"Me'be it w'd be'n betteh if yo' hadn't of," answered the man, with a glance toward the towering snow peaks.
"Well, it wouldn't!" flashed the boy; "and, you bet, it would take more than just saying so to hold me back! You know you're glad I came—Anyway, I did come, and I'd rather be lost here, with you, than own the best claim on Ten Bow, and go it alone. You and I are going to beat the Lillimuit, pardner, and even Carlson couldn't do that!"
"No, he couldn't," agreed the man, eyeing the boy proudly. "An' theh's plenty othehs, too, that's tried it. Some come back—but, mostly, they didn't. Carlson, in theh—he was a man—he died huntin' up his pahdneh. I wondeh how much of a strike they made oveh on this heah Ignatook?"
"It must be something big. The notebook said there was lots and lots of gold——"
"Yeh—an' it said they was creeks that don't freeze—an' frozen fohests—an' things that come in the night—an' steam. Yo' see, kid, Carlson was too long alone. It's boun' to get a man—the big, white country is—if he stays too long from his kind. It gets 'em with its flashin', hissin' lights, an' the roah of shiftin' ice—but, most of all, with its silence—the dead, awful stillness of the land of frozen things. It gets 'em in heah"—he pointed significantly to his forehead. "Somethin' goes wrong, sometimes all of a sudden—sometimes gradual—but, it's all the same—they might betteh died.
"But, come on, let's eat, an' then hunt up Carlson's cache. I sho' hope he was all theah when he made that map, 'cause, if he wasn't, yo' an' me is in fo' a hahd winteh. Rampsin' th'ough the Lillimuit followin' a crazy man's map ain't no Sunday school picnic—not what yo' c'n notice—an' when we-all come to the end of the trail, we'll know we be'n somewheahs."
The cache was easily located near the centre of the thicket. It was a rude crotch and pole affair, elevated beyond reach of prowling animals. A couple of blows from Waseche's axe brought the structure crashing into the snow, and they proceeded to cut the lashings of the caribou skins that served as tarpaulins.
"Theah's meat a plenty wheah he come from. Look at them quahte's of caribou, an' the hides."