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 unchinked, 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The kettle and things being withdrawn from various portions of the Ol'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 scraps, 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 hand