"Your engagement begins to-morrow. If you do your work, you'll get your grub, and nothing else." Then he added: "If that doesn't seem good enough, you can quit when you like." It was, as both recognized, an impossible alternative, because if the fellow left their service he must starve. "Call it a deal," he said. "You have got me safe." "That's so," said Carnally. "You want to remember that the moment you give us any cause for suspicion you get fired. Now what about your partners? How long would it take them to make the cache?" "Two or three days." "Then they'd have to come back and find our trail. I reckon we're six days ahead, and that ought to be enough. You have a blanket; you can choose your place and sleep when you like." The man, who was obviously worn out, gathered some spruce twigs and lay down on them, but the others sat a while beside the fire before they followed his example. CHAPTER XXVII ANDREW STAKES HIS CLAIM Soon after daybreak they launched the canoe, and though she was now rather deeply loaded they made good progress down the outflowing creek. When it was necessary for one to wade and check her with the tracking line, their new companion was allotted the task, and at the portages Carnally took care to give him the heaviest load. Though it was obvious that he had not recovered from his long, forced march, he seemed a good-humored rascal and resigned himself to the situation philosophically. In the afternoon they came to a rapid and spent some time hauling the canoe round it, and then they went back for the stores. Turner, as the newcomer was called, was first despatched with a load which contained nothing eatable, and Andrew was the last to set off. Dark spruces on the high bank cut off the wind, the sun was very hot, and the perspiration dripped from Andrew as he floundered across the stones. They were large and uneven, and he had to proceed cautiously to save himself from falling into the hollows between. Graham and Carnally were some distance ahead, but after a while he overtook Turner, who was moving slowly. Shortly before Andrew came up the man dropped the things he carried and turned with signs of distress in his hot face. "I'm not trying to kick," he said. "Guess you've got a pull on me and I have to work, but I'm a bit played out yet, and your partner piled more weight on me than I can stand." "Stop and take a smoke," said Andrew, handing him his tobacco pouch. "I don't feel very fresh, but I could carry those blankets. Let me have them." "I'll have to do that or leave them. It was a tough march I made with nothing to eat." He filled his pipe before he resumed: "There's no meanness in you." "Never mind that. What was Mappin to give you for this job?" "Three dollars a day while I was out on it. Four hundred dollars when I'd staked the claim, if the specimens assayed right." "But how could he tell whether you would do the square thing by him?" Turner grinned.