"Yes, four thousand miles; but it will be easy enough for us when we are on a steamer."
"The Yukon is closed for eight months or more each year."
"We don't intend to go down it when it's closed, for I didn't bring skates along, and I don't know how to skate, anyway."
"You do not expect to stay long in the Klondike country?" was the inquiring remark of Hardman, who showed little interest in the intentions of their leader.
"That depends; we shall come back in two months, or six, or a year, according as to how rich we strike it."
"S'pose you don't strike it at all."
Jeff shrugged his shoulders.
"We'll make a good try for it. If we slip up altogether, these folks I have brought with me won't be any worse off than before; but I don't intend to slip up—that ain't what I came into this part of the world for."
"No, I reckon few people come for that," was the comment of Hardman, who seemed to be in a cheerful mood again.
Nothing could have offered a stronger contrast to their previous rough experience than that which now came to them. Fourteen miles down the river brought them to Lake Labarge, where they had nothing to do but to sit down and float with the current, using the poles occasionally to keep the raft in the best position. Thirty-one miles brought them to Lewis River, down which they passed to the Hootalinqua; then to the Big Salmon, and forty-five miles farther to the Little Salmon, the current running five miles an hour, and much swifter in the narrow cañon-like passages. Then beyond the Little Salmon the craft and its hopeful passengers floated smoothly with the current for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, when the boys were startled to see four giant buttes of stone towering above the water, which rushed violently among them.