The Indian, however, after the preliminary twists and turns of indecision, turned due north.  For nearly a week Sam thought this must be a ruse, or a cast by which to gain some route known to Jingoss.  But the forests began to dwindle; the muskegs to open.  The Land of Little Sticks could not be far distant, and beyond them was the Barren Grounds.  The old woodsman knew the defaulter for a reckless and determined man.  Gradually the belief, and at last the conviction, forced itself on him that here he gamed with no cautious player.  The Indian was laying on the table the stakes of life or death.  He, too, had realised that the test must be one of endurance, and in the superbness of his confidence he had determined not to play with preliminary half measures, but to apply at once the supreme test to himself and his antagonists.  He was heading directly out into the winter desert, where existed no game but the single big caribou herd whose pastures were so wide that to meet them would be like encountering a single school of dolphins in all the seven seas.

As soon as Sam discovered this, he called Dick’s attention to it.

“We’re in for it,” said he, “he’s going to take us out on the Barren Grounds and lose us.”

“If he can,” supplemented Dick.

“Yes, if he can,” agreed Sam.  After a moment he went on, pursuing his train of thought aloud, as was his habit.

“He’s thinking he has more grub than we have; that’s about what it amounts to.  He thinks he can tire us out.  The chances are we’ll find no more game.  We’ve got to go on what we have.  He’s probably got a sledge-load;—­and so have we;—­but he has only one to feed, and three dogs, and we have three and four dogs.”

“That’s all right; he’s our Injun,” replied Dick, voicing the instinct of race superiority which, after all, does often seem to accomplish the impossible.  “It’s too bad we have the girl with us,” he added, after a moment.

“Yes, it is,” agreed Sam.  Yet it was most significant that now it occurred to neither of them that she might be abandoned.

The daily supply of provisions was immediately cut to a minimum, and almost at once they felt the effects.  The north demands hard work and the greatest resisting power of the vitality; the vitality calls on the body for fuel; and the body in turn insists on food.  It is astonishing to see what quantities of nourishment can be absorbed without apparent effect.  And when the food is denied, but the vitality is still called upon, it is equally astonishing to see how quickly it takes its revenge.  Our travellers became lean in two days, dizzy in a week, tired to the last fibre, on the edge of exhaustion.  They took care, however, not to step over that edge.