“Whatever it is,” said Phil, “we’ve got to cross it, and I am going to head straight for that opening.”
So they again bent to their traces, and a few hours later had crossed the great white plain, and were skirting the base of a mountain that rose on their left. Its splintered crags showed the dull red of iron rust wherever they were bare of snow, and only thin fringes of snow were to be seen in its more sheltered gorges.
Suddenly Phil halted, his face paled, and his lips quivered with emotion. “The sea!” he gasped. “Over there, Serge!”
Jalap Coombs caught the words and was on his feet in an instant, all his pains forgotten in a desire to once more catch a glimpse of his beloved salt water.
“Yes,” replied Serge, after a long look. “It certainly is a narrow bay. How I wish we knew what one! But, Phil! what is that down there near the foot of the cliffs? Is it—can it be—a house?”
“Where?” cried Phil. “Yes, I see! I do believe it is! Yes, it certainly is a house.”
[CHAPTER XXXVI]
THE MOST FAMOUS ALASKAN GLACIER
That little house nestling at the base of a precipitous mountain, and still nearly a mile away, was just then a more fascinating sight to our half-starved, toil-worn travellers than even the sea itself, and, filled with a hopeful excitement, they hastened towards it. The way led down a steep incline, and along a shallow, treeless valley, shut off from the water on their right by a ridge a hundred feet or so in height. From this depression the house was hidden until they were directly upon it; but the knowledge that it was there filled them with cheerful anticipations of food, warmth, rest, and a hearty welcome from people of their own race. It was probably a salmon cannery or saltery, or a trading-post. At any rate, the one house they had discovered was that of a white man; for it had a chimney, and none of the Tlingits or natives of southern Alaska build chimneys.