along the Athabaska, who struck rock-salt in punching an oil-shaft, and later blew their whole plant to high heaven by building a mosquito-smudge over-near. Brodribb spoke of a bear-hunt when he went to break in three young dogs and lost two. But he came home with the pelt and a ripped-up arm where the white steel-hard claw had touched.
"I guess it wasn't exactly bear-baiting," he said. " The bear had a sporting chance. But my old rifle has never played dog on me yet."
Here the men fell on technicalities concerning the one weapon which means life on the trails; and Jennifer leaned her head back and looked in Mrs. Carter's eyes.
"You have had things happen to you, too?" she whispered, and the grey-haired woman smiled.
"Why," she said, "perhaps. Things like cooking supper for thirty children when it is pitch dark at quarter to four and you can't see the crowds of Indian women squatted about you cleaning the day's fish-catch, or the children who steal in to get warm by the stove, or the men who smoke and loaf and will leave the door open. And when you go to the cupboard you get your hand in a mouth or eyes, or you step on something, and don't know if it is a fish or a human or—or what. And the smell is indescribable, and you can feel the dirt; and the cold and the dark are real things that press on you and make you slow and cross and stupid. But it is worth while, you know. They love us."
"And love is a very, very great thing," said Ducane's young wife gravely.
A few mallard splashed in the reeds alongside; rose black against the primrose sky and flew north with harsh clamour. Dick leaned out and gave their call back, clear and true and far on the warm air. The flight wavered, wheeled, and came circling. Dick called again, and they dropped with sounding beat of wings; realized man, and fled in a terror that gave them no quarter. Brodribb looked at the man by the rail.
"I reckon you never starved wherever you were located," he said, and Dick looked on the twilight with eyes that dreamed still of the long northern sedges.
"But I always preferred life's luxuries," he said.
