d with the provisions and
equipment sufficient for a two weeks' absence, together with a
considerable quantity of tea in addition to their probable
requirements, and some plug tobacco, designed as gifts for the
Indians.

Long before daylight on Monday morning adieus were said and the two
young adventurers turned into the frozen, silent wastes to the
northward, Bob in the lead making a rapid pace, Shad following, and
each hauling his toboggan.

XVI

ALONE WITH THE INDIANS

At the edge of every frozen marsh and lake Ungava Bob paused to
reconnoitre for caribou, but always to be disappointed, and when he
and Shad halted at sundown to pitch their night camp, no living thing
had they seen.

Shad's small wedge tent was stretched between two trees, snow was
banked around it on the outside, and a thick bed of boughs spread upon
the snow within. Two short butts of logs were placed at proper
distance apart near the entrance and inside the tent, the tent stove
set upon them, and with an ample supply of wood cut and split, their
night shelter, with a roaring fire in the stove, was warm and cosy.

The days that followed were equally as disappointing. The smooth white
surface of the snow was unmarred by track of beast or bird. No living
creature stirred. No sound broke the silence. The frozen world was
dead, and the silence was the silence of the sepulchre.

"It's so quiet you can hear it," Shad remarked once when they halted
to make tea.

"Aye," said Bob, "'tis that, and they's no footin' of even rabbits. I
can't make un out."

On the afternoon of the third day after leaving the river tilt, they
came upon the southern shore of the Great Lake of the Indians, and
turning westward presently discovered Sishetakushin's wigwam.

The travellers received a warm welcome from the Indians. Sishetakushin
and Mookoomahn were indeed noisy and effusive in their greeting.
Manikawan radiated pleasure, but she and her mother, a large, fat
woman, as became their status as women, remained in the background.

The Indians had killed some caribou early in the season, and jerked
the meat. They had just killed a bear whose winter den they had
discovered, and over the fire was a kettle of stewing beaver meat,
upon which they feasted their visitors.

At the proper time Bob presented them with tea, Shad gave them each
some tobacco, and then Bob told them of his proposed trading project.

"My people will be glad," said Sishetakushin, "and