"If you don't get to town when night falls," Will warned, "don't try to camp out in the open, but keep going until you find some human habitation. You remember what happened to Bert!"
"Any one who comes within a half a mile of me in a lonely place," Tommy put in, "will scrape the acquaintance of a bullet."
"And here's another thing," Will advised, "don't travel without a wet cloth or a bunch of green leaves inside your hat. It'll be ninety in the shade before the afternoon is over!"
"Yes, and a hundred in the sun!" declared Sandy.
"That's a nice weather for the Arctic regions, isn't it?" asked Frank.
"We have to take it just as we find it!" replied Will.
The boys started away on a brisk walk, and were accompanied by their chums some distance down the faint trail which led to the coast. At one time in the history of the country one large glacier had completely covered that section. But now, thousands of subordinate canyons and hollows on the mountains were filled with independent masses of ice.
All that section of Alaska, from smoking Wrangell to the Pacific coast, shows volcanic peaks. There are many dead craters, and some which are not so dead! There are still peaks of fire as well as rivers of ice.
After the departure of the two boys, Will and the others devoted considerable attention to the wounded lad. They did their best with the simple means at hand, but never, for an instant, did the boy regain consciousness.
"I don't think we can do anything for him until the surgeon comes," Will said as he threw himself disconsolately into a chair.