He turned and looked away across the interminable flat. In mind he went over it the entire distance.
"I don't doubt but what the ground is firm by this time," he muttered, "but—Well, there's about one chance in a thousand that I nose them out! It's at least a hundred and twenty-five miles away by way of the river, and sixty, maybe a little more, across the flat. And I've still got my gun. Poor Dad!"
Lucky Jim started on a lope across the flat. Without a pound of grub.
Meanwhile, Chenoa Pete was complimenting his partner.
"I'll say you can handle a rope, Mike!" he declared admiringly. Then he laughed. "Damn if I ever saw anything so funny in all my life. I never did! One moment he was on the raft, and the next—haw, haw, haw! He went through the air like a fish on the end of a line!"
"At first," returned Mike, highly elated with the success of his exploit, "I meant to drop it around his neck. Then says I to myself, I won't get but the one chance, so I made the loop bigger and dropped it around his body."
"It was pretty work. Of course, I'd have got him with the rifle if you had missed, but I'm leary about rivers. I remember one time a guy in the upper country shot his three partners comin' down the Yukon in a small boat and buried them on an island. Next year along comes the old river and washes half that island away and turns the three guys loose on the current. The Mounted Police finally picked them up, and two years later there was a hangin' in Dawson. Believe me, Mike, Alaska is a hard country to get out of, if you're wanted!"
"It is," Mike Haggart agreed. "But we ain't goin' out. Nome will be good enough for us this winter."
"Anywhere along the lower river."
They then hefted Lucky Jim's pokes of dust, and guessed and guessed again at the value of their contents.