“This prospectin’ business is beginnin’ to clog on me phy-si-que,” announced Bill, as he was hitching up the dogs preparatory to starting back to their base.
“Suppose you’d been prospecting here for twenty odd years like old ‘I Blazes’ we met down at Juneau, or for fifteen, ten, or five years like hundreds of others up here,” plugged in Jack.
“That’s a hawse of an entirely different breed for they haven’t anything else to do, while I have me business, me mother and me goil to look after in little ole Noo York,” Bill replied, his eyes snapping with the pure joy of the thought.
New York! how good those two words sounded to Jack, for while Montclair, New Jersey, is where he lived, everybody north of New York as far as Albany, east as far as Coney Island, south as far as the Atlantic Ocean and west as far as Trenton always think of New York as his home town when he gets a respectable distance away from it.
But to get back to Earth and Alaska. The dwindling condition of their food supplies led the boys to go into close caucus as the best means of supporting their party, so they decided to go back to their base at once and bring down a larger store of provisions.
This settled, they repacked their sleds and hitched up the dogs for the trip northward again. They started off with whips a-cracking, bells a-jingling and the dogs in the best of spirits even if their masters were not in such good humor.
“My only regret in leaving Alaska will be that we can’t take all of these huskies along with us. I’m going to take ’Frisco and maybe Skookum too,” said Jack.
“An’ I’m goin’ to take old Sate home,” said Bill, and when Sate heard this he gave two merry little howls for all the world as if he had understood and, on second thought, there’s no doubt but that he did.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could take back both dog teams an’ the sleds an’ drive them up Fifth Avenoo—wouldn’t it be great, Jack?”
His partner gave him the laugh.