"Doesn't the sun ever shine here, Jack?" he asked abruptly.
"Not often," was the yachtsman's cheerful answer. "That's why the fur seals love it. Why, bless you, on Pribilof Islands, where the seal rockeries lie, there aren't twenty days of sunshine in a year. I know these waters. I came hunting sea-otter once. We ran two summer months without seeing the sun."
"It's no place for me!" declared the mine-owner. "Those who like the sea can have it, and be welcome!"
The yachtsman bridled. He loved the sea.
"Open your nostrils, man, and sniff; that's pure air, at least. It isn't like what I smelt last time I visited your dirty old coal mine!" he retorted. "Every dog to its own kennel, Owens! After all, you wanted to come here."
Jim felt much the same way. Standing on the foc's'le head, the raw air, with its sudden hot spells when the sun gleamed dully through the fog, brought him welcome memories. It seemed homelike, after his brief experience in a coal mine. As he had said himself, he was a "sour-dough." The uncanny fascination that the Far North exerts on those who have once lived there, gripped him hard.
"Ain't no crowd here to worry a man!" he declared, drawing in deep breaths, "an' there's room enough to stand straight! Would you want to go back to them coal galleries, Clem, four feet high an' stinkin'?"
"They suited me all right before, Jim," the young fellow answered, "and I don't see why they shouldn't again. I got mightily interested in coal. Still, I needed a rest, and this trip is interesting, I'll allow. But wait till we get to the actual mining of the gold, and then I'll tell you which I like best."
"An' you, Anton?"
"I never want to go below ground again," the boy answered promptly. "But it must be awful cold here in winter—if this is summer!"