“But suppose the Yeehats, or some other tribe of Indians, are still there and that they’ve got the gold corralled, what then?” Bill wanted to know.
“Oh well, we’ll have to treat with them according to the exigencies of the case. The first thing we must do though is to get there, the next is to locate the gold and when this preliminary but important work is done I think we can safely say that it is ours.”
“Ours not because we found it first but because we found it last,” Bill added to clinch the ownership.
“Exactly, or words to that effect.”
“Must be awful cold up there,” suggested Bill as his eyes wandered around the sub-Arctic region on the map.
“In summer it’s a mighty pleasant place but in winter it does get a little chilly, for sometimes the bottom nearly drops out of the thermometer and the quicksilver falls to fifty, sixty and even seventy degrees below zero; but you don’t mind a little thing like cold weather do you?”
“No,” replied Bill thoughtfully, “but I kicked all last winter to the superintendent of this here apartment buildin’ because the heat was only sixty-eight degrees while I likes it about seventy-two degrees. If I’d a-known we was goin’ on this here trip to the frigid zone I’d a-told him to bank the fires, or let ’em go out entirely, so I’d get used to it. Lettin’ that be as it may, what kind of an outfit do we want and do we get it here or when we gets up into that blarsted country?”
“We’ll take our rifles and I suppose we ought to have a shot-gun for small game, and while, as I have said before, the inhabitants, whatever may be their color or country, are all peace abiding folks still we ought to take our six-guns along so that we can protect our gold when we get back to civilized lands again.”
“An’ we’d better take our thermos bottles, solid alcohol cookin’ outfit, flash lamps, compasses and a pair of pliers with us, not forgettin’ me mouth-organ,” put in Bill.
“By all means,” allowed Jack; “as for the rest of it we can find out exactly what we need in the way of rations and equipment when we reach Dawson or Circle City. We don’t want to overload ourselves but there must be a-plenty of the necessaries, for, the way I figure it, we’ll probably have to stay the best part of a year in those parts.”