"Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to eat!" The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter's first move was to get whisky, and the other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself to his feet, and Pelliter sank in a chair beside the table. "I'm sick," he said. "Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I guess I'm in a bad way. You'll have to help yourself. There's meat-- 'n' bannock--" Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he stared he grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted beard. The look cleared Pelliter's brain. For some reason which he could not explain, his pistol hand fell to the place where he usually carried his holster. Then he remembered that his service revolver was under the pillow. "Fever," said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor. He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he followed Pelliter's instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes ate ravenously. Not until he was through and seated opposite him at the table did Pelliter speak. "Who are you, and where in Heaven's name did you come from?" he asked. "Blake-- Jim Blake's my name, an' I come from what I call Starvation Igloo Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a hundred miles farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler John B. Sidney, and the cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we struck south, hunting and starving, me 'n' the woman--" "The woman!" cried Pelliter. "Eskimo squaw," said Blake, producing a black pipe. "The cap'n bought her to keep me company-- paid four sacks of flour an' a knife to her husband up at Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?" Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was steadier on his feet and that Blake's words were clearing his brain. That had been his and MacVeigh's great fight-- the fight to put an end to the white man's immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake had already confessed himself a criminal. Promise of action, quick action, momentarily overcame his sickness. He went back with the tobacco, and sat down. "Where's the woman?" be asked. "Back in the igloo," said Blake, filling his pipe. "We killed a walrus up there and built an icehouse. The meat's gone. She's probably gone by this time." He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted his pipe. "It seems good to get into a white man's shack again." "She's not dead?" insisted Pelliter. "Will be-- shortly," replied Blake. "She was so weak she couldn't walk when I left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, 'specially the women." "Of course you're going back for her?" The other stared for a moment into Pelliter's flushed face, and then laughed as though he had just heard a good joke. "Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn't hike that thirty miles again-- an' thirty back-- for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner."