"I've been thinking the same thing," Thompson observed. "There isn't
much here for a man."
"Not now," Tommy amended. "I'd have been gone long ago only for Sophie
Carr. That was the magnet that held me. It happens that I've come to
something of your pass, right now. I can't afford to loaf any longer,
living off the wilderness. I had a bit of an income to keep me in loose
change when I wanted a taste of towns. But that's been chopped
off--probably for good. I'm strictly on my own henceforth. Every penny I
spend will first have to be earned. And so," he hesitated briefly, "I've
considered a move to the Coast, the Pacific, y'know. Going over the
continental divide while the snow makes a dog team useful. Then I'd go
down the western streams by boat--dugout canoe or bateaux, or whatever
simple craft a man could make himself in the woods. Probably be the last
big trip I'll get a chance at. I'll have roughed it clear across North
America then, and I rather fancy winding up that way. But it's a big
undertaking single-handed. I'm not so partial to an Indian for company;
besides the fact that I'd have to pay him wages and dollars count with
me now. A fellow likes some one he can talk to. If you've cut the cloth
and are at loose ends, why not come along?"
Thompson looked at him a second.
"Do you mean it?" he asked. "I'm not what you'd call a good hand on the
trail. You might find me a handicap."
Tommy grinned.
"I've got the impression you're a chap that can hold his end up," he
drawled. "I've an idea we'd make a go of it, all right."
"I believe we would," Thompson asserted impulsively. "Hanged if I
haven't a mind to take you at your word."
"Do," Tommy urged earnestly. "The Pacific coast has this part of the
interior frazzled when it comes to opportunities. That's what we're both
after, isn't it? An opportunity to get on--in plain English, to make
some money? It's really simple to get up the Peace and through the
mountains and on down to southeastern Alaska or somewhere in northern
B.C. It merely means some hard mushing. And neither of us is very soft.
You've begun to cut your eyeteeth on the wilderness. I can see that."
"Yes, I believe I have," Thompson assented, "I'm learning to take as a
matter of course a good many things that I used to rather dread. I find
I have a hankering to be on the move. Maybe I'll end up as a tramp. If
you want a partner for that journey I'm your man."
"Shake," Tommy thrust out his hand with a boyish sort of enthusiasm.
"We'll have no end of a time."