they're only six hundred miles away, carloads of 'em!"

He began to whistle as he pulled his rubber dunnage sack out of
the canoe. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes staring at the smooth
white floor of sand. A bear had been there before him, and quite
recently. Weyman had killed fresh meat the day before, but the
instinct of the naturalist and the woodsman kept him from singing
or whistling, two things which he was very much inclined to do on
this particular day. He had no suspicion that a bear which he was
destined never to see had become the greatest factor in his life.
He was philosopher enough to appreciate the value and importance
of little things, but the bear track did not keep him silent
because he regarded it as significant, because he wanted to kill.
He would have welcomed it to dinner, and would have talked to it
were it as affable and good-mannered as the big pop-eyed moose-
birds that were already flirting about near him.

He emptied a half of the contents of the rubber sack out on the
sand and made a selection for dinner, and he chuckled in his big
happiness as he saw how attenuated his list of supplies was
becoming. There was still a quarter of a pound of tea, no sugar,
no coffee, half a dozen pounds of flour, twenty-seven prunes
jealously guarded in a piece of narwhal skin, a little salt and
pepper mixed, and fresh caribou meat.

"It's a lovely day, and we'll have a treat for dinner," he
informed himself. "No need of starving. We'll have a real feast.
I'll cook SEVEN prunes instead of five!"

He built a small fire, hung two small pots over it, selected his