The Magnetic North Part 31

"Nicholas, what'll you take for a couple o' your dogs?"

"No sell."

"Pay you a good long price."

"No sell."

"Well, will you help me to get a couple?"

"Me try"; but he spoke dubiously.

"What do they cost?"

"Good leader cost hunder and fifty in St. Michael."

"You don't mean dollahs?"

"Mean dollahs."

"Come off the roof!"

But Nicholas seemed to think there was no need.

"You mean that if I offer you a hundred and fifty dollahs for your leader, straight off, this minute, you won't take it?"

"No, no take," said the Prince, stolidly.

And his friend reflected. Nicholas without a dog-team would be practically a prisoner for eight months of the year, and not only that, but a prisoner in danger of starving to death. After all, perhaps a dog-team in such a country _was_ priceless, and the Ol' Chief was travelling in truly royal style.

However, it was stinging cold, and running after those expensive dogs was an occupation that palled. By-and-by, "How much is your sled worth?" he asked Ol' Chief.

"Six sables," said the monarch.

It was a comfort to sight a settlement off there on the point.

"What's this place?"

"Fish-town."

"Pymeuts there?"

"No, all gone. Come back when salmon run."

Not a creature there, as Nicholas had foretold--a place built wilfully on the most exposed point possible, bleak beyond belief. If you open your mouth at this place on the Yukon, you have to swallow a hurricane.

The Boy choked, turned his back to spit out the throttling blast, and when he could catch his breath inquired:

"This a good place for a village?"

"Bully. Wind come, blow muskeetah--"

Nicholas signified a remote destination with his whip.

"B'lieve you! This kind o' thing would discourage even a mosquito."

In the teeth of the blast they went past the Pymeut Summer Resort.

Unlike Pymeut proper, its cabins were built entirely above ground, of logs unc.h.i.n.ked, its roofs of watertight birch-bark.

A couple of hours farther on Nicholas permitted a halt on the edge of a struggling little grove of dwarfed cotton-wood.

The kettle and things being withdrawn from various portions of the Ol'

Chief's person, he, once more warmly tucked up and tightly lashed down, drew the edge of the outer coverlid up till it met the wolf-skin fringe of his parki hood, and relapsed into slumber.

Nicholas chopped down enough green wood to make a hearth.

"What! bang on the snow?"

Nicholas nodded, laid the logs side by side, and on them built a fire of the seasoned wood the Boy had gathered. They boiled the kettle, made tea, and cooked some fish.

Ol' Chief waked up just in time to get his share. The Boy, who had kept hanging about the dogs with unabated interest, had got up from the fire to carry them the sc.r.a.ps, when Nicholas called out quite angrily, "No!

no feed dogs," and waved the Boy off.

"What! It's only some of my fish. Fish is what they eat, ain't it?"

"No feed now; wait till night."

"What for? They're hungry."

"You give fish--dogs no go any more."

Peremptorily he waved the Boy off, and fell to work at packing up. Not understanding Nicholas's wisdom, the Boy was feeling a little sulky and didn't help. He finished up the fish himself, then sat on his heels by the fire, scorching his face while his back froze, or wheeling round and singeing his new parki while his hands grew stiff in spite of seal-skin mittens.

No, it was no fun camping with the temperature at thirty degrees below zero--better to be trotting after those expensive and dinnerless dogs; and he was glad when they started again.

But once beyond the scant shelter of the cottonwood, it was evident the wind had risen. It was blowing straight out of the north and into their faces. There were times when you could lean your whole weight against the blast.

After sunset the air began to fill with particles of frozen snow. They did not seem to fall, but continually to whirl about, and present stinging points to the travellers' faces. Talking wasn't possible even if you were in the humour, and the dead, blank silence of all nature, unbroken hour after hour, became as nerve-wearing as the cold and stinging wind. The Boy fell behind a little. Those places on his heels that had been so badly galled had begun to be troublesome again. Well, it wouldn't do any good to holla about it--the only thing to do was to harden one's foolish feet. But in his heart he felt that all the time-honoured conditions of a penitential journey were being complied with, except on the part of the arch sinner. Ol' Chief seemed to be getting on first-rate.

The dogs, hardly yet broken in to the winter's work, were growing discouraged, travelling so long in the eye of the wind. And Nicholas, in the kind of stolid depression that had taken possession of him, seemed to have forgotten even to shout "Mus.h.!.+" for a very long time.

By-and-by Ol' Chief called out sharply, and Nicholas seemed to wake up.

He stopped, looked back, and beckoned to his companion.

The Boy came slowly on.

"Why you no push?"