"I'm surprised wid ye," remarked Tim McCabe, when the panting youth stood among them again. "I thought ye were too tired to indulge in any such foolin'. Whin ye want to slide down hill, make use of the slid instead of your stummick."
"I don't think I'll want to do any more sliding down hill in this part of the world," replied the frightened, but grateful youth.
Once more they bent to their work, and pulling themselves together, succeeded at last in reaching the summit with the second sled, the whole party utterly used up. Even Jeff Graham sat down on one of the loads, panting and too tired to speak. When he found voice, he said:
ALL JOINED IN PUSHING AND PULLING ONE SLED.
"What fools we are! And yet if I went back to 'Frisco, I'd start agin for the Klondike the next day; so I reckon we'll keep on."
No one responded, for they were so wearied that talking itself was labor.
Looking to the southwest, they could see the blue shimmer of the Pacific, where the Gulf of Alaska rolls its white surges against the dismal shores. Far in the distance a faint line against the sky showed where a steamer was probably ploughing its way to St. Michael's, with hundreds of gold-seekers on board, the van of the army that is pushing toward the Klondike from the West, the South, and the East, until it would seem that even that immense region must overflow with the innumerable multitudes, drawn thither by the most resistless magnet that can make men brave peril, suffering, and death.
Turning in the opposite direction, they saw the mountain slope melting away in the great valley of the Yukon, with the trail leading through a narrow, rocky gap, and with naked granite rocks rising steeply to the partly snow-clad mountains. The party had been fortunate in completing the ascent in less than a day, when it often requires twice as long. The first half mile of the descent was steep, when the slope becomes more gradual. The glare of the snow compelled all to use their glasses, and seven miles from the summit they reached the edge of timber, where camp was made.