“I was only waiting for an invitation,” replied the missionary, with a smile, “for I didn’t stop ashore long enough to get anything to eat. Nor do I believe the doctor has had her breakfast; so if Serge doesn’t mind having a lady at his table—”
“A lady?” stammered Serge, in dismay, and gazing wildly about him. “Is there one on board?”
“There certainly is,” laughed the missionary, “and from what she has heard of your culinary skill she is most anxious to test it.”
A minute later they were all gathered about the Chimo’s mess-table, and the doctor was winning golden opinions by her judiciously bestowed compliments. Even gruff Mr. Sims was induced to smile by her praise of his polished engine, which she declared outshone any yet seen on the Yukon; while Isaac was told that the mission saw-mill was so frightfully out of order that the man of all men most needed there at that moment was a millwright.
The pleasant meal was hardly finished when a great shout from outside announced the completion of the canal. Then, with Phil at the wheel, while the missionary and the doctor occupied the pilot-house with him, and with flags at half-mast for the dead man in her cabin, the stanch little Chimo steamed slowly up the narrow channel to the berth she was to occupy for the next eight months. As she reached it the mission flag was dipped in salute, and then hoisted to half-mast in sympathy with her sorrow.
So the eventful voyage of four hundred miles from St. Michaels was ended; and, thanks to the lads whom Gerald Hamer had rescued from the cruel waters of Bering Sea, he and his property were now moored in a safe haven. And it was none too soon, for that very night the cold was so intense that the Yukon was frozen from bank to bank.
But Phil did not care, nor did Serge. They had reached the goal towards which they had set their faces with such sturdy determination, and for them neither cold nor storm had any present terrors.