Stacy, with Ned Rector and Walter Perkins, had been lounging against the starboard rail of the “Corsair,” observing Tad and the Captain as they talked. A few paces forward sat Professor Zepplin, their traveling companion, wholly absorbed in a scientific discussion with an engineer who was on his way to an Alaskan mine, of which the latter was to assume control. Many other passengers were strolling about the decks of the “Corsair.” There were seasoned miners with bearded faces; sharp-eyed, sharp-featured men with shifty eyes; pale-faced prospectors on their way to the land of promise, in quest of the yellow metal; capitalists going to Alaska to look into this or that claim with a view to investment; and, more in evidence than all the rest, a large list of tourists bound up the coast on a merry holiday. The former, in most instances, were quiet, reserved men, the latter talkative and boisterous.
“The Captain was speaking of the lure that gold holds for the human race,” replied Tad 14Butler in answer to Stacy Brown’s question. “I guess the Captain is right, too.”
“Be warned in time, Chunky,” added Rector.
“I’ve never seen enough gold to become lured by it,” retorted the fat boy. “I should like to see enough to excite me just once. I shouldn’t mind being lured that way. Would you, Walt?”
Walter Perkins shook his head and smiled.
“I fear you will have to shake yourself–get over your natural laziness–before you can hope to,” chuckled Ned. “I doubt if you would know a lure if you met one on Main Street in Chillicothe.”
“Try me and see,” grinned Stacy.
“There must be a lot of gold up here, judging from what I have read, and from the number of persons going after it,” added Tad, with a sweeping gesture that included the deckload of miners and prospectors. “But the hardships and the heart-breakings must be terrible. I have read a lot about the terrors that men have gone through in this country, especially in the awful winters they have in Alaska.”
“I shouldn’t mind them if I had a sledge and a pack of dogs to tote me around, the way they do up here,” declared Chunky.
“That would be great fun,” agreed young 15Perkins. “You wouldn’t have far to fall if you got bucked off from that kind of broncho, would you, Stacy?”