‘We are wasting our strength in a useless hunt for the lost track,’ said Lucius decisively. ‘We have neither the instinct nor the experience of the Indian. Let us make a log-hut here, and wait for the worst quietly, while Kekek-ooarsis searches for the path, or tries to work his way back to the fort to fetch help and food. He will make his way three times as fast when he is unencumbered by us and our incapacity. We may be able to ward off starvation meanwhile with the aid of Geoff’s guns. At the worst, we only face death. And since a man can but die once, it is after all only a question of whether we get full or short measure of the wine of life. ‘And come he slow or come he fast, It is but Death who comes at last.’ ‘Brezisely,’ said the Hamburgher. ‘It is drue. A man can but die one time—Gismet. Yet ze wine of life is petter zan ze vater of death, in most beoble’s obinion.’ Kekek-ooarsis had been absent nearly five weeks at the time of the stranger’s appearance, and the length of his absence had variously affected the three men who waited with a gloomy resignation for his return, or the coming of that other stranger, Death. At times, when Geoffrey’s gun had not been useless, when they had eaten, and were inclined to take a somewhat cheerful view of their situation, they told each other that he had most likely recovered the lost track at a considerable distance from their hut, and had pushed on to the fort, to procure fresh horses and supplies. They calculated the time such a journey to and fro must take him, allowed a wide margin for accidental delays, and argued that it was not yet too late for the possibility of his return. ‘I hope he hasn’t cut and run like that other beggar,’ said Geoffrey. ‘It was rather a risky thing to trust him with our money to buy the horses and provender. Yet it was our only resource.’ ‘I believe in his honesty,’ replied Davoren. ‘If he deserts us, Death will be the tempter who lures him away. These Indians have nobler qualities than you are inclined to credit them with. Do you remember that starving creature who came to our hut by the Saskatchewan one day while we were out hunting, and sat by our hearth, famishing amidst plenty, for twelve mortal hours, and did not touch a morsel till we returned and offered him food? I’ll forfeit my reputation as a judge of character, if Kekek-ooarsis tries to cheat us. That other fellow was a half-breed.’ ‘The Greeks weren’t half-breeds,’ said Geoffrey, whose reading had of late years been chiefly confined to the Greek historians and the more popular of the French novelists, ‘yet they were the most treacherous ruffians going. I don’t pin my faith on your chivalrous Indian. However, there’s no use in contemplating the gloomiest side of the question. Let’s take a more lively view of it, and say that he’s frozen to death in the pass, with our money intact in his bosom, exactly where you sewed it into his shirt.’