“It’s him!” he bellowed. “It’s him! Great jumping Jehoshaphat, it’s him! I knew he’d turn up. You couldn’t lose him. Didn’t I see him go overboard in the straits in a livin’ gale of wind and come back bringing a Yukon goose with him? It’s the seven-time winner, cap. But where’s Joe?”
Joe answered for himself, rushing out of the tent and flying by the great boatswain of the Bowhead,—for who else would it be?—into his father’s arms. A moment later Harry was gripping Captain Nickerson’s hand with one of his, the big boatswain’s with the other, and laughing and crying and talking all at once, while Mr. Jones, the taciturn first mate stood by, erect and solemn, and seeming to look as if all this waste of words was a very wrong thing. When the two boys were released from the hands of Captain Nickerson and the boatswain, the first mate extended his, and though his face twitched with emotion all he said was, “How d’ do. Glad.” Evidently Mr. Jones’s characteristics had lost nothing in two years.
Captain Nickerson was grayer, and there were lines of care about his eyes that had not been there before. But these seemed to slip away as the boys told their story and he realized that he had them both back again, sound and hearty. Mr. Adams had fitted out another ship for him the following spring and he had made a trip north, but the ice had been very bad and he got no certain news of the boys, yet somehow neither he nor the folks at home had been willing to give them up for lost. Therefore he had come up again this summer, whaling, but determined to lose no chance to get news of them. By chance he had found at Point Hope the native from whom they had bought the umiak. He had told him how two white men who might be the missing ones had been at the Hotham Inlet trading fair and gone south across the bay. He had followed on the slender clue, had sighted Lane’s steamer, and landed. And so they talked on, oblivious of all except that they were reunited again after so long a time. Harry and Joe forgot their gold, and the captain, full of news from home for them, asked nothing about their present condition.
Meanwhile Blenship and the colonel, arguing earnestly back on the tundra, had noticed the commotion.
“Who are those people?” asked the big man.
Blenship did not know, but he was not going to let a little matter of ignorance spoil a good bargain. “Those,” said he, “must be the wealthy friends of my partners from the States. They’ve been expecting some people up on their own steamer, exploring. I reckon they’ll be glad to see how well the boys have done.”
“Look here, Blenship,” said the colonel hastily, “I reckon I’ll have to take your figures on this trade. You are empowered to act for your partners, aren’t you?”
“Certainly, colonel, certainly,” replied Blenship, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Well, it’s a bargain, then,” declared the colonel. “Shake hands on it.”