The Eskimo dog grows very fond of the people with whom he is brought up, and never forgets them, no matter how long separated. Thus, though he runs away and sometimes roams wild over the tundra for months, he is almost sure finally to find his way back to the friends of his puppyhood. It was what had now happened. Some hours afterward Joe found Harry gazing moodily at the icy sea with tears in his eyes. It was not the cutting wind that had put them there and Joe knew it. He laid his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder. “Cheer up, old fellow,” he said, trying to smile and making hard work of it. “Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.” “I should say the worst was here,” replied Harry dejectedly. “It’s almost winter again and we are farther from home than ever. We haven’t any ship for a refuge this time, either.” “I know it,” said Joe, “and we’ve got to get out of this right now. We’ll have to leave our bone behind, but that has been safe there a good many years, and I guess it will stay one more. At any rate, we’ll risk it. What do you say, old chap, if we go south?” “What do you say if we have a little excursion to the moon?” said Harry bitterly; “the one seems as likely as the other.” “I don’t think you ought to feel that way,” replied Joe. “The tundra and the rivers are frozen, the dogs have come back, and I have a plan. We will not attempt to find a ship. I doubt if one is up as far as this this year. Nor will we try to meet one at Lisburne, the chances are too slim. We will pack up and start straight south. The traveling is good. The north wind will be at our backs, and we are used to the cold. It seems a bold scheme, but it has been done before. Funston made the trip north and back to the relief of shipwrecked whalers in the dead of winter, some years ago. He was no better fitted than we to endure the cold and the hardships. Come into the topek a minute and I’ll show you something.” In the topek Joe unfolded the chart of northern Alaska, which was among the papers saved from the wreck of the Bowhead. He showed Harry the distance almost due south to the Yukon River, not five hundred miles. There they should strike the well-traveled Yukon winter trail from St. Michael to Dawson City and find civilized men. The very thought of it made them both wild, so weary were they grown of barbarism and the frozen wilderness.