An exception to what became a rule was, of all men, Nicholas. When the stockade was half done, the Prince and an equerry appeared on the horizon, with the second team the camp had seen, the driver much concerned to steer clear of the softened snow and keep to that part of the river ice windswept and firm, if roughest of all. Nicholas regarded the stockade with a cold and beady eye.
No, he hadn't time to look at it. He had promised to "mush." He wasn't even hungry.
It did little credit to his heart, but he seemed more in haste to leave his new friends than the least friendly of them would have expected.
"Oh, wait a sec.," urged the deeply disappointed Boy. "I wanted awf'ly to see how your sled is made. It's better 'n Father Wills'."
"Humph!" grunted Nicholas scornfully; "him no got Innuit sled."
"Mac and I are goin' to try soon's the stockade's done—"
"Goo'-bye," interrupted Nicholas.
But the Boy paid no attention to the word of farewell. He knelt down in the snow and examined the sled carefully.
"Spruce runners," he called out to Mac, "and—jee! they're shod with ivory! Jee! fastened with sinew and wooden pegs. Hey?"—looking up incredulously at Nicholas—"not a nail in the whole shebang, eh?"
"Nail?" says Nicholas. "Huh, no nail!" as contemptuously as though the Boy had said "bread-crumbs."