Farewells were soon said at the camp, a ceremony which Scoland was not on hand to participate in. Polaris laid out his harness, inspanned his seven dogs, with big Boris in the lead, and cracked his long whip. From shore and ship a cheer went up as the dogs sprang forward. The two wayfarers responded with waves of their hands, then bent their backs to the toil of the road, vanished over the crest of the ridge, and were gone.
For years more than twice the span of Polaris's life, Zenas Wright had been an active and athletic man. He had made no empty boast when he had said that he was a traveler of parts, and able to hold his own on any path. If the pace they set was not quite as swift as Polaris might have maintained alone, it was far from slow, and the old explorer kept it up tirelessly and uncomplaining.
Mile after mile fell behind the flying feet of the agile beasts and gliding men. Occasionally they stopped and made brief camp, but the pressure of their errand spurred them to the limit of endurance. Weather favored them. They met no biting tempests with blinding snows to confuse and delay them. Lack of clear light was their only serious obstacle. The skies remained overcast and leaden, and no golden sun rays came to point their way.
"More light I could wish for gladly," said Polaris, "but I think the very instinct within me will not let me lose this road."
Often he scanned the horizon to the south, frequently halting the dogs and ascending to the summit of craggy snow hummock or low hill, with which the great plain was besprinkled. He also studied continually the formation of the ice-clad barrier range to their left, its sinister peaks in silhouette against the sky.
Used for years to fix his bearings by the landmarks set by nature, the eye of the snow dweller was photographic, his memory unerring. At length he found the path he sought. Spying afar from the crest of a craggy eminence, he noted the combination of contour and surroundings that told him they were near to the end of their journey.
He swung the dog team from the eastward course, and veered away to the south. Soon they came to a long depression, that wound southward among the low hills, in much the semblance of a sometime traveled highway.
With kindling eye, Polaris pointed down the reaches of its sinuous course.
"Yonder, old man, stretches the Hunters' Road, and Sardanes lies at its farther end!" he cried. "In a few more hours we shall know the best or worst of this long trip of ours."
Even with the aid of the powerful glasses carried by Zenas Wright, Polaris could not pierce the distances to where the volcanic hills lay around the valley.