“In it,” explained the captain, “we will make ourselves as comfortable as possible for the winter, and in the spring we will push on for the diggings. With the four hundred miles’ start we have got, thanks to you boys, we ought to reach them in time to do a rattling business before the company’s boats get there.”
“But how about going out by way of Chilkat for your next year’s supply of goods?” queried Phil.
“Oh, that plan must be given up, of course, and I must make up my mind to sacrifice a year’s business for the fun I’ve had with the measles. The trip from here in the dead of winter would be a tough one for the strongest of men, for it must be all of two thousand miles. It will easily take me the rest of the winter to regain strength enough to go on with the boat in the spring, so there’s no use thinking of that trip now. I’ll manage to send you boys out somehow next summer, which is the nearest I can come to keeping my contract with you. In the meantime, while I am sorry for your disappointment, I am very glad of your company and services.”
“You don’t think, then, that it would be possible for us to go out this winter by way of Forty Mile and the coast and make our way to the Sound, or even to San Francisco, and order your goods for you?” suggested Phil, in whose mind this wild scheme had suddenly assumed shape.
“You two inexperienced boys!” exclaimed the captain, amazed at the audacity of the proposition. “Certainly not. Why, I don’t believe either of you knows how to use snow-shoes, or to drive a team of dogs, or has the least idea of what fifty below zero means.”
“I think I know,” said Serge.
“Which?”
“All of those things,” replied the young Russo-American.
“You know more than I do, then, or ever expect to, for I have never driven a dog-team. As for Phil here, I am certain that he knows nothing about any one of the three.”
“I believe I could learn,” said the boy from New London, “and I know I’d be glad of the chance.”