“In that case things are working out all right, after all,” said Phil, “for Sitka is the very place we are bound for at this very minute.”
“But he warn’t going to stop there,” continued Jalap Coombs, “only till the first spring ship left for St. Michaels, when he reckoned to take passage on her and come up after you.”
“But how did he expect to find us at St. Michaels in the spring when he knew we left there in September?”
“Because the very cruise I’m shipped for is to find you, pilot you back there, and moor alongside of ye till he heaves in sight again. You see, he’s taken a notion that he’d like to come up the river and have a look at the diggings, which he don’t feel that he can till he has you once more in tow. So, seeing as I were out of a berth for the winter, and we heerd as you were froze in somewheres up here on the river, I took the contract to hunt ye and fetch ye back. I’ll allow, though, that things was looking pretty dubious for me awhile ago, and ef you hadn’t hove in sight as ye did I’d been all at sea without compass or yet a chart. Now, though, it’s all plain sailing again, and—”
“Is it?” interrupted Phil. “Seems to me this whole affair is about as completely snarled as any I ever had anything to do with, unless it was a fighting dog-team. To begin with— But, I say, suppose we have supper first and discuss the situation afterwards. I for one am too hungry to think.”
“If you are any more hungry than I am you are hungry enough to be dangerous,” laughed Serge; while Jalap Coombs remarked that supper was the very thing he was considering when Phil entered the room. “And a mighty poor lookout it were,” he added, “for I hadn’t any grub, nor didn’t know the best place to steal any, nor yet warn’t quite hungry enough to steal a supper anyway. So I were jest concluding to go without, same as I did for dinner. But ef you boys has got anything to eat—”
“Have we?” cried Phil; “you just wait and see. Serge, did you know this was Christmas Day?”
“No,” laughed Serge, “for it isn’t.”
“Well, it is so near to it, and this meeting is such a joyous occasion, that I move we trot out our mince-pies, and plum-puddings, and roast turkeys, and pemmican, and things, and have a regular Christmas blowout. That is, always supposing that Mr. Coombs will loan us the use of his house. This is your house, is it not, Mr. Coombs?”