to run.
Yet she did neither.
She remained stone-still till her eyes encountered those of Cantine and strayed with them to the food upon the table.
After their days of hunger it was a great temptation, and they fell. Flight delayed, and still trusting to the masks of their parka hoods, they stretched out ravenous hands and munched fiercely upon the bread and meat and gulped the steaming coffee.