“An’ birches,” added Long Jim, “git to be hunderds o’ feet tall, so tall, in fact, they can’t hold themselves up but bend over an’ touch the ground.
“Likely you think I’m out o’ my head. Oh, I kin see it in your eyes. But I’m tellin’ you the God’s truth, men.” And Long Jim spoke with such honest sincerity, they were compelled to believe him. “In sich a place,” he continued, “it ain’t likely there wouldn’t be no game. Why, the animals there is thick as flees on a ol’ hound.
“Mountain sheep, goats, caribou, moose, bear, deer, wolves, foxes, oh, every wild animal o’ the whole North kin be found there—down in that valley an’ in the mountains enclosin’ of it. An’ I tell you the truth,” he concluded, his voice sinking for effect, “the moose git so fat they’re almost square an’ they’re so darn tame ye can almost touch ’em.”
As Long Jim’s speech came to a halt, Mr. Hampton turned and stared across the brightening landscape to the distant bank of vapor. Soon the short days would end entirely, and the perpetual night of the Arctic would arrive. Only a miracle could save them from perishing, all unprepared to face further travel as they were. Could it be possible that miracle had occurred, and that this trapper was telling the truth?
Jack looked at his father, and sensed what was passing through the older man’s mind. Truth to tell, some such thoughts were in his own. He went up to him and laid a hand across his shoulders.
“Come on, Dad,” he said. “I believe Long Jim is telling the truth. And we better make the effort to get to this valley. He may be exaggerating a little, but certainly it looks like a promised land.”
“That’s right, Jack,” said his father, shaking off his reverie, and his alert self once more. “We’ll have a hard enough struggle getting there, what with having to cross this waste of new-fallen snow without snowshoes or sleds. Well, let’s see what can be done.”
Eventually, the party got into motion. The canoes were cached, where they could be recovered in the Summer. There was little likelihood anybody else would pass that way, to appropriate them. Equipment was made into packs shouldered by everybody except Art and Bob. These two were to carry Thorwaldsson on a stretcher, improvised out of poles cut on the river bank, and blankets.
Fortunately, the crest of the valley to which Long Jim was guiding them was distant not more than five or six miles. Even at that, however, the going was tremendously difficult because of the mass of new-fallen snow. Had it not been for Long Jim to break the way on his snowshoes, moreover, it is doubtful whether they could have made it, heavy laden as they were. But Long Jim worked patiently backward and forward, breaking down the snow, and packing it a second and even a third time with his webs.
“How come you were out here, ol’ timer?” asked Art once, as Long Jim paused, and he caught up with him.