And Potts felt his anxiety eased. A man who had mined at Caribou ought to know.
CHAPTER X
PRINCESS MUCKLUCK
"We all went to Tibbals to see the Kinge, who used my mother and my aunt very gratiouslie; but we all saw a great chaunge betweene the fashion of the Court as it was now, and of y in ye Queene's, for we were all lowzy by sittinge in Sr Thomas Erskin's chamber." Memoir: Anne Countess of Dorset, 1603.
It was the 26th of February, that first day that they "hit the Long Trail."
Temperature only about twenty degrees, the Colonel thought, and so little wind it had the effect of being warmer. Trail in fair condition, weather gray and steady. Never men in better spirits. To have left the wrangling and the smouldering danger of the camp behind, that alone, as the Boy said, was "worth the price of admission." Exhilarating, too, to men of their temperament, to have cut the Gordian knot of the difficulty by risking themselves on this unprecedented quest for peace and food. Gold, too? Oh, yes—with a smile to see how far that main object had drifted into the background—they added, "and for gold."
They believed they had hearkened well to the counsel that bade them "travel light." "Remember, every added ounce is against you." "Nobody in the North owns anything that's heavy," had been said in one fashion or another so often that it lost its ironic sound in the ears of men who had come so far to carry away one of the heaviest things under the sun.
The Colonel and the Boy took no tent, no stove, not even a miner's pick and pan. These last, General Lighter had said, could be obtained at Minóok; and "there isn't a cabin on the trail," Dillon had added, "without 'em."
For the rest, the carefully-selected pack on the sled contained the marmot-skin, woollen blankets, a change of flannels apiece, a couple of sweaters, a Norfolk jacket, and several changes of foot-gear. This last item was dwelt on earnestly by all. "Keep your feet dry," John Dillon had said, "and leave the rest to God Almighty." They were taking barely two weeks' rations, and a certain amount of stuff to trade with the up-river Indians, when their supplies should be gone. They carried a kettle, an axe, some quinine, a box of the carbolic ointment all miners use for foot-soreness, O'Flynn's whisky, and two rifles and ammunition. In spite of having eliminated many things that most travellers would count essential, they found their load came to a little over two hundred pounds. But every day would lessen it, they told each other with a laugh, and with an inward misgiving, lest the lightening should come all too quickly.