“Perhaps so,” said Dallas. “You three can.”
“Oh, but there’s five on us, sir.”
“No, only three.”
“What do you say, Bob?” said the first speaker.
“I says bring the poor chap’s sled along with us. If we’re hard pushed we can use what’s there; if we’re not we sha’n’t want it; and—well, I don’t kind o’ feel as if I should like any one to nobble my things like that. Same time, I says it is no use to leave ’em to spoil.”
The next morning, with the young men little the worse for their adventure, they started onward, and for a couple of days made pretty good way, leaving the snow behind in their downward progress, till all further advance was stopped by the change for which they had been prepared before starting. The watershed had been crossed, and they had reached the head waters of one of the tributaries of the vast Yukon River of the three thousand miles flow.
The spot they had reached was a long, narrow lake, surrounded at the upper end by fir-woods. The rest of the route was to be by water, and here a suitable raft had to be made.
“Fine chance for a chap to set up boatbuilding,” said Big Bob. “What do you say? I believe we should make more money over the job than by going to dig it out.”
“Let’s try the gold-digging first,” said Dallas; and with a cheer the men set to work at the trees selected, the axes ringing and the pine-chips flying in the bright sunshine till trunk after trunk fell with a crash, to be lopped and trimmed and dragged down to the water’s edge ready for rough notching out to form the framework of such a raft as would easily bear the adventurers, their sledges and stores, down the lake and through the torrents and rapids of the river in its wild and turbulent course.
The sledges were drawn up together in a triangle to form a shelter to the fire they had lit for cooking, for the wind came down sharply from the mountains. Rifles and pistols lay with the sledges, for the little party of five had stripped to their work, so that, save for the axes they used, they were unarmed.