ntroduced Mr. Skiff Betten, ex-sailor and now Yukon
miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more
work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.

Phil had also been recognized. That is, Mr. Platt Riley had asked him if
he were the son of his father, and when Phil admitted the relationship,
told him that he had a father to be proud of every minute of his life.
Didn't he know? for hadn't he, Platt Riley, worked side by side with Mr.
John Ryder prospecting in South Africa, where every ounce of grit that a
white man had in him was bound to show itself? "To be certain he had,
and now he was proud to shake the hand of John Ryder's son, and if there
was anything John Ryder's son wanted in that camp why he, Platt Riley,
was the man to get it for him."

So our sledge travellers found that even in that remote mining camp,
buried from the world beneath the snows of an arctic winter, they were
among friends. This, coupled with all that they had undergone in
reaching it, made it seem to them a very pleasant and comfortable place
in which to rest awhile.

And it was necessary that they should stay there for a time. They must
cultivate friendly business relations with the miners on Gerald Hamer's
account, and find out what class of goods were most in demand; for never
until now had Phil realized the responsibility with which he had been
entrusted. He must prepare a full report to send back by Kurilla and
Chitsah, who could not be tempted to venture any further away from their
homes. The dogs must be well rested before they would be fitted for the
second and most difficult half of the long journey. Above all, Phil felt
that, as representative of the Yukon Trading Company, he must be on hand
to meet the agents of its old-established rival, and defend his far-away
friend from the false reports they were certain to spread concerning
him.

He wondered why Goldollar and Strengel did not appear, and dreaded to
meet them; but at the same time longed to have the disagreeable
encounter over with as quickly as possible. So many times each day did
he gaze long and fixedly across the broad white plain of the Yukon. At
length, on the eighth day after their arrival at Forty-Mile, his eye was
caught by some moving black dots that he felt certain must be the
expected sledges.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE NEW ARRIVAL AT FORTY MILE.

The man known as Strengel was probably as great a rascal as could be
found in all Alaska. His sole