That night while Eileen slept, the boys loaded the heavy sacks on their sleds and on one of them they made a comfortable bed for her of bear-skins. Then Jack prepared a pot of tea, doled out a single biscuit and a spoonful of pemmican for each hand and called Eileen to “breakfast.” While she was getting ready for the long journey the boys went out and whistled for the dogs but they were in no great hurry to leave their warm holes.
Less than half a ration of fish apiece was their share but they are long suffering beasts and actually seemed thankful for the little that they got. As Bill was hitching up his team, Sate, his lead dog, caught his eye and his master’s heart went out to him.
“Sate, you poor dum animule, you’ll get your fill o’ rations, I’m thinkin’, when we hits our camp,” he told him as he gave him a couple of love pats on the head.
“You’re all right, pard. You’re the goodest driver in all Alaska and I know it isn’t your fault that we’re starved out,” Sate said good-naturedly. At any rate he howled a couple of times cheerfully which was his way of saying it in short-hand dog-language.
When Jack went into the cabin Eileen had taken her last leave of her sleeping father whose burial place she might never see again.
“We’re all ready to go, Eileen,” he called cheerily.
“I am ready to go too, Jack,” she said simply; “there is nothing for me to stay for now.”
Jack picked her up and carried her out to his sled where he put her in her sleeping bag and tucked a lot of big fur robes around her.
It was an hour or more before the night would fade into day, yet so bright gleamed the aurora borealis that it was easily light enough to see to travel. Their whips cracked, the commands to mush were given to the teams, the bells jingled, but there was lacking the great vibrant joy that comes of living in the open which usually marked their going. The sleds were heavy with gold, but Eileen’s daddy had been left behind and they were on the ragged edge of starvation.
Even when they reached the tundra the sleds did not pull easily for they were overloaded and the dogs were weak from hunger so that instead of enjoying themselves racing along in the traces, gold had made them work-dogs with all that this hard term implies.