The boys laughed uproariously.
“That’s one for you, Professor,” chuckled Ned.
196“Anvik! We break camp at once,” fairly snapped the Professor.
“Gold man him heap fool,” grunted the Indian.
“No, not that, Anvik. He is gold-mad like all the rest of them,” corrected Butler. “I hope I never shall get that way.”
“It can’t be such bad fun to be gold-mad,” argued Stacy, who usually wanted the other side of an argument. “I’d like to try it once, if I could find enough gold to make it interesting.”
Camp was hastily broken that morning, for there was much lost time to be made up. Everyone was eager to get started, anxious to find out what would be the outcome of the dispute with the gold diggers.
“We don’t know in what direction they’re going to move, while they do know our route,” said Tad. “So it will be an easy matter for Darwood to watch us as long as he wants to keep us in sight.”
At seven o’clock that morning Professor Zepplin gave the word to “mush.” This morning the Professor was extremely silent, but there was a grim look to the corners of his mouth.
Exciting experiences lay before them all. The boys felt it in the very air about them. 197The certainty made them feel buoyant and exhilarated. Surely this wild old Alaska was a great bit of country!