Seventeen green wolf-skins formed a heavy sledge-load, especially for the weakened dog-teams; but fortunately Jalap Coombs’s feet were again in condition for walking, and snow on the river was not yet deep. So it was determined to carry them—at least, for the present. On the evening following that of the encounter with the wolves, Phil, leaving the work of preparing camp to the others, unpacked the Eskimo wolf-traps of compressed whalebone that he had procured at Makagamoot. He had twenty of the ingenious little contrivances, and wrapped each one in a strip of frozen wolf-meat that he had saved and brought along for the purpose. When all were thus prepared, he carried them about a quarter of a mile from camp, and then dropped them at short intervals in a great circle about it. He knew the dogs would not stray that far since their experience of the night before, and so felt pretty certain that the traps would only find their way to the destination for which they were intended.

The first blood-chilling howl was heard soon after dark, and a few minutes later it was apparent that wolves were again gathering from all quarters. Then the anxious watchers caught occasional glimpses of dim forms, and sometimes of a pair of gleaming eyes, that invariably drew a shot from Phil’s rifle. Still the wolves seemed to remember their lesson, or else they waited for the occupants of the camp to fall asleep, for they made no effort at an attack.

As time passed the wolf tones began to change, and defiant howlings to give place to yelps and yells of distress. Soon other sounds were mingled with these—the fierce snarlings of savage beasts fighting over their prey. The traps were doing their work. Those wolves that had eagerly gulped them down were so stricken with deadly pains that they staggered, fell, and rolled in the snow. At the first symptoms of distress others sprang upon them and tore them in pieces, at the same time battling fiercely over their cannibal feast. So wolf fed wolf, while the night echoed with their hideous outcries, until finally the survivors, gorged with the flesh of their own kind, slunk away, and after some hours of bedlam quiet once more reigned in the forest.

So Phil’s scheme proved a success, and for the remainder of that night he and his companions slept in peace. At daylight they visited the scenes of wolfish feasting, and found everywhere plentiful evidence of what had taken place; but this time they gathered in neither rugs nor robes, for only blood-stains, bones, and tattered shreds of fur remained.

Phil’s only regret was that he had not a lot more of those same useful traps, though, as was afterwards proved, they were not needed, for never again during their journey did wolves appear in sufficient numbers to cause them any alarm.

For another week did the sledge party journey down the several streams that, emptying one into another, finally formed the Conehill River, or, as the gold-diggers call it, Forty Mile Creek, because its mouth is forty miles down the Yukon from the old trading-post of Fort Reliance. As the first half of their long journey drew towards a close they became anxious as to its results and impatient for its end. When would they reach the settlement? and could they get there before their rivals who had followed the Yukon? were the two questions that they constantly asked of each other, but which none could answer.

Phil grew almost despondent as he reflected upon the length of time since they left old Fort Adams, and gave it as his opinion that the other party must have reached Forty Mile long since.

Serge also feared they had, though he didn’t see how they could.

Jalap Coombs was firm in his belief that the other party was still far away, and that his would be the first in; for, quoth he, “Luck allers has been on my side, and I’m going to believe it allers will be. My old friend Kite Roberson useter say, speaking of luck, and he give it as his own experience, that them as struck the best kinds of luck was them as worked the hardest for it; and ef they didn’t get it one way they was sure to another. Likewise he useter say, Kite did, consarning worriments, that ef ye didn’t pay no attention to one ’twould be mighty apt to pass ye by; but ef ye encouraged it by so much as a wink or a nod, ye’d have to fight it to git red of it. So, seeing as they hain’t no worriments hove in sight yet, what’s the use in s’arching for ’em?”

As for Kurilla, whenever his opinion was asked, he always grinned and returned the same answer:

“You come pretty quick, mebbe. Yaas.”

So each day of the last three or four brought its fresh hope; at each succeeding bend of the stream all eyes were strained eagerly forward for a sight of the expected cluster of log-huts, and each night brought an added disappointment.

At length one evening, when Phil, who had pushed on longer than usual, in an effort to end their suspense, was reluctantly compelled, by gathering darkness, to go into camp, Chitsah suddenly attracted attention to himself by running to a tree and pressing an ear to its trunk. As the others stared at him, a broad smile overspread his face, and he said something to his father, which the latter instantly interpreted.

“What?” cried Phil, incredulously. “He thinks he hears the sound of chopping?”

“Yaas,” answered Kurilla. “Axe, chop um, white men, plenty. Yaas.”

“I, too, can hear something!” exclaimed Serge, who had imitated Chitsah’s movements, “though I wouldn’t swear it was chopping.”

“Hurrah! So can I!” shouted Phil, after a moment of intent listening at another tree. “First time, though, I ever knew that the public telephone service was extended to this country. The sound I heard might be a train of cars twenty miles away, or a woodpecker somewhere within sight. No matter. If Chitsah says it’s chopping, it must be, for he ought to know, seeing that he first heard it with the aid of the tree-telephone. So let’s go for it. We can afford to travel an hour or two in the dark for the sake of meeting the white man who is swinging that axe, can’t we?”

“Of course we can,” replied Serge.

“Aye, aye, sir!” answered Jalap Coombs.

“Mebbe catch um. Yaas,” added Kurilla, sharing the general enthusiasm.

Even the tired dogs barked, pricked up their sharp ears, sniffed the air, and did not, seemingly, object to moving on.

So the long teams were again swung into line, the pistol-like reports of the three sledge-whips rang sharply through the keen air, and the whole party swept on down the darkening river at a greater speed than they had made that day.

An hour later, as they rounded a projecting point, Phil uttered an exulting shout. A cluster of twinkling lights shone dead ahead, and our travellers knew that their goal was won.

“Let’s give them a volley,” suggested Serge. “It’s the custom of the country, you know.”

So the guns were taken from their deerskin coverings, and at Phil’s word of command a roar from double-barrel, flintlock, and Winchester woke glad echoes from both sides of the broad valley and from the rugged Yukon cliffs beyond. Then, with whoopings and cheers and frantic yelpings of dogs, the sledge brigade dashed on towards the welcoming lights.

“Hello the camp!” yelled Phil, as they approached the dark cluster of cabins.

“On deck!” roared Jalap Coombs, as though he were hailing a ship at sea.

“Hello yourself!” answered a gruff voice—the first hail in their own tongue that the boys had heard in many a week. “Who are you? Where do you come from? And what’s all this racket about?”

“White men,” replied Phil, “with dog-sledges, up from Yukon mouth.”

“Great Scott! You don’t say so! No wonder you’re noisy! Hi, boys! Here’s the first winter outfit that ever came from Yukon mouth to Forty Mile. What’s the matter with giving them a salute?”

“Nothing at all!” cried a score of voices, and then volley after volley rang forth, until it seemed as though every man there must have carried a loaded gun and emptied it of all six shots in honor of the occasion.

Men came running from all directions, and before the shooting ceased the entire population of the camp, some three hundred in number, were eagerly crowding about the new-comers, plying them with questions, and struggling for the honor of shaking hands with the first arrivals of the year.

“Are we really the first to come up the river?” asked Phil.

“To be sure you are. Not only that, but the first to reach the diggings from any direction since navigation closed. But how did you come? Not by the river, I know, for when I heard your shooting ’twas clear away up the creek.”

“We came by the Tanana and across the Divide,” answered Phil. “There is another party coming by way of the river, though, and we were afraid they might get in ahead of us.”

“Hark to that, boys! One train just arrived, and another coming! I tell you, old Forty Mile is right in it. Daily express from all points, through tickets to Europe, Arup, and Arrap; morning papers and opera-houses, circus and theaytres. Looks like the boom had struck us at last. But say, stranger, what is the news from below?”

“New steamer on her way up the river, with saw-mill, mining machinery, and best stock of goods ever seen in Alaska,” replied Phil, quick to seize the opportunity, and anxious to make his business known while he still had the field to himself. “We have come from her, and are on our way to San Francisco to send up a new stock for next season. So we have only stopped to take your orders and find out what will be the most acceptable.”

“Hurrah!” yelled the crowd, wild with excitement. “Send us a brass-band,” shouted one. “In swaller-tails and white kids,” added another. “What’s the matter with moving the Palace Hotel up here?” suggested a third, “seeing as San Francisco isn’t in it any longer with Forty Mile. Especially send along the café.”

“Come, fellows, let up,” cried the man who had been the first to welcome the new arrivals, and whose name was Riley. “We mustn’t keep these gentlemen standing out here in the cold any longer. I reckon they’re hungry, too, and wondering why we don’t invite ’em to grub. So, men, just come into my shebang and make yourselves at home. There isn’t much to it, but such as it is it’s yours, so long as you’ll honor yours truly.”

“No, come with me,” cried another voice. “I’ve got beans, Boston baked, fresh from the can.” “I’ve got molasses and soft-tack,” and “I’ve just made a dish of scouse,” “Come with us,” shouted others.

“No, you don’t!” roared Mr. Riley. “They’re my meat, and they are going to bunk in with me. But, boys, you can send along your beans and your dope and your scouse, and whatever else comes handy, for I’ve only got roast beef and chicken-salad and a few terrapin, and we want to do this thing up in style. So, ‘all small contributions thankfully received’ is the word, and if we don’t scare up just the niftiest spread on the coast this night then my name isn’t Platt Riley, that’s all.”