"What a wonderful boat!"
"Three cheers for her and her gritty commander and crew!"
And the cheers were given with a will.
The captain of the transport wished to thank Oscar in person, but the most the new Holland could do was to run alongside of the transport, and Oscar merely showed himself.
"We are off for Alaska," he said. "We are after the big Russian fleet."
"Good!" was the answer. "Hope you do them all up!" And then another cheer went up.
Soon the Holland was cutting the waters of the ocean at a speed of twenty knots an hour.
Oscar felt pretty certain that the first attack of the Russian fleet would be made at Cape Nome.
In 1900, Cape Nome had boasted of less than a thousand souls, now the city contained over fifty thousand inhabitants.
The Cape Nome mines had proved richer than any mines ever discovered in California or Australia, and the city contained a government assay office and several first-class banks.