Stacy scratched his head.
"Tell him to talk United States," suggested the fat boy.
"What is your name?" asked Tad.
"Anvik. Me smart man, savvy? Me educate Jesuit Mission. Me pilot Chilkoot, White Horse, Caribou; me savvy all over."
"Do you know how to cook?" questioned the Professor.
"Heap cook all time. Me savvy cook."
"You don"t savvy any cooking for me," declared Stacy.
"You will think differently about it when you are hungry. Remember, you are full of cheese and crackers now," answered Rector.
"You have been out with the white men surveying, I am told," resumed the Professor.
Anvik nodded solemnly.
"Big snow--no trail--big mountains. White men get lost. Anvik find, Anvik know trail. Anvik big pilot. Me take um to Ikogimeut when Yukon ice get hard so man can go safe with dog team. Big feast, big feed, tell heap big stories, big dance. Oh, heap big time. Innuit go, plenty Ingalik go. Me got pony, too. Buy um from Ingalik man."
"According to his story he seems to be the big noise up here," muttered Ned Rector.
"He has a pony. That is one point in his favor," said Tad.
"Wait till you see it before you call it a pony," advised Stacy.
"Me got gun, too. Me shoot. Bang!"
Stacy staggered back, clapping a hand to his forehead.
"I"m shot!" he cried dramatically.
"Stacy, do restrain yourself until we get out on the trail again,"
begged the Professor.
"Me make snare. Me catch big game in snare. Me heap big pilot. Me Ingalik."
"Have some cheese," urged Chunky, pa.s.sing a chunk to the now squatting Indian.
Without the least change of expression the Indian thrust the chunk into his mouth and permitted it to lie there, bulging out the right cheek.
"Do you think this man will do, sir?" asked Professor Zepplin, turning to the store-keeper.
"He will have to if you want a guide. He is the only fellow here who has ever acted in that capacity, so far as I know."
"We would prefer to have a white man."
The proprietor shook his head.
"White men mostly are up in the gold country, Dawson, Nome, all over."
"Isn"t there gold in this part, too?" questioned Tad.
"Yes, there"s gold everywhere. You can go down and pan out gold in the black sands on the beach here. But what"s the use? There is more money to be made in other ways in this country, unless you are lucky enough to strike it rich before you have spent a fortune locating the claim."
"Where you go?" demanded Anvik.
"North. Northwest from here. We want to get into the wildest of the country and we don"t want to get lost."
"Me no lose. Mebby me find gold, uh!"
"We are not looking for gold," replied the Professor.
"We are always looking for gold," corrected Stacy. "If you know where there is gold you just lead me to it and I"ll be your brother for life."
"Me show."
"I take back all I said about this gentleman," announced Chunky. "If the half that he says is true, he is worth several times the price he asks."
"How much does he ask?" inquired Rector.
"I don"t know," replied the fat boy. "He"s cheap at the price, anyway."
"When you mush?" demanded Anvik.
"We don"t have mush. We have bacon and beans, and tin biscuit and coffee, and plenty of other things, but no mush," answered the Professor.
The store-keeper laughed heartily.
"He doesn"t mean something to eat. Mush means march or move, a corruption of the French-Canadian "marche." He means when are you going to set out."
"Oh!" exclaimed the Professor.
"I thought you were an Indian, Professor?" said Tad laughingly. "I guess if we depend upon you for interpreter we shall get left."
"Of course I don"t understand this jargon."
"Of course you don"t," agreed Butler.
"I doubt if any other persons do outside of the locality itself. You see this jargon is purely local and--"
"That"s what the doctor said about a pain I had once," interjected Stacy. "But it hurt just the same."
"Anvik, we would like to start this afternoon, if you are ready,"
announced the Professor.
The Indian shook his head.