hazarding what progress Spurling had made by this time in his escape. "A life for a life," he thought; "and Spurling once saved my life. Until I have cancelled that debt, even though Mordaunt has been slain, I will stand by him." [77] Throughout the winter months all meals were the same at Murder Point, consisting of black tea, salt bacon, and bannocks, which are a kind of hard biscuit, made of flour and water mixed to a thick paste and then baked. This diet becomes pretty monotonous, but is the traveller's universal fare in Keewatin. In those far regions men are not particular how or what they eat; of necessity they abandon the refinements of civilisation as needless and cumbrous. To-day, however, partly to protract his stay and so give Spurling time, partly to assert his waning gentility, the memory of which in its heyday Strangeways shared, he attempted to be lavish, to set a table, and to entertain. For cloth he spread a dress-length of gaudy muslin, such as Indians purchase for their squaws. He opened some tins of canned goods that he might provide his guest with more than one course. He built up his fire, and commenced to cook. All this used up time; and the expending of time was what he most desired. When the meal was finished Strangeways rose up restlessly, as though he had just remembered his errand, and went to the door to see what progress the storm had made. The moment the door was opened the wind swept in, driving a fall of snow before it. "It seems to me," said Granger, "that you're going to be snow-bound for a time. This'll make travelling dangerous, for the thaw has already weakened the ice[78] in places and now the snow'll cover them over, making them appear safe. It's strange, for blizzards don't often happen so late as this." [78] "Well, there's one comfort," said Strangeways, "it's the same for all alike; if I'm delayed, so is someone else." Granger turned his back on him, and walked over to the window where he stood tapping on the glass, attempting to dislodge the snow which had spread itself out like a blanket across the panes. "Poor devil," he said, "I pity him, whoever he is. He can find no place of shelter in all the three hundred and twenty miles which stretch between God's Voice and Crooked Creek, unless he comes here or falls in with some trapper's camp." "Then you have had no one here lately?"
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