"Better go in and eat, fellows, and I'll look after the dogs," said Hugh.
His friends demurred, but he insisted; so they entered the restaurant.
There was the same motley crowd feeding in the same savage manner as at Skagway. Everybody smoked on the trail—in all places and under any condition—save where the pipe froze and refused its duty.
The hour was between two and three. Berwick and his comrade thought they had never been so hungry. How they relished the hot soup, and the meat, potatoes, and beans! And when they drank ...! George finished his dinner first, and scrambled off to relieve Hugh, whom he found cutting up pieces of raw meat for the dogs.
"Raw meat ain't any too good for dogs, but after they get over the summit they will get down to boiled rice and tallow—and that ain't far off."
Hugh was certainly the favourite of the dogs just then, but soon after George's arrival he put the piece of meat he had been dividing into a sack and threw it on the sleigh, and hurried to the restaurant, saying that he would boil the rest of the meat for the dogs after he himself had something to eat. "Look out for Soapy's gang" was his final warning to George.
After Hugh had his dinner (dinner is the mid-day, supper the evening, meal on the trail) he remarked that he would take a mooch round. When he returned he greeted his friends with:
"Say, I found a fellow I know here running one of these stables, and he has a tent with a lot of hay in it, and says we can sleep in that, which will save us making camp. We can put the dogs inside and run less chances of having them stolen; also the grub."
So Dude was aroused from his sleep; four other doggy noses were withdrawn from under four bushy tails, and to the accompaniment of howls the load was removed to the hay-tent, the dogs unharnessed, the load unpacked. Hugh undid the bedding and spread it on a pile of straw.
"This will be the last bed we'll strike for some time after we leave here," was his remark.