At supper we ate the last of several loaves of bread, baked for us at the post by Gilbert’s wife, and when the dishes were cleared and the candle lighted, Gilbert prepared to bake a fresh supply.  Joking and laughing with the boys as he worked, he dished out some flour into the mixing pan.  Then he began untying bag after bag of the outfit and examining the contents of each.  He dropped out of the conversation presently and his face assumed a troubled expression.  Then followed a re-examination of all the bags he had just looked through, and he brought in the others from the woodshed for examination

“We forgot the baking powder!” he finally announced in accents that revealed distress.

“Forgot the baking powder?  Are you sure?” I asked.  I had been watching Gilbert, and already suspected this to be the case.

“Yes,” he answered dolefully.

“Are you quite sure?” asked the Judge.  “Have you looked through all the bags?”

“Yes, I’m sure ‘tisn’t here.  I’ve been through all the bags.”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to do without it.  I fancy baking bread without baking powder won’t be so bad, will it?”    It is characteristic of the Judge to accept the inevitable good-naturedly, to make the best of conditions, and to smile at disappointments.

Gilbert said nothing, but looked troubled.

“Something like hardtack,” I volunteered.  “It isn’t bad at all.  I’ve done without baking powder more than once.”

“It gives me heartburn when I eats it that way,” said Gilbert.

“I’ve had it to eat that way sometimes, but it makes me sick,” said Murdock.

“Whenever I eats breat[5] without baking powder,” said Henry sadly, “I feels weak and finds it hard to work.”

“Well, “ I asked, “what are we to do about it?  We can’t go back for it now.  We haven’t any baking powder, and it looks as though we shall have to make the best of the flour without it.  We have plenty of desiccated vegetables.  With them and pork and the fish and game we’ll get we could make out very well even if we had no flour.”

The boys were silent.  Flour, pork and tea are the staples of life with the Labrador trapper.  Flour comes first.  Deny him that in a palatable form, and he feels that half his living is taken from him.  Nothing will answer as a substitute, from his point of view.  He has no vegetables, and being unaccustomed to them it is quite natural that he does not take them into consideration as sustaining food.  With him flour holds the place that we of milder climes give to vegetables.  Bread in truth is the staff of life.

It is not strange then that our young men in reckoning that the supply of food we carried gave no consideration to the vegetables, and looked upon them as a luxury of little food value.  Flour, baked without rising , unless very thoroughly baked in thin wafers, is deemed more or less indigestible.  To be without good bread, was, therefore, from the standpoint of the three young men, to be without sufficient wholesome and sustaining food; and it was not difficult for me to sympathize with their position, though I was confident they would presently discover vegetables to be a very good substitute, when used with the hardtack we could make from the flour.

Stowed away in a little cupboard Gilbert presently discovered a small tin can partly filled in baking soda, and using a bit of this in lieu of baking powder, he proceeded with his baking.  The result was by no means a failure, though naturally the bannocks were very heavy.

The discovery of the soda gave us the means by which sourdough bread might be made, while the soda lasted, and if opportunity offered, we might, of course make salt-raised bread.  But necessity for constant traveling would deny us the time required to regularly make bread by either of these slow processes.

The men, squatting upon the cabin floor, smoked their pipes in silence.  It was evident deeper gloom had settled upon our camp than the gloom cast by the sputtering candle, whose fitful rays dimly lighted the swarthy faces of the young voyageurs, revealing them in serious contemplation.

Finally Judge Malone broke the silence with a laugh.

“Baking powder or no baking powder?  That is the question,” said the judge.  “Cheer up boys.  Is there any way we can get that forgotten baking powder and not lose too much time doing so?”

To the Judge the incident was amusing, if annoying.

“How would this arrangement answer?” I asked.  “William leaves to-morrow morning to return to Northwest River with the boat.  Let him as soon as he reaches the post get the baking powder and return here with it.  You had better get a canoe with which to return, Will, for it will be faster than the boat.  You’ll be light and you should be able to make the round trip in three days.  We’ll go ahead, and in a couple of days Murdock and Henry can cache their load and come back here to meet you.  If you get here first, cache the baking powder in the cabin so they can get it, and go back.  If they get here first, they’ll wait for you. We’ll probably make short days anyhow at first until Judge Malone and I get hardened to the work, and that will give Murdock and Henry a chance to overtake us.  But you fellows will have to keep going early and late to do it.  We will make out very well with the soda in the meantime, I’m sure.” 

“Fine!” exclaimed the judge, “Fine!  Don’t it strike you so boys?”

It did, and in this way the vexing problem was solved, mental gloom was for the time was dissipated, and our camp again assumed its cheerful atmosphere.

During the night the rain ceased.  In the morning the fog had cleared somewhat, but the sky was still heavily overcast.  While Gilbert prepared breakfast of fried rabbit and bacon, William Montague made ready for immediate departure.

Judge Malone (L) and Gilbert Blake in camp on the Beaver

Next: Chapter XIII: I Never Travels On Sunday