By the firelight his sharp eyes scanned the woe in her face, but he
received the extraordinary command as though it were the most usual thing
in the world. "_Oui, madame_," he assented. "Which way? Dawson?"

"No," she answered, lightly enough; "up; out; Dyea."

Whereat he fell upon the sleeping _voyageurs_, kicking them, grunting,
from their blankets, and buckling them down to the work, the while his
voice, vibrant with action, shrilling through all the camp. In a trice
Mrs. Sayther's tiny tent had been struck, pots and pans were being
gathered up, blankets rolled, and the men staggering under the loads to
the boat. Here, on the banks, Mrs. Sayther waited till the luggage was
made ship-shape and her nest prepared.

"We line up to de head of de island," Pierre explained to her while
running out the long tow rope. "Den we tak to das back channel, where de
water not queek, and I t'ink we mak good tam."

A scuffling and pattering of feet in the last year's dry grass caught his
quick ear, and he turned his head. The Indian girl, circled by a
bristling ring of wolf dogs, was coming toward them. Mrs. Sayther noted
that the girl's face, which had been apathetic throughout the scene in
the cabin, had now quickened into blazing and wrathful life.

"What you do my man?" she demanded abruptly of Mrs. Sayther. "Him lay on
bunk, and him look bad all the time. I say, 'What the matter, Dave? You
sick?' But him no say nothing. After that him say, 'Good girl Winapie,
go way. I be all right bimeby.' What you do my man, eh? I think you
bad woman."