soon as the rivers are clear of ice, and will be gone eight months or perhaps a year. These are my official instructions; but I am told to report if either of us are unfit for the journey. It will be a rough one, and will need picked men. Have you anything to say?"
His eyes were colder and the lines of his face harder than they used to be. But he had complete control of himself, and Dick had never seen him without it since that night which neither would forget.
"I am quite fit for the work," said Dick. He smiled slightly. "Let us hope that the other two will provide the social element."
"We will do the work. That is all which matters."
"You have always said so."
The delicate inflection of the sneer brought the blood to Tempest's face.
"I owe you recognition for what you have done for me," he said. "Do not think that I forget it—or that I forget your motive in doing it. Tell Kennedy that I want to see him at once—before he goes out."
For both men a new interest came into life after that. The ordinary futile daily complaints seemed less irritating now that there was a horizon of change to round them. As always there was the freighter who had contracted for ordinary wage in carting and who demanded more because unlooked-for conditions had arisen; there was the breed who had sold his land and who could not understand that he must not continue to live on it; there was the Indian who had traded a half-dozen skins to Moore and Holland, and who, on hearing that he could get a better price elsewhere, required them back again; and there were a thousand more of the needless, inevitable things to be got through as winter died under the breath of spring and the ice went out, and colour and life came throbbing back to the land.
And there was work to be done for this patrol also. New and specially-tested Peterborough canoes were needed. A good pair of field-glasses were indispensable; also a camera; a strong and light outfit of cooking, surveying and other equipments; besides tinned foods and everything else which could be compressed into the smallest compass.
