Philip's tea pail
he employed in the same way.
"How far have we come, Bram?" Philip asked.
"Fift' mile, m'sieu," answered Bram without hesitation.
"And how much farther have we to go?"
Bram grunted. His face became more stolid. In his hand he was
holding the big knife with which he cut the caribou meat. He was
staring at it. From the knife he looked at Philip.
"I keel ze man at God's Lake because he steal ze knife--an' call
me lie. I keel heem--lak that!"--and he snatched up a stick and
broke it into two pieces.
His weird laugh followed the words. He went to the meat and began
carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that
one would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater
effort than ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and
whistled, and once tried the experiment of singing a snatch of the
Caribou Song which he knew that Bram must have heard many times
before. As he roasted his steak over the fire he talked about the
Barren, and the great herd of caribou he had seen farther east; he
asked Bram questions about the weather, the wolves, and the
country farther north and west.
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