So each day of the last three or four brought its fresh hope; at each succeeding bend of the stream all eyes were strained eagerly forward for a sight of the expected cluster of log huts, and each night brought a disappointment. At length one evening, when Phil, who had pushed on longer than usual, in an effort to end their suspense, was reluctantly compelled by gathering darkness to go into camp, Chitsah suddenly attracted attention to himself by running to a tree and pressing an ear to the trunk. As the others stared a smile overspread his face, and he said something to his father, which the latter instantly interpreted. "What!" cried Phil, incredulously. "He thinks he hears the sound of chopping?" "Yaas," answered Kurilla. "Axe chop um white man. Plenty. Yaas." "I too can hear something," exclaimed Serge, who had imitated Chitsah's movements, "though I wouldn't swear it was chopping." "Hurrah! So can I!" shouted Phil, after a moment of intent listening at another tree. "First time, though, I ever knew that the public telephone service was extended to this country. The sound I heard might be a train of cars twenty miles away or a woodpecker somewhere within sight. No matter. If Chitsah says it's chopping, it must be, for he ought to know, seeing that he first heard it with the aid of the tree-telephone. So let's go for it. We can afford to travel an hour or two in the dark for the sake of meeting the white man who is swinging that axe." "Of course we can," replied Serge. "Ay, ay, sir!" answered Jalap Coombs. "Mebbe catch um. Yaas," added Kurilla, sharing the general enthusiasm. An hour later, as they rounded a projecting point, Phil uttered an exulting shout. A cluster of twinkling lights shone dead ahead, and our travellers' goal was won. "Let's give them a volley," suggested Serge. "It's the custom of the country, you know." So the guns were taken from their deer-skin coverings, and at Phil's word of command a roar from double-barrel, flintlock, and Winchester woke glad echoes from both sides of the broad valley, and from the rugged Yukon cliffs beyond. Then with cheers and frantic yelpings of dogs, the sledge brigade dashed on toward the welcoming lights. "Hello the camp!" yelled Phil, as they approached the dark cluster of cabins. "On deck!" roared Jalap Coombs, as though he were hailing a ship at sea. "Hello yourself!" answered a gruff voice--the first hail in their own tongue that the boys had heard in many a week. "Who are you? Where do you come from? And what's all this racket about?" "White men," replied Phil, "with dog-sledges, up from Yukon month." "Great Scott! You don't say so! No wonder you're noisy! Hi, boys! Here's the first winter outfit that ever came from Yukon mouth to Forty Mile. What's the matter with giving them a salute?"