Jack made no reply for he could see himself carrying Bill along as a piece of excess baggage and having him size up everything they saw using his Noo York, as he calls it, as a yard-stick to measure it by. Bill was all right for a trip of any kind where a sure-shot and brute-force were needed but on a pleasure trip around the world—well, he preferred to go it alone.
Came the time when the shine porter indicated his desire to brush off the boys and they knew that they were getting close to the end of the first leg of their journey—Seattle. They were right glad to get off the train, though withal they had had a pleasant journey and had met a number of interesting people. Among them was a Mr. Rayleigh who was accompanied by his very charming daughter Miss Vivian.
Jack had told the Rayleighs a little of his varied experiences in the World War, of his expedition to the Arctics, of his more recent journey to Mexico (giving Bill all the credit of their adventures there) and of their proposed trip to Alaska to find gold. The net result of it all was that the chance acquaintance ripened into a warm friendship before they left the train at Seattle and his new found friends gave Jack a very cordial invitation to visit them in Chicago when he returned from his quest in the Northland, but they left poor Bill out in the cold.
Jack didn’t blame Mr. Rayleigh much for he didn’t know Bill’s heart and he judged him by exterior appearances only. Poor Bill! the only way he could ever get a look-in anywhere was when some one saw him in action, and if Mr. Rayleigh could have seen him swatting German U-boats, or on the ’dobe in that fight with Lopez’s gang he would have welcomed him with open arms.
As it was, Jack accepted the invitation so cordially given, with avidity, for he liked Miss Vivian—she was so different from those New York girls (but hush! it would never do to voice this thought in Bill’s hearing or there would be a pitched battle on the spot) and she seemed to him more like a beautiful dream picture than a real being who lived in a world of three dimensions.
“Yes,” he said to himself, “I’ve simply got to get that gold now, there’s no two ways about it.”
Seattle, so named after old Chief Seattle, an Indian who was friendly to the whites, is built on a site where a handful of Indians once had their village, but it was an important place even then in virtue of its being a convenient point where every once in a while thousands of Indians would meet and hold their pow-wows.
It was settled by the pale faces about seventy years ago and when the gold stampede for the Klondike was on, it was the great center for outfitting the prospectors. Later on Skagway became the chief outfitting station but as the latter town is in Alaska a duty must also be paid by those who cross over the boundary line into the Yukon Territory since it is a part of Canada. To get around this the boys concluded that they would wait until they got to Circle City and outfit up there if this was possible.
Jack was rather surprised to find that Seattle was a fine, up-to-date city in every sense of the word but of course Bill couldn’t see it that way at all, so listen to him yawp:
“Youse could sot the whole blinkin’ town down on the East Side of Noo York and then where’d it be? Youse couldn’t find it, see!”