Phil had also been recognized. That is, Mr. Platt Riley had asked him if he were the son of his father, and when Phil admitted the relationship, told him that he had a father to be proud of every minute of his life. Didn’t he know? for hadn’t he, Platt Riley, worked side by side with Mr. John Ryder prospecting in South Africa, where every ounce of grit that a white man had in him was bound to show itself? “To be certain he had,” and now he was proud to shake the hand of John Ryder’s son, and if there was anything John Ryder’s son wanted in that camp, why he, Platt Riley, was the man to get it for him.
So our sledge travellers found that even in that remote mining camp, buried from the world beneath the snows of an arctic winter, they were among friends. This, coupled with all that they had undergone in reaching it, made it seem to them a very pleasant and comfortable place in which to rest awhile.
And it was necessary that they should stay there for a time. They must cultivate friendly business relations with the miners on Gerald Hamer’s account, and find out what class of goods were most in demand; for never until now had Phil realized the responsibility with which he had been intrusted. He must prepare a full report to send back by Kurilla and Chitsah, who could not be tempted to venture any farther away from their homes. The dogs must be well rested before they would be fitted for the second and most difficult half of the long journey. Above all, Phil felt that, as representative of the Yukon Trading Company, he must be on hand to meet the agents of its old-established rival, and defend his far-away friend from the false reports they were certain to spread concerning him.
He wondered why Goldollar and Strengel did not appear, and dreaded to meet them, but at the same time longed to have the disagreeable encounter over with as quickly as possible. So, many times each day did he gaze long and fixedly across the broad white plain of the Yukon. At length, on the eighth day after their arrival at Forty Mile, his eye was caught by some moving black dots that he felt certain must be the expected sledges.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE NEW ARRIVAL AT FORTY MILE
The man known as Strengel was probably as great a rascal as could be found in all Alaska. His sole object in shipping aboard the steamer Norsk at San Francisco had been to make his way, by fair means or foul, to the Yukon gold-fields, of which he had gained extravagant ideas. On the night before the Norsk left St. Michaels he stole from the chests of several of his shipmates such small sums of money as they contained, slipped into a canoe, and deserted the ship. He remained in hiding until she sailed, and then, claiming to have been discharged at his own request, offered his services to Gerald Hamer in exchange for a passage to Forty Mile. This proposition being accepted, and Strengel regularly shipped as one of the Chimo’s crew, he made a secret proposal to the old company through one of its clerks, who happened to be Simon Goldollar, to so delay and cripple Gerald Hamer’s expedition that he should be forced to abandon it. In attempting to carry out this programme he was foiled by Phil Ryder’s quick wit and prompt action.
Making his way back to St. Michaels, after Phil set him ashore at the Pastolik wood-yard, Strengel fell in with Jalap Coombs, and, in company with Goldollar, so managed the money affairs of that unsuspecting sailor that he was unwittingly made to defray all their expenses to Forty Mile, though he only expected to accompany them a short distance up the river. Strengel’s sole object was still to reach the gold-fields, while Goldollar was intent on winning a reputation for himself by forestalling Gerald Hamer at Forty Mile, and at the same time inflicting what injury he could on Phil Ryder. From the outset they agreed to rid themselves of Jalap Coombs at some point so far up the river that he must necessarily remain where they left him for the rest of the winter. They learned at Nulato that the Chimo was frozen in at Anvik, but took care that this information should not reach Jalap Coombs, whom they soon afterwards so cruelly deserted.
As they travelled beyond the point where they left him, the well-mated pair had such frequent and bitter quarrels that, when Simon Goldollar fell seriously ill, Strengel did not hesitate to rob him of what money he carried and desert him at a native village near the abandoned trading-post of Fort Yukon. Before doing this he discharged the Indians who had come with them from Nulato, and sent them back, telling them that he should remain with his sick friend until he recovered or died. As soon as they were gone he engaged other natives, and set out for the diggings that had for so long been the goal of his desires.