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This Indian did not know what had become of the traders and their assistants. They had started on dog sleds toward the Polar Ocean. No train had come in from Coldfoot for a month. Therefore it was plain that the supplies Professor Henderson had expected to meet him here would not now arrive.
We're imprisoned in this part of Alaska just as fast as though we were caged behind iron bars." "If we only had some of those torches we used on the moon," said Jack. "What will we do, Professor?" begged Mark. "Let us not lose hope," responded the old scientist. "First we will get to Aleukan and see if our provisions have been brought over from Coldfoot."
Twenty miles or so below Coldfoot the Koyukuk passes for several miles in a narrow channel between steep rock bluffs, with here and there great detached masses standing in the middle of the river. One has a grotesque resemblance to an aged bishop in his vestments and is known as the Bishop Rock; another a more remote likeness to an Indian woman, and this is known as the Squaw Rock.
Our Indian guide had been sent back to Fort Yukon from Coldfoot, and here we engaged a young Esquimau with his dog team and sled, to go across to Kotzebue Sound with us. There was also a young Dane who wished to go from the Koyukuk diggings to the diggings at Candle Creek on the Seward Peninsula, and him we were willing to feed in return for his assistance on the trail.
By telegraph the professor ordered a trainload of supplies to be started at once from Fort Yukon. First, these supplies would go by boat down the Yukon Flats and up the Chandler River, past Chandler and Caro, beyond which latter town there was a good road over a small range of hills to Coldfoot. This trail was open at all seasons and there was a regular system of transportation into Coldfoot.
Roebach could supply the party with transportation to the Indian settlement where Professor Henderson would meet his own supplies from Coldfoot and there could obtain other dogs and sleds to go on to the valley where the Chrysothele-Byzantium was supposed to flourish. "And the road from here to Aleukan is a good one at this season of the year.
"But you know we must at least arrive at Aleukan in time to meet the train from Coldfoot. If the Snowbird cannot be launched again, we will have to see if our good friend here, Mr. Roebach, can fit us out with dogs and men." "That I'll do to the best of my ability," said the oil man, rising. "But I'd better get out now and set my men to work.
Now Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time Secretary of State for the Home affairs, and in a matter of such importance of course had an opinion of his own. "We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew," said Mrs. Bonteen. "Why didn't he come forward as a witness when he was summoned?" asked Mr. Bonteen triumphantly.
There was a trail, however, passable in summer for a dogtrain from Coldfoot to Aleukan; and a dogtrain could likewise pass from the native village to the valley where the miner had found the herb. These facts the professor and his young associates discovered as soon as Dr. Todd's instructions arrived. They made their plans accordingly.
Turnbull expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the Minister's answers, and said that the coming election would show whether he or Mr. Mildmay were right. Many men, and among them some of his colleagues, thought that Mr. Mildmay had been imprudent. "No man ought ever to pledge himself to anything," said Sir Harry Coldfoot to the Duke; "that is, to anything unnecessary."
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