“I came here on the Eric in September, and if you want to see home as badly as I do you’re pretty anxious to get back there.  But there isn’t any chance of getting away from here till the ship comes.  This is the last place God ever made and the loneliest.  What did you say your name is?”

“Bob Gray, sir.”

“Well, Mr. MacPherson will call you something else, but don’t mind that.  He has a new name for every one.  He calls Sishetakushin, one of the Indians you came in with, Abraham Lincoln because he’s so tall, and one of the stout Eskimos is Grover Cleveland.  That’s the name of an American president.  Mr. MacPherson gets the papers every year and keeps posted.  He received, on the ship, all last year’s issues of a New York paper called the Sun besides a great packet of Scotch and English papers.  But this Sun he thinks more of than any of them and every morning he picks out the paper for that date the year before and reads it as though it had just been delivered.  One year behind, but just as fresh here.  He finds a lot of new names in ’em to give the Eskimos and Indians and the rest of us that way.  I’m Secretary Bayard, whoever he may be.  I don’t read the American papers much.  The chief clerk is Lord Salisbury, the new premier.  You know the Conservatives downed the Liberals, and Gladstone is out.  Good enough for him, too, for meddling in the Irish question.  I’m a conservative, or I would be if I was home.  We don’t have a chance to be anything here.  Now, I suppose you——­”

Here Mr. MacPherson entered and the loquacious Secretary Bayard became suddenly engrossed in his work.  The factor opened a door leading into a small room to the right.

“Come in here, Ungava Bob,” said he, “and we’ll have a talk.  Now,” he continued when they were seated, “what do you think you’ll do?”

“I don’t know, sir.  I wants t’ get home wonderful bad,” said Bob.

“Yes, yes, I suppose you do.  But you’re a long way from home.  It looks as though you’ll have to stay here till the ship comes next summer.  I can send you back with it.”

“‘Tis a long while t’ be bidin’ here, sir, an’ I’m fearin’ as mother’ll be worryin’.”

“There’s no way out of it that I can see, though.  I’ll give you work to do to pay for your keep, and I’m afraid that’s the best we can do unless,” continued the factor, thoughtfully “unless you go with the mail.  I find I’ve got to send some letters to Fort Pelican.  How far is that from Eskimo Bay,—­a hundred miles?”

“Ninety, sir.”

“Do you speak Eskimo?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, the dog drivers will be Eskimos.  The men that leave here will go east to the coast.  They will meet other Eskimos there who will go to Pelican.  It’s a hard and dangerous journey.  Are you a good traveller?”

“Not so bad, sir, an’ I drives dogs.”

Mr. MacPherson was silent for a few moments, then he spoke.