"I'm only surprised to hear Minóok's twenty-four hundred miles away."
"More like six hundred," says the Colonel.
"And you've been forty days coming, and you cover sixty miles a day—Good-bye," he laughed, and was gone.
"Well—a—" The General looked round.
"Travelin' depends on the weather." Dillon helped him out.
"Exactly. Depends on the weather," echoed the General. "You don't get an old Sour-dough like Dillon to travel at forty degrees."
"How are you to know?" whispered Schiff.
"Tie a little bottle o' quick to your sled," answered Dillon.
"Bottle o' what?" asked the Boy.
"Quicksilver—mercury," interpreted the General.