"I'll trust you more'n you're willin' to trust me," he said, and took a thin slip of paper from the buckskin tube out of which he had shaken the gold dust the day before. "Here's the map. It's an island due north o' the Diomede Islands in the Behring Sea. The Eskimos call it Chuklook. There's quartz gold on Ingalook, too. But mind, one-third o' what you pay for the claim belongs to Bull's little gal."
"Agreed!" declared Owens. "You trust me an' I'll trust you. The letters an' the express records, being as you say, I'll go in."
"Clem bein' a pardner!" Jim insisted.
"Clem being a partner, sure!"
CHAPTER XI
THE LONELY ISLAND
The little Bunting, brigantine-rigged, and, yacht-fashion, possessing an auxiliary screw, plowed the waters of Behring Sea.
Jim, with Clem and Anton beside him, stood on the foc's'le head, gazing into the foggy distance. Owens was on the poop, with the owner of the tiny yacht, who was a personal friend, and moodily scanned the horizon. Otto, utterly disregarding the universal sea injunction: "Don't Talk to the Man at the Wheel!" stayed at the stern and exchanged occasional sentences with the helmsman.
There were, also, two other passengers on board, both down in the cabin. One was a grizzled giant, the other was a young woman, some 25 years of age. The first was a half-brother of Joe Juneau, and was known throughout the Far North as "The Arctic Wizard" from his uncanny knowledge of Alaskan mining deposits, and his ability as a mining engineer in overcoming the peculiar difficulties of frozen ground and of maintaining machinery in working order under the most rigorous conditions of weather. The second was "Bull's little gal," more properly known as Jameine Evans, herself a graduate of the Pittsburgh School of Mines.
With the money that had been sent her, when a baby, by the Road-Agent of Circle, and with the additional sums forwarded from time to time by Jim, Jameine (so christened as a namesake of the old prospector) had been able to pay her way through school and college and had taken a mining course besides.