CHAPTER XXIV.--A TALE OF PARADISE.

At the insistence of Long Jim, Art and Jack, who had been called to join the pair, speedily re-aroused their friends.

"I ain't no hand for talkin'," Long Jim declared in answer to Art's requests for further information. "I got to tell this. But onct oughter be enough. No use my tellin' you an' then tellin' the rest o' them all over agin."

Jack smiled discreetly. Long Jim claimed he was "no hand for talking," yet his tongue wagged continually. However, his heart seemed in the right place, and certainly he spoke emphatically enough of a haven not too far away to which they could go for refuge. What was it he called it? "Paradise." Jack was anxious to hear, and wasted no time on gentle methods in arousing the sleepers.

"Lookit here," said Long Jim, as the circle gathered around him. "Art's been tellin' me the trouble you folks is in. Looks to me like you moughtn't be able to make it out o' this country."

Mr. Hampton nodded grave confirmation.

"Well, I know of a place that's paradise," said Long Jim, impressively. "An' I'll take ye all there, an' ye can spend the Winter--warm, game, everything there. Only thing, like I tol' Artie here, is I hate to have to take them skunks o' half-breeds in there. They'll be a-comin' back later an' ruin the country."

"But I don't understand," said Mr. Hampton. "What is it you are talking about?"

"Don't blame ye," said Long Jim. "Think maybe the ol' man's crazy, don't ye? Don't blame ye for that, neither. But, look here, night's dyin' an' if ye stand up an' look where I'm pointin' ye'll see somethin'."

Mr. Hampton arose wonderingly, and the others also stood up.

"Thar," said Long Jim, stretching an arm to the westward. "What d'ye see?"

"Why--a great bank of fog," said Mr. Hampton, after gazing intently. "How strange. Fog in Winter. I don't understand."

"An' ye all think that's fog, hey?" asked Long Jim, turning to the others.

Nodding heads answered.

"Well, it ain't," he said. "That's the vapor from hot springs."

"Hot springs?" Mr. Hampton sounded frankly incredulous.

"Wait'll you see for yourself," said Long Jim, tolerantly. "I wouldn't believe it, neither, when I first saw it. I thought it was fog, too. But bein' as how heavy fog in the Winter were strange, I went to investigate. An' I found paradise."

Then, under Mr. Hampton's skillful questioning, Long Jim told his story. He declared he had lived in this region now these two years, and that since first arriving he had seen nobody except themselves. Drawn by the seeming fog to investigate, he had come upon an almost tropical valley through which ran not only one but several rivers of water forever at the boiling point. These rivers, moreover, he said, were fed by hundreds of hot springs, which bubbled out of the ground in all directions. It was the steam from these which, condensing as it rose above the valley and struck the cold Winter air, had formed the fog which first attracted his attention.

"Once I were in South America," said Long Jim. "Down clost to the Equator. Well, I'm tellin' you, it were that hot all last Summer right in that valley. As for right now, ye'll find it mighty pleasant an' warm, an' when snow falls it's only rain by the time it passes through the heat hangin' over that valley all the time."

"Hurray," cried Frank, exuberantly. "Let's go. No snow fellows. Get that? I've had all the snow I need for one season, anyway, and I guess I can get along without any more for some time to come."

Mr. Hampton smiled, but, disregarding Frank's jubilation, proceeded with his questioning. And Long Jim, delighted with an audience to which he could talk all he pleased, after having been without companions for several years, continued unfolding new wonders.

This valley, he declared, was about 200 miles long and 40 miles wide. They were now near its upper end, to which point Long Jim had made his way by slow travel and exploration during the two years since his arrival at the southern end.

Game?

At the question, Long Jim grew even more eloquent.

He declared that, due to the heat generated by the hot springs and the boiling rivers, the fertility of the soil was amazing. The vegetation, in fact, achieved a jungle growth. Wild rose bushes grew tall as trees, with stems as thick as a man's forearm and so dense that it was impossible to force a way through them. Willows grew to the size of big trees, with branches so thick it was possible to walk along them.

"An' birches," added Long Jim, "git to be hunderds o' feet tall, so tall, in fact, they can't hold themselves up but bend over an' touch the ground.

"Likely you think I'm out o' my head. Oh, I kin see it in your eyes. But I'm tellin' you the God's truth, men." And Long Jim spoke with such honest sincerity, they were compelled to believe him. "In sich a place," he continued, "it ain't likely there wouldn't be no game. Why, the animals there is thick as flees on a ol' hound.

"Mountain sheep, goats, caribou, moose, bear, deer, wolves, foxes, oh, every wild animal o' the whole North kin be found there--down in that valley an' in the mountains enclosin' of it. An' I tell you the truth," he concluded, his voice sinking for effect, "the moose git so fat they're almost square an' they're so darn tame ye can almost touch 'em."

As Long Jim's speech came to a halt, Mr. Hampton turned and stared across the brightening landscape to the distant bank of vapor. Soon the short days would end entirely, and the perpetual night of the Arctic would arrive. Only a miracle could save them from perishing, all unprepared to face further travel as they were. Could it be possible that miracle had occurred, and that this trapper was telling the truth?

Jack looked at his father, and sensed what was passing through the older man's mind. Truth to tell, some such thoughts were in his own. He went up to him and laid a hand across his shoulders.

"Come on, Dad," he said. "I believe Long Jim is telling the truth. And we better make the effort to get to this valley. He may be exaggerating a little, but certainly it looks like a promised land."

"That's right, Jack," said his father, shaking off his reverie, and his alert self once more. "We'll have a hard enough struggle getting there, what with having to cross this waste of new-fallen snow without snowshoes or sleds. Well, let's see what can be done."

Eventually, the party got into motion. The canoes were cached, where they could be recovered in the Summer. There was little likelihood anybody else would pass that way, to appropriate them. Equipment was made into packs shouldered by everybody except Art and Bob. These two were to carry Thorwaldsson on a stretcher, improvised out of poles cut on the river bank, and blankets.

Fortunately, the crest of the valley to which Long Jim was guiding them was distant not more than five or six miles. Even at that, however, the going was tremendously difficult because of the mass of new-fallen snow. Had it not been for Long Jim to break the way on his snowshoes, moreover, it is doubtful whether they could have made it, heavy laden as they were. But Long Jim worked patiently backward and forward, breaking down the snow, and packing it a second and even a third time with his webs.

"How come you were out here, ol' timer?" asked Art once, as Long Jim paused, and he caught up with him.

"Well, I git lonesome a leetle," said Long Jim. "I was prospectin' around in the mountains rimmin' the valley yestiddy, an' I saw you across the snow. Jest leetle specks you were, but agin the snow I thought you were humans. I couldn't hardly believe my eyes, but I come along investigatin'. An' then when night come on, you lit your fires, an'----"

"Sure was lucky for us, Long Jim, if you ain't a-lyin'," said Art.

Long Jim stiffened, and for a moment was prepared to stand on his dignity but then he smiled in a jolly way that sent crinkly wrinkles all around his blue eyes.

"Don't blame ye for that, Artie," he said. "Sounds like I were crazy, don't it? But jest wait till you see."