“Everyone needs to get a good night’s sleep tonight, because we’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
Neville looked up in surprise. “Leaving? But we have wood here for the fire and plenty of supplies.”
“We don’t have enough supplies to last until next spring,” Frank said. “We don’t have a shelter to protect us during the winter, either.”
“Maybe we could build a cabin,” one of the men suggested. “We have axes, and there are plenty of trees. There are wild animals around here, too. You said you saw a bear yesterday. We could hunt for fresh meat.”
Frank nodded. “All those things are true. But I still think our chances for survival are better if we make it to Skagway or some other settlement.”
“Do you have any idea how far we are from Skagway?” Fiona asked.
“Nope.” Frank waved a hand toward the sea. “That may be Glacier Bay out there. If it is, we can follow the shoreline north along the inlet that leads to Skagway. It may not be more than fifty or sixty miles to the settlement.”
“You want us to walk fifty or sixty miles, in cold weather like this?” Marie asked, sounding like she could hardly believe it.
Frank smiled. “It’s liable to get a lot colder before it gets warmer again, Miss Boulieu. Anyway, we have a couple of horses. You ladies can take turns riding, so you won’t have to walk the whole way.”
“I think Frank’s right,” Fiona said. “Besides, have you forgotten that there are husbands waiting for you once you get to Whitehorse?”
“We’re still going to Whitehorse?” Meg asked.
“Why not? If we can make it to Skagway, we can buy more supplies and carry on just as we planned. We’ve just been delayed a little, that’s all.”
“And there are two less of us,” Jessica pointed out.
“And that’s a shame, but the rest of us are still alive.” Fiona’s hoarse voice took on a determined tone as she went on. “I don’t intend to give up just because we’ve had some bad luck along the way.”
Bad luck was putting it mildly, Frank thought, but he agreed with the sentiment Fiona expressed. He didn’t believe in giving up. If he did, he would have been dead a long time ago.
Anyway, he knew more about the wilderness than any of the others, and he intended to see to it that they got out of this mess, whether they liked it or not.
By the next morning, the rest of the group had come around to Frank’s way of thinking. They didn’t want to try to spend the winter on this bleak, isolated beach.
Several more bodies had washed up during the night. Frank and Conway carried them to the ravine and laid them to rest as best they could, then returned to the camp. Frank had stripped the jackets off a number of the corpses, and he used them to make packs for carrying supplies. The women found that distasteful but went along with it. The only supplies they could take with them were what they were able to carry.
Everyone shrugged into their packs, and then the group strung out along the beach and headed north. Frank took the lead, with Dog bounding on out ahead of him. No one was riding at the moment. Frank wanted to save the horses for when their strength was really needed. He put Conway and Neville at the back of the line to bring up the rear and keep an eye on things. The other three cheechakos were spaced out among the women to lend them a hand if necessary.
A cold wind blew in Frank’s face and sent thick gray clouds scudding through the sky. It was only a matter of time before the first real blizzard of the season came roaring down out of the north, Frank knew. They were in a race against that blizzard, and the stakes were their lives.
He wanted to make at least five miles a day, preferably more. If they could cover ten miles each day, he felt sure they could reach Skagway in less than a week. That gave them an outside chance of making it while the relatively good weather held.
The first morning went well, but then the women began to flag. They had to take turns riding, and even with that, the pace slowed slightly. By nightfall, Frank wasn’t sure how much ground they had covered. But it was a start, and he was going to remain optimistic as long as he could.
The next day, the going was harder. The trees came right down to the edge of the water in places, forcing everyone to wind among the pines rather than striding along the open sand. In other places, boulders blocked the beach and made them go inland as well. Frank kept everyone moving, though, that day and the next and the next.
He felt sure they were more than halfway to Skagway by now. When he looked out across the water, he could see low, tree-covered hills in the distance, proof that they were tramping along beside an inlet now, not Glacier Bay. Every instinct Frank possessed told him that they were heading in the right direction. It was just a matter of time before they sighted the smoke from Skagway.
So far, though, they hadn’t seen a single sign of human habitation. Frank had thought they might come across a trapper’s cabin, or some sourdough’s gold claim. Not along this coast, obviously.
On the fifth day after leaving the camp where they had come ashore, the women were barely able to stagger along. Conway and the other cheechakos were pretty worn out, too. Frank began to consider calling a halt and giving them a day to rest. He squinted at the gray sky. Was there snow up there? He couldn’t tell, but he felt a tingle of unease along his spine. Would taking a day to rest just doom them when they were practically at their destination?
He didn’t have much choice in the matter. Some of the women collapsed, dropping off their feet and unable to get up again. Frank said, “All right, unsling your packs. We’ll stop here for a while.”
Maybe after an hour or two, they could go on, he thought. It was worth a try.
All of the women except Meg Goodwin slumped to the ground. Meg had been a real trouper. She had to be as worn out as the others, but she had kept on as if she could go all day. She came over to Frank now and said, “Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Devereaux and the other girls are really tired.”
“And you’re not?” he asked her with a smile.
