“Whew, if that’s what the gold-seeker gets to be like, then I don’t want to be one,” declared a boy gloomy looking, unless something exciting was going on around him. “Gee, they are a ghastly looking sight. See how some faces are disfigured by frost bites, and those others at the foot of the plank, notice how pale and wan their faces are, and notice the lines of suffering on them. Famine all winter I’ll bet caused that. See those three fellows coming up now, two with only one arm and one with one leg, been frozen or broken in accidents on the ice. Right behind them are two nearly dead with the scurvy; you can see the marks from here.”
“Well, maybe they have been well paid for their sufferings, Case,” observed Alex, whose good-humored, freckled face was always cheerful. “They’ll most of them get well quick as soon as they get to the States and get proper food and medicine.”
“They don’t look as though they make much money,” observed Ike, the Jew boy, dubiously. “Most of them has on rags and the best of them I could fit out better in a cheap second-hand shop.”
“You can’t tell a man by his clothes,” said Clay, the fourth boy, who was looking over at the distant town of Nome, a cluster of tents and rough shanties on the mainland.
“You’re right there,” said a voice behind them and the four wheeled around to find the captain of the steamer standing behind them. “No, you can’t judge those men by their looks or clothes. That fellow in rags has a claim up near Dawson that has turned him out over two million already. He wants a change. His folks have a kind of a farm up in the States. He’ll go there and lay around under the trees for a while and then drift back. That big man next to him is one of the richest miners in the north. He’ll go out for a month perhaps, spend a quarter of a million having what he calls a good time, then he’ll drift back. Maybe more than half of that crowd coming on board have made good stakes. Of the balance most are tenderfeet, who have simply got cold feet and have given up the game. But, boys, three-fourths of that crowd will be back in a year. I can’t understand it myself, but there is a lure to this Northland that seems to draw men back to her in spite of the awful punishments she gives. But all this isn’t what I came to see you about, boys. I wanted to say that we can lower your boat down any time, but its pretty rough now so I would advise you to wait until tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Captain,” said Clay, after a questioning glance at his companions. “We thank you very much, but we have been delayed so much on the journey that we have got to hustle to see much of the Yukon before the ice sets in. We want to see Nome this afternoon, and tomorrow begins our trip up the Yukon. I am sure the Rambler can ride those waves—she has gone over much bigger ones in her time. If the slings are placed right so that she will hit the water evenly, she will be all right.”
“All right, boys,” smiled the Captain. “Have your own way about it. Good-bye, and I hope it will be our fortune to go back on the same boat in the fall. I’ll send the boatswain right up to fix the slings. He’s an artist at that kind of work. We will have your boat in the water in a jiffy.”
He was gone but a moment when the boastswain appeared and with deft fingers adjusted the slings. At a signal the steamer’s big crane, hoisted high, swung in over their heads. The boys clambered aboard the Rambler and took their places—Case at the wheel, Clay at the motors, and Alex and Ike at the slings ready to cast off when the time came.
The big crane lifted them over the rail, held them poised for a minute, then lowered them gently down into the rough water below. The moment the slings slacked, Ike and Alex cast off the iron hooks that connected them to the crane. Clay started the motors, Case swung the wheel around, and the Rambler—like a bird freed from captivity—darted away, followed by the cheers of the steamer’s crew.
Alex danced up and down the deck, while the others could hardly refrain from joining him in their joy at being once more afloat on their beloved craft.