"I will tell you some time. Better try to sleep now."

Paul returned the saucepan to the fire, after piecing out its contents
with water, and retired out of his patient's sight.

Again came a murmur, chiefly unintelligible, from the bunk.

"Did you ask for anything?"

The sick man heaved a worried sigh. "See what a mis'rable presumptuous
piece of work!" he muttered, addressing the logs overhead. "But that
Clauson--he wa'n't no more fit to guide ye than to go to heaven! Couldn't
'a' done much worse than this, though!"

"He has done worse!" Paul came over to the bunk-side to reason on this
matter. "They started back from here, four strong men with all the animals
and all the food they needed for a six weeks' trip. We came in in one. If
they got through at all, where is the help they were to send us?"

"Help!" The packer roused. "They helped themselves, and pretty frequent. I
said to them more than once--they didn't like it any too well: 'We can't
drink up here like they do down to the coast. The air is too light. What a
man would take with his dinner down there would fit him out with a
first-class jag up here, 'leven thousand above the sea!'"

"It's a waste of breath to talk about them--breath burns up food and we
haven't much to spare. We rushed into this trouble and we dragged you in
after us. We have hurt you a good deal more than you have us."