“Oh, that’ll be all right,” answered Phil, cheerfully. “You’ll plenty know um before we get through with um, and whenever you don’t know which way to go, just come and ask me.”
When he returned to the house he found Serge boiling with indignation. “Do you know,” he cried, “that Mr. Coombs has walked all the way from St. Michaels without pads in his boots, because those other fellows told him his feet would toughen quicker if he didn’t use them? The consequence is they are simply raw from blisters, and every step he takes must be like treading on knives.”
“It has been tedious at times,” admitted Jalap Coombs. “And under the sarcumstances I don’t know but what I’d ruther have one pair of feet than fourteen, or even half the number.”
“Isn’t it good to have old Jalap with us once more?” asked Phil of Serge, after they had turned in that night.
“Indeed it is; but do you notice how he has changed?”
“I should say I had. He is like a salt-water fish suddenly dropped into a fresh-water pond. He’ll come out all right, though, especially if we can only get his feet into shape again.”
That night the mercury fell to fifty-nine degrees below zero, and the next morning even Phil, impatient as he was to proceed, had not the heart to order men and dogs out into that bitter air before sunrise. With that, however, the mercury began slowly to rise, and when it had crept up nineteen degrees, or to only forty degrees below, the young leader declared the weather to be warm enough for anybody. So he ordered the sledges to be got ready, and when the one drawn by his own team came dashing up to the door, he announced that Mr. Coombs’s fourteen pair of feet were at his service. He also politely requested the sailor-man to crawl into a big fur-lined bag with which the sledge was provided, and make himself comfortable.
“But, Phil,” demurred the other, “I ain’t no passenger to be tucked up in a steamer-cheer on deck. I’m shipped for this v’y’ge as one of the crew.”
“Very well,” replied Phil. “Then of course you will obey orders without a murmur, for I remember hearing you say, when we were aboard the Seamew, that even if a captain were to order his whole crew to knit bedquilts or tidies, they’d be bound to obey to the best of their ability.”