In view of these facts it is no wonder that the news of another steamer on the river bringing a saw-mill to supply them with lumber, machinery with which to work the frozen but gold-laden earth of their claims, and a large stock of goods to be sold at about one-half the prevailing prices, created a very pleasant excitement among the miners of that wide-awake camp.
On the day following his arrival, and after a careful survey of the situation, Phil rented the largest building in the place, paying one month's rent in advance, and giving its owner an order on Gerald Hamer for the balance until the time of the Chimo's arrival. This building had been used as a saloon, and was conveniently located close by the steamboat landing facing the river. Into it the sledge party moved all their belongings, including the seventeen wolf-skins, which now formed rugs for their floor as well as coverings for several split-log benches. Serge and the two Indians at once started up the river with the sledges for a supply of firewood, which was a precious article in Forty Mile at that time, leaving Phil and Jalap Coombs to clean the new quarters and render them habitable; while the latter, with a sailor's neat deftness, attended to this work, Phil busied himself with a pot of black paint and a long breadth of cotton cloth. At this he labored with such diligence that in an hour's time a huge sign appeared above the entrance to the building and stretched across its entire front. On it, in letters so large that they could be plainly read from the river, was painted the legend, "Yukon Trading Company, Gerald Hamer, Agent."
This promise of increased business facilities was greeted by a round of hearty cheers from a group of miners who had assembled to witness the raising of the new sign, and when Jalap Coombs finished tacking up his end one of these stepped up to him with a keen scrutiny. Finally he said. "Stranger, may I be so bold as to ask who was the best friend you ever had?"
"Sartain you may," replied the sailorman, "seeing as I'm allers proud to mention the name of old Kite Roberson, and likewise claim him for a friend."
"WHY, MATEY, DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE OLD BRIG 'BETSY?"
"I thought so!" cried the delighted miner, thrusting out a great hairy paw. "I thought I couldn't be mistook in that figger-head, and I knowed if you was the same old Jalap I took ye to be that Kite Roberson wouldn't be fur off. Why, matey, don't you remember the old brig Betsy? Have you clean forgot Skiff Bettens?"
"Him that went into the hold and found the fire and put it out, and was drug up so nigh dead from smoke that he didn't breathe nateral agin fur a week? Not much I hain't forgot him, and I'm nigh about as glad to see him as if he were old Kite hisself!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs, in joyous tones. Then he introduced Mr. Skiff Betten, ex-sailor and now Yukon miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.
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.