"Have you seen him?" Shag asked of A'tim.
"He flew away early," answered the Dog-Wolf.
"He should have taken all his coat with him," answered Shag, thrusting from his mouth a bunch of grass in which were three brown feathers.
"He flew far away," affirmed A'tim sheepishly.
"The length of your gullet, Dog-Wolf," declared Shag. "Thou must be wondrous hungry to eat one of our own party—a cannibal."
A'tim answered nothing as they journeyed down along the steep, heavily wooded river bank, its soft shale sides slid into mighty terraces, but in his heart was a murder thought, as he eyed the great bulk of his Brother Outcast, that he would also eat him.
They passed over the broad Saskatchewan, running emerald green between its high, pink-earthed banks, through a long, tortuous ford, taking Shag to the belly and half way up his ribs. As they topped the north bank and rested after the steep climb, A'tim pointed his nose to a distant flat where nestled the white stockaded fort of the Hudson's Bay Company.
"That's Fort Edmonton," he said bitterly; "and see the cluster of teepees all about, thick as Muskrat lodges in a muskeg. Because of the dwellers within there is no eating to be had here for me. Cree Indians, and Half-breeds, and Palefaces, all searching the country for something to kill; and when they have slaughtered the Beaver, and Marten, and Foxes, and everyting else that has life, they bring the pelts there and get fire-water, which burns their stomachs and sets their brains on fire. An honest hunter like myself, who only kills to stay the hunger that is bred in him, has no chance; we must sneak and steal, or die."
"But there will be much waste of the Bacon Food there, surely, A'tim. Why do you not replenish the stomach that is but a curse to you, being empty, at the lodges we see?"