Mr. Baxter had signed his own name and those of the two boys on the hotel register, and had taken them into a comparatively quiet corner to impart this information.
"Now, Jerry," he said, "if you and Fred will go help Johnson get our stuff up here to our room, I'll go see if I can hire some guides and sledges. Pile the stuff right in our room. That's the only place it will be safe. We'll have to rough it for a night or so, but we can stand it, I guess. My, but it's getting cold out," he added as he glanced from the window at a thermometer hanging on the side of the hotel.
"How much?" asked Fred.
"Twenty-two degrees below zero."
"Twenty-two below!"
"That's nothing. Wait until it goes to forty and fifty below. Then the mercury in the ordinary thermometer freezes solid, and only spirit gauges are of any use. Then you'll feel the cold. There is no wind, fortunately, or you'd notice it even in here, with the big stove going."
They had taken off their fur garments while in the warm hotel, but, as Fred and Jerry had to go out to see about their goods, they donned them again.
It was getting dark, for, though it was early, the winter season had begun, when the sun would shine but for a little time each day, and farther north not at all for six long months.
"I should say it was cold!" exclaimed Fred when he and Jerry were outside. The keen air cut his face like a knife, and he was thankful for the thick fur garments, the heavy fleece-lined boots, and the big mittens he wore. Burying his face down below the collar of his coat, an example which Jerry followed, Fred started back to the steamer dock, while Mr. Baxter went off to see about getting guides and sledges.
The boys found Johnson still on guard, but the colored man was racing up and down to get warm, and whipping his long arms about his body to keep up the circulation.