"Four," answered the boy promptly. "They came in from the north-west and hit straight east toward the Mackenzie. They can't travel fast with the packs they've got."
"Hit east, did they?" mused Rickey, "an' come from the north-west? Must be part of a whalin' outfit that's got wrecked somewhere. An' believe me, they're headin' into a bleak country when they hit east from Hart River. Why, they ain't nothin' over there! Not a blame thing between here an' the Mackenzie except old man Wurtz's cabin, about fifty miles east of here. Wurtz, he was a kind of a prospector an' trapper. Died a couple of years back. But he sure did build some cabin. It's little, but it's a reg'lar fort—loopholes an' all. He didn't trust the Injuns none. Like as not that's where them fellows is right now. An' if they be, how in thunder do you expect to git 'em out of there? The cabin's in a kind of a bowl or basin at the head of a red rock draw, an' they can see you comin' half a mile."
Rickey shook his head. "You couldn't do it, kid. The odds ain't right. The only way to git 'em out of there would be to surround 'em an' starve 'em out. An' we ain't in no shape to do
