An hour later, as they rounded a projecting point, Phil uttered an exulting shout. A cluster of twinkling lights shone dead ahead, and our travellers knew that their goal was won.
“Let’s give them a volley,” suggested Serge. “It’s the custom of the country, you know.”
So the guns were taken from their deerskin coverings, and at Phil’s word of command a roar from double-barrel, flintlock, and Winchester woke glad echoes from both sides of the broad valley and from the rugged Yukon cliffs beyond. Then, with whoopings and cheers and frantic yelpings of dogs, the sledge brigade dashed on towards the welcoming lights.
“Hello the camp!” yelled Phil, as they approached the dark cluster of cabins.
“On deck!” roared Jalap Coombs, as though he were hailing a ship at sea.
“Hello yourself!” answered a gruff voice—the first hail in their own tongue that the boys had heard in many a week. “Who are you? Where do you come from? And what’s all this racket about?”
“White men,” replied Phil, “with dog-sledges, up from Yukon mouth.”
“Great Scott! You don’t say so! No wonder you’re noisy! Hi, boys! Here’s the first winter outfit that ever came from Yukon mouth to Forty Mile. What’s the matter with giving them a salute?”
“Nothing at all!” cried a score of voices, and then volley after volley rang forth, until it seemed as though every man there must have carried a loaded gun and emptied it of all six shots in honor of the occasion.
Men came running from all directions, and before the shooting ceased the entire population of the camp, some three hundred in number, were eagerly crowding about the new-comers, plying them with questions, and struggling for the honor of shaking hands with the first arrivals of the year.