Their admiration for their team was further increased when, upon the rising of the sun, they looked back at the distant mountain from whose base they started only a few hours before. All the boys were feeling the tremendous pace at which they had traveled and Clay called a brief halt for them all to gain their breath. The dogs, obedient to his commands, dropped down in their traces and instantly curled up in the hard snow.
“Look how much trail wisdom they’ve got,” said Alex in admiration. “They go like the wind, by they don’t waste a second when they get a chance to rest.”
“We have got to borrow a little of their wisdom,” Clay observed. “If we don’t we will all of us be tired to death and have to camp long before the day is over. We had better take turns in riding on the sled, one at a time. That will give each man thirty minutes of running and fifteen minutes to rest up in. We ought to be able to hold on at that.”
Even under this liberal arrangement, the boys were well pleased when the whole team stopped and curled up in their traces, close beside a bunch of cottonwood trees.
“Get up! Push on there!” shouted Clay, surprised at the sudden action, but Buck only gave him a reproachful look.
Alex grinned with delight. “Don’t disgust Buck right at the start by letting him know that you are a blamed chekako,” he advised. “He knows that it’s dinner time and that this is a mighty good place to cook with all the dead cottonwood lying around.”
The boys fell to the work of getting dinner with the system of old timers. While Clay cut dead cottonwood, Ike built a fire and melted snow for coffee. Alex brought out a frozen sausage-like length of beans, ready cooked with a generous mixture of cubes of pork, from which he hacked short pieces and placed them into the frying pan to heat, continuing the operation until the pan was full. Then in a short time dinner was ready and the boys sat down to it with keen appetites. A short rest after, and they were off again. Before daylight ended, they swept around a high bluff into full sight of the village they sought. Buck, in his knowledge of the country, had brought them straight to their destination. Barking dogs and a crowd of natives met them at the village limits. The dogs’ barking ceased at sight of Buck who, with hair raised and teeth bared, gave utterance to one low ominous growl at which the dogs in front shrank back silently, leaving a path through their midst for the sled. Down it Buck walked in state with never a glance to left or right, moving like a king before his subjects.
“He’s grand,” Clay exclaimed. “He’s the Yukon Kid of the dog trails.”
It was evident that the natives thought so too, for they crowded around with grunts of envy and admiration.
“Sell him?” queried one native, but Clay shook his head.