“No, they—­” Phillips’ face clouded, he hesitated briefly.  “I merely lived with them and helped them with their outfit from time to time.  We’re at Sheep Camp now, and I share their tent whenever I’m there.  I’m about ready to pull out and go it alone.”  “Right!  And don’t hook up with anybody.”  The old man spoke with feeling.  “Look at me.  I’m nesting with a dodo—­darned gray-whiskered milliner!  He’s so ornery I have to hide the ax every time I see him.  I just yearn to put him out of his misery, but I dassent.  Of course he has his points—­everybody has; he’s a game old rooster and he loves me.  That’s all that saves him.”

Phillips was greatly interested to learn that two men so unfitted for this life, this country, should have essayed the hardships of the Chilkoot trail.  It amazed him to learn that already most of their outfit was at Linderman.

“Do you mean to say that you have done all the packing for yourself and your partner?” he inquired.

“N—­no.  Old Jerry totters across with a package of soda-crackers once in a while.  You must have heard him; he creaks like a gate.  Of course he eats up all the crackers before he gets to Linderman and then gorges himself on the heavy grub that I’ve lugged over, but in spite of that we’ve managed to make pretty good time.”  After a moment of meditation he continued:  “Say!  You ought to see that old buzzard eat!  It’s disgusting, but it’s interesting.  It ain’t so much the expense that I care about as the work.  Old Jerry ought to be in an institution—­some place where they’ve got wheel-chairs and a big market-garden.  But he’s plumb helpless, so I can’t cut him loose and let him bleach his bones in a strange land.  I haven’t got the heart.”

They were resting at the Long Lake outlet, some time later, when the old man inquired: 

“I presume you’ve got a camp at Linderman, eh?”

“No.  I have some blankets cached there and I sleep out whenever I can’t make the round trip.”

“Round trip?  Round trip in one day?  Why, that’s thirty miles!”

“Real miles, too.  This country makes a man of a fellow.  I wouldn’t mind sleeping out if I were sure of a hot meal once in a while, but money is no good this side of the Summit, and these people won’t even let a stranger use their stoves.”

“You can’t last long at that, my boy.”

Phillips smiled cheerfully.  “I don’t have to last much longer.  I sent a thousand dollars to Dyea this morning by Jim McCaskey, one of the fellows I live with.  He’s going to put it in Healy he’s altogether different to us tenderfeet.  He made me rather ashamed of myself.”

The elderly man nodded.  “Most pioneers are big-calibered.  I’m a sort of pioneer myself, but that infernal partner of mine has about ruined my disposition.  Take it by and large, though, it pays a man to be accommodating.”

CHAPTER III