5
Jack couldn’t stop thinking about Ginny as he went about checking gear and going over supply lists. What would it would be like to come back from each trip to a woman such as Ginny? This fair woman with blue eyes had this effect on him since she first stumbled into his arms. She was pretty. Yet it was more than that.
Something in her manner, her independence and confidence, drew him to her. Did he dare let his feelings deepen to anything more than admiration? Would she accept his faith? He could not be yoked to an unbeliever. Could she ever fall in love with a black-eyed native of the wild? Though she was not Tlingit he couldn’t deny he felt a kinship with her he’d never experienced with any other woman.`
As he went about packing the sled and double checking the supplies, he tried to occupy his thoughts with details of the upcoming adventure and to anticipate obstacles that might stand in their way.
Yet his mind drifted again to Ginny and her dimples when she smiled.
When he pulled his party together, he described the journey. If anyone preparing for the trip did not have a year’s worth of approved supplies, he would not be allowed to make the journey. Jack was good, but even the best guide couldn’t conjure a necessity amidst the wilderness. The trail was steep, narrow and very slick.
“You’ll have to get around hundreds of dead horses along the trail. Then, when you get to Bennett Lake and build your boats, it’s a three week trip down the river to the gold fields. The rapids are rough. If anybody wants to call it off, now is the time.”
When no one left, Jack nodded. He knew they’d arrive in Dawson to find that previous arrivals had already claimed the gold-bearing creeks. He’d described how they would have to dig ten feet or more below permafrost and only in the summer since it was impossible to dig in the winter with temperatures sixty below.
They would need more than strength and the right equipment to find success.