.

The next morning was clear and beautiful, and although there was
scarcely wind enough to fill the single sail of our little craft, we
made an early start. Towards noon the wind freshened and soon was
blowing furiously. The seas ran high, but George and I had become so
used to rough weather and had faced danger so often that we ran right
on in front of the gale, I at the tiller, and he handling the sail rope
and bailing the water out when occasionally we shipped a sea. The rate
at which we travelled quickly brought us to the rapid at the eastern
end of the lake, and through this we shot down into the Little Lake,
and thence through the strait known as the Northwest River out into
Groswater Bay. It was about 3.30 o'clock in the afternoon when,
turning sharply in below the post wharf, we surprised Mackenzie, the
agent, and Mark Blake, the company's servant, in the act of sawing wood
close down by the shore.

That they were astonished by the sudden appearance of the boat with its
strange-looking occupants, was evident. They dropped their crosscut
saw, and stood staring. In a moment, however, Mackenzie recognised
George, who, having had a hair cut and a shave, looked something like
his old self, and came to the conclusion that the other occupant of the
boat must be I. He came quickly forward, and, grasping my hand as I
stepped from the boat, asked abruptly:

"Where's Hubbard?"

"Dead," I said. "Dead of starvation eighty miles from here."

Mark Blake, a breed but not related to Donald, took charge of George,
and as Mackenzie and I walked to the post house, I gave him a brief
account of Hubbard's death and my rescue. He had been warmly attracted
to Hubbard, and his big heart was touched. I saw him hastily brush
away a tear. Taking me into the kitchen, he instructed his little
housekeeper, Lillie Blake, Mark's niece, to give me a cup of cocoa and
some soda biscuit and butter, while he made a fire in the dining-room
stove. Lillie cried all the time she was preparing my lunch.

"I feels so sorry for you, sir," she said. "An' 'tis dreadful th' poor
man's starvin', an' he were such a pretty man. In th' summer I says,
before you went t' th' bush, sir, he's sure a pretty man. 'Tis
wonderful sad, 'tis wonderful sad t' have he die so."

Oh, that pleasant kitchen, with the floor and all the woodwork scrubbed
white and the rows of shining utensils on the shelves! And the comfort
of the great wood-burning stove ro