“My, but it seems colder in here than outside,” Jack declared, as he stepped inside. “We’ll have to come up some Saturday before we go back and stay over Sunday. What do you say?”
“I say yes. We can keep a good fire going in the fireplace and I guess we won’t have any trouble to keep warm.”
“Let’s make it next Saturday, then.”
“Righto, next Saturday it is,” Bob agreed.
It was just nine o’clock when they reached Kernertok’s cabin. They found the old Indian washing his breakfast dishes and they knew that he was overjoyed to see them, although his stoical nature made it impossible for him to be demonstrative.
“Injun very glad see white boys,” he said as he took both their hands.
“And you bet we’re tickled to death to see you,” Jack declared, and Bob’s greeting was no less warm.
At the sound of their voices a large collie dragged himself from beneath a bunk at one side of the room, and the way he jumped at the boys striving to lick their faces gave abundant evidence that the dog also was overjoyed.
“Good old Sicum,” Jack declared, stroking the dog’s head. “You haven’t forgotten us, have you boy?” and a sharp bark of delight said as plainly as words that he had not.
Bob had always insisted that no one could cook like Kernertok, although Jack would never agree that he could beat his brother when it came to baking biscuits. However the dinner to which they sat down a few hours later, consisting of trout caught through the ice the day before, and hot biscuits, to say nothing of the baked potatoes and apple pie, left little to be desired.