Dying alone as he knew he would, it would be hard to attend to, and there was furthermore no certainty that anyone would pass this way for some months to come.
He pondered for some time upon this, turning it over in his mind, seeking a solution and gradually as he puffed upon his pipe a way out occurred to him. He nodded his head as if in approval.
“Yes, I guess that’s the best, Farrell,” he mused presently, “I’ll do that. Sort of let it rest that way.”
And rising and going slowly to the table, he took up a piece of dry birchbark and proceeded to write thereon his last request.
Winter had laid hold of the Fairbanks country. Snow bowed the limbs of the spruces. The strong Alaskan cold had come to stay.
Two men were making their way over the Chena trail from Nation to Fairbanks, where rumor had it high wages were being paid in the mines. Over the welcomed noonday fire, while the dogs rested, the younger of the two men remarked, among other things, “If this trail doesn’t improve, Miller, we won’t get through to Fairbanks for another three days.”
Miller shrugged his shoulders and helped himself to another cup of the black coffee to top off the meal they had already finished. “With my luck,” he observed, “I’m thinkin’ we’ll be lucky if we get through at all. Confound such luck! And the chances are there won’t be a job left, time I get through, anyway. My luck always was rotten.”
The younger man smiled. “You make it so by talking that way,” he reasoned.
The other snorted. “Dry up with that kid philosophy of yours, Steel,” he said. “I’m gettin’ fed up on it.”