"You're not quite so old yet," answered the other, then with a smile, "maybe I'm a little stronger than you are, too."
Supper was very welcome and the boiling hot tea seemed to put new life into the boy, but a proposal made by the topographer for a hunting trip fell on deaf ears.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Gersup," he said, "I think I'd rather not. Now that the portage is over, I don't mind confessing that I'm a little tired, and I think a good night's sleep will seem a whole lot better than any kind of shooting you can think of. I want to be ready for work to-morrow, and any way, I wouldn't walk half a mile to-night to shoot wild elephant."
"You're wise," answered the older man. "I wouldn't have taken you any way, but I wanted to see if you'd have the nerve to say, 'No.' I reckon for your size and age, son, you're about as good an article as I've ever seen on a first trip."
"You've been over this ground before, then?" asked the boy, lying down and resting his head on his elbow.
"Right over this trail. I made a reconnoissance once from Fort Yukon to Kotzebue Sound, and it's because I know the ground so well that we're making such good time now. That portage often takes three days."
"What a wonder Bulson is on the trail," said Roger, trying to stifle a yawn, "he must have had a hundred and thirty pounds in his pack to-day."
"Well, he's as strong as a grizzly," replied the older man, "and he just eats up the trail. You're stronger in a canoe. By the way, there are some rapids on the Kanuti River, down which we start to-morrow, and I suppose you'll have a chance to shine there. But it's nothing like that fearful mess on the Cantwell."
"It's a pretty wild country up here, just the same," suggested the boy, "and, speaking of hunting, there must be lots of big game in these forests."
"Plenty of it. It's not more than ten miles from where we are now that I came across the only man I ever met who had been thoroughly clawed by a bear and yet lived to tell the tale."