CHAPTER XXXV.

HOW JALAP COOMBS MADE PORT.

The things on which we are apt to set the highest value in this world are those that we have lost, and even our friends are, as a rule, most highly appreciated after they have been taken from us. Thus, in the present instance, Phil and Serge had so sincerely mourned the loss of their quaint but loyal comrade, that his restoration to them alive and well, "hearty _and_ hungry," as he himself expressed it, filled them with unbounded joy. They hung about him, and lovingly brushed the snow from his fur clothing, and plied him with many questions.

Even Nel-te showed delight at the return of his big playmate by cuddling up to him, and stroking his weather-beaten cheeks, and confiding to him how very hungry he was.

"Me too, Cap'n Kid!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs; "and I must say you're a mighty tempting mossel to a man as nigh starved as I be. Jest about boiling age, plump _and_ tender. Cap'n Kid, look out, for I'm mighty inclined to stow ye away."

"Try this instead," laughed Phil, holding out a chunk of frozen pemmican that he had just chopped off. "We're in the biggest kind of luck to-day," he continued. "I didn't know there was a mouthful of anything to eat on this sledge, and here I've just found about five pounds of pemmican. It does seem to me the very best pemmican that was ever put up, too, and I only wonder that we didn't eat it long ago. I'm going to get my aunt Ruth to make me a lot of it just as soon as ever I get home."

As they sat before the fire on a tree felled and stripped of its branches for the purpose, and munched frozen pemmican, and took turns in sipping strong unsweetened tea from the only cup now left to them, Jalap Coombs described his thrilling experiences of the preceding night.

According to his story, one of his dogs gave out, and he stopped to unharness it with the hope that it would still have strength to follow the sledge. While he was thus engaged the storm broke, the blinding rush of snow swept over the mountains, and as he looked up he found to his dismay that the other sledge was already lost to view. He at once started to overtake it, urging on the reluctant dogs by every means in his power; but after a few minutes of struggle against the furious gale, they lay down and refused to move. After cutting their traces that they might follow him if they chose, the man set forth alone, with bowed and uncertain steps, on a hopeless quest for his comrades. He did not find them, as we know, though once he heard a faint cry from off to one side. Heading in that direction, the next thing he knew he had plunged over the precipice, and found himself sliding, rolling, and bounding downward with incredible velocity.

"The trip must have lasted an hour or more," said Jalap Coombs, soberly, in describing it, "and when I finally brung up all standing, I couldn't make out for quite a spell whether I were still on top of the earth, or had gone plumb through to the other side. I knowed every rib and timber of my framing were broke, and every plank started; but somehow I managed to keep my head above water, and struck out for shore. I made port under a tree, and went to sleep. When I woke at the end of the watch, I found all hatches closed and battened down. So I were jest turning over again when I heerd a hail, and knowed I were wanted on deck. And, boys, I've had happy moments in my life, but I reckon the happiest of 'em all were when I broke out and seen you two with the kid, standing quiet _and_ respectful, and heerd ye saying, 'Good-morning, sir, and hoping you've passed a quiet night,' like I were a full-rigged cap'n."

"As you certainly deserve to be, Mr. Coombs," laughed Phil, "and as I believe you will be before long, for I don't think we can be very far from salt water at this moment."

"It's been seeming to me that I could smell it!" exclaimed the sailorman, eagerly sniffing the air as he spoke. "And, ef you're agreeable, sir, I moves that we set sail for it at once. My hull's pretty well battered and stove in, but top works is solid, standing and running rigging all right, and I reckon by steady pumping we can navigate the old craft to port yet."

"All aboard, then! Up anchor, and let's be off!" shouted Phil, so excited at the prospect of a speedy termination to their journey that he could not bear a moment's longer delay in attaining it.

So they set merrily and hopefully forth, and followed the windings of the valley, keeping just beyond the forest edge. In summer-time they would have found it filled with impassable obstacles--huge bowlders, landslides, a network of logs and fallen trees, and a roaring torrent; but now it was packed with snow to such an incredible depth that all these things lay far beneath their feet and the way was made easy.

By nightfall they had reached the mouth of the valley, and saw, opening before them, one so much wider that it reminded them of the broad expanse of the frozen Yukon. The course of this new valley was almost north and south, and they felt certain that it must lead to the sea. In spite of their anxiety to follow it, darkness compelled them to seek a camping-place in the timber. That evening they ate all that remained of their pemmican, excepting a small bit that was reserved for Nel-te's breakfast.

They made up, as far as possible, for their lack of food by building the most gorgeous camp-fire of the entire journey. They felled several green trees close together, and placed it on them so that it should not melt its way down out of sight through the deep snow. Then they felled dead trees and cut them into logs. These, together with dead branches, they piled up, until they had a structure forty feet long by ten feet high. They set fire to it with the last match in their possession, and as the flames gathered headway and roared and leaped to the very tops of the surrounding trees even Phil was obliged to acknowledge that at last he was thoroughly and uncomfortably warm.

The following morning poor Jalap was so stiff and lame that his face was contorted with pain when he attempted to rise. "Never mind," he cried, cheerily, as he noted Phil's anxious expression. "I'll fetch it. Just give me a few minutes' leeway."

And sure enough in a few minutes he was on his feet rubbing his legs, stretching his arms, and twisting his body "to limber up the j'ints." Although in a torment of pain he soon declared himself ready for the day's tramp, and they set forth. Ere they had gone half a mile, however, it was evident that he could walk no further. The pain of the effort was too great even for his sturdy determination, and, when he finally sank down with a groan, the boys helped him on the sledge, and attached themselves to its pulling-bar with long thongs of rawhide.

The two stalwart young fellows, together with three dogs made a strong team, but the snow was so soft, and their load so heavy, that by noon they had not made more than ten miles. They had, however, reached the end of their second valley, and came upon a most extraordinary scene. As far as the eye could reach on either side stretched a vast plain of frozen whiteness. On its further border, directly in front of them, but some ten miles away, rose a chain of mountains bisected by a deep wide cut like a gateway.

"It must be an arm of the sea, frozen over and covered with snow," said Phil.

"But," objected Serge, "on this coast no such body of salt water stays frozen so late in the season; for we are well into April now, you know."

"Then it is a great lake."

"I never heard of any lake on this side of the mountains."

"I don't reckon it's the sea; but salt water's mighty nigh," said Jalap Coombs, sniffing the air as eagerly as a hound on the scent of game.

"Whatever it is," said Phil, "we've got to cross it, and I am going to head straight for that opening."

So they again bent to their traces, and a few hours later had crossed the great white plain, and were skirting the base of a mountain that rose on their left. Its splintered crags showed the dull red of iron rust wherever they were bare of snow, and only thin fringes of snow were to be seen in its more sheltered gorges.

Suddenly Phil halted, his face paled, and his lips quivered with emotion. "The sea!" he gasped. "Over there, Serge!"

Jalap Coombs caught the words, and was on his feet in an instant, all his pain forgotten in a desire to once more catch a glimpse of his beloved salt water.

"Yes," replied Serge, after a long look. "It certainly is a narrow bay. How I wish we knew what one! But, Phil! what is that, down there near the foot of the cliffs? Is it--can it be--a house?"

"Where?" cried Phil. "Yes, I see! I do believe it is! Yes, it certainly is a house."