“Mine’s Bellew,” Smoke returned, feeling peculiarly disconcerted as he gazed into the keen-searching black eyes.

“Getting plenty to eat, I see.”

Smoke nodded and resumed his marrow-bone, the purr of Scottish speech strangely pleasant in his ears.

“Rough rations.  But we don’t starve often.  And it’s more natural than the hand-reared meat of the cities.”

“I see you don’t like cities,” Smoke laughed, in order to be saying something; and was immediately startled by the transformation Snass underwent.

Quite like a sensitive plant, the man’s entire form seemed to wilt and quiver.  Then the recoil, tense and savage, concentered in the eyes, in which appeared a hatred that screamed of immeasurable pain.  He turned abruptly away, and, recollecting himself, remarked casually over his shoulder: 

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Bellew.  The caribou are moving east, and I’m going ahead to pick out a location.  You’ll all come on to-morrow.”

“Some Whiskers, that, eh?” Shorty muttered, as Snass pulled on at the head of his outfit.

Again Shorty wiped his hands on the wolf-dog, which seemed to like it as it licked off the delectable grease.

Later on in the morning Smoke went for a stroll through the camp, busy with its primitive pursuits.  A big body of hunters had just returned, and the men were scattering to their various fires.  Women and children were departing with dogs harnessed to empty toboggan-sleds, and women and children and dogs were hauling sleds heavy with meat fresh from the killing and already frozen.  An early spring cold-snap was on, and the wildness of the scene was painted in a temperature of thirty below zero.  Woven cloth was not in evidence.  Furs and soft-tanned leather clad all alike.  Boys passed with bows in their hands, and quivers of bone-barbed arrows; and many a skinning-knife of bone or stone Smoke saw in belts or neck-hung sheaths.  Women toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow.  Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by virtue of the club.

Segregated in the heart of the camp, Smoke came upon what was evidently Snass’s fire.  Though temporary in every detail, it was solidly constructed and was on a large scale.  A great heap of bales of skins and outfit was piled on a scaffold out of reach of the dogs.  A large canvas fly, almost half-tent, sheltered the sleeping- and living-quarters.  To one side was a silk tent—­the sort favored by explorers and wealthy big-game hunters.  Smoke had never seen such a tent, and stepped closer.  As he stood looking, the flaps parted and a young woman came out.  So quickly did she move, so abruptly did she appear, that the effect on Smoke was as that of an apparition.  He seemed to have the same effect on her, and for a long moment they gazed at each other.