The reader may wish to follow the later adventures of the Boy Scouts, and in the next volume, “In the North Woods,” their further history will be told.
The letters from home awakened many pleasant memories, and perhaps a little feeling of home sickness, and there was no eager acceptance of the miner’s proposition, which, anyway, was probably made in a joking spirit.
“I believe,” said Rand, “I should like to come back here some time. I sometimes think that in spite of the fact that this great territory is so near the North Pole, it’s going to be a great commonwealth. I want to see it in the winter time, when they say it is so terrible.”
“Gee, I think we’ve had enough of it for this time,” put in Gerald, with a serious look. “I want to get home and build another aeroplane. They’ll be getting ahead of us on airships if we stay away much longer.”
“And I hae me doots,” put in the economical Don, “if this country isn’t too expensive for just regular living.”
“I’m going to write a book about this country, and I want to get home to do it,” said Jack.
“Well,” said Dick, “I’m rather in favor of a short visit to the old home at this time, just to astonish the natives with a few of our adventures. Since this patrol was formed, its experiences have got to be a regular habit with the Creston folks, and I have an idea they must miss something by this time. I think it’s our duty to let them have at least an ‘Old Home Week’ to relieve their—hey, what do you call it, Jack, in that high school French of yours?—oh, yes, their ongwee.”
“Well,” said the ingenious Pepper, unguardedly, “I’ve got no reason—I just want to go home.”
“Nothing to do with a sudden case of ‘private consumption?’” cruelly remarked Jack, and amid the shout of laughter that followed Pepper, covered with a sunset glow, made a sudden exit in search of the guide.
Colonel Snow had a conference with the Indians after he had inspected the “treasure,” and heard the story of its perilous recovery. He recognized that the value of the mammoth tusks as museum specimens was far greater than its worth as ivory, and he offered to pay the Indians far above its commercial value for their interest in it, allowing them full possession of the remaining ivory. They gladly accepted his suggestion, and all of them returned to their village near Skagway, with sufficient wealth to make them independent until the next “potlatch,” when they would probably give it all away.