A cry from Joe Pete cause him to concentrate his gaze upon a spot toward which the Indian pointed, where, dimly discernible, a dark object appeared against the unbroken surface of the snow. The steel blue haze—the "cold fog" of the North, obfuscated its outlines, as it destroyed perspective so that the object may have been five miles away, or twenty. It may have been the size of a dog, or the size of a skyscraper. In vain the two strained their eyes in an endeavor to make it out. In the first gloom of the early darkness it disappeared altogether, and the two made their way to the frozen surface of the river where, in the shelter of a perpendicular wall of rock, they made their camp and kindled a tiny fire of twigs they had collected the day before from the last timber on the Coppermine, at a creek that runs in from the eastward.
For two days, holding to the surface of the river, the two had threaded the transverse ridges that form the Copper Mountains. It was Brent's idea to mush straight to the northernmost ridge and work back slowly, stopping wherever practicable to prospect among the outcropping ledges. He had planned, also, to burn into the gravel at intervals, but he had not foreseen the fact that the mountains
lay north of the timber line, so the burning had to be abandoned.
At daylight they again climbed the ridge. The cold fog had disappeared and as Joe Pete, who was in the lead, reached the summit, he gave voice to a loud cry of surprise. For in place of the indiscernible object of the day before, apparently only ten or twelve miles distant, and right in the centre of the vast plain of snow was a ship—each mast and spar standing out clean-cut as a cameo against its dazzling background. Brent even fancied he could see men walking about her deck, and other men walking to and fro among a group of snow mounds that clustered close about the hulk.
"A whaler!" he exclaimed, "One of those that Johnnie Claw said wintered up here."
For a long time Brent watched the ship, and covertly Joe Pete watched Brent. At length the white man spoke. "Reckon we'll just mush over there and call on 'em. Neighbors aren't so damned common up here that we can afford to pass them by when we're in sight of 'em."
"Dat better, mebbe-so, we don' go w'ere we ain' got no business. Mebbe-so dat Godam Johnnie Claw, she giv' you som' mor' hooch, eh? Dat breed gal she dam' fine 'oman—she ain' lak dat."
Brent laughed, a trifle nervously: "I don't reckon there's any danger of that," he answered, shortly. "Come on, we'll harness the dogs and pull out there. I'd like to see what kind of an outfit
they've got, and as long as we're this near it would be too bad not to go to the very top of the continent."
Joe Pete shrugged and followed Brent down to the river where they broke camp, harnessed the dogs, and struck out over the plain. The wind-packed snow afforded good footing and the outfit pushed rapidly northward.