nk and went into the
house. There a ghastly scene met his eye. On the floor hard by the
table lay Mackenzie on his face, snoring heavily in a drunken sleep,
and at the table, with three empty bottles beside him and a fourth
in his hand, sat French, staring hard before him with eyes bloodshot
and sunken, and face of a livid hue. He neither moved nor spoke when
Kalman entered, but continued staring steadily before him.

The boy was faint with hunger. He was too heartsick to attempt to
prepare food. He found a piece of bannock and, washing this down
with a mug of water, he crept into his bunk, and there, utterly
miserable, waited till his master should sink into sleep. Slowly
the light faded from the room and the shadows crept longer and
deeper over the floor till all was dark. But still the boy could
see the outline of the silent man, who sat without sound or motion
except for the filling and emptying of his glass from time to time.
At length the shadowy figure bowed slowly toward the table and
there remained.

Sick with grief and fear, the boy sprang from his bunk and sought
to rouse the man from his stupor, but without avail, till at last,
wearied with his ineffectual attempts and sobbing in the bitterness
of his grief, he threw a blanket over the bowed form and retreated
to his bunk again. But sleep to him was impossible, for often
throughout the night he was brought to his feet with horrid dreams,
to be driven shivering again to his bunk with the more horrid
realities of his surroundings.

At length as day began to dawn he fell into a dead, dreamless
slumber, waking, when it was broad day, to find Mackenzie sitting
at the table eating breakfast, and with a bottle beside him. French
was not to be seen, but Kalman could hear his heavy breathing from
the inner room. To Kalman it seemed as if he were still in the grip
of some ghastly nightmare. He rubbed his eyes and looked again at
Mackenzie in stupid amazement.

"What are you glowering at yonder, Callum, man?" said Mackenzie,
pleasantly ignoring the events of the previous day. "Your breakfast
iss ready for you. You will be hungry after your day's work. Oh,
yes, I haf been seeing it, and it iss well done, Callum, mannie."

Somehow his smiling face and his kindly tone filled Kalman with
rage. He sprang out of his bunk and ran out of the house. He hated
the sight of the smiling, pleasant-voiced Mackenzie. But his boy's
hunger drove him in to breakfast.

"Well, Cal