"Nary bite!" responded Jackson. "I've brung along me belt—it was kind of tangled up wi' the coat—an' me knife's in it, all right." He felt in the pockets of his coat. "Here's baccy, an' me pipe, an' a bit o' string, an' a crooked nail! Wish't I'd know'd enough to eat a bigger supper last night! I hadn't no sort of an appetite."
"I've got me old dudheen," said Brannigan, holding up his stubby black clay. "An' I've got two matches, jest two, mind yer! An' that's all I hev got."
They filled their pipes thoughtfully and lit them frugally with a blazing splinter from the wood pile.
"Which is nearest," queried Jackson, "Conroy's Upper Camp, or Gillespie's, over to Red Brook?"
"Conroy's, sure," said Brannigan.
"How fur, would ye say?" insisted Jackson, who really knew quite as much about it as his partner.
"In four foot o' soft snow, an' no snowshoes, about ten thousan' mile!" replied Brannigan consolingly.
"Then we'd better git a move on," said Jackson.
"I'm thinkin' we ain't got no time to waste starin' at bonfires," agreed Brannigan.
They turned their backs resolutely and headed off through the night and the snow toward Conroy's Camp, many frozen leagues to the south-eastward. Mary, bewildered and daunted, followed close at Brannigan's heels. And they left their blazing home to roar and fume and vomit sparks and flare itself out in the unheeding solitude.