Alexander was unmoved.  “He not give me no grub,” he said.  “I starve here.”

This was unanswerable.  Ambrose, divided between annoyance and compassion, fumed in silence.  He himself had only enough food for a few days.  The breed wore him out with his stolidity.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” he asked at last.

“Give me little flour,” said Alexander.  “I go to Moultrie.”

“What will you do with your family?”

“I tak’ them.”

“How many?”

“My woman, my boy, my two girl, my baby.”

“Good Lord!” cried Ambrose.  “Have you a boat?”

“Non!  There is timber down the river.  I mak’ a raf, me.”

“It would take you two weeks to float down,” cried Ambrose.  “I have only thirty pounds of flour.”

Alexander shrugged.  “We ongry, anyway,” he said.  “We lak be ongry on the way.”

Ambrose swore savagely under his breath.  This was nearly hopeless.  He strode up and down, thrashing his brains for a solution.

Alexander, squatting on his heels, waited apathetically for the verdict.  He had shifted his burden to the white man.

“Where is your family?” demanded Ambrose.

Alexander looked over his shoulder and spoke a word in Cree.  Instantly four heads appeared over the edge of the bank.  Job barked once in startled and indignant protest, and went to Ambrose’s heels.

Ambrose could not forbear a start of laughter at the suddenness of the apparition.  It was like the genii in a pantomime bobbing up through the trapdoors.

“Come down,” he said.

A distressful little procession faced him; they were gaunt, ragged, appallingly dirty, and terrified almost into a state of idiocy.  First came the mother, a travesty of womanhood, dehumanized except for her tragic, terrified eyes.

A boy of sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he carried the baby in a sling on his back.  Two timorous little girls came last.

They lugged their pitiful belongings with them—­a few rags of bedding and clothes, some traps and snowshoes, and cooking utensils.  The smaller girl bore a holy picture in a gaudy frame.

Ambrose’s heart was wrung by the sight of so much misery.  He stormed at Alexander.  “Good God!  What a state to get into.  What’s the matter with you that you can’t keep them better than that?  You’ve no right to marry and have children!”

Somehow they apprehended the compassion that animated his anger, and were not afraid of him.  They lined up before him, mutely bespeaking his assistance.

Their faith in his power to rescue them was implicit.  That was what made it impossible for him to refuse.

“Here,” he said roughly.  “You’ll have to take my dugout.  I’ll get another from Grampierre.  You can make Moultrie in six days in that if you work.  That’ll give you five pounds of flour a day—­enough to keep you alive.”