es were
eager.

"It's awful! Nobody travels it except natives, and they don't like it.
Now, Illiamna--"

"We'll try Katmai. Eh, Mort?"

"Sure! They don't come hard enough for us, Cap. We'll see if it's as bad
as it's painted."

So, one gray January morning they were landed on a frozen beach, their
outfit was flung ashore through the surf, the lifeboat pulled away, and
the _Dora_ disappeared after a farewell toot of her whistle. Their last
glimpse of her showed the captain waving good-by and the purser flapping
a red tablecloth at them from the after-deck.

"Cheerful place, this," Grant remarked, as he noted the desolate
surroundings of dune and hillside.

The beach itself was black and raw where the surf washed it, but
elsewhere all was white, save for the thickets of alder and willow which
protruded nakedly. The bay was little more than a hollow scooped out of
the Alaskan range; along the foothills behind there was a belt of spruce
and cottonwood and birch. It was a lonely and apparently unpeopled
wilderness in which they had been set down.

"Seems good to be back in the North again, doesn't it?" said Cantwell,
cheerily. "I'm tired of the booze, and the street cars, and the dames,
and all that civilized stuff. I'd rather be broke in Alaska--with
you--than a banker's son, back home."

Soon a globular Russian half-breed, the Katmai trader, appeared among
the dunes, and with him were some native villagers. That night the
partners slept in a snug log cabin, the roof of which was chained down
with old ships' cables. Petellin, the fat little trader, explained that
roofs in Katmai had a way of sailing off to seaward when the wind blew.
He listened to their plan of crossing the divide and nodded.

It could be done, of course, he agreed, but they were foolish to try it,
when the Illiamna route was open. Still, now that they were here, he
would find dogs for them, and a guide. The village hunters were out
after meat, however, and until they returned the white men would need to
wait in patience.

There followed several days of idleness, during which Cantwell and Grant
amused themselves around the village, teasing the squaws, playing games
with the boys, and flirting harmlessly with the girls, one of whom, in
particular, was not unattractive. She was perhaps three-quarters Aleut,
the other quarter being plain coquette, and, having been educated at the
town of Kodiak, she knew the ways and the wiles of the white man.