When, shortly after three o’clock, the sun completed its short course, and again reached the southern horizon, he asked Kurilla if it were not about time to make camp; but the Indian answered:
“No; go far as can make dog plenty tired. S’posin’ no git tired; night come, run to Anvik. Bad dog, yaas. Git tired, night come, no run, sleep; good dog, yaas.”
“Oh, that’s the scheme, is it?” laughed Phil. “Well, I guess I can stand it as long as the rest can, though I must confess I am about tired enough to rank with the good dogs now.”
So in spite of lame ankles, and blistering heels, and toes that were very tender from having been repeatedly “stubbed” against the snow-shoe bars, the young leader trudged sturdily forward, with the dog-teams following close behind him. At length, when the dusk was merging into darkness, Kurilla called out:
“Now camp. Plenty wood. Heap fire, yaas.”
They were passing a spruce-and-hemlock-covered point, against which a pile of drift had lodged, and, gladly accepting the Indian’s suggestion, Phil led the way towards it. Twenty miles of the journey had been accomplished, which, considering the late start and that it was the first day, was pronounced to be very good work.
For the next half-hour every one labored as though his very life depended upon what he could accomplish during those last precious moments of fading twilight. Phil and Kurilla made their keen axes ring merrily in an attack on the pile of dry drift-wood. Chitsah felled a spruce-tree, from which he cut two logs, each six feet long, and armful after armful of small branches. Serge erected a low but stout scaffold, on which the sledges were to be placed to keep them out of the way of the omnivorous dogs, who in the meantime were lying down in their harness where they had been halted.
At the end of the half-hour a great back log twelve feet long and a smaller fore log had been placed in position, and enough dry wood collected to last until morning. The direction of the wind was noted, and the logs for the fire were so laid that it should blow along their length, instead of across them from either side. While Serge split kindlings and started his fire, the two Indians unharnessed the patient dogs. The harness, and especially the whips, were hung well beyond their reach, for they will eagerly chew at the former and invariably destroy the latter if by any means they can get at them. Then the hungry animals were fed, Serge leaving the fire to feed his own team, and Phil rejoicing that he had escaped this dangerous duty. Each dog was given a salmon weighing from one pound and a half to two pounds, and each, as he received his ration, gulped it down exactly as Amook had done on a previous occasion. They followed their meal with copious mouthfuls of snow that served instead of water.
Serge, who naturally slipped into the position of cook for the party, returned to the fire, which was now blazing finely and sending a stream of sparks dancing among the dark tree-tops. Phil busied himself with the bed that he and Serge were to share, while Kurilla and Chitsah would make theirs on the opposite side of the fire. He rolled one of the green logs into position close beside the fire for its foot-board, and then covered a space some six feet square behind it with flat spruce boughs, over which he spread a thick layer of hemlock tips. Above all he laid the two great bear-skins, and on them threw the two sleeping-bags, each of which had its owner’s name done in black paint on its white canvas, and contained his personal belongings.
