“I thank you very much for that,” said the reverend gentleman. “All such things are very useful to us indeed. And I shall be glad to have them, provided that you are quite finished with their use.
“And now will you tell me of your trip?” he resumed. “It was over the old Klondike trail of twenty years ago—a dangerous trip for you to take with just boys like these.”
“Well, you see,” said Uncle Dick, with a look of pride on his face, “these are not just ordinary boys. They are an Alaskan product, ‘young Alaskans,’ all three of them, and more used to out of doors than are most young folk of their age. They are good travelers already, better than many a man; they have made the Peace River and the Saskatchewan, have run the Big Rapids of the Columbia, and have killed their Kadiak bear in southwest Alaska. I knew what they were or I never would have taken on this trip in their company. I fancy”—and he smiled—“that they did better than many a tenderfoot who came over the Rat Portage twenty years ago.”
“No doubt, no doubt!” replied the archdeacon. “I join you in your pride that you are all Americans, like myself. I, too, am something of an explorer, as I may say modestly. I am just back from the climbing of Denali, and I had a boy with me in that ascent—an Indian boy he was!”
“Denali!” exclaimed Uncle Dick, excitedly. “You mean Mount McKinley—I know the Indian name.”
The older man nodded with gravity. “Yes,” said he. “We climbed it for the first time—the first scientific time. Of course you know about the false claims that have been made?”
Uncle Dick rose and grasped him by the hand warmly. “Sir,” said he, “you are a great man, even had you never lived so long and useful a life here in your work. I am glad that the Church and not the traders put the first flag on top of the highest mountain on this continent. I congratulate you, and I am proud that my young friends can meet you here.”
“It was not so difficult,” said the reverend gentleman, modestly, once more. “Only, be sure, it actually was done. Be sure also that it was a boy—an Indian boy—who first set foot upon the top of Mount Denali. I held back when we got to the very summit, thinking it appropriate that a native of the people who owned this land before we came should be the first to set foot upon its highest summit.”
“Fine!” said Uncle Dick. “That’s what I call sportsmanship, and I want you boys to remember it. That’s something different from what Admiral Peary did when he found the North Pole. We are well met here, Archdeacon, if you will allow me to say so, and if you will accept us I may say that we all are sportsmen, and sportsmen are always well met.”
He motioned to his young companions, and each of them in turn came up and shook hands with this explorer of the Far North, who greeted them with gravity and kindness.