“I wonder when we will see the Yukon Kid again,” said Case musingly, during a lull in the supper chatter. “He was due to leave St. Michael’s yesterday and I bet he started on time, for he’s fairly crazy to get back to his lady fair in Dawson.”
Alex snorted in disgust. “Looks like all you fellows can think of is girls,” he sneered, and his companions shifted sheepishly in their chairs, expecting and dreading a storm of ridicule from his sharp little tongue. But Alex remained silent after his outburst. In truth, he was picturing for himself a dull and sombre future. As the others wandered on to other topics he sat thinking gloomily. Here was the Yukon Kid, mightiest of the mighty men of the North, hanging to the apron strings of a mere slip of a girl. Clay and Case both had girls in Chicago, he knew; they would soon be getting old enough to marry and then the fine long cruises would stop, for their wives would not let them go unless they went with them. Case’s red headed girl wouldn’t, he was certain. There would be no more trips. Only he and Ike would be left to talk over alone the glory of this trip. A horrible suspicion flashed into his mind, perhaps even Ike had a girl.
“Ike,” he demanded, suddenly. “Where does Rebecca work?”
“She works in a shirt waist factory. By and by she be forewoman,” Ike said proudly, caught unawares.
A roar of laughter from the boys awoke him to the slip he had made. His face reddened and he resolutely closed his mouth and refused to commit himself further in reply to Alex’s adroit question.
“It’s all right, Alex,” he said stoutly. “Maybe you got one little laugh on me now, you understand. But some day I get big laugh on you because I laugh last.”
“Fadder,” interrupted Abe, “you better put mukluks by the fire to dry.”
It was a rule of the trail, the Kid had tried to impress upon them, to always dry out their footwear after the day’s work, but it needed the grave voice of the child to recall it to them. Abe was born on the trail and he was learned in its dangers.
“If Abe says so we had better do it and turn in,” Clay remarked, and soon five sets of footwear were ranged around the stock and the five boys were sound asleep in their bunks.
It was Clay’s cheery “Get up, grub’s ready,” that awakened his sleeping companions.