"Still, I suppose they can guide us out of here as well as any one else if they only will." The strangers were as White had discovered--a woman and children, but one of these latter was a half-grown boy of such villainous appearance that Cabot promptly named him "Arsenic," because his looks were enough to poison anything.

They were clad in rags, and were so miserably thin that they had evidently been on short rations for a long time.

White's belief that they were hungry was borne out by the ravenous manner with which they fell upon the provisions he presented to them.
Arsenic seized the piece of pork and whipping out a knife cut it into strips, which he, his mother, and his sisters devoured raw, as though it were a delicacy to which they had long been strangers.

The hard biscuit also made a magical disappearance, and when all were gone, Arsenic, looking up with a hideous grin, uttered the single word: "More." "Good!" cried Cabot, "he can talk English.

Now look here, young man, if we give you more--all you can carry, in fact, of pork, bread, flour, tea, and sugar, will you show us the road to the nearest mission--Ramah, Nain, or Hopedale ?" "Tea, shug," replied the boy, with an expectant grin.
"Yes, tea, sugar, and a lot of other things if you'll show us the way to Nain.