Even Nel-te showed delight at the return of his big playmate by cuddling up to him, and stroking his weather-beaten cheeks, and confiding to him how very hungry he was.
"Me too, Cap'n Kid!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs; "and I must say you're a mighty tempting mossel to a man as nigh starved as I be. Jest about boiling age, plump and tender. Cap'n Kid, look out, for I'm mighty inclined to stow ye away."
"Try this instead," laughed Phil, holding out a chunk of frozen pemmican that he had just chopped off. "We're in the biggest kind of luck to-day," he continued. "I didn't know there was a mouthful of anything to eat on this sledge, and here I've just found about five pounds of pemmican. It does seem to me the very best pemmican that was ever put up, too, and I only wonder that we didn't eat it long ago. I'm going to get my aunt Ruth to make me a lot of it just as soon as ever I get home."
As they sat before the fire on a tree felled and stripped of its branches for the purpose, and munched frozen pemmican, and took turns in sipping strong unsweetened tea from the only cup now left to them, Jalap Coombs described his thrilling experiences of the preceding night.
According to his story, one of his dogs gave out, and he stopped to unharness it with the hope that it would still have strength to follow the sledge. While he was thus engaged the storm broke, the blinding rush of snow swept over the mountains, and as he looked up he found to his dismay that the other sledge was already lost to view. He at once started to overtake it, urging on the reluctant dogs by every means in his power; but after a few minutes of struggle against the furious gale, they lay down and refused to move. After cutting their traces that they might follow him if they chose, the man set forth alone, with bowed and uncertain steps, on a hopeless quest for his comrades. He did not find them, as we know, though once he heard a faint cry from off to one side. Heading in that direction, the next thing he knew he had plunged over the precipice, and found himself sliding, rolling, and bounding downward with incredible velocity.
"The trip must have lasted an hour or more," said Jalap Coombs, soberly, in describing it, "and when I finally brung up all standing, I couldn't make out for quite a spell whether I were still on top of the earth, or had gone plumb through to the other side. I knowed every rib and timber of my framing were broke, and every plank started; but somehow I managed to keep my head above water, and struck out for shore. I made port under a tree, and went to sleep. When I woke at the end of the watch, I found all hatches closed and battened down. So I were jest turning over again when I heerd a hail, and knowed I were wanted on deck. And, boys, I've had happy moments in my life, but I reckon the happiest of 'em all were when I broke out and seen you two with the kid, standing quiet and respectful, and heerd ye saying, 'Good-morning, sir, and hoping you've passed a quiet night,' like I were a full-rigged cap'n."
"As you certainly deserve to be, Mr. Coombs," laughed Phil, "and as I believe you will be before long, for I don't think we can be very far from salt water at this moment."
"It's been seeming to me that I could smell it!" exclaimed the sailorman, eagerly sniffing the air as he spoke. "And, ef you're agreeable, sir, I moves that we set sail for it at once. My hull's pretty well battered and stove in, but top works is solid, standing and running rigging all right, and I reckon by steady pumping we can navigate the old craft to port yet."
"All aboard, then! Up anchor, and let's be off!" shouted Phil, so excited at the prospect of a speedy termination to their journey that he could not bear a moment's longer delay in attaining it.
So they set merrily and hopefully forth, and followed the windings of the valley, keeping just beyond the forest edge. In summer-time they would have found it filled with impassable obstacles—huge bowlders, landslides, a network of logs and fallen trees, and a roaring torrent; but now it was packed with snow to such an incredible depth that all these things lay far beneath their feet and the way was made easy.