Wilder nodded his head towards the great hills in the west.
“The Hekor, Mike,” he said seriously. “Ther’s no home run yet. There’s nearly four months to the freeze up, an’ we pull out of here, west, after we’ve slept. We’re making west to the headwaters, an’ to get a look at the hill country. Ther’s gold around somewhere, and there are those neches—as you choose to call ’em. We aren’t ‘quitting’ till we know more about both.”
It was a scene which years before other eyes had gazed upon. It was the canyon of the Grand Falls where the Hekor fell off the highlands of the Alaskan hills. Wilder and his men were ashore at the only landing available, and again it was a landing which had been used by another years before.
The gold man and his fellows were fascinated by the tremendous grandeur of the canyon, with the dull roar of great waters coming back to them out of the dense clouds of spray which enveloped the far distance of the straight hewn rift down which the surge of dark waters rushed.
“We can’t make that stuff,” Chilcoot demurred, his eyes on the turbulent race of water which the canyon disgorged.
“We aren’t going to attempt it.” Wilder shrugged. He turned to Mike who stood gazing out into the far distance absorbed by the magnificence which so deeply appealed to his Gallic imagination.
“We got to see the thing lying back of those Falls,” he said pointing. “Will you make it, Mike? Will you make it with Chilcoot and me? We can leave camp to Buck Maberley. He can handle the boys good, and you can put it up to him. I guess it means a portage up there. Then—Well, who knows? Maybe we’ll be back here in two weeks. Maybe two months. I’ve got a notion, and I’ve got to put it through. That territory out there is Alaskan, and I want to get a look. Are you falling for it? I want the answer right now. I’m guessing all the time. I don’t know a thing. But I’ve got to get a look back of those Falls. Well?”
Mike’s gaze remained on the distance. The fascination of it refused to release him. He replied without turning.
“Sure boss,” he said simply. Then he added whimsically “I’ll fall for water—like that.”