Northwest! by Harold Bindloss

Breakfast was over and, although Jimmy would have liked another bannock, he got up and strapped on his pack. Deering needed the bannock, for flour was running out. A fire burned on the stone hearth and the little shack in a corner of the rocks was warm. Jimmy did not want to leave it, but he knew he must, and the Indian waited for him to start.

They had not killed a deer and although they had shot two or three blue grouse a blue grouse is not large. Sometimes one can knock down a little willow grouse with a stick, but the willow grouse had recently vanished and the Indian had caught nothing in his snares. In fact, it looked as if all the birds and animals had gone south. Jimmy had eaten salmon until he loathed the battered fish, but the salmon had begun to die.