“I move that to-morrow we begin ‘prospecting’,” Jack said, paying no attention to Bill’s likes and dislikes. “We’ve been away now for over three months and all we’ve got to show for it is an outlay of more than a thousand dollars, these two mighty good dog teams, our cabin and the fun we’re having.”
“Then let’s go to it,” Bill said.
“We’ll strike out across the river and go due north; then every trip we make we’ll veer round five points until we’ve boxed the compass.”
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
While the boys did not expect to be gone longer than a week, or ten days at the most, on any one spoke of their prospecting wheel, and carried good grub to last them for this length of time, they nevertheless took the precaution to stock up with enough alcohol, compressed tea, hard tack and pemmican for themselves, and dried fish for the dogs, to stave off starvation for a month in the event of meeting with an accident, getting stormbound, or wanting to make a longer stay.
With a team apiece of seven dogs and a load of only a hundred and fifty pounds it was possible for them to ride on their sleds a good deal of the time. But this does not mean that they could very often actually sit on them but the way they did it was to stand on the rear ends of the runners and hold on to the handle bars.
The night before they made their first trip out they packed their traveling mess-gear, which consisted of a collapsible stove and alcohol for fuel, grub and the few other necessary things of their outfit, on the sleds, so that they could make a start the next morning at day-break.
They crossed the Big Black River and drove due north over the tundra (a Russian word, pronounced toon-dra,) which is a rolling prairie, without any trees on it; the soil is black and soft, or muck as it is called, and on it both mosses and lichens grow. They drove due north and in the course of time Bill announced that according to the sun, his watch and his stomach there should be a period of rest and of eating. According to Jack’s calculations they had made about twelve miles and were moreover right then on the Arctic Circle.
“After we gets through with the eats, Jack, I wants you to edicate me on this Arctic Circle thing,” said Bill as he threw the dogs their fish.
Jack was busy opening the thermos bottles of hot tea and getting out the sandwiches.