"My arms are fairly broken with the strain of it," Sprague muttered
apologetically.

"You never ate bear-meat, did you?" Kit asked sympathetically.

"What the devil do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing; I was just wondering."

But behind his employer's back Kit caught the approving grin of
Shorty, who had already caught the whim of his simile.

Kit steered the length of Linderman, displaying an aptitude that
caused both young men of money and disinclination for work to name
him boat-steerer. Shorty was no less pleased, and volunteered to
continue cooking and leave the boat work to the other.

Between Linderman and Lake Bennet was a portage. The boat, lightly
loaded, was lined down the small but violent connecting stream, and
here Kit learned a vast deal more about boats and water. But when
it came to packing the outfit, Stine and Sprague disappeared, and
their men spent two days of back-breaking toil in getting the outfit
across. And this was the history of many miserable days of the
trip--Kit and Shorty working to exhaustion, while their masters
toiled not and demanded to be waited upon.

But the iron-bound arctic winter continued to close down, and they
were held back by numerous and avoidable delays. At Windy Arm,
Stine arbitrarily dispossessed Kit of the steering-sweep and within
the hour wrecked the boat on a wave-beaten lee shore. Two days were