Sledding was resumed next morning. The enlistment of Lucky and Coffee Jack had swelled their number to seven, and without increasing the loads to be carried added to the working force, so that in spite of the softness of the snow good progress was made. Lucky had brought an old sled, cast aside by some prospector; but as it was too weak to carry a full load, Uncle Will relegated it to Coffee Jack with one hundred pounds, while Lucky drew the sleds of the others by turns.
The boys soon had occasion to observe the shrewdness of their young Indian friend. The gee-pole of Coffee Jack's sled broke on a steep down-grade, and he was obliged to halt for repairs. The Indians invariably take much pride in their powers as swift, strong packers and sledders, especially when in the company of white men, and Coffee Jack was now at his wits' end to maintain his position and keep the young pale-faces behind him. He rose to the emergency, however.
"You got hatchet?" he asked innocently, as David approached. "Sled broke."
"Yes," said David, handing over that article and sitting down good-naturedly on his sled while the Indian boy went to cut a new pole. He supposed that as soon as Coffee Jack had secured the pole and driven it into place, he would return the hatchet, without waiting to re-fasten the drag-rope and lashings, which it had been necessary to loosen.
This, however, was just what Coffee Jack did not propose to do. Seeing, as he had hoped would be the case, that David had stopped to wait for the hatchet, and Roly had stopped rather than make so long a détour out of the trail through the deep snow, he pretended to need the hatchet after the pole was in place, giving a rap here and a tap there, and all the while adroitly fastening the ropes in place again.
But Yankees have a reputation for shrewdness as well as Indians, and David and Roly were quick to perceive Coffee Jack's trick. While the Indian boy's back was turned, the two exchanged signals; then David quietly turned out of the trail, passed Coffee Jack's sled, though only with considerable difficulty, and came into the trail again, closely followed by Roly.
Perceiving that his plans were discovered and frustrated, and realizing that he had met his match, Coffee Jack laughed and surrendered the hatchet.
During the next few days, while they were ascending the comparatively narrow valley of Klukshu River, a small stream emptying into the Alsek above Dalton's Post, winter made his last dying effort. It was now the middle of April, and the sun was so high that the snow softened greatly at midday. It had become impossible to make satisfactory progress except by rising at two o'clock in the morning and starting as soon as there was light. For three successive nights the mercury sank to zero, and the air was so keen and frosty that their fingers were nearly frozen when, in the early dawn-light, they removed their mittens to loosen the knots of the tent-ropes; yet by noon it was invariably so warm that the snow was melting and the sleds stuck fast.
The Klukshu River was not so thoroughly ice-bound as the Alsek, and, already swollen with the melting snows, it had broken its fetters in many places, so that it was impossible to follow the stream itself. Twice, however, the trail crossed it,—first from west to east by a jam of tree-trunks and débris, and then back again by a narrow span of ice which cracked ominously and threatened to go down-stream, even as they passed over it.
Here they met Grant Baldwin, Al King's partner,—a young man not much older than David, who was travelling alone to the coast with a sled drawn by two dogs.