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Title: The Young Ice Whalers
Author: Packard, Winthrop
Language: English
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[Illustration: “WAY ENOUGH,” SAID JOE. “STERN ALL!” (see p. 105)]
THE
YOUNG ICE WHALERS
BY WINTHROP PACKARD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT 1903 BY WINTHROP PACKARD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published September, 1903_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. A CHANGE IN LIFE’S PLANS 1
II. BOUND FOR THE ARCTIC 27
III. BUCKING ICE IN BERING SEA 56
IV. THE LITTLE MEN OF THE DIOMEDES 87
V. WHEN THE ICE CAME IN 112
VI. WINTER LIFE AND INNUIT FRIENDS 140
VII. THE GHOST WOLVES OF THE NUNATAK 167
VIII. WHALING IN EARNEST 195
IX. IN THE ENEMY’S POWER 224
X. “THE FEAST OF THE OLD SEAL’S HEAD” 250
XI. “THE VILLAGE WHERE NO ONE LIVES” 277
XII. IN THE HEART OF BLIZZARDS 305
XIII. THE MEETING OF TRIBES 332
XIV. STAKING OUT A FORTUNE 354
XV. HOME AGAIN 381
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“WAY ENOUGH,” SAID JOE. “STERN ALL!” (See p. 105) _Frontispiece_
THE LONG ROLLERS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC 36
HARBOR OF UNALASKA 50
BUCKING THE ICE 68
A SIBERIAN TOPEK 84
HOME OF THE “LITTLE MEN” OF THE DIOMEDES 94
WHALEMEN’S CAMP ON ARCTIC SHORE 114
ROUGH ARCTIC CLIFFS 136
HARLUK AND KROO 164
VISITING ESKIMOS 168
LOCKED IN THE ARCTIC ICE 198
CAMP ON THE TUNDRA 234
TOILING ON THROUGH THE DRIFTS 310
ESKIMO FAMILY TRAVELING 334
PROSPECTOR AND HIS OUTFIT 364
SLUICING AT CANDLE CREEK 376
THE YOUNG ICE WHALERS
CHAPTER I
A CHANGE IN LIFE’S PLANS
“I will do what I can to help make matters easy, father.”
The speaker was a handsome, well-built boy of seventeen, with a frank,
winsome face that ordinarily showed neither strength nor weakness of
character,—the face of a boy out of whom circumstances make much that is
good, or sometimes much that is ill, according to what experiences life
brings him. There are boys who will grow up strong and able men, anyway.
They seem to have it in them from the start. There are others who have an
inborn tendency to evil and dissipation, which no amount of training and
opportunity for better things can eradicate. Harry Desmond was of neither
of these types; his character was rather that which responds easily to
outside influences, whose weaknesses may easily grow upon it, or whose
strong points may be developed and brought out by use.
“Thank you, my son,” said the other simply, extending his hand; “I was
very sure you would. The business will of course go on, and may be built
up again with care and strict economy; but the outside investments,
whose returns have made us well-to-do, and from which the money for your
education was coming, are totally swept away. I’m afraid we shall have to
withdraw you from the preparatory school. It is an expensive place, and
just at present I do not feel able to supply you with the money necessary
to keep up your standing among the boys there. In another year I had
hoped to see you in the freshman class at Harvard, and that may yet be
managed. There are always scholarships to be had.”
“Father,” said Harry impulsively, “I don’t think I care for college. I’d
rather help you. To tell the truth, I have not stood very well at school;
I mean my marks have not been high. I have managed to pass always, but it
has been a close shave sometimes. I’ve liked it immensely because I have
had such jolly times with the other fellows. I have thought of college
much in the same way. So long as we had plenty of money, it was just as
well to go. A college man who has spending-money has no end of a good
time, and I don’t doubt I could pass in the studies as well as a good
many of the fellows. But now it’s different. You’ve always stood by me
like a brick. Now I want to help you.”
A look of pride and delight beamed in the careworn face of the elder
Desmond, and the stoop came out of his shoulders a little as if a weight
had been lifted from them. He had expected the boy would meet the news
bravely and carry himself well. He knew his own blood. The Desmonds had
never yet been the men to cry baby when unpleasant things had to be
faced, and yet—he knew now how it had weighed upon him—he had feared in
his heart for the effect of the news on his only son. He knew of the low
marks at the preparatory school, and how careless and pleasure loving the
boy had seemed. There had been one or two escapades, also, things which
showed carelessness and high spirits rather than viciousness, and they
had worried him a good deal.
“I think we shall be able to keep the house, here,” said the father,
“though we shall have to live rather simply. The horses must go and most
of the servants, but when that is done and things straightened out a bit,
we shall owe no man a penny. The hardest rub is coming in the business.
There we must reorganize and retrench, and the office force is badly cut
down.”
Harry hesitated, though it was only for a moment, and swallowed a lump in
his throat. He had a pretty good idea of the drudgery of the office. The
younger clerks came in at eight or before, and never got away until six.
That was for every week in the year, except a brief vacation of ten days
or so. He thought of his Saturdays and holidays, of the long vacation in
the heat of summer; and then he saw the careworn look in his father’s
face, and he held up his head and spoke swiftly.
“I’d be glad to help you in the office if I can, sir,” he said; “I’m
pretty handy at figures and have a good idea of book-keeping. I’d like to
do it, if you’ll only let me. A year or two of it would be good for me.
Then, if things go better, it will not be too late to go to college after
all. Perhaps I shall feel more like it then.” He smiled somewhat grimly,
mentally noting how swiftly ideas and ideals change. College, which had
seemed inevitable only a few short hours before, had not appealed to
him except as a pleasant place to spend time and enjoy himself. Now he
suddenly seemed to see how useful it might be to him in the future, yet
that he would probably not be able to go there.
“It is a good deal of a sacrifice, my boy,” said his father, “but you
really could help me there a great deal. I need some one with the force
whom I can be sure of as loyal to my interests. Think it over for a day,
and if you are still willing you can begin right away. It is almost worth
while to be ruined financially to find one’s son so plucky about it and
so loyal to the house. I shall have to let you go now; I am to have a
business conference here in a few minutes, and I see the others coming
down-street now. Be as cheerful as you can about this with your mother. I
think it is hardest on her; but if we can all be patient for a few years,
I think I can pull through and get matters in good shape again. Good-by.”
Harry left the library, put his hat on, and stepped out of doors. It was
one of those days in late April that make one glad he is alive, and in
New England. The grass was already green upon the lawn, the buds were
swelling in the shrubbery, and a bluebird caroled as he fluttered from
the bare limbs of a maple and inspected the bird-box where he planned
to build his nest in spite of the scolding of the English sparrows that
flocked about and threatened to mob him, but did not quite dare. Harry
turned down the gravel path toward the boat-house. Beyond, the waters of
the bay sparkled and ruffled in the wind, and his knockabout, new only
last year, swung and curtsied at the mooring as if in recognition of
her master. The lump came in Harry’s throat again. If he worked in the
office, he would have little time in the long bright summer just ahead
of him to sail the blue waters of the bay. Besides, perhaps he ought not
to keep the knockabout. The boat was worth money, and should be given up
just as much as the horses. Well, he had the boat now, and the afternoon;
he would have a sail while yet he might. It would give him a chance to
think over things, too, as his father had suggested, though he knew his
mind was made up already. He found the skiff at the landing, rowed to
the boat, hoisted mainsail and jib, then, as an afterthought, instead of
towing the skiff astern he made it fast to the mooring and sailed away
without it. It was one of those little decisions which mean nothing at
the time, but which, such are the mysterious ways of Fate, often change
the whole current of life.
Pointing well up into the wind, the graceful boat slipped rapidly through
the water. She was breasting the incoming tide, Harry knew, for he could
feel that peculiar quiver of the rudder that thrills through the tiller
into the arm when a finely balanced boat heads the tide and beats to
windward at the same time. Harry looked backward at the Quincy Point
Village as it slowly drew away from him. He saw the fine old houses,—his
own the finest of them all,—and was devoutly glad that the business
reverses were not so great that they would have to leave that. On the
rear veranda of one of them he saw the gleam of a white dress, and a
young girl waved her hand at him. It was Maisie Adams, he knew, and
he regretted that he had not seen her sooner. Maisie was a jolly good
sailor, and he would have liked her for company. It was the time of the
spring vacations, and Maisie was home from boarding-school. She would
no doubt have enjoyed this first sail of the season. He almost decided
to put back and ask her to go out, then he happened to think he was no
longer the prospective Harvard freshman with plenty of money to spend,
but the prospective clerk in an office, and not likely to have even the
boat he was sailing, after a few days. He ought to have had sense enough
to know that this would make no difference with Maisie, but he was only
a boy after all, and could not be expected to know much about the way
a really nice girl like Maisie would look at things of this sort. So
he pulled his hat down over his eyes a little—to keep out the sun, of
course—and sent the knockabout bowling along down the Fore River, by
Germantown, by Rock Island Head, and out into the wider bay toward Hull,
where he got the full sweep of the bustling spring breeze.
Meanwhile Maisie pouted on the piazza. She had recognized Harry, and she,
too, wished he had seen her sooner. The day was warm, almost like summer,
and she would have liked a sail down the bay. However, she got some fancy
work and sat down in a big piazza chair in the sun, with a wrap about
her shoulders, determined to watch the boat if she could not sail in it.
After a little while her mother came out.
“Aren’t you catching cold out here, Maisie?” she asked.
“I think not, mamma,” replied Maisie. “It’s just as warm as a summer day,
and I thought it would be nice to sit here in the sun and embroider—and
watch the boats. Sit down with me, won’t you, and talk to me?”
“I knew you wouldn’t be home long before you were on the lookout for a
sail,” said Mrs. Adams rather roguishly. She knew that Harry Desmond’s
knockabout was the finest small boat on the river, and that he and Maisie
were great friends. “There aren’t many of the boats in commission yet.
I thought I saw the Princess”—that was Harry’s boat—“at the mooring
yesterday, but I see that I was mistaken.”
Mrs. Adams smiled quietly to herself as she saw the faint color creep up
into Maisie’s cheek and hide itself under the dark ringlets of her hair.
Then the girl looked up with charming frankness and said, “The Princess
was there a few moments ago, but Harry has just gone out in her. See, he
is almost down to Sheep Island now. He would have taken me, I think, if
he had known I was at home.”
Maisie looked straight into her mother’s eyes, and that was one of
Maisie’s chief charms. She had a way of looking at you clearly and
honestly, and you knew that you were looking down through pretty gray
eyes into a heart that was as open and frank as it was sunny.
“I should have been perfectly willing to have you go,” said her mother.
“Harry is a very gentlemanly boy, and a good sailor. I think I can trust
you with him.”
“I think you can trust me with any of the boys I am willing to go sailing
with, can you not, mamma?” said Maisie, and knowing it to be true, Mrs.
Adams gave her daughter a little squeeze of affection and changed the
subject.
They sat and talked for a long time in the bright afternoon sun, while
Maisie embroidered industriously, now and then glancing at the sail of
the Princess, which had diminished to a little white speck over toward
the mouth of the harbor, then grown again as her skipper headed toward
home. By and by Mrs. Adams went into the house, and Maisie laid down her
embroidery and strolled across the lawn and down the path toward the
Adams’s boat-house.
There she found none of the boats put into the water for the season
except the smallest, a light little thing with one pair of oars. Maisie
was a good oarsman, and she often rowed one or another of the boats up
the placid reaches of the Fore River, above the bridge; so there was
nothing uncommon in what she now did. Finding it ready for use, she got
into the little skiff, cast off the painter, and was soon skimming with
easy strokes under the bridge and away up-river. The bridge and the
heights of land on either side of it soon hid the bay and the sail of the
Princess from her sight, if not from her thoughts. There were plenty of
interesting things to see up-river, and who shall say that she did not
turn her whole attention to these? At any rate, she alternately rowed
and floated for some time, and thoroughly enjoyed the vigorous exercise
and the outing in the bright spring sunshine. By and by the ebbing tide
carried her back toward the bridge, and she turned the bow of her skiff
homeward just as the Princess, with the west wind in her sails, came
nodding and curtsying up toward her mooring.
Harry had thought it all out, and was at peace with himself. He would
take the clerkship in the office and work patiently and bravely. Perhaps
he would like business better than he thought, or if he did not, he could
work faithfully and hope for an improvement in the family fortunes that
would enable him to enter college after a few years. He had heard it
said that a year or two of experience in business was a good thing for a
boy who was to enter college, just as a college education was a sure help
in business, if that were to be taken up after graduation. At any rate,
he would be doing the thing that his father wanted him to do, and that
was bound to be best. So, with the buoyancy of boyhood asserting itself,
his brow was clear, the trouble was already behind him, and he whistled a
merry tune as he tacked to make his mooring.
Then he noted a skiff coming through the draw of the bridge with the
tide, and gave a cheerful shout of greeting as he recognized Maisie in
it. Suddenly something happened, and just how it did happen neither of
them could clearly tell. The skiff was passing the piling at one side of
the draw, and perhaps an oar caught between two piles, perhaps Maisie
turned too suddenly at the call of greeting, or the sweep of the tide
did it, or all three. Whatever it was, the skiff overturned, and before
Harry could realize what had happened, Maisie’s dark head floated for
a moment beside the upset skiff, then sank beneath the water while the
skiff floated away. He swung the tiller of the Princess swiftly so as to
throw the boat back on the other tack and head for the spot, which was
not far away; but quick as the knockabout was in stays, the two tacks,
one immediate upon the other, had lost her headway, and she got a fill of
wind too late to fairly make the spot where Maisie had gone down. As the
girl’s head again came above water, the boat was a dozen feet to leeward
and would be no nearer. There was but one thing to do, if she were to
be rescued, and Harry did it. Letting go of tiller and sheet, he sprang
quickly overboard and plunged with vigorous strokes in her direction,
shouting a word of encouragement which she did not seem to heed, but
which was answered by a wild warwhoop from the shore.
There the ancient ferryman, who takes people across from Germantown to
the Point for a nickel, had suddenly waked up to the catastrophe and
nearly swallowed his pipe, which he had been smoking placidly when it
happened. He saw the need of immediate help, and sprang into the stern of
his skiff and snatched an oar from the thwarts, swinging it hastily into
the scull hole, very nearly upsetting himself in his excitement. Then
he vigorously plied the oar and sent the clumsy boat through the water
toward the scene of the accident.
Maisie was behaving herself well. Used to the water, but so weighted
and snarled in her skirts that she was unable to swim, she nevertheless
did not hamper Harry by needlessly clinging to him, but simply grasped
his shoulders and clung tenaciously, though speechless and half drowned
already. Yet Harry was having a hard time of it. He was a good swimmer,
but the ice-cold water seemed to grip his chest and stop his breathing.
He held Maisie up and looked for the Princess, but the boat, with its
sheet caught, had swung off the wind and was rapidly sailing away. He
could not reach the shore, and he knew it. He could hold Maisie up for a
while, if he spared his strength as much as possible. There was a chance
that help might come, though he could not tell from where. His head
whirled, but he swam mechanically. Once they went under, and then as they
came up something struck his shoulder and he grasped it and held on.
The swift tide had floated them out toward the mooring, and set them
alongside the skiff that he had inadvertently left there some hours
before. Thus kindly Fate helps us oftentimes in little things. It was
only an impulse that had made him leave the skiff at the mooring, and
now it was to be his salvation and Maisie’s as well.
There he clung, to be sure, but he was unable to lift the girl into the
skiff. His head whirled with excitement and fatigue, but he would not
let go. The iron grip of the icy water on his chest seemed to crush the
strength out of him, and he scarcely knew when the ferryman, his clumsy
craft quivering with new-found speed, swung alongside and lifted first
Maisie and then him into the boat. Then with a strong sweep of his oar
the old man swung the boat’s head toward the shore, and fell to sculling
desperately without the utterance of a word.
Harry was still dazed and breathless, and Maisie was the first to recover
speech. “I’m sorry I made so much trouble,” she said faintly to Griggs,
“but we were nearly drowned, and would have been quite if you had not
come just as you did. We thank you very much.”
Then she turned to Harry, who could still only smile faintly and shiver.
“I have to thank you, too, for my life. I should have gone down before
any one else could get to me if you had not been so quick and brave.” She
held out her hand to him and he clasped it for a moment, while his teeth
managed to chatter that it was all right.
The ferryman turned his head over his shoulder and grinned cheerfully and
reassuringly across his pipe, which was still gripped in his teeth, but
he said no word, only went on sculling. Then the boat reached the landing
and he helped Maisie out and gave a hand to Harry. The boy rose with
difficulty, he was so chilled.
“Thank you, Griggs,” he said as he stepped on the wharf. “You came just
in the nick of time, and I’ll see that you have more than thanks for your
trouble and coolness.”
“Don’t you say a word, Mr. Harry,” said the ferryman. “You and I’ve been
shipmates a good many times, and your folks have been more than kind to
me. I’ll get the Princess back to her mooring for you. I’m mighty glad
I was on hand, and you’ll do me a favor if you won’t say anything more
about it.”
Harry was feeling better, but his teeth chattered still as he stumbled
along with Maisie to her own door. At home he told his mother quietly
that he had had a ducking, saying nothing about the rescue, and went to
bed, while she dosed him with hot drinks. He did not seem to recover as
he should, and his mother sent for the family physician. He laughed at
the escapade, and gave Harry medicines that brought him round all right
in due time, though not feeling very active. But the next day the doctor
took care to call on Mr. Desmond privately.
“The boy is all right,” he said; “and the ducking isn’t going to hurt him
any, but I want to warn you that though he is constitutionally sound,
he seems lacking a bit in vitality. He is not very resilient; that is
to say, things that some boys would throw off as a duck does water are
likely to hurt him. Indoor life is bad for him. He’s the sort of chap
that should be out in the open as much as possible for a few years. Don’t
let him study too hard. Keep him sailing his boat and playing outdoor
games while his constitution hardens.”
A day or two afterward Harry came into the library and found his father
with an open letter in his hand.
“I’m ready to report for business, father,” said the boy, smiling. “How
soon do you want me to begin at the office?”
“Are you really anxious to begin?” asked his father.
“Why, yes, father,” said Harry. “I know it will be a good deal of a
grind, but it will be good for me, and I feel that I am big enough now to
help when you need me.”
“Did Maisie stand her ducking all right?” asked his father with a smile,
suddenly changing the subject.
“Why—yes, sir,” faltered Harry. “How did you know about it? I wasn’t
going to tell anything about that part of it.”
“Oh, I saw Mr. Adams yesterday and he was quite full of the story. He
spoke very nicely about your share in it, and I am quite proud of you.”
“Oh, sir,” said Harry, turning very red with pleasure at his father’s
praise; “it wasn’t anything much, and anyway it was Mr. Griggs who pulled
us both out. We would not have got out at all if it hadn’t been for him.”
“Well,” said his father, “it was a very fortunate escape, and I’m glad
it came out as it did. But I have two things that I wish to talk to you
about, and it may be that we shall not need you in the office at all, but
can use you to better advantage in another way. First, I want you to read
this letter from Captain Nickerson, my old friend from Nantucket.”
He handed Harry a letter written in a cramped but bold handwriting. It
was as follows:—
WHALING BARK BOWHEAD, HONOLULU, JANUARY 15, 189-.
DEAR FRIEND DESMOND,—It is a year since I wrote you last, and
longer than that since I have heard from you, but shall hope to
hear from you when we arrive at Frisco, which will be in April
unless something comes up to prevent. We have had rather an
uneventful cruise so far, and have taken but few whales in the
South Seas. We shall land about 1100 barrels of oil, however,
as the result of the cruise up to date. We are refitting here
as the result of a hurricane which we took about a month ago,
in which we lost the fore-topmast and some gear with it. No one
was hurt except two Kanakas, one of whom went overboard when
the gale first struck us, and the other got a broken arm by a
fall from the foreyard during the gale. How he escaped going
overboard is a mystery, but it is pretty hard to lose a Kanaka.
I watched out for the other one most of the way into Honolulu.
Expected nothing but he might swim alongside and board us, but
he didn’t come. Picked up a couple of white men off the beach
here to take their places. Think they may prove good men. They
have been on the beach long enough to know what it is to have
a good ship under them and regular fare, though not so good as
you people at home get, doubtless.
The old ship is in fine trim again, taut and nobby as a race
horse over on the Brockton track. Guess I shall not be home
in time to take in the county fair this year, though I would
like to. We shall fit out again either at Frisco or Seattle,
and will probably touch at Seattle anyway on our way north.
I am going to cruise through Bering Sea and into the Arctic
this summer for bowheads. Oil is cheap now, but bone is higher
than ever, and a good shipload of bone and ivory, such as we
can probably get if we go north, will be worth while. And this
brings me to one object in writing this letter. My boy Joe is
with us this cruise, and as fine a young sailor as ever you
saw. I wish, however, he had a lad of good family of his own
age for company. I do not like to have him have the crew alone
for friends. Some of them are good fellows, too, but many of
them are, as you no doubt guess, a rough lot. Your son Harry
must be about his age now,—eighteen. Why do not you let him
come on and meet us at Seattle, and go north for the summer?
He would enjoy the cruise thoroughly, and no doubt learn much
that is useful to a young lad just growing up. We shall be
back by November at the latest, and it would be nothing much
but a summer vacation for him. If you think he would like to
go, why not send him on? We’ll make a man of him, and a sailor
man at that. I spoke to Joe about it, and he is wild with
delight at the idea. He remembers the visit that you all made
to us at Nantucket some years ago, in which he and Harry came
to be great friends. It would be good for his health, too.
There is no place like the Arctic in summer for putting health
and strength into a man. Besides, I could give him a paying
berth as supercargo. There is not much to do in this except a
little book-keeping, and that is just what a boy who has been
to school as much as Harry has would do easily and well. He
would have to keep track of the ship’s stores, keep account of
expenditures, and such things as that. The pay is not large,
but it would give him some pocket-money when he got back, and
he would not feel that he was dependent, or a guest even.
Write to me at Frisco about the middle of April, and we will
plan to have him meet us there or at Seattle before we start
out, which will be some time early in May.
With many pleasant memories of old school-days together when
Nantucket was really a whaling town, and the schoolmasters did
a good deal of whaling,—Lord! what pranks we used to play, we
two!—and my regards to Mrs. Desmond, and many to yourself, I am,
Yours very truly,
WILLIAM NICKERSON.
Mr. Desmond watched Harry narrowly as he read this letter. He saw his
eyes light up at the prospect, and noted his suppressed excitement. Then
the boy handed it back, and steadied himself.
“But you need me in the office, don’t you, father?” was all he said.
“Would you like to go?” asked his father.
“Why, yes, very much, sir,” answered Harry frankly; “but not enough to go
when you need me for other work here at home. If things were as they were
a year ago I should tease to be allowed to go, but now I would rather
stay at home.”
Mr. Desmond looked pleased. “Now,” he said, “this is the other matter
I wished to speak about. My business conference the other morning was
with Mr. Adams and some other wealthy men who are planning to make large
investments in the whaling and trading vessels which go north into Bering
Sea and the Arctic each year after whalebone and ivory. There is a good
demand for whalebone commercially, and there are some industries which
cannot well get along without it. At the same time the supply is limited,
and the market would easily pay a much higher price for it. I am partly
interested in this as a small share-owner in the Bowhead. It was hardly
reckoned as an asset in the business difficulty, as the whaling has not
paid well of late years, and dividends are few and far between. So I
still retain the stock. The plan of these gentlemen is to concentrate
all these vessels under one management, obtain control of the world’s
available supply of whalebone each year, and, by careful business methods
and proper handling of the market, make a good paying business of what
is now conducted often at a loss. The scheme is already under way, but
the arrangements will not be completed until next fall. Meanwhile we
are anxious to get a report of the conditions in that country, and the
circumstances under which the business of Arctic whaling and trading is
carried on. If you take this trip with Captain Nickerson, you will have
a chance to see much of these conditions, and be able to make such a
report. It is true that you are young and inexperienced in such matters,
but your work may be all the better for that. You will have no prejudices
or already formed opinions to bias you, and what you lack in experience
in that region may be made up by conversation with those who have made
previous cruises there. At any rate, Mr. Adams seemed to think it was
worth our while to give you such a commission, if you went out there. He
seems much interested in you since the upset, and if you go, you will go
on a modest salary in his employ, he being the head of the enterprise.
That will perhaps be better for us both than work in the office would be.
Now what do you say? Will you go?”
Harry looked hard at his father, saw that he, as usual, meant what he
said, and was really desirous of having him go, and then his delight and
enthusiasm bubbled right over. He danced about his father, wrung his
hand, and in general acted more like a crazy boy than the sedate and
repressed youth who had been so willing to go into the office. As he
rushed off to tell his mother, and plan his arrangements for the trip,
Mr. Desmond smiled cheerily.
“Humph!” he said to himself, “I suppose the doctor was right, but there
certainly doesn’t seem to be much lack of vitality there.”
That afternoon he sent and received the following telegrams:—
To NICKERSON, Whaling Bark Bowhead, San Francisco, Cal.
Have decided to let Harry go north with you. Where shall he
meet you, and when?
H. N. DESMOND.
To H. N. DESMOND, Franklin St., Boston, Mass.
Will be in Seattle May tenth to fifteenth. Have Harry meet me
there. Great news.
NICKERSON.
Mr. Desmond wrote also, and five days later received a letter from
Captain Nickerson, which he had evidently written as soon as the
telegrams were exchanged, giving further instructions. Arrangements were
hurriedly but carefully made, and one day early in May Harry bade good-by
to father, mother, and many friends at the station in Boston, and was
off. Maisie was there too, with a smile on her face but a tear in her eye
as she bade him good-by with a friendly handshake.
“Good-by, Harry,” she said. “I hope you won’t go plunging overboard after
careless young ladies, up there among the Eskimos. It would be just like
you, though. Be a good boy, and bring me a polar bear or something when
you come back.”
“Good-by, Maisie,” replied Harry. “I’ll bring you the finest aurora
borealis there is in all the Arctic.”
Some one shouted “All aboard,” the train rumbled from the station,
gathering headway rapidly, and Harry Desmond was fairly launched upon a
new life, which was to be so strange and so different from the old that
he was often to be like the old lady in the nursery tale, who exclaimed
periodically, “Lauk-a-mercy on us! This can’t be I.”
CHAPTER II
BOUND FOR THE ARCTIC
The city of Seattle grows to-day by leaps and bounds. The roar of traffic
sounds unceasingly in her streets, the city limits press outward in
all directions into the unoccupied territory near by, and the present
prosperity and future magnitude of the place seem already assured.
She sits, the queen of the Sound, at the meeting-point between the
great transcontinental railroads and the great trans-Pacific steamship
lines. Great steamers, the largest in the world’s carrying trade, ply
unceasingly between the magnificent waters of Puget Sound and the
mysterious ports of the far East, as we have learned to call it,—though
from Seattle it is the far West,—and fetch and carry the products of
the Orient and those of our own great country. Mighty full-riggers from
the seas of half the world lift their towering masts skyward, as they
swing at the city’s moorings in water that is just offshore, but so deep
that the ordinary ship’s cable hardly reaches bottom, hence special
cables and moorings are provided. To the westward the Olympic Mountains,
clad with the finest timber in the world, lift their snowy cloud-capped
summits to the sky, and glow rosy in the light of the setting sun; while,
between the city and these mountains beautiful, flow land-locked waters
which might hold all the navies of all the world without being crowded,
and which seem destined to be the centre of the commerce of the coming
century, borne over seas that are yet new to the world’s traffic.
Thus to-day! yet a decade and less ago the city was far from being as
energetic. Seattle then slept in the lethargy of a “boom” that had
spent itself, and was but just beginning to feel the stir of new life
and a solid and real prosperity. Splendid business blocks were but half
tenanted, many of the original boomers were financially ruined, yet the
city kept up its courage, and had an unabating faith that position and
pluck would win out. Already this faith was beginning to have its reward
in works, and the faint glimmerings of future great advancement were
in sight. More business began to reach the port, and the often almost
deserted docks had now and then a ship. One of these on the day of which
I write was the Bowhead, and certainly business bustle was not wanting on
and near her. Perhaps the amount of work going on was not so very great,
but the bustle more than made up for that, and Ben Stovers, the Bowhead’s
boatswain, was the guide and director of this bustle, and to blame for
the most of its noise.
Stovers had a voice as big as his frame, and that was six feet two in
longitude, as he would have said, and it seemed almost that in latitude.
Surely, like this terrestrial globe, his greatest circumference was at
the equator. Captain Nickerson was wont to say that Stovers was worth
his weight in ballast, and that made him the most valuable man on the
ship. It was a stock joke on the part of the first mate, when the wind
blew half a gale, the crew were aloft reefing topsails, and the good
ship plunged to windward with her lee-rail awash, and her deck set on
a perilous slant, to politely ask the mighty boatswain to step to the
windward rail so that the ship might be on an even keel once more.
It was the voice of this mighty man that was Harry’s first greeting as
he came down the dock toward the vessel that was to be his home for the
long cruise. It rolled up the dock and reëchoed from the warehouses,
and every time its foghorn tones sounded, a little thrill of energy ran
through the busy crew.
“Hi there! Bear a hand with that cask,” it yelled, and two or three dusky
Kanakas would jump as if stung, and the cask they had been languidly
handling would roll up the gang-way as if it concealed a motor.
“Come on now, Johnson, and you, Phipps; this is no South Sea siesta. Stir
your mud-hooks and flip that bread aboard. Wow, whoop! you’re not on
the beach now, you beach-combers; you’ve got wages coming to you. Step
lively there!” Result, great rise and fall in breadstuffs, and boxes of
hard bread going over the rail and down the hold in a way that made the
Chinese cook below shout strange Oriental gibberish, in alarm lest the
boxes be stove and the contents go adrift.
“Lighter ahoy!”—this to the man driving a cart down the dock; “clap on
sail now and come alongside. We’ve got to get away from this dock before
night or the city’ll own the vessel for dock charges.”
This sally brought a grin from the loungers, not a few, who watched
the loading, dock charges being always a sore point with the vessels’
owners, and brought the pair of bronchos and the load of goods down the
crazy planking at a hand-gallop.
Flour in bags, bolts of cotton cloth and many hued calico, shotguns and
rifles, ammunition, what the whalers know as “trade goods” of all sorts,
for traffic with the Eskimo tribes, were all being hustled aboard the
vessel before the impulse of this great voice, which sounded very fierce,
and certainly spurred on the motley crew to greater exertions. Yet it had
a ring of good humor in it all, and the men obeyed with a grin as if they
liked it.
A tall young fellow with bronzed face and black curly hair stood noting
the goods that came aboard and checking them off on a block of paper. He
looked up as Harry came down the dock, then gave a shout of recognition,
and came down the gangplank with hand extended.
“It’s Harry Desmond, isn’t it?” he said; “awful glad you came. When did
you get here? Father is up in the city doing some business. He’ll be as
glad as I am that you are here. Come right aboard. I’m Joe Nickerson; of
course you remember me, don’t you? You’re a good deal bigger and older,
but you haven’t changed a bit. I’d know you anywhere. My! but I’m glad
you are going up with us.”
He glanced somewhat dubiously at the black hand-satchel that Harry was
carrying, but said nothing about it as they went up the plank. Not so the
boatswain; he took one look at it and rolled heavily forward.
“Ax your pardon, young feller,” he said; “but ye’d better not take the
hard-luck bag aboard, had you? Don’t you want to leave it down here on
the dock? We’ll see that it’s safe till you go ashore again.”
Harry was somewhat surprised, and inclined to resent this seemingly
needless interference, but Joe spoke up before he could say anything.
“Mr. Stovers,” he said, “this is my friend Harry Desmond, of whom you’ve
heard me speak. He’s going up with us this trip as supercargo.”
The big boatswain reached down a hand like a ham, and shook Harry’s
awkwardly with it.
“Glad t’ meet you,” he said. “Didn’t mean nothing sassy about the bag,
you know, but sailors are queer fellows. ’Tain’t me; I don’t believe it,
but the crew think a black bag is full of gales of wind, and lets ’em
out when it’s brought aboard ship. See ’em looking at it, now. ’F you
could leave it ashore, and bring your dunnage on in a canvas bag, they’d
feel better about it. No use getting the men grumbling down for’ard.”
“Certainly,” said Harry politely. “I’ll leave it out on the dock here,
if some one will keep an eye on it for a while till I can get something
else. Glad you told me. I don’t want to be a bad weather man my first
cruise.”
“Thank you,” said the boatswain with equal politeness; “I guess you and
I’ll get along all right.” Then he turned suddenly to the crew, who were
loitering and gazing uneasily at the black bag.
“’Vast gawking there, and bend on to that dunnage. Whoop, now! Get her up
here! Heave her up, boys, lively now; the gale’s gone down. That’s the
new supercargo, and you don’t want to go cutting up any monkeyshines with
him. He’s going to leave the hard-luck poke-sack ashore.”
“I’ve got a trunk over at the station, too,” said Harry, as they went
down the companion-way aft. “Do you suppose they’ll mind if I bring that
aboard?”
“Well,” said Joe, “they’re superstitious about trunks, too, although they
don’t care so much about them as they do about a black bag. That’s a
special hoodoo.”
“I’ll store them both ashore, then,” said Harry resolutely; “I want to
start all fair with the crew. You have things pretty nice down here,
don’t you?” he went on with some surprise as they entered the cabin.
Here he saw a room with a well-furnished dining-table, and doors leading
off, the fittings being in hard wood, and the whole having an air of
refinement and home surroundings pleasant to see.
“Why, yes,” said Joe. “You see a whaling captain lives aboard his vessel
the year round, and we like to have things snug. Father’s cabin is just
aft of this. He keeps his charts there and instruments. The first mate
has the one on the starboard, and you and I are to share this.”
Joe, as he spoke, showed Harry into a little cabin which was lighted
by a port side dead-light, and which had two neat berths with clean
bedding and white sheets. There was abundant locker room, and the whole
looked somewhat as any boy’s room might that was occupied by a young man
studious and interested in outdoor sports. A rifle and shotgun hung on
the wall, and other boyish belongings were scattered about. There was a
shelf or two of books, and it reminded Harry in a certain way of his own
room at home. Joe noted his approval with pleasure, and seeing him glance
at the books said:—
“Father’s got quite a library in his room that you are welcome to use.
We’ll study navigation and some of those things together, if you want to.
Here’s your locker, and these hooks are for you. You may have either bunk
you wish, but I think you’ll find the lower one more convenient. Come on
ashore now, and I’ll help you get your things aboard and get you settled.
We sail to-morrow.”
That night at supper, which was deftly served at two bells by the Chinese
steward, Harry was cordially welcomed by Captain Nickerson, and met
the first mate, a lank, muscular man, bronzed and singularly taciturn,
and learned much of his duties as supercargo, which he readily saw
were nominal indeed. It was strange how easily he became adapted to
life on board, and before bedtime he felt as if he had already lived
a long time on a whaling ship. He stored his trunk and the “hoodoo”
black bag in the city, and brought his belongings aboard in two canvas
sacks, regular sailor’s bags, much to the approval of the two brawny
Kanakas of the crew detailed to bring them down for him. Harry was
much interested in these dusky South Sea islanders, and found them
intelligent, good-natured, and efficient. Joe showed him over the ship,
introduced him to the engineer and his assistant, and taught him much
about the general working of the vessel. He saw the great kettles, set in
brickwork on the forward deck, for the trying out of blubber. He saw the
whaling implements, the bundles of staves for casks, and the great space
between decks above and below for the storing of these when they should
be coopered and filled with oil. He saw the galley where two slant-eyed
Chinese were in charge, and the narrow quarters of the crew forward,
crowded as much as possible to give more space in hold and on deck for
oil casks, and for such members of the crew as he came in contact with he
had a pleasant word.
[Illustration: THE LONG ROLLERS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC]
Until Arctic whaling by way of Bering Sea began, few if any whalers were
fitted with steam as an auxiliary; but it was found that if vessels
were to make a success of the industry among the ice-floes of these
treacherous waters, get into and out of the Arctic by the narrow,
current-ridden, ice-tangled passage of Bering Straits, it was wise and
expedient to add steam to the equipment. Hence many vessels like the
Bowhead, though thorough-going sailing vessels, were equipped with
engines and propeller, to be used when the wind did not serve, or when
the passage of ice-floes made it necessary. It was under a full head of
steam, then, that the Bowhead passed up Admiralty Inlet, as that portion
of the Sound is called, rounded into the Straits of Fuca, and spread
her sails to the westerly wind only when she was well out toward Cape
Flattery, and breasting the long rollers that swung unimpeded from the
vast expanse of the world’s greatest ocean.
How Harry’s heart had swelled within him at the sight of this sea! He had
something of the feelings of Balboa when he first sighted it from that
Central American mountain-top, and fell on his knees in adoration and
thanksgiving. He longed like Captain Cook to furrow it with exploring
keel, and seek out the enchanting mysteries that lie in and beyond the
shores that it touches.
“Great sight, isn’t it, Harry?” said Captain Nickerson, who stood near
him and noticed his emotion.
“Yes, sir,” replied Harry. “It seems like dreams coming true to think
that I am to see the things that I have read about this side of the
world, but never really expected to see with my own eyes.”
The captain smiled. “You’ll see strange sights, my boy, before you get
home,” he said, and there was more of prophecy in this than either of
them dreamed at the time.
“Are we liable to do any whaling right away?” asked Harry.
“Well, that depends,” replied the captain. “There is now and then a
humpback in these waters, but they are pretty shy nowadays, and hard to
come up with. They’re hardly worth while. I doubt if we shall lower a
boat before we get into Bering Sea and get among the bowheads as they
follow the ice up. We are likely to see a whale, though, most any time
now.”
“I wish we could,” said Harry, the ardor of the sportsman beginning to
thrill in his veins; but no whale appeared that day, though he watched
the sea with patience and undiminishing ardor.
A day or two afterward, as he came on deck, he saw a little cloud on the
surface of the water like the puff of smoke that follows the discharge
of a rifle loaded with black powder. A moment after another puff shot
into the air quite near the ship, and he saw beneath it a black body rise
languidly to the surface, loll along it a moment, and then sink again.
His heart gave a great jump. A whale! Why had none of the crew seen it?
To be sure they were not on watch for whales, but still several were
on deck, and the first mate, whose watch it was, was pacing leisurely
back and forth behind him as he stood at the rail. The mate now and then
glanced at the sails to see how they were drawing, and now and then
shot a command, a single word if possible, to the crew for a pull on
the braces, or something of that sort, but he seemed to take no notice
of the puff of smoke and the black body just showing above the surface
almost alongside. Harry looked again. Yes, it was there, so near that he
could see that the little puff of smoke was a cloud or vapor blown with
a whiff into the air from one end of this black body. He could stand it
no longer, but rushed up to the mate, grasped his arm, pointed in the
direction of his discovery, and said excitedly, “See, see! There he is!
Don’t you see the whale?”
“Nope,” calmly replied the taciturn first mate, gazing at the little puff
of vapor and the black body.
“Isn’t—isn’t it a whale?” faltered Harry, a little ashamed of his
enthusiasm in the face of this stolidity.
“Nope,” said the first mate.
“But it looks like a whale,” persisted Harry; “and it acts like a whale,
at least as I have read that they acted. What is it, then?”
“Blackfish,” said the mate, with a sweep of his hand to the other side of
the ship. Harry looked in that direction, and was silent in astonishment
and delight.
“Hundreds!” said the mate, and resumed his walk on the deck.
There were not so many as that, but there were certainly scores of these
creatures sporting lazily in the waves, rolling their black bodies to
glisten in the sun, and sending up the puffs of vapor that floated a
moment in the breeze and then vanished. It reminded Harry of the skirmish
line when the Cadets were encamped at Hingham, and the order “Fire at
will” had been given. The puffs were much like those from the Springfield
rifle.
The blackfish is really a whale, though the whalemen do not like to
consider him as such or give him credit for it. He is small, not
generally reaching a length of twenty feet, but otherwise he has all
the characteristics of a whale. He blows, breathes, feeds, and lives in
whale fashion. But he contains but a barrel or two of oil, of an inferior
quality, and hence is beneath the notice of the average whaleman, though
vessels in hard luck occasionally turn to and slaughter him rather than
return to port empty. His meat, on the other hand, is better than whale
meat, and is often esteemed a delicacy on a long whaling voyage when
fresh meat from other sources has not been obtainable.
Some time afterward, as they were nearing the Aleutian Islands, Harry was
to see his first “real whale,” and witness one of the fierce tragedies of
the sea. He sat by the taffrail conning Bowditch’s Navigator, puzzling
his way through the intricate and bewildering instructions as to the
taking of the sun, the use of sextant and quadrant, the working out
of longitude and latitude, while Joe, standing second mate’s watch as
was his wont, paced the deck, and now and then passed a word with the
boatswain. That worthy was sitting cross-legged near the rail amidships,
busy with sailor’s needle and canvas rigging some chafing-gear for some
of the lines, when he suddenly sprang to his feet and gazed intently
over the bow toward the horizon. A moment he stood thus, and then the
great tones of his voice rang out in the musical call:—
“A-h-h blow! There she blows! Whale—o!”
The ship sprang into bustle immediately. The watch on deck, which had
been languidly busy over such small matters as the boatswain could devise
to keep them at work, jumped into instant action, scurrying hither and
thither to get the gear up and the boats in trim for a possible conflict.
Those below came piling up on deck, and Joe sprang into the rigging,
looking intently toward the spot where the whale was supposed to be.
Harry gazed eagerly, but he could see nothing.
Captain Nickerson and the first mate appeared as suddenly from below, and
the whole ship was activity and attention.
“Where is that whale?” asked the captain.
“Three points off the port bow, sir,” answered Joe; “about four miles, I
think.”
“Good!” cried the captain. “Hold your course”—this to the man at the
wheel.
He climbed into the mizzen rigging with Joe, and gazed through his glass
in the direction indicated. A shade of disappointment came into his face.
“It’s an old bull humpback,” he said, “and I don’t believe we can
get near him, but you may see that the first and second boats are in
readiness, Mr. Jones.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered that man of brevity, using three words in the
excitement of the moment; but there had been no need to give the order,
for he had several of the crew busy doing just that very thing already.
All had been keen in the hope that it would be a sperm whale.
Harry climbed into the rigging too, and as the ship drew toward the spot,
he plainly saw an occasional puff as the monster breathed and sent a
little cloud of vapor into the air. Steadily they approached the lazy
leviathan, and by and by Harry could see his black head and hump, yet
still the vessel kept her course, and the order to lower was not given.
“Hullo!” said the captain. “He’s gallied.”
What that might be Harry was not sure, though he took it to mean excited,
for the animal suddenly surged forward, half out of water, swung a half
circle on the surface with a great sweep of his mighty flukes, and began
to forge through the water in their direction. As he did so, something
flashed into the air behind him, and a black figure twenty feet long,
shaped somewhat like another whale, seemed literally to turn a somersault
from the surface, landing with a thud right on the back of the great
humpback. The noise of the blow was plainly heard, though the whale was
more than a half mile away. The humpback gave a sort of moaning bellow,
and sounded.
“’Vast there with your boats,” cried the captain; “the killer has got
ahead of us.”
The orca, or “whale-killer” as the whalers call him, is one of the most
powerful and rapacious animals in the world. Himself a whale, he is the
only one of the species that lives on other whales, and does not hesitate
to attack the largest of them. He grows to a length of thirty feet, and
his activity and strength are extraordinary. One of them has been known
to take a full-grown dead whale that the whalemen had in tow, grasp it in
his tremendous jaws, and carry it to the bottom, in spite of its captors.
One does not have to believe an old writer who says that a killer has
been seen with a seal under each flipper, one under the dorsal fin, and a
third in his mouth. Eschrit, however, is reckoned reliable, and we have
his authority that a killer has been captured, from the stomach of which
were taken thirteen porpoises and fourteen seals. The killer is shaped
much like a whale, has great jaws filled with sharp teeth, and a pointed
dorsal fin, with which he is fabled to dive beneath a whale and rip up
his belly. He is found in all seas, but is particularly numerous in the
North Pacific. In the far north he pursues the beluga or white whale and
the walrus. He captures the young walrus in a novel manner. The latter
climbs on the back of the mother and the great ivory tusks keep the orca
at bay, but he dives beneath the old one and comes up against her with
such a blow that the young one falls from the rounded back of its mother,
when it is immediately seized and crushed in the great jaws of the
rapacious animal.
For a few moments nothing more was seen of either animal, and then, not
his own length from the ship, the whale appeared, shooting up as if from
a great depth, and flinging almost the whole of his great bulk straight
into the air. The orca rose with him, his jaws set in the body of the
whale just behind the left flipper. As the monster shook himself in
agony, even when reared almost his whole length in the air, and with his
great flukes beating the water beneath to foam, the hold of the orca was
broken, and he fell back into the water beside the whale, leaving a great
three-cornered tear in the whale’s side that dyed the water crimson as
with another tremendous leap the wild wolf of the sea was again on his
victim.
Again Harry heard that strange half moan, half bellow, as the frenzied
humpback ploughed along the surface to windward, beaten by the blows of
the orca as he flung himself into the air, and again and again came down
like an enormous club on his victim’s back. And thus the unequal contest
went on, and Harry watched them till they disappeared in the distance to
windward. He was much impressed by the spectacle.
“How do you suppose it will come out?” he asked, as they clambered down
from the rigging.
“The killer will get him, sure,” replied Captain Nickerson. “He will
hammer him and worry him for miles, till he is completely exhausted. Then
he will get a bite in his lip, and it will be all up with Mr. Humpback.
By this time to-morrow as much of him as the orca does not want to eat
right away will be floating belly up, and the sea birds and sharks will
be busy with it.”
Two days afterward great banks of fog, with now and then a white peak
gleaming through, showed that they were nearing the Aleutian Islands.
The course was changed more to the northward, and the ship sailed into
the windy, cloud-tormented reaches of Unalga Pass. Just as they reached
the edge of the mists, the clouds lifted for a moment, and showed a
scene of surpassing grandeur. The scarred and weather-beaten abrupt
cliffs of the mountain sides rose from dark waters, that flashed green
and white as they broke against the island sides, varying from dull red
to deep crimson, streaked with vivid green of grasses and golden brown
with lichens. Above these again swept the bare uplands, golden and olive
with the tundra moss that clothes all to the farthest Arctic limits of
the north, while over all, majestic and wonderful, lifting its crystal
pinnacle eight thousand feet to the heavens, stood the mighty crest
of Shishaldin, clothed white with unmelting snows, and tipped with a
fluttering banner of smoke from the undying fires within. Shishaldin and
Pogromnia, the one white as snow, the other dark with furrowed cliff
and frozen lava, are chimneys to the banked fires of Unimak Island, in
which slumber still, as they have slumbered since the white men first
discovered them nearly two centuries ago, the mighty forces of eruption.
In the baffling currents and gusts of the pass sails were furled, and
the ship proceeded under a full head of steam, skirting the lofty cliffs
of Akutan. On this island once dwelt many thousand happy, contented
Aleuts. They were great whalemen, and when the summer brought the
humpback whales in schools to their turbulent waters, they captured many
of them by bold but primitive hunting. Wisely, they did not attack the
old whales, for the humpback is a famous fighter, and the white whalers
rarely attack them in these dangerous waters to-day. Instead they picked
out the agashitnak (yearlings) or akhoak (calves), and boldly attacked
them in their two-holed bidarkas, made of walrus and seal skin stretched
over driftwood framework. In the after-hole sat the paddler, and in the
forward one the harpooner with his six-foot driftwood harpoon, tipped
with an ivory socket bearing a notched blade of slate. This was thrust
deep into the young whale and then withdrawn, leaving the socket and
blade in his carcass. The mark of the hunter was scratched deep in this
slate blade, that he might know it again. On being thus wounded the whale
fled to sea, and there, as the Aleuts used to say, “went to sleep for
three days.” Meanwhile watchers lined the cliffs, and watched through the
scurrying fog for the currents to drift the carcass back to the island.
Once perhaps in twenty times this happened, and then there was a feast
and great rejoicing in the villages. The mark of the mighty hunter,
inscribed on the blade, was found when the weapon was cut out, and he was
honored for his feat during life, and even afterward. After his death, if
he had been one of the very great men, his body was preserved, cut up,
and rubbed on the blades of the young harpooners, that his valor and good
fortune might be thus transmitted.
The villagers were bold sea hunters, but gentle and peaceable in their
intercourse with one another, and so large were their villages that
to-day the ruins of one of them front for nearly a mile on the beach.
Over on Akun—another veritable volcanic mountain rising abruptly from the
sea—were other prosperous villages, also of primitive whalemen. Here were
boiling springs in which the villagers might cook their meat without
fire, and the winter’s cold was in no wise to be feared because of the
underground heat.
The humpbacks still school in summer about the islands of Akun and
Akutan, and millions of whale birds swoop in black clouds above them.
The little auks and parrot-bill ducks, as the sailors call the puffin,
swarm upon the cliffs, and breed there as of old; but the Aleuts are
gone from their ancient villages, and only a diseased remnant remains in
favored spots in the once populous archipelago. On Akutan and Akun there
are none. At Unalaska, or Illiluk as they called it, a remnant survives,
their blood mingled with that of their exterminators, the Russians,
and their sod huts cluster about the beautiful Greek church which they
support. While the Bowhead lay at anchor in their harbor, Harry and Joe
saw much of them, and found them so shy and gentle that it did not seem
possible that they ever had risen in revolt against their fierce Cossack
oppressors and swept them from the island; but such they did more than a
century ago, only to be conquered and almost exterminated by fresh hordes
of the invaders.
[Illustration: HARBOR OF UNALASKA]
Like a necklace about the throat of Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands
swing in a cloud-capped circle of peaks to within about five hundred
miles of the Siberian coast. The story of their discovery and
exploitation by the Russians is one of romantic interest, thrilled
through with horror at the needless oppression and slaughter of their
gentle inhabitants. It was in the year 1740 that the Russians first
sighted them, on the ill-fated expedition of Bering and his fellow
commander Chirakoff. During the preceding centuries the little white
sable known as the Russian ermine had led the wild Cossack huntsmen
across the Siberian steppes to the shores of Kamchatka. The value of east
Siberian furs in Russian markets was great, and when the wild huntsmen
and traders reached the sea limit, they learned from the natives legends
of land yet beyond, over-sea, where furs were still more plentiful.
Accordingly, with a commission from the Russian court, Bering and
Chirakoff fitted out two little vessels and set out upon these unknown
seas on a voyage of discovery. Bering touched the mainland of Alaska, but
soon started for home. Chirakoff visited several of the Aleutian Islands
and finally reached Kamchatka again, after losing many of his crew from
starvation and disease. Bering, however, was wrecked on the Commander
Islands, just off the Gulf of Kamchatka, and died there, but after
incredible hardships a remnant of his crew reached the mainland. They had
been obliged to subsist on the flesh of the sea otter during their stay
on the islands, and they brought back with them some of the pelts of the
animals. These were received with great favor in Russia, and the high
price offered for the skins gave a great impetus to further exploration
of the islands, on which they abounded. Expedition after expedition was
fitted out in crazy vessels, and the Promishlyniks, as the Russians
called these savage huntsmen and voyagers, began to overrun the Aleutian
chain.
Often their unseaworthy ships were wrecked in the gales which surge
about the islands. Hunger and disease decimated their crews, and many an
expedition started out boldly into the untried tempestuous waters, only
to disappear and be no more heard from. Yet now and then an unseaworthy
craft would escape the gales, and with half an emaciated crew return,
the ship loaded down with many thousands of sea otter, fox, and seal
skins, meaning great wealth to the survivors. Nothing could exceed the
boldness and hardihood of these men. The half-starved, disease-smitten
remnants of the unsuccessful crews would immediately dare the myriad
dangers again in a new expedition, so great was their courage and so
tempting the prize. We have scant records of the expeditions, yet in
those of which we know the misery and death, even when success resulted,
is appalling. Yet they kept on, and the boldness and hardihood of the
Cossack hunter-mariners were equaled only by their rapacity and cruelty.
Invariably met with goodwill and hospitality on the part of the natives
of the mountainous islets, their return was invariably oppression and
cruelty in the extreme. A busy, contented, hospitable people swarmed in
the sheltered coves of the rocky isles when the invasion began. Within
thirty years but scattered remnants were left, enslaved, diseased,
discouraged. Once only, on Unalaska, they took advantage of the winter
and slaughtered their oppressors who remained on the island, but with
the spring came new hordes, and they were obliged to sue for peace, with
slavery.
This uprising took place in the winter of 1763, and the story of the
escape of two of the Promishlyniks, driven to the mountains, at bay on
a rocky headland, concealed in a cave, fleeing alongshore in a captured
canoe, always with tremendous odds against them, yet always winning in
the unequal fight, is an extraordinary one.
Most of the Aleutian Islands to-day are barren, and desolate of
inhabitants. Few if any Russians remain, and but a handful of Aleuts.
Moreover, the greed of a century and a half has practically exterminated
the sea otter. Once so common that it might be killed with a club, the
animal is to-day one of the most wary known, and the price of a single
skin is a fortune to the Aleut hunter, of whom a few still seek for the
prized fur. The Russian domination passed with the sale of Alaska to the
United States. The American domination is kindly, but the Aleut does not
thrive, and it seems but a few more years before he will have passed into
the category of races that have faded before the advance of the white man.
The Bowhead made only a brief stay at Unalaska. Here some coal was added
to their supply, and store of fresh water was taken from the reservoir,
established by one of the big trading companies that have stations there,
at the seal islands, and at St. Michaels, at the mouth of the Yukon
River. Then the anchor was hoisted, they steamed out of Captain’s Bay, by
the strange headland, Priest Rock, which marks its entrance, and with a
southerly wind in the sails left the clouds and snowy peaks behind. Their
prow was set toward the mysterious north, and already the man on the
lookout was on the watch for the blink of Bering Sea ice not yet melted
by the spring sun.
CHAPTER III
BUCKING ICE IN BERING SEA
Harry sat at the mess-room table one morning a few days later, writing
the first chapter in what he rather shyly called his “report.” He had
learned much from Captain Nickerson of the habits of the humpback whale,
which frequents the Aleutian Islands, and the dangerous circumstances
under which vessels would work while whaling in these waters. The captain
had declared that it was not worth while to hunt the humpback, that the
dangers and losses would more than balance the gain, and Harry believed
him. Nevertheless it was on such things as these that Mr. Adams wanted
knowledge, and so he was jotting down what he had learned.
The old humpbacks are born fighters. The shoals and currents, the fogs
and gales, of the islands are their allies, and right well do they know
how to take advantage of them. Once an iron is fast to a humpback, his
first impulse is to turn and crush the puny boat which has stung him.
Failing in this, he rushes to a shoal, and rolling on the bottom tries
to roll the iron out, or he swings in and out the narrow, reef-studded
passages, and often wrecks the boat that is fast to him. Even if he fails
in all these attempts and is killed, the swift currents and the fog
which surrounds make the bringing of the carcass to the ship difficult
and dangerous. Hence, now that the Aleuts have passed from the islands,
he is left to pursue his ways in peace. “Why bother with him,” say the
whalemen, “when just a little way to the northward are the bowheads, far
more valuable, and as a rule killed almost without a struggle?”
Now and then Harry lifted his head from his work to listen to a peculiar
grating sound that seemed to come from the side of the ship. It was the
same sound that a small boat makes when it touches a gravelly bottom,
and he noted also that steam was up on the vessel, and knew by the slow
pulsations of the screw that they were proceeding at half speed. He was
curious about all this, but decided that he would finish his work before
he went on deck. Then a faint, far-away cry came to his ear. The man at
the masthead had sung out—“A-h-h blow!”
The next cry was neither faint nor far, for it came from the mighty lungs
of the great boatswain. “Whale—o!” he shouted; “tumble up lively, lads.
There’s a bowhead out here in the ice.”
Harry tumbled up lively, indeed, but he was at the heels of the members
of the crew, who had been below at the call, for all that. He found
himself in a new world. During the early morning hours the ship had
entered the southern edge of the Bering Sea ice, and was steaming
steadily northward into it. Thus far the ice was neither thick nor in
force, scattered floes to the right and left leaving open leads through
which the vessel pressed, rubbing her sides against floating fragments as
she passed. It was this scattered “slush” that had made the grating sound
on the ship’s side. A big bowhead was playing leisurely along in the
broken ice some distance ahead, now diving beneath a floe, now appearing
in an open space, feeding, and unconscious of danger. The open water and
the ice round about was no longer the clear green which it had been, but
was turbid with a brownish substance like mother-of-vinegar.
“What’s that stuff?” asked Harry.
“Whale food,” answered Joe; “the sea is full of it about here at this
time of year.”
“Well, I’m glad I’m not a whale,” said Harry; “I’d hate to eat that.” The
brown, muddy, clotted messes were even frozen into the ice. They consist
of minute forms of low-grade animal life, and are certainly not palatable
in appearance. Yet the bowhead is fond of them. He sculls along with his
mouth wide open, the bone in his upper jaw reaching down to his lower lip
on either side, and making of his mouth a cavern into which food, water,
and all enter. Once the great mouth is full he pushes his enormous spongy
tongue up into it, squeezes the water out through the whalebone sieve,
and swallows the food left behind.
One bell sounded in the engine-room. The throb of the screw ceased,
and the Bowhead glided gently along an open space of water toward her
namesake.
“That fellow will go sixty barrels, and a good lot of bone,” said Captain
Nickerson. “Lower away there!”
Two whaleboats were swung over the side, the first mate in charge of one,
Captain Nickerson in the other. Joe was left behind, nominally in charge
of the ship, and Harry, of course, remained with him. His nerves were
a-tingle with the excitement of the chase, and he ardently wished he
might be in one of the two boats.
“Hard luck, isn’t it?” said Joe, who noticed his excitement. “Tell you
what, we’ll get ready for a strike ourselves. There’s likely to be more
than one bowhead about, and we’ll get up some gear in case they want more
of it. Here, Billy,”—this to one of the Kanakas on deck,—“get up a couple
of tubs of that extra line.”
“There’s no knowing how soon we’ll want another boat away. I’ll get up
another bomb gun and a supply of ammunition. Then we’ll be heeled, as
they say in Frisco.”
Harry handled the bomb gun when it arrived,—a short, ponderous weapon
of brass, clumsy indeed to one accustomed to handle an ordinary rifle
or shotgun, but very efficient in the service for which it is intended.
Joe showed him how it was used, and even loaded it, placing it carefully
against the rail. The two boats, zigzag fashion, approached the whale
through the floes, the captain’s much in advance, and finally came up
with him. Cautiously they glided on till the bow of the foremost just
grazed the black back. Then the harpooner, with a mighty thrust, sent the
iron deep into the blubber, and the boat backed rapidly away.
“The gun missed fire! The gun missed fire!” shouted Joe excitedly;
“they’ll lose him!”
So it seemed, for there was no sound of an explosion, only the welt of
the whale’s flukes on the water as he sprang into action at the thrust
of the harpoon. With this one great splash he went below the surface,
sounded, as the whalemen say, and there was no sign of his presence
except the two boats and the rapidly whizzing line as it ran out through
the chock.
“They’re heading this way,” said Harry; and so they were, the captain’s
boat standing bow on beside a floe, with the line whizzing against the
edge of the ice, and the first mate’s men pulling with all their strength
toward the ship. Then they heard the warning shout from the captain,—
“Watch for him, we’ve parted.” The rough edge of ice had cut the line,
and the whale was free.
The bowhead’s chances for getting away were good. He would come to the
surface again only for a breath, and then continue his flight to safety
in the distant ice fields. But now came one of those happenings which
prove how wise it is to be prepared for any emergency. Joe, in getting
up that extra gear and the gun, had unwittingly saved the day. As both
boys stood by the rail gazing toward the boats, there came a crash in the
weak ice just alongside, a black bulk crushed up through it, and with a
gasp like that of a steam exhaust a puff of vapor shot up right in their
faces.
“There he is! There he is!” yelled Joe frantically; “give it to him!”
With the words he snatched up the iron at his side, and hurled it
downward with all his strength into the head of the whale, where it stuck
quivering. At the same time Harry, yelling like mad in his excitement,
caught up the bomb gun, put it to his shoulder as if it were a toy, and
discharged it full into the middle of the black mass, which he saw as
through a mist heaving in the crushed ice. There was a dull, heavy sound
of a muffled explosion, and the whale quivered and stopped. Then came
a wild hurrah from the ship, and an answering one from the boats. The
boatswain sprang up the short ladder from amidships to their side.
“Mighty good, young fellers,” he shouted, almost as excited as they;
“you plunked him fair, and just one chance out of a thousand. Whoop!
but we’re a whaling crew. Greenhorn bagged the first bull right from the
quarter deck. Whoop!”
The bowhead lay motionless, evidently dead, and the boatswain made the
line fast to a cleat. Then he sang a variation of an old sea chantey,
cutting a ponderous pigeon wing to the tune—
“Tra la la, tra la la, tra la la boom,
Lorenzo was no sailor,
Tra la la, tra la la, tra la la boom,
He shipped on board a whaler.”
“’Vast there, bosun,” he said to himself, suddenly sober; “no
monkeyshines on the quarter-deck. Get down amidships where you belong.
Hi there, you Kanakas! clear away that cuttin’-in gear. Step lively now,
they’re alongside.”
The boats were no sooner at the davits than preparations for cutting-in
the whale were made. He was hauled alongside, head toward the stern, and
a heavy tackle was rigged to the mainmast head. Then the cutting-in stage
of planking, rigged so as to swing from the side of the ship out over
the carcass, was put outboard. Two men, each with the great steel chisel
which the whalemen call a spade, took stations on this. A longitudinal
slit was cut in the blubber just back of the flipper. Then cuts were made
from this round the carcass, a hook from the tackle was made fast in the
end of the strip, and hoisting away on the tackle the blubber was peeled
from the dark meat beneath in a spiral peeling, somewhat as one might
peel an apple. As the weight on the tackle grew great, the strip was cut
away and hoisted upon the deck amidships. Meanwhile, others of the crew
had started fires beneath the great kettles forward, and the blubber,
cut into small cubes, was put in these. At first this fire was of wood,
but as the work progressed the scraps from the blubber were thrown into
the grate and burned fiercely, giving off a thick black smoke that had a
disagreeable odor of burnt flesh.
By and by the blubber was all aboard, filling the space between decks
with its quivering oily masses, among which the crew plunged and worked
like demons. The furnaces spouted smoke and oil, and remnants of blubber
made the decks slippery. Last of all the tackle was carefully made fast
to the head, and the ship listed to one side as the donkey engine put
a strain on the great mass. Then the great backbone was severed by the
spades, and the tense tackle sang as the enormous bulk was swung inboard
and landed safely on the deck.
“What for goodness’ sake is that in his mouth?” asked Harry.
“That’s the bone,” replied Joe; “and a fine head of bone it is. Some of
the slabs are eight or nine feet long.”
“Well, I never thought whalebone looked like that,” said Harry, gazing in
astonishment at the black slabs varying in length from one foot to eight
that extended down from the upper jaw. They were flattened, nearly a foot
in greatest diameter at the base, and tapering to a thin tip. This was
fringed far up on the sides with what resembled horsehair.
“Can he shut his mouth with all that in it?” asked Harry.
“Oh, yes,” replied Joe. “The tips fit into the groove between the tongue
and the lip, and point backward when he shuts his jaws. They are very
elastic, as you know, and they spring and bend close together.”
The boatswain and the mate busied themselves cutting out these slabs
of bone, which were piled away to be cleansed before stowing them. The
boatswain was jovial and talkative. He sang snatches of sea songs, made
jokes, and tried to draw out his companion as they worked; but the
taciturn mate was as silent as ever. Not so Harry and Joe, who put on
oil-skins and worked with them. After the bone was removed, the head
was tipped overboard, and floated away with the stripped and abandoned
carcass. Arctic gulls had gathered in troops from no one knew where, and
dogfish were already nibbling at it. It would not be many days before
the meat would be stripped from the bones, and the latter resting on the
shallow bottom of Bering Sea.
“Pity the mersinkers could not have that meat,” said the boatswain. “It
would make a feast for a whole village for a week.”
“Who are the mersinkers?” asked Harry.
“The natives over at East Cape,” said the boatswain; “that’s what they
call themselves. You’ll see them in a day or two, probably.”
The twilight of early June lasts in Bering Sea until almost eleven
o’clock; then flares were lighted of scraps and blubber in wire baskets,
making torches that lighted up the gloom with weird, fantastic glare,
and still the work of trying out went on. The men loomed in and out of
the shadows like strange goblins at uncanny sport. The fires illumined
a brief circle of the desolate ice, and showed only a part of the
rigging which made ladders into an unknown gloom, and the whole was like
a midnight assembly of goblins of the strange ice world, working spells
about witch kettles that far outdid the wild work of the witch sisters in
“Macbeth.” The brief night had passed, and the morning sun was shining on
the ice again, yet the incantations did not cease, and it was two days
before the last of the bowhead’s oil was stowed in casks below decks.
Then only the weary crew had a brief rest, before the ship was cleaned
and scrubbed down. Nearly a thousand pounds of whalebone was the most
valuable result of this first catch, and as the market price of bone at
San Francisco was something over three dollars a pound, Harry had matter
of interest to jot down in his report as to the methods and profits of
the pursuit of the bowhead.
The vessel now found herself in the middle of the Bering Sea pack ice.
Here and there were open leads still, but they were fewer, more narrow,
and much less connected. Now and again there were places where contrary
winds and currents had crushed the floes together, piling the crumpled
cakes high on one another in wild confusion, often to a height of twenty
or thirty feet. Joe called these hummocks icebergs, and Harry and he
had much friendly controversy as to the correct use of that term. Harry
explained that he had learned that icebergs were the product of glaciers
alone, that there were no glaciers on the Alaskan coast north of the
Aleutians, and that these should properly be called hummocks. In this he
was right, but Joe, with the pride of the man who “has been there,” would
not concede it. Whatever they were, they totally prevented the progress
of the vessel, and when they appeared in the path, the Bowhead was
obliged to make a detour to avoid them. Now and then they were obliged
to “buck ice” to get from one lead to another, and the process was very
exciting. The vessel under a full head of steam would plunge straight at
the field of heavy ice, striking it with a thump that entirely stopped
progress and shook the structure from stem to stern. The masts would
spring under the blow, and at each shock Harry fully expected to see
Captain Nickerson jolted from his perch in the crow’s nest, high on the
fore-mast. Then the ship would back away again at the captain’s order,
leaving a three-cornered dent in the ice. Again and again she would rush
at this dent with her great weight under full head of steam, till the
floe would split, and leave a narrow crack through which the vessel could
crowd her way. Thus for several days they hammered their way on through
the pack, until they reached its northwestern edge, where open water gave
them free passage to the ice-bound shores of east Siberia. There they
came to anchor under a headland, and though it was mid-June and did not
seem cold, were greeted by a storm of snow that came scurrying down from
the snow-clad hills inland.
[Illustration: BUCKING THE ICE]
Next day it cleared, and the skin topeks of a Chuckchis village could
be seen on the barren shore. A strip of shore ice still separated them
from the land, but the natives came dragging their umiaks across this
and then put to sea in them, soon paddling alongside. There were a dozen
or more in each boat, men, women, and children, all clad much alike
in walrus-hide seal-top boots, sealskin trousers, and a hooded coat
of reindeer fur which extended nearly to the knee. Men and women and
the older children alike paddled, and the walrus-hide boats made rapid
progress over the waves. Once alongside they made fast and came aboard,
all hands, smiling and silent, sitting or standing for a time until
addressed by some one who was or seemed to be in authority. Then they
spoke, and conversation was soon general. It was limited, however. Many
of the men know considerable English of the “pigeon” variety, and most of
the whalers are familiar with the trade language of the Eskimos of Bering
Sea and the straits, which consists of Eskimo, mingled with words and
phrases picked up from the whalers and traders, and originating Heaven
knows where. Possibly some are Kanaka words transplanted far north.
Others are words invented by the sailors on the spur of the moment,
which, once applied by the natives, have been adopted into general use.
Each native had a sealskin poke which he carried slung over his shoulder
by a rawhide thong, and which consisted of the skin of the ordinary
Arctic seal taken off whole, and tanned with the hair on. A slit was cut
in the side of this, making a sort of traveling-bag, in which he carried
articles which he was to offer for trade. Within these pokes were walrus
tusks, plain and carved, some elaborately; walrus teeth carved into
grotesque imitations of little animals; “muckalucks,” the trade word
for the native skin-boot; “artekas,” or coats of reindeer skin; furs of
ermine, mink, otter, and the hair seal; in fact, anything which the
mersinker could find at home that he thought the whalemen might fancy.
None of these goods were offered on deck, however. Each waited until the
captain, sitting in state in his cabin, sent for him; then one by one
they went down to trade. After each man had made what bargain he could
with Captain Nickerson, he brought what was left to the deck, and there
traded freely with the sailors.
As supercargo, Harry sat in the cabin with Captain Nickerson, and kept
account of each trade as it was made, having good opportunity to watch
the methods of the natives. He found them very clever at barter, Captain
Nickerson, Yankee that he was, often meeting his match in some stolid
native, who seemed to have a very clear idea of what he wanted, and how
to get it. The first day of trading was merely preliminary, however, the
natives bringing off their least valuable goods for barter, reserving
the best of the ivory, and all the bone, until they found how prices
were going, and whether the ship held such supplies as they needed or
not. Their first demand seemed to be for hard bread, of which they are
very fond. For this they offered, as a rule, the muckaluck, or native
boot. Calico, as they had learned to call all forms of cloth, came
next; then flour in bags, and later ammunition, rifles, and trade goods.
Of brown sugar they were desirous, and chewing tobacco was asked for
almost as soon as the hard-tack. This they called kowkow tobacco, or
eating tobacco, from their trade word “kowkow,” meaning to eat. Harry
made note of the Eskimo words as he heard them used, and picked up a
working vocabulary, with the help of his notebook, in a very short time.
Before the first day’s trading was over he had begun to understand what
was meant, and by the end of the third day he astonished Joe with his
fluency. As a matter of fact, his vocabulary thus far consisted of only
forty words or so; but as they were the ones in most constant use, it
made him seem quite a linguist. From this time forward he took great
pains to jot down a new word and its meaning as soon as he heard it,
getting many from the officers and crew, and this quick acquisition of
the language was to stand him in good stead later on.
At the end of the third day trading had ceased. There were great piles
of deerskins, muckalucks, and small furs, several hundred pounds of not
very good bone, quite a quantity of ivory, and many trinkets and curios.
Harry wondered greatly as to the destination of much of this stuff.
“Are reindeer skins worth much in the States?” he asked Captain Nickerson
once, as the pile grew larger at the expense of much flour and calico.
“I don’t think there is any market,” replied the captain, “though it is
hard to see why. The fur is very thick and warm, the skin light, and
should make most excellent lap robes and carriage robes, just as the
buffalo fur once did. We shall trade them again when we meet the Eskimos
on the other side of the straits. The caribou is scarce over there, and
they gladly exchange fox, ermine, and bear skins for them. These we can
dispose of readily in Frisco.”
A good quantity of bone was in hand, but it was only a part of what the
natives had taken, as the captain knew. Two whales had been their good
fortune as the ice came down the fall before, and a third had come to
them that spring as the gift of the orcas. These eat the lip and the soft
tongue of the bowhead, leaving the carcass to float ashore. Hence the
mersinker looks upon the orca with a sort of veneration as a provider
of great and valuable gifts, and has certain ceremonies which he goes
through each year as an invocation to him and an expression of gratitude.
The mersinker, in fact, is a man of many ceremonials, the reason for
which he does not know, but which he follows because his father did the
same before him. These three whales had been small ones, but there must
have been far more bone from them than the natives brought to the ship
for sale. The balance they were keeping back for further trading with
other ships, nor was it possible to get them to bring this out, even by
offering increased value for it. They held it in reserve, as is their
custom, hoping that the next ship would bring goods which they would care
for more than those at hand.
Captain Nickerson wished to purchase some reindeer for fresh meat, but
none were at the coast. The deermen were said to be stationed in a valley
half a dozen miles in the interior, and he decided to send an expedition
inland in search of some. A coast native volunteered as guide, and
brought along a sledge and dog team for the transportation of supplies.
Mr. Jones, the taciturn first mate, was detailed in command of this
expedition, and Harry and Joe were allowed to go, with many injunctions
to be careful not to get into trouble with the Chow Chuen, as the deermen
call themselves.
It was a perfect June day when they set off. There was no breath of
wind, and the sun shone brilliantly as they landed on the shore ice,
transferred their supplies to the sledge, and set off through the native
village toward the hills. They had instructions not to be gone longer
than over one night, and it was agreed that a signal of trouble and need
of assistance should be three shots repeated in quick succession. Such
precautions were necessary as the Chow Chuen, though generally willing
to barter, are of uncertain temper, and even the mersinkers are not to
be trusted when they seem to have an advantage. Harry and Joe tramped
on ahead of the company, the Eskimo following with his team and sledge,
and Mr. Jones bringing up the rear. The air was warm, and on bare spots
the spring grass was already growing through the tundra moss, but the
snow still covered most of the earth, and the trail lay across it, well
trodden.
Each boy carried a rifle and was well supplied with cartridges, while
Harry had in addition a small camera slung over his shoulder by a strap.
The boys were in high glee at the outing, after the long confinement
aboard ship, and rollicked along well ahead of the others. Yet their
progress was slow, the way winding, and it was lunch time and yet they
had not reached the upland valley, where the camp of the deermen was
said to be. A few dry twigs of willow—the only growth of wood, and this
in the main creeping vine fashion, and rising only to a height of two or
three feet—were found to feed a fire, and a pot of tea was boiled. Then
after the men had taken a hasty smoke, the journey was resumed. It was
mid-afternoon when they seemed to be reaching the summit of a low divide.
The six miles had stretched into a dozen, and there was no sign of human
life among the hills, only the beaten trail leading steadily on over the
snow. The mate had seemed anxious for an hour or so, and had swung into
the lead along with the boys.
“Home pretty soon,” he said, wasting no words; “most far enough.” A
moment after, they rounded a ledge of broken basaltic rock, and looked
down upon a scene of pastoral life such as only the extreme north of
Asia can show. A brown and sheltered valley wound among the rude hills.
It was bare of snow in the main, and the golden brown moss, with which
it was carpeted, showed green with grasses already springing in it. In
scattered groups about this grazed several hundred reindeer, many brown
in color, some piebald, the old ones bearing branching antlers, the fawns
spotted, and gamboling like any young deer. Here and there, fur-clad
herders watched them, and there was a little group of large skin topeks
at one side of the valley not far off, the homes of the herders and their
families. Thither they turned, the coast native taking the lead now. They
were near the little hut hamlet before any one took notice of them, when
a man suddenly appeared with a rifle in his hands. He was taller than the
coast native, and seemed more robust. He fearlessly pointed the rifle at
the approaching party.
“Way enough!” shouted Mr. Jones. “Hold water!”
At a wave of his hand the Eskimo went ahead resolutely, his hands held up
palm forward as a sign of peace, and shouting, “Nagouruk! Nagouruk!”
The deerman lowered the muzzle of his rifle, and the two talked for a
moment. Then the Eskimo made a sign for the party to come forward. The
deerman met them with the word “Nagouruk,” which means “Good,” in token
of friendship, and talked with the Eskimo volubly in a dialect that no
one in the party could make much of. The other, who could speak some
English, explained that it was doubtful if deer could be bought. It had
been a bad winter, many had died in the deep snow, and they wished to let
the herd increase during the spring and summer, lest they face starvation
next winter. In any case, it would be necessary to consult the head
deerman, and he would send for him.
“Watch out,” said Mr. Jones to Joe and Harry. “Don’t like this gang.”
The deermen’s topeks numbered about half a dozen, scattered along the
sunny side of an abrupt turn in the cliff which bordered the valley’s
edge. The deerman lifted the flap of one of these, and motioned them to
enter. A crowd of curious women and children, the smaller of these latter
perched on their mothers’ shoulders astride their necks, had begun to
gather. Men came running up from the other topeks, and the little party
was soon being stared at, criticised, and even poked and hustled, in
half-curious, half-insolent fashion. The Chow Chuen are certainly no
respecters of persons. They hate and distrust the white man, but they do
not fear him.
Mr. Jones hesitated. Then he motioned to Harry to stand by the sled.
“Stand watch, will you?” he said. “Keep ’em off. Don’t get gallied.”
Harry, rifle in hand, took his stand by the sled, while the other three
entered the topek. The Alaskan coast native builds a small summer
shelter, but the Siberian coast native, and the deermen of the uplands
inland, build great ones, sometimes thirty feet in diameter. These are
covered with skins, held down with rawhide ropes and stone weights
against the furious gales of that country. Within is a central common
space surrounded by smaller rooms, made by deerskin curtains. They found
this central room empty, but a rustling behind the curtains showed that
the others were tenanted. The deerman bade them wait and went out, soon
returning with another of his kind who seemed to be the head man, and
followed by half a dozen others. Then the bargaining began, the Eskimo
acting as interpreter, and signs filling up the spaces where words failed.
Meanwhile, Harry was very busy outside, and somewhat worried. The entire
population of the hamlet seemed bent on investigating him thoroughly.
They made derisive remarks about his clothing, and tried to put their
hands in his pockets, which they seemed to admit to one another were good
things to have. One man took off his hat and started to put it on his
own head, amid laughter from his comrades. He seemed to resent it when
Harry snatched it away, and touched his knife significantly. But when
one attempted to relieve him of his watch and chain he was forced to
draw back hastily, for Harry felt that the limit of patience was about
reached, and cocked and pointed his rifle threateningly. The others
seemed to enjoy the hurried retreat of this man, and to deride him for
cowardice. However, the men kept out of arm’s reach after this. Not so
the women and children. Their attentions were not only to himself, but to
the sled; and he soon saw that under their carelessness was a systematic
attempt to cast off the lashings and get at the goods there. During all
this annoyance he happened to think of his camera, and decided that at
least he could get a picture or two to counterbalance the trouble. So,
unslinging it from his back, he slipped the little instrument from its
case, drew out the bellows to the universal focus, and proceeded to
point it at the most picturesque of the insolent group. The effect was
magical. They tumbled backward from the machine with alarm. When they
saw the flick of the shutter as he pressed the button, they threw their
hands before their eyes and retreated, repeating a word which he did not
understand, but which he learned later meant “magic.”
This amused Harry greatly, and afterward he had only to point the camera
to widen the circle about him; and to take a new picture was to send arms
flying to the faces that were in range. They seemed to think something
would come from it to injure their eyesight. They resented this threat,
however, and there were black looks on the ugly faces of the men when the
mate and the head deerman appeared from the topek followed by the others.
The bargain had been satisfactorily concluded, and the deermen went off
to drive in the purchased reindeer, while Jones and his lieutenants took
the goods from the sled. The crowd of fur-clad Chow Chuen stood about,
but kept a respectful distance from the camera.
But when the half-dozen deer were driven up, there were fresh
complications. Mr. Jones was about to slaughter them at once, and had
passed the goods over to the head deerman, when a great outcry arose. The
deermen flocked about the Eskimo, and seemed to demand that he tell the
whites something, which he did.
“No kill. No kill,” cried the Eskimo in much alarm; “Chow Chuen kill.”
“Well, tell them to go ahead and do it, then,” roared Mr. Jones, so angry
that he was fluent. “It’s nightfall now, and we’ve got a long road ahead
of us.”
The Eskimo was much disturbed. He explained, with a strange mingling of
Eskimo with his scant English vocabulary, that there was a ceremonial to
be gone through with first. It could not be done at nightfall, they must
wait the rising sun. “One sleep,” he said. “Nanaku kile. Bimeby he come,”
pointing to the sun. “Mucky” (Dead), with a sweep of his hand toward the
reindeer.
In vain Mr. Jones stormed with picturesque and unexpectedly voluble
profanity; the deermen were determined. The head deerman ordered the
goods brought out and laid at the feet of the company, scornfully waving
his hand toward the home trail, indicating plainly that they might
consider the trade off, but he would not have the deer slaughtered then.
Mr. Jones would not return without them, and so they waited.
“Tell him,” he said sulkily, “we’ll wait till sunrise.”
The Eskimo explained, and this seemed to clear matters somewhat. Some
tobacco offered them helped still more; and the head man drove the crowd
away, evidently telling them to go about their business, which they did
reluctantly. He conducted the party down the line of topeks to one which
was near the end, and told them that that was to be their habitation for
the night.
“We’ll stand watch and watch,” said Mr. Jones, as they entered this; “no
knowing what these rapscallions will try to do to us, if we all go to
sleep.”
The interior of this smaller topek was all one room, and there were no
traces of former occupancy, which was satisfactory. It gave promise of
reasonable cleanliness, which could not be said of the others. It was
no doubt a storehouse not in present use. The sled, their blankets, and
belongings were hauled inside; the dogs were tied to the tent-poles
outside, and the Eskimo disposed of himself as best he might. Joe stood
the first watch, while Harry and Mr. Jones rolled themselves in blankets
on the mossy floor of the topek and were soon asleep. It was still light,
though the sun was behind the northern mountains. Indeed, in June in that
latitude, there is but a brief interval of dusk at midnight. The deermen
retired to their topeks, except those on watch with the herd, and save
for the howl of an occasional wolf-like dog, peace reigned.
At midnight Joe woke Harry, and he went on guard. A gray dusk hung over
everything, there was a sharp chill in the air. All things seemed touched
with a white fungous growth, which was frost. From behind the northern
mountains the sun shot dancing streamers like aurora halfway up the sky.
The whole scene was beautiful but strange, and gave Harry a sense of the
ghostly and supernatural which was hard to shake off, and which he was
often to feel still more vividly as he saw more of Arctic nights. The
prowling, howling bands of Chow Chuen dogs loomed large in the uncertain
light, and it seemed hard not to believe that they were bands of wolves
bent on destruction. He was glad indeed when the first glimpse of the sun
came over the mountains to the northeast, and it was time to call Mr.
Jones. The night had passed, and they were not molested.
[Illustration: A SIBERIAN TOPEK]
With the sunrise the whole hamlet was astir for the ceremony of the
slaughter of the reindeer. The six deer purchased were led up, and the
shaman of the village appeared from his lodge, which was decorated with
strange devices and carved images. He held in his hand a long, sharp
knife, and as he passed Harry the boy inadvertently drew back, so fierce
and sinister was the look on his evil face. Each deer in turn was led
up to him and faced to the east. The shaman held his knife toward the
sun, recited something that seemed like a liturgy, then with one thrust
sent the keen knife full to the heart of his victim. With a bleat the
animal fell to its knees, then rolled over dead, and the shaman, rushing
forward, caught the blood from the wound in his palm, scattering it
toward the sun with more words, or perhaps the same, of the ritual. Thus
each deer was slain, and in a twinkling was fallen upon by the Chow Chuen
and the entrails removed. The bodies were then placed on the sled, and it
was evident that the adventurers might take their departure, which they
were glad to do. A mile or two down the trail they breakfasted on deer
steak, broiled over the few willow twigs they were able to find, and went
on, reaching the ship at midday. Captain Nickerson received them gladly
and was pleased at their success, but had a long conference with the
Eskimo. Then only they learned that the treacherous and ugly Chow Chuen
had been much incensed at their wish to take the deer and slaughter them
without the legendary rites of the tribes, and would have attempted to
murder them during the night. The Eskimo had dilated upon the strange
power of the little “magic box,” which he told them could take each man’s
image and carry it away (he having seen photographs taken with a similar
one by previous visiting white men), and crafty and superstitious as they
are fierce, the deermen wisely decided to let the strangers alone. No
doubt the fact that they stood armed watch had its effect as well.
The next day a southeasterly gale sprang up, and the vessel was obliged
to hoist anchor and get away from the dangerous coast.
CHAPTER IV
THE LITTLE MEN OF THE DIOMEDES
In the unremembered ages it is probable that the extreme end of Asia,
which is East Cape, Siberia, was joined to the extreme western end of
America, which is Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. No tradition remains of
the time when the sea broke through this slender barrier, yet even now it
is but about thirty miles in a straight line across, and on clear days
from the mountains of one promontory the other can be faintly discerned.
There is a halfway station, too, two storm-beaten islands which lift
rocky crests of grim granite in the very middle of the hurly-burly of the
straits. These are the Diomede Islands, the greater belonging to Russia,
the lesser to America, and the space between the two is so narrow that
it seems in bright weather as if one could almost throw a stone across,
though in reality it is more than a mile—farther than it looks. Across
this slender land path in those forgotten years came one race after
another from Central Asia, which was the birthplace of races, pressing
southward and peopling the Western hemisphere with tribes, of which
scant traces remain in some instances, while in others their degenerate
descendants are still fading before the westward rush of civilization.
Individuals cross this narrow barrier of tempestuous sea still, but
races come no more, and we find on the halfway station of the Diomedes a
remnant of some ancient people that has stranded there and made a home
where it seems scarcely possible that human creatures could live the year
round.
Here during the recent centuries met the Asiatic and Alaskan Eskimos,
to trade and fight; and the bold, bare cliffs have been the scene of
many a bloody battle. Now even this custom has passed, and the men from
one side of the straits rarely meet those of the other; but the little
remnant of an unknown people, who stranded there no one knows how long
ago, still cling to their rocky islets and live as did their forefathers.
You may find among them some who bear the mark of the Chuckchis, some
who are more like the Alaskan Eskimos, but the little folk, while having
the manners and customs of each, have characteristics which belong to
neither. Hardly five feet in height, they are too small to have battled
successfully with their more robust brethren, but they make up in slyness
and ability what they lack in brute strength. They are shy and reticent,
clever workmen, clever thieves, and cleverest of all in trading.
No vegetation save grass and chickweed grows on their cliffs. They build
their dwellings of flat stones banked with scant earth, and the icy sea,
which rims them round and seems to threaten with certain death, is their
father and their mother in that it provides all they have in the world.
In the brief summer an occasional log of driftwood is thrown against
their cliffs, and from this they fashion their canoe frames and their
spear handles. During all the cold and cruel winter the ice-floes which
crash and grind against the worn granite of their islands bring the seal
and walrus and the polar bear. These and the myriad sea birds of summer
are their supplies.
For many days the southerly gale which had driven the Bowhead from
the Siberian shore kept her in much danger. The sea room was narrow,
ice-floes came driving down before the wind, it was impossible to get
sight of the sun to find the ship’s position, and the drift of the
current toward the straits was an unknown factor. Most of the time
the vessel jogged under reefed topsails, with steam up for use in an
emergency, and Captain Nickerson was almost constantly on deck. Thick
clouds made the nights longer, and very dark, and Harry had a chance to
see the full danger of Arctic navigation.
It was in the gloom of one of these nights that he stood on deck. The
vessel heeled to the gale, now and then an icy wave sent a rush of spray
over the windward rail, the wind howled and wailed in the tense shrouds,
and an eerie glow seemed to show in the darkness without lighting it, as
if dull fires burned behind the cloud curtains. It seemed to Harry as
if they were blown about in chaos, a place dreary, ghostly, and lonely
beyond expression. He shuddered and thought of the people at home, happy
in the bright June weather. For the first time he was sorry for himself,
and homesick. He thought with a great longing of the broad veranda
looking out upon the bay, of his mother sitting there, and he seemed
with his mind’s eye to see Maisie, in a pretty white gown, flitting
gayly across the lawn toward the boats. Then out of the night came a
wild, despairing cry, and something fluttered aboard, crashed against
the mizzen rigging, and fell in a draggled white heap at his feet. The
thought of Maisie was so strong that he sprang forward, with a great cry
of alarm, to pick her up where she had fallen, when a sudden tremendous
gust of the gale threw the Bowhead on her beam ends. A wall of white
water roared down upon him, lifted him up with Maisie in his arms, and he
went out into the night with it, still clinging to the limp figure he had
clutched as he went down.
It was well for Harry that the same sea that sent him overboard sent
with him a coil of line from a belaying-pin, where it hung against the
mizzenmast. The whirl of the wave wound this round him, and the great
boatswain, whose watch on deck it was, saw him go out with it, and
finding it taut, and something towing, hauled away at it until he could
reach down and get him by the collar. Then with one big swing of his
enormous arm he landed him aboard. He set him in a heap on the deck, and
with a hand on either knee peered down at him in the gloom.
“Young feller,” he said, with much emotion, “there’s just one thing I
want you to do for me when we get back to Frisco. Do you know what that
is?”
“What?” asked Harry, wholly dazed and half drowned, replying mechanically.
“I want you to take all the money I get this trip and go and bet it
on something for me. A man that can win out the way you’ve just done
couldn’t lose at any game. Great jumping Jehoshaphat! what have you got
here?”
“Is she all right?” asked Harry, struggling to his feet. He was still
dazed, and had forgotten all the events of the last two months. It seemed
to him that it was Griggs speaking, and that he had just pulled him and
Maisie out of the Fore River.
The boatswain took the limp white figure from his arms and looked at
it. It was a great white bird, quite dead, no doubt killed by its crash
against the mizzenmast.
“Go below, my boy,” he said; “and get something hot and turn in. You’ve
had trouble enough for one night.”
The great boatswain went forward, holding the bird in one hand and now
and then slapping his great leg with the other, and letting forth a roar
of amazed laughter.
“A goose,” he said; “a Yukon goose! Went overboard and came back and
brought a Yukon goose! Well, the young feller is a seven-time winner.
Bet ye we’ll raise whales this trip, all right.” He went forward to the
galley, where he left his game, and then went back on watch.
As light grew through the chaos of struggling mist, the cry of “Land ho!”
rang out from the lookout, and the ship rounded to so near dark cliffs
that stretched upward into the mists out of sight that she was fairly
in the wash of the great waves that thundered at their base. A moment
after, ice barred their farther way on the other tack, and a great floe
moved majestically along, bearing them down toward the cliffs. To lie
to was to be carried in and crushed between ice and rocks, and Captain
Nickerson, who was on deck, wisely guessing that it must be one of the
Diomedes, wore ship and ran before the gale, coasting within sight of the
great rock barrier. A half hour afterward he rounded to and swung close
up under the lee of the towering northeast cliff of the big Diomede; so
close to its sheer lift that one could almost throw a line ashore.
Here was level water indeed, and they were safe from the northward driven
ice-floes, which would split on the island’s prow and sail by to port
and starboard; but they did not escape the wind, which came over the
heights in tremendous “willie-waus,” blowing, as the sailors say, “up and
down like the Irishman’s hurricane.” This seems to be a peculiarity of
the Arctic gale. It comes tearing over the great heights, plunges down
the steep face of the cliffs, and striking the water at their base with
tremendous velocity, sends it whirling out to sea in great masses of
spoondrift that sail along the surface as blown snow does in winter.
Two days more the ship lay head to the cliff, swinging to two anchors,
then the mists blew away, the wind went down rapidly, and the sun shone
brightly on lofty granite heights. Halfway up was a little space of level
ground like a shelf set in a corner of rock, and out of holes in this
green level came stubby fur-clad men and women, who swarmed down the
cliff by paths of their own and launched umiaks from a sheltered little
hidden cove, putting out to the ship.
[Illustration: HOME OF “THE LITTLE MEN” OFF THE DIOMEDES]
Harry was none the worse for his sudden plunge overboard a few days
before. Instead of the weakness and lassitude which had followed his
April upset in the Fore River, there came an immediate reaction, and he
declared a few hours afterward that it had done him good; he would do it
every day, if he could be sure of getting back to the ship so handily.
The Arctic air was already working wonders in him. The experienced seamen
shook their heads at this. They knew well that his chance had been one in
a thousand, and Captain Nickerson rated him soundly for being so careless
as to let a sea catch him that way.
The little men had much walrus ivory, but not much else that was of
value to the ship, and their trading did not last long. They did have
many curios, and Harry had an opportunity to buy some of these with the
“trade goods” he had brought from Seattle for the purpose. By Captain
Nickerson’s advice he had laid in a few dollars’ worth of rubber balls,
huge beads, little mirrors, harmonicas, and trinkets, and he now found
these very useful. He bought with them many walrus teeth; the back teeth,
which are as large as one’s thumb, carved in grotesque but life-like
shape of seals, bear, walrus, and other animals. Two bargains which he
made are noteworthy as showing the ways of the little people in trading.
One of these was for an exquisite pair of little shoes, soled with
walrus hide crimped up into miniature boots, topped with the softest of
fur from the reindeer fawn, and with a bright edging of scarlet cloth.
They were most skillfully fashioned, and tasteful, for the Eskimo is a
born artist, and were brought aboard by a young woman who apparently was
very proud of them, and wished rather to exhibit than to sell them.
Harry, proud of his newly acquired Eskimo, asked her immediately, “Soonoo
pechuckta?” (How much do you want?) but she replied by shaking her head
and putting the shoes away in her fur gown.
By and by she brought them out again and patted them lovingly. Again
Harry tried to get her to name a price for them, and after much labor he
got from her the single word “Oolik” (Blanket).
“Soonoo?” asked Harry again.
“Tellumuk,” was the answer, further emphasized by holding up five fingers.
Five blankets was so obviously exorbitant a price that Harry could not
and would not think of giving it, so he thought to tempt his adversary
with the offer of other things. In vain he brought out tin trumpets,
harmonicas, bangles, beads, and even two alarm clocks, which he had
found elsewhere to be greatly desired by the tribes, and offered them
singly and in groups; the owner of the little shoes was determined. To
all his offers she replied with fine scorn, “Peluck” (No good), and clung
persistently to her first price.
But Harry, grown wise, took a leaf from her own book. He bethought him of
a little plate-glass mirror, rimmed with scarlet plush, which he had not
offered thus far. It had cost him a dollar and a half at Seattle, but he
was willing to trade it for the shoes. Yet he was convinced that direct
offer would be useless. So he brought it on deck, and without looking at
the obdurate young woman began admiring his own countenance in it. When
she took a furtive interest in it, he thrust it back in his own pocket.
After a little he took it out again, and once more contemplated himself
in its depths. This ludicrous performance continued for some time, and
he could not tell whether or not his adversary were much interested, so
cleverly did she veil her thoughts. By and by her boatload of people were
ready to go home, and getting into the umiak, called to her to come with
them. Harry saw that she lingered, and he played his last card.
“Ah de gar!” he exclaimed; “ah de gar!” (Wonderful! wonderful!) and
held the mirror in front of the little woman. She saw her own comely
countenance in it, she saw the beveled glass and the vivid scarlet plush,
and as Harry held out his other hand she gave a twitch of her shoulders,
snatched the shoes from their concealment in her gown, and gave them
to him. At the same time she caught up the mirror, flounced down into
the umiak, and settled herself on the bottom, with an air that was
ludicrously like that of her civilized sister when angry with herself for
being outwitted. Vanity and curiosity had conquered, but it was the only
case in all his dealings with Eskimos in which Harry ever knew one of
them to name a price for an article and then accept something different.
The other trade, if trade it could be called, was a different matter. It
was with the smallest of the Eskimo men of another boat. He had half a
dozen ivory finger rings, carved symmetrically with a seal’s head, or two
or three, where stones would be. Harry sighted these and wished to trade
for the bunch, but this did not suit the little man at all. Instead, with
much pomp and much show of valuing it highly, he took one ring from the
string and offered it to Harry, saying:—
“Tobac, tobac, tunpanna kowkow” (Eating tobacco).
The Eskimos are not great smokers, a whiff or two is generally enough
for them, but they are very fond of chewing tobacco, or “eating tobacco”
as they call it, and there was a good store of this on the ship. Harry
offered a moderate-sized piece for the ring and then wanted to purchase
the second with a similar piece. This he could not do. The crafty little
man’s price had risen fivefold, and it was only reluctantly that he
parted with the second ring at the price of five pieces of tobacco.
But when it came to the third one, there seemed to be no such thing as
purchasing it. Harry offered tobacco galore, added trinkets and trade
goods, but the little man was obdurate and all chances of trade seemed
off.
Harry remembered the shoes and the mirror, and did not despair. He went
down to his locker and brought out the alarm clock again. He wound it
up, set the alarm for a little ahead of the moment, and took it on deck.
There he set it up on a cask and waited. Several of the Eskimos gathered
round and admired it, but the little man only looked at it out of the
corner of his eye.
After a few minutes the alarm went off, and being a vigorous one, it
startled the crowd of little men and women around it. They nearly fell
over one another in astonishment, and when Harry wound up the alarm and
set it off again, their delight was great. The ring-maker tried to assume
an air of indifference, but when his boat was ready to go he came toward
Harry as if to offer to trade. Harry had learned much of the ways of
the Eskimo trader by that time and turned away indifferently. When the
boat was loaded, he strolled to the side with the clock in his hand.
The little man held up one ring, but he shook his head. Then the Eskimo
offered two. The boat was just going, and Harry wanted the rings so much
that he yielded. It would make four in all, which was perhaps all he
cared for anyway. He handed the clock to the little man, and that worthy
dropped something in his palm as he did so. At the same time he pointed
toward the cliff and jabbered something excitedly in Eskimo.
Harry looked where he pointed but saw nothing. The boat was several
lengths away now, the click of the windlass pawl showed that the
Bowhead’s anchor was coming up, and they were off. The little man was
no longer gesticulating, but looked back over his shoulder and solemnly
winked one eye. This was a new feature in Eskimo expression, and Harry
wondered much if a wink meant as much with these seemingly stolid people
as with us. As he mused, the umiak rounded the cliff and was gone, and
Harry looked at his two rings for the first time. They were not rings at
all, only two circular sections of a walrus back tooth, flat and useless
disks, which the little man may have meant to make into rings later.
Then he realized that a wink is a wink the world over, and the language
of signs is common to all people.
The day was bright, the gale was over, and the Bowhead put to sea, once
more heading northward into the mysterious Arctic, keeping a keen lookout
for whales. The southerly weather had driven the ice of the straits far
to the northward, and though there was now and then a floating cake, the
pack was many miles distant.
“Suppose you could pull a whaleboat oar?” asked Captain Nickerson of
Harry that day at dinner.
“Why, yes, sir,” replied Harry, “I think so. I’m a good oarsman, though I
have never used quite such large oars as you have in the whaleboats.”
“I’m sure he could, father,” said Joe; “what of it?”
“Why, this,” replied his father; “you’ve been practically second mate of
the Bowhead ever since we left Hawaii. Now I think I shall let you take
a second mate’s place in charge of one of the boats, and am planning to
have Harry pull an oar in your boat.”
Both boys turned red with delight at this prospect, and it was soon
decided to thus promote them to the list of regular whalemen. Billy,
an experienced Kanaka harpooner, was assigned to their boat as being a
level-headed, skillful whaleman, whose counsel would be of use to Joe,
and the whole thing was arranged.
If the two boys had been anxious to sight whales before, they were doubly
eager now, and both spent as much time as they could in the rigging on
the lookout. It was Joe who first of the two boys sighted a bowhead. The
cry of “A-h-h blow!” had rung from the crow’s nest, and the Kanaka on the
watch there reported a whale nearly dead ahead. All hands were on the
lookout for the spout of this one, for the Kanakas in many cases have
wonderful eyesight and can sight a whale much farther than the average
white man, when, several points off the windward bow, Joe saw another
blow and loudly proclaimed it from the mizzen rigging. A few moments
afterward a third and a fourth were sighted, and the ship approached a
school of black monsters numbering a dozen or so. Then she rounded to, a
little to the windward, and the boats were hastily lowered. Harry found
himself at the end of a sixteen-foot sweep that was very different from
the oars he had been used to, but he soon accustomed himself to the
stroke and swung along in good time with the others. He was conscious of
a feeling of great elation, the thrill of ecstasy of the huntsman mingled
with the dread of the unknown. They seemed such puny creatures to be
attacking the greatest monster in the world. As they went on, both these
feelings increased, till he shook with excitement and the man behind him
noticed it. He was a brawny, grizzly old timer, bronzed by all the winds
of the world, and hardened by many a hundred conflicts with the whales of
all seas.
“Don’t get gallied, younker,” he said kindly; “the bowhead ain’t no
whale. He’s jest a hundred tons or so of blubber and bone. If we was
goin’ up against a sperm now, or a fightin’ bull humpback, ye might
feel skeery, but a bowhead ain’t nothin’. They kill as easy as a
slaughter-house lamb.”
Just then Harry fairly jumped from his seat, and lost his stroke for a
moment. A shout had sounded, and glancing over his shoulder he saw that
the first mate’s boat near by had already made fast, but had not as yet
used the bomb gun. Instead, the whale seemed to have sounded too quickly,
then changed his mind, and as Harry looked up over his shoulder he saw a
great black mass rise fairly under the attacking boat, lifting it clear
of the water, where it hung high for a moment, then, by some miracle
still uncapsized, slid from the broad mass as if being launched. Even as
the boat left the mountainous back, the mate leveled the bomb gun and
discharged it full into the whale’s side. There was a shiver, the great
flukes curled in one sweep that sent tons of spray into the air, which
Mr. Jones with a skillful sweep of the steering oar narrowly avoided, and
then the great black mass floated quivering on the surface.
“I told ye so, younker,” said the veteran, still swinging steadily and
strongly to his oar. “He’s a dead un. There ain’t no fight in a bowhead.
Ef that had been a sperm bull, there wouldn’t have been enough of that
boat left to swear by. Oh, this ain’t whalin’, this ain’t; it’s pickin’
up blubber.”
Joe, standing by the steering oar, lifted his hand in a gesture
commanding silence. His eyes glowered big beneath his cap, and Harry knew
that they were close on to their game. A few more strokes and then, “Way
enough,” said Joe gently. They glided silently forward with lifted oars.
It seemed to Harry as if something took him by the throat and stopped his
breathing. He would have given much to look around, but something held
him motionless. He heard the stirring forward as the Kanaka harpooner
moved to his position in the very bow. Then there was a gentle jolt and a
“Huh!” from the harpooner as he drove the iron home.
“Give it to him!” yelled Joe; “stern all!”
Harry backed water mechanically, feeling curiously numb all over. He
heard the report of the gun, and saw something tremendous and black beat
the water three times with great blows within a few feet of the blade
of his oar. A rush of foam shot from these blows and seemed to overwhelm
him in a smother of salt water. Then he found himself still sitting on
the thwart, wet to the skin and up to his knees in water, but still,
to his great astonishment, alive and right side up, and backing water
with mechanical precision. There was no sound save the whir of the line
through the chock and the voice of the veteran in his ear.
“You’re all right, boy,” it said. “Ye didn’t jump out, and ye kept your
oar a-goin’. Ye’ll make a whaleman ’fore many days, an’ a good one, too.
He’s soundin’ now, but he’ll come up dead. The Kanaka put the bomb into
him right. He’s our whale.”
The rush of the line slackened and then ceased, and they began to take
in on it. A long time they pulled steadily, and at last the black bulk
showed in the wash of the dancing waves on the surface, the nerveless
flipper swaying in the swell, and blood flowing from the spout-hole. Joe
and Harry had captured their first whale in regulation fashion, and two
prouder boys it would be hard to find. A hole was cut in the gristle of
the great flukes, and the work of towing the monster to the ship was
begun. Harry could not put much strength into his stroke at first, he was
too weak with the reaction from the excitement, but he soon recovered
from this and tugged away manfully.
A little way ahead of them was the first mate’s boat with an equally
large capture in tow; astern was the captain’s boat, which had failed
to make fast, and which soon pulled in to their assistance; but the
boatswain was having the greatest adventure of them all. He had made fast
to a good-sized whale, which had immediately become gallied, and without
waiting to be reached by bomb gun or lance had started out at a terrific
pace, headed apparently for the north pole. The boat was already almost
out of sight in the distance and diminishing steadily in size. By and by
it grew no smaller, but gradually moved along the horizon, proving that
the tow had changed its course. Indeed, it seems to be well established
that a frightened whale runs in a circle, though generally a very large
one. This particular bowhead had done this, though his circle was much
smaller than many would have made. Thus it happened that when the two
whales which the first mate’s boat and Joe’s had struck were alongside,
the boatswain’s was looming large on the horizon again and approaching
rapidly. The circle which his whale had taken seemed to include the
position of the ship in a part of its circumference. With strength and
vivacity quite unusual for a bowhead, the monster kept up the pace,
and had thus far frustrated the boat’s attempts to close up and kill.
The boatswain, seeing that the whale was towing them toward the ship
again, had ceased to attempt it, confident that even such a wonder of a
pace-setter would finally tire, and wishing to be as near the ship as
possible when the final stroke was made. Much attention to the race was
given by those aboard, and Harry had an uneasy feeling that the monster,
even though a proverbially timid bowhead, was bent on wreaking vengeance
on the ship. If the huge creature should hurl himself against it at the
pace at which he was coming, the result would be wreck beyond a doubt.
On he came at a great rate, ploughing through the water like a torpedo
boat, the boatswain now straining every nerve to get up with him, but
when the whale was within an eighth of a mile, there was an unexpected
interference. He swerved to the right, again to the left, sounded and
then breached, and the next moment a mottled black and white orca flung
itself into the air, turned end over end, and came down with a tremendous
thud in the middle of the bowhead’s back.
A strange groaning bellow came from the whale, but he plunged on
desperately. Again the orca launched its twenty-five feet of length into
the air and came down on the poor bowhead; and now another appeared,
and the two alternately beat the frenzied and exhausted whale till it
apparently had what little breath there was left hammered out of its
body. Right alongside he gave up the fight and rolled motionless on the
surface. The bellow had already subsided to a moan; this was followed
by a gasp or two, and the bowhead ceased to breathe, turned on his side
with the flipper in the air, dead before the boat could get alongside
and finish the matter. The orcas had literally hammered the exhausted
whale to death, and were now tearing at his lip to get his mouth open
and devour the soft, spongy tongue, which is their chief delight. They
seemed to pay no attention to the ship or the boat, and Harry had a good
opportunity to see the behavior of these wild wolves of the sea before
the boatswain, with much indignation, lanced them both to death.
“You’ll try to eat up my whale, will you, you blasted davy devils! Take
that—and that—and that!” and with every “that” the keen lance searched
the vitals of the gnawing orcas.
One died still voraciously tearing at the whale’s under lip, but the
other turned at the blow of the lance and bit at what had stung it,
taking the bow of the boat in its jaws and crushing and shaking it in the
final agony as a terrier might worry a cat. The great teeth crunched the
wood, and the men, with cries of terror, were shaken out of the boat, but
luckily none were caught in the grasp of the jaws. The lance-thrust was
deadly, and in a moment the orcas lay, belly up, beside the dead whale.
The men were so near the side of the ship that ropes were thrown to them
and they clambered aboard, after some trouble to save the gear and the
crushed boat, which was towed alongside and hoisted on deck.
Thus ended the first adventure with a school of bowheads in the Arctic.
Not so badly, though the whales had been much more lively and the events
far more exciting than is common in the pursuit of this gentlest of
cetaceans. A week of calm, warm weather followed, and at the end of
that time the three whales were cut in, the blubber tried out, and the
oil stowed away, together with three good heads of bone, making a fine
beginning of what bade fair to be a very prosperous summer cruise.
CHAPTER V
WHEN THE ICE CAME IN
During the cutting in and trying out of the three whales the wind and
current steadily carried the Bowhead northward, until on July fourth
they again sighted the pack extending from the headland of Cape Lisburne
westward indefinitely. Along between the ice and the land was a space of
open water, and into this the Bowhead passed, working her way northeast
as the summer season opened and the ice gradually receded from the
shore. Now and then a whale was sighted in the opening leads of the
retreating pack, and they occasionally captured one, though these whales
in the ice were far smaller than the ones they had found in the open and
consequently much less valuable. Moreover, in the ice-fields they were
difficult to get at, and almost invariably escaped by plunging beneath
the floes and coming up in some distant lead whither the boat could not
follow them. In this way the ship reached the shallow and dangerous
coast off Blossom Shoals and beyond to Wainright Inlet with the waning of
the brief Arctic summer without any special adventures.
Every day had hardened Harry in rugged strength and vigor, and he and
Joe were as fine specimens of young whalemen as the sea could boast.
They had met and traded with the Eskimo tribes alongshore and exchanged
the reindeer skins for fox and ermine pelts, ivory, and whalebone, thus
adding to the value of their cruise. Harry and Joe had been rivals in
acquiring the Eskimo dialect of this coast, and had been helped greatly
in this by the presence aboard of a young Eskimo of the Point Hope tribe,
who worked as a sailor, with the understanding that when the ship should
go out he would be paid in “trade” and left with his tribe. Thus both
were quite fluent and could understand much that the Eskimos said among
themselves. This was of great assistance to them.
As far north as Wainwright Inlet you begin to see the end of the summer
often by the last of August. Already the sun, which in June simply
circled the sky without setting, has begun to set again, and there is
a considerable period of darkness each night. The marvelous growth of
beautiful flowers, which stud the moss and grass of the Arctic tundra
during midsummer, has already passed to quick maturity, and the slopes
are brown and autumnal by the middle of the month. Gales set in and bring
snow on their icy wings, and the threat of winter is everywhere. The
whalers take this warning and begin, about the middle of the month, to
work south again, unless they intend to winter in the region. Oftentimes
the Arctic pack hangs just offshore here and with westerly winds menaces
the ship with destruction, but more often—indeed, it is counted upon by
the whalers—a northeast gale comes with the first of September and drives
the pack seaward, while giving them a fair wind for the strait. It was
about this time that the cruise, thus far prosperous, began to meet with
a series of mishaps that ended in disaster.
[Illustration: WHALEMEN’S CAMP ON ARCTIC SHORE]
It was the last day of August that the west wind began to blow, and
Captain Nickerson was uneasy directly. The Bowhead was just north of Icy
Cape, in comparatively shoal water and with much floating ice in the
sea. The pack ice was not in sight, but it might loom up at any moment,
so steam was got up on the vessel and she poked her way among the
floating cakes to windward, working out as fast as possible. The sky was
still clear and it did not promise to be much of a blow, but things work
together for evil quickly in the Arctic, and it behooves a navigator to
be very wary there. The wisdom of the immediate move was shown in this
case, for the ship was scarcely well off the shoals and round the cape
into the deep water to westward, before a long, slender point of solid
ice was noted to the windward. It might be the main pack or not. There
was open water to seaward and clear sea between the ice and the land,
and Captain Nickerson was puzzled which course to take. If it was but a
detached floe, as it well might be, the open course lay to windward of
it, away from the land. If, on the other hand, it was part of the main
pack, the proper course lay between it and the coast. Captain Nickerson
finally decided that the seaward course was the wise one, and soon a
widening point of ice separated them from the shoreward stretch of open
water. An hour later they were among drifting floes, but still had good
water ahead of them toward the southwest. The breeze was gentle, but the
sky was hazing up a little, and the sun shone coldly.
The next afternoon at eight bells (four o’clock), as the watch was
changed, the man on lookout called down to the deck.
“Something adrift on the ice off the starboard bow, sir.”
“What is it?” asked Mr. Jones, whose watch on deck it was.
“Can’t make it out, sir,” replied the lookout; “it might be a seal, then
again it might be a man.”
There was much interest at once. Several other vessels were cruising in
the Arctic, and they had occasionally sighted one at a distance, though
there had been chance for a meeting and a “gam” but once. They knew that
the other ships were already to the southward on their way out. Perhaps
this was a man from one of them, gone adrift on the ice, and having-but
one chance in a thousand for rescue. Captain Nickerson was not called,
as he had just gone below after a long siege on deck, but Mr. Jones
took the responsibility of changing the vessel’s course slightly, and
they approached the figure on the ice. It was difficult to make it out.
All hands on deck saw it,—a motionless huddle on a cake of ice, driving
before the wind in the dreary polar sea.
By and by the ship was as near as it could well get, a heavy floe
crowding in between it and the open lead in which the cake floated.
Still it was difficult to decide just what the figure was, but Mr. Jones
finally said: “Humph! Dead seal,” and changed the vessel’s course again.
Harry and Joe looked at each other. They also had been carefully
examining the object through the glass, and each thought it might be a
man, fur-clad and lying in a heap, dead or exhausted.
“I don’t care,” said Joe; “I’m going to speak to father, if he _is_ tired
out. We don’t want to take chances of passing any one that way.”
He hastened below with Harry at his heels, both with hearts swelling with
indignation. They knew that Mr. Jones was probably right in his guess,
but the thought of the possibility of a fellow creature floating thus
into the desolate Arctic winter filled them with pity and a great desire
to leave nothing to chance.
Captain Nickerson listened to their story with attention, and so eager
and excited were they that he finally gave them permission to have
Mr. Jones stop the ship long enough for them to man the dingey and
investigate.
“Can you make it with the dingey?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, sir,” replied Joe. “There’s a narrow lead or two that will take
us part way, and the dingey is so light that we can haul her across in
the other places.”
The dingey had been the special care of the boys, and rarely used except
by them. They had been duck shooting in her during the summer, when
whales were not in sight, and had kept the ship’s larder well supplied
with the great ducks which swarm in that region all summer long. They had
fitted her with a light sail and a few reserve provisions,—a tin or two
of meat and some hard-tack, in case they should happen to be away over
meal time. There was also a small keg of fresh water, and in the locker
forward a one-burner oil stove with tea, sugar, and condensed milk, by
way of refreshment. The boatswain used to laugh at this “life-boat,” as
he called it, but the arrangement had often been useful, and the little
craft was very handy at all times.
Mr. Jones did not look particularly happy when he heard the order to
stop and lower the dingey, but he did as requested and the boat was soon
on its way. The boys entered one of the narrow leads in the floe which
barred their way, traversed it to its end, and hauled their boat out. It
was some way across to another open space and this did not take them far
in the right direction, but it led to where they could haul to another,
and so little by little they won their way across. As they came to the
open water, they found to their chagrin that other ice-fields had crowded
in between them and their object, and they were obliged to make a wide
and winding detour to approach it. Distance is always far greater than it
looks to be in the Arctic, and they were fully an hour in getting near
the motionless heap. At last the dingey grazed the floating cake and they
sprang out on it, dropped the ice anchor at the end of the two-fathomed
painter into a chink in the ice, and hastened toward the motionless
object.
As they reached it the huddled heap of fur moved, wavered, and sat up,
smiled faintly from a face sunken-cheeked and hollow-eyed, murmured the
Eskimo word “Nagouruk,” then wavered back into a motionless heap once
more; and as it did so a whirl of great flakes came pelting down on the
little group on the cake of ice, and the world was blotted out in snow.
All eyes on board the ship had been fastened on the two in the dingey,
and the squall had taken them as much by surprise as it did the boys. It
had come up with a sudden veering of the wind to the southward, and had
taken them from behind. Before they knew it all things were smothered
in the whirl of snow, and, though he thought it probably only a passing
squall, Mr. Jones was very uneasy about it, and when after a half hour
had passed with no signs of letting up, he called Captain Nickerson.
As the wind and snow increased, all hands became very anxious, and
everything possible was done to give the boys knowledge of the ship’s
whereabouts. The whistle was blown frequently and shots were fired in
volleys every few minutes, but there was still no sign of them.
It soon became evident that a severe blow was threatening and, though
terribly anxious about the boys, Captain Nickerson realized that he must
give his attention to the safety of the ship. The south wind was bringing
the shoreward floe out upon her rapidly. It had already closed the lead
just ahead of them, and if they would not be crushed they must retreat.
The ship was therefore put about and slowly worked its way eastward
again, keeping just out of the jaws of destruction, in the vain hope
that the dingey would reappear. Day wore on and darkness came with no
sign of the missing boat, and during the next day the best they could do
was to work back to Icy Cape, where the floes grounded on the shoals and
they found safe refuge, partly behind them and partly behind the cape.
The wind had swung to the westward again during the night and the morning
brought no snow, but the air was full of a black mist and bitter cold.
There was but faint hope that they would see the boys again unless the
weather soon moderated, and Captain Nickerson was overcome with grief and
self-accusation. Nor was the taciturn Mr. Jones much better off. Each
felt that he had been careless to let them go as they had, yet the squall
was so sudden and unforeseen that they could hardly be blamed.
For days the wind hung to the westward, veering to the northwest, and at
the end of the third the main pack came in in earnest, pushing the shore
floes on the ship till she was forced into shallow water and grounded. It
became evident that she would hardly be got off again that fall, and that
immediate measures must be taken for the safety of the crew. Leaving Mr.
Jones in charge, Captain Nickerson took a strong crew of his best men
and set off down the coast, hoping to find one of the other ships of the
little Arctic fleet. The journey was hard and dangerous. Now they found
a space of open water, again they had to drag the boat over the ice for
a long distance, camping for the night under the overturned boat, and
looking anxiously for traces of the boys, but finding none.
At the end of the fifth day the wind and cold diminished, and they
joyfully sighted the Belvidere in open water near the shore, with what
seemed a fair chance to work out. They were taken aboard, and the captain
of the Belvidere readily agreed to wait until the remainder of the crew
of the Bowhead could reach him. For his own safety this was as much as
he could do. He could not agree to stay in and risk his own vessel and
crew for the chance of getting the Bowhead out of her difficulty. It was
decided that she must be abandoned, and Captain Nickerson, with one man,
started back on foot to get the crew. The journey was made successfully,
and within a day after his return the balance of the crew in four boats,
with merely what provisions they needed for the trip, abandoned ship and
contents, and, after a hard struggle, reached the Belvidere.
It was time. Already she was hard pressed by the shoreward-moving ice,
and the captain was taking great risks in remaining. She pushed slowly
down the coast, forcing her way through closing floes and running a
hundred hazards successfully, till at last they rounded Lisburne and were
in comparatively clear water. Captain Nickerson had not made any further
efforts to discover the lost boys. He knew that these would be useless.
Depending on their own exertions, they had a slender chance for escape to
some other vessel, if any remained, or they might reach shore and winter
with the natives. In either case he felt that the chances were slight,
and he aged perceptibly in the cruise back to the States. The loss of his
only son and his protégé weighed heavily upon him with the loss of his
vessel and valuable cargo. The taciturn Mr. Jones became more silent than
ever, and hardly spoke the whole voyage through. It was a sad home-coming
for the ship’s company.
As for the boys, their plight was bad enough, but at first, at least,
their anxiety was only for themselves.
Indeed, in the very beginning, it was only for their new found friend.
“He’s dying,” cried Harry, when the Eskimo collapsed at their feet; “what
shall we do?”
“Give him something hot,” cried the practical Joe. “If we only had some
brandy! But we haven’t. I’ll tell you—you chafe his hands and I’ll make
some hot tea.”
So Harry fell to chafing the cold, skeleton-like hands, while Joe eagerly
lighted the little oil lamp and soon had a pot of hot tea made, sheltered
from the wind in the forward locker of the dingey. He poured this between
the clenched teeth of the unconscious man, who choked a bit as it went
down and opened his eyes.
“There!” said Joe; “I thought that would fetch him. It’s strong enough to
raise the dead and—well, I guess it’s pretty hot, too. Lucky we stocked
the dingey this way, ain’t it? Whew! how it does snow. We’ll have to wait
till it quits before we think of getting back to the ship again. It’s
kind of risky to get too far away from your ship when the ice is coming
in. Guess we’ll make it all right, though.”
For the first time Harry looked around him and thought of his
surroundings. The snow was pelting in on them in great flakes, and he
could hardly see across the ice cake they were on. He did not realize
that the wind had changed, but he noticed that it blew strongly, and he
felt singularly lonely and distant from shelter and aid. Something of
the eerie wildness of the Arctic came over him, as it had that night
in the storm in Bering Sea, and he had a sense of desolation that was
beyond words. The only link between him and life seemed to be the dingey,
and even then an ice cake crushed against it with an alarming crash. He
rushed to it and, hauling with all his strength, got it out on the ice.
The planking was cracked, and it had barely escaped utter ruin.
“Whew!” exclaimed Joe; “they’re after us, aren’t they! We’ll have to
mend that a bit before we can start out. But that will be easy. Once we
get our friend here fixed up so he can travel, we’ll tend to all those
things.” He crumbed a little hard bread into the balance of the tea,
making a sort of soup which the Eskimo took eagerly. After a time he
spoke briefly in his own language.
“No catch seal,” he said; “kayak gone. Nine sleeps and no eat.”
“Do you hear that?” said Joe to Harry; “No wonder he’s used up. Guess
I’ll give him some more to eat.”
The Eskimo answered this in English as he got up, rather waveringly.
“No,” he said; “bimeby want.”
Born of generations inured to famine, no one recovers from it more
quickly than the Eskimo, and within half an hour he was able to walk
about and take a hand, in a feeble way, in patching up the injured
dingey. They found that he was a Point Hope man by birth, and had learned
a little English at the mission there. He had come north with some of
his tribe a summer or two before, and finding a place to his liking near
Point Lay, had settled there with them. He had been out after seal among
the floes and lost his kayak, and had drifted on the cake for nine days.
A day or so before, he had given himself up for lost, and calmly covered
his head with his skin coat, waiting for death, as an Eskimo will. He had
taken the boys at first for the ghosts of the ice world, come for him,
and had gone to sleep at sight of them. Now he knew them to be men, his
friends, and some day he would save their lives as they had his.
All this he explained, bit by bit, partly in brief English, partly in
Eskimo which they understood, as the boat was being patched with a bit
of canvas tacked over the break in the planking. They had no tacks, but
Harry had a many-bladed knife with an awl in it, and they made holes with
this and used pegs whittled from a thwart. These they made a trifle long
for the awl-holes, and hammered the protruding ends to a fuzzy head. It
was not a good job, but it would do.
Harry was eager to start back for the ship at once, but Joe, wiser in the
ways of the Arctic, wanted to wait. He knew that in that driving snow
it would be almost impossible to reach her unless constantly guided by
sound. Without that they might row within a dozen yards of her and not
see her. More than one whaleman has lost his ship while wintering in the
Arctic, and died in the storm within a few rods of her, never knowing
that he was so near safety. So Joe, backed by the Eskimo, judged that
they would better wait until they were sure in what direction to go. As
a matter of fact, the ship, floe-bound near the shore, had drifted but
slowly in the southerly wind, while the cake on which they were had gone
northward quite rapidly. Hence when the shots and whistle sounded they
heard them only faintly, and could not tell, in the drive of the storm,
from what direction they came.
Thus time slipped by and they still clung to their floating cake, a
pitiful little ice world in a gray universe of flying snow. They were
warmly dressed, but the inaction in the chill wind soon set the white
men to shivering. The Eskimo, on the contrary, seemed comfortable in
his furs, and regained strength every moment. He noted how cold they
were, and, motioning them to his assistance, they turned the boat over,
keel to the wind, spread the sail beneath it, and drew part of it up
so as to close the opening. With the movable thwarts they blocked the
wider apertures, and then, still at the bidding of the Eskimo, heaped
the fast gathering snow about it. This gave them a narrow igloo, where
they huddled for warmth. From now on the dusky brother they had rescued
proceeded to rescue them, and they soon learned to trust his judgment
implicitly.
As time passed more snow accumulated and was banked about, until their
cave was well fortified and quite comfortable.
Gradually dusk came on, but still the snow fell as thick as ever, and
there was no alternative but to remain where they were. Matters did not
look very cheerful, and Harry, for one, heartily wished he had never seen
the Arctic, or, for that matter, left the pleasant confines of Quincy
Point. However, a healthy boy grows hungry at supper time, wherever he
is, and he pulled one of the three or four tins of canned meat out of the
locker, together with about half the hard-tack.
“Let’s have some supper,” he said; “I’m hungry.”
They divided the meat, and each ate several squares of hard-tack. Joe
made shift to boil some water with the little oil stove, and they made
tea. The glow of the flame lighted their shelter with cheer and helped to
warm it. The drifting snow wrapped it closer, and, in spite of the keen
nip of the frost and the icy gale without, they had a sense of warmth and
comfort. Joe, however, put out the flame as soon as the tea was done.
“We may need that oil badly before we get back,” he said, “and it won’t
do to waste it. No, we’d best sleep if we can till daylight. The storm
may break by that time, and we can see better what to do. This ice cake
is big enough to hold us safe till the blow is over, and that is the best
we can do at present.”
They cuddled together for warmth, and in spite of the obviously great
danger of their situation, two at least, Joe and the Eskimo, soon
slept soundly. Harry did not sleep so readily. He was fairly warm and
comfortable lying between his two friends in the narrow cubby-hole, now
wrapped deep in the sheltering snow, but he could hear the howl of the
storm without, and a sense of the weird and supernatural was strong upon
him. It seemed as if the wild powers of the unknown ice world laughed and
gibbered in the gale. He thought he heard low wails, hideous laughter,
and a sort of insane babbling that sounded now far, now near at hand, and
he did not blame the Eskimos for thinking the world of unknown ice and
desolation to the north to be peopled by strange spirits. Once it seemed
as if the Innuit at his side was awake and listening too, and he poked
him gently and asked, “What’s that?” as a sound of ghostly footsteps and
something like deep breathing came to him in a lull of the gale.
The other lifted his head and was silent. “Hush,” he replied, after a
moment. “Nunatak mute (ghost people) come. Perhaps no hear, no see,
bimeby go away.”
He lay down again and was soon asleep, and at last tired nature soothed
Harry to slumber, and he slipped away into the world of dreams where was
no ice or gale, no strange ghosts of the frigid night, but the pleasant
warmth of his own fireside at home, his father and mother sitting by the
evening lamp, and he himself propped among cushions, slipping gently into
dreamland in the comfort of his own home.
Hours afterward he was wakened by a familiar scratching sound. It
was pitch dark, and he was warm and comfortable though the air was
oppressive. By and by there was a spurt of flame, and he saw that Joe was
lighting a match. He touched it to the wick of the oil stove, put the
teapot on, then looked at his watch.
“It ought to be light by this time,” he said. “It’s five o’clock. What do
you suppose is the matter?” The Innuit was awake at this, and sat up also
in his cramped quarters.
“Plenty snow,” he said. “Eat first, bimeby look out. Much cold.”
They made a hasty breakfast from the scanty stock of food, and the Innuit
pushed his arm through the drift that had snowed them completely under,
safe and warm from the tempest. Light came in through the hole which his
arm had made, and a whiff of fresh but very keen air. He enlarged the
hole carefully, making it a sort of burrow out of which each crawled. The
snow had ceased, but the wind still blew hard, and the air was full of a
black fog, which gave no sight of the sun. It was bitter cold, and the
short distance which they could see about them showed only a rugged mass
of snow-covered ice. During the night their floating cake had joined with
larger ones, how large they could not tell, and they were now on what
seemed an ice-field.
“Shall we try to make the ship?” asked Harry dubiously, his teeth
chattering in the keen air. Joe shook his head.
“I’m afraid we’re in a bad scrape,” he said. “We can’t be sure of the
direction, and even if we could, we might pass within a short distance of
the ship and not see her. Seems to me there is nothing to do but to wait
for the weather to clear up. Then we can tell what we are doing.”
The Eskimo nodded his head in approval of this. “Too much cold,” he said.
“Too much no see. Wait in igloo long time, maybe five, six sleeps. Then
sun come.”
“If I only had a compass, so that we could get the general direction,
I’d chance it,” said Joe; “but there is no telling how the wind may have
changed, and we might be traveling right out to sea. It’s better to wait
where we are safe till we can be sure. They’ll be anxious on the ship,
but what can we do? No, the Eskimo is right. We’ve got to stay here till
we can see the sun, at least.”
The bite of the wind warned them to get within their shelter again, and
they did so. The Eskimo, however, continued to work on the snow entrance
to their cave beneath the drift, and soon had it made into a veritable
tunnel, through which they could crawl, but which was long enough to keep
out the worst of the cold. Then he enlarged their igloo by pushing out
the sail, compacting the snow behind it, till they had quite a little
room in which to turn round, though they could barely sit upright there.
He almost blocked the far end of his entrance tunnel with snow, and
closed the nearer end with the boat’s thwarts. Thus the wind and cold
were shut out, and they were surprisingly comfortable, considering that
they had no fire. Their eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, and
they felt themselves quite at home. It was a long day, though they whiled
away the time talking with the Eskimo, who was quite recovered from his
nine days of starvation.
At nightfall there was no change in the weather, and they resigned
themselves to a long siege. Neither was there any change the next day,
nor the next. Occasionally they went out and plunged through the snow
about their igloo for exercise, but the Eskimo warned them not to go but
a few steps away from it, for to be lost in the cold and black frost-fog
was to meet certain death from exposure. Now and then it snowed again,
but they did not care for this, as it drifted higher about their shelter
and made it warmer. On the third day a serious matter was forced upon
their attention. At breakfast, that morning, Joe divided the last of the
meat and hard-tack. Only a little tea stood between them and starvation.
The night of the fourth day they were much disturbed by crushing and
grinding noises, and got little sleep. Sometimes the ice beneath them
seemed to jar as if hit by a tremendous blow. The Eskimo hailed this with
delight.
“Nagouruk,” he said. “Ice talk. Bimeby get seal.”
At the first light he was out, taking his spear with him, but he
returned at nightfall, thoroughly chilled and empty-handed. Matters
looked dubious. They drank tea and licked the inside of the can that
had held the condensed milk. It was a poor substitute for a meal. They
learned that the Eskimo had hunted long for an open lead, and had risked
his life by venturing far from their shelter, but had found only a small
crack, which he had watched all day without success. The next morning,
however, Joe, who was first out, gave a great shout of delight. The gale
had abated, and there was a faint glow through the black fog which showed
the direction of the sun. He wished to start southeast at once, for that
must be the direction in which they should go, but the Eskimo wished to
wait.
“Get seal,” he said. “Much eat. Bimeby go;” and though Joe chafed at the
delay, the weakness of hunger made him think it wise to defer to the man
of the ice. The Eskimo went off with his spear, found an opening within
sight of the igloo, and stood there motionless for literal hours, his
spear poised, himself a statue frozen upon the frozen scene. Suddenly the
poised spear shot downward, and with a shout of triumph he hauled a seal
out upon the ice, tossed him upon his shoulder, and came running to the
igloo with him.
It took him but a moment to strip off the already freezing hide, and
slice off big strips of blubber and meat from the carcass. Passing these
to the boys he proceeded to eat others immediately. Joe and Harry were
hungry enough to follow his example, but they nevertheless lighted the
oil stove and partly broiled their steaks before eating. It must be
confessed, however, that they were cooked rare. When they had satisfied
their hunger the Eskimo carefully rolled up the remainder of the meat and
blubber in the hide, and it soon froze solid, making a compact bundle.
The cold abated with the wind, and as the sun struggled through more and
more, they made an immediate start. They dug the dingey out of the snow
shelter that had saved their lives, packed their belongings carefully
in it, and, with the Eskimo tugging at the painter, and Joe and Harry
lifting and sliding it over the snow and rough ice, headed southeast as
nearly as they could tell by the sun.
[Illustration: ROUGH ARCTIC CLIFFS]
It was hard work, but the boat was still their only salvation, and they
stuck to it. The good meal of seal meat had put renewed life into them,
and, in the clear Arctic air, headed toward safety once more, they
felt almost jovial. The brown man of the ice seemed to have completely
recovered his strength, and tugged manfully, working like a beaver, and
leading the way with a discretion born of generations of men trained to
the work.
By mid-afternoon it had grown quite clear, and they paused for a rest,
making another meal of seal meat, very slightly cooked this time, for the
oil in the stove gave out as they were cooking. When they started on, the
Eskimo swung sharply to the south with a joyful shout.
“Emik! Emik!” (Water! Water!) he cried; and soon they saw an open lead in
a southerly direction. It was not long before they had the boat in this,
and with a sigh of relief Harry settled to the oars, while Joe took the
tiller, and the Eskimo ensconced himself in the bow, spear in hand, in
the hope of seeing another seal. An hour or two later the clouds to the
eastward settled away, and they saw at no great distance the glimmer of
snow-clad peaks in the setting sun. Land was in sight, and it seemed as
if their troubles were soon to be over. The open water between the pack
and the shore could not be far ahead of them, and they found a place
where a haul over a space of ice let them into another lead that took
them in the right direction. Just before sunset a warning word from the
Eskimo bade Harry cease his rowing, and the boat glided gently along
through the water, while the Eskimo stood erect with poised spear.
Again there was the sudden thrust and the shout of triumph, and another
seal was added to their larder. This was a larger one, and they had at
least no fear of the starvation which had threatened them at sunrise.
Still there was no sign of the ship, and even now a return of the gale,
with snow, might easily prove disastrous. Therefore, changing places at
the oars, they toiled doggedly on, making another short haul over the
ice, and finding the open water just at twilight. They found it full of
floating cakes, and as they neared the shore there was much “mush ice”
newly formed in the open, which made their passage difficult. It was well
into the night when they finally hauled the boat out on the snow-clad
land with a great sigh of weariness and relief. It was like coming to a
new and strange world, however. The brown tundra was now drifted with
snow, and the country round about was in the grip of the beginning of
the long Arctic winter. There are years in which this is delayed until
late in September, but in others it comes by the very first, and happy
are those ships which escape to the warmer waters of the south before it
happens.
They had not got sight of the ship, but they hoped to on the morrow.
At least they were safe from the terrible drifting Arctic pack, and
with thankfulness for the watchful care of Providence they once more
overturned the dingey, rigged the sail over its open side, packed snow
from a drift about it, and crawled into the improvised igloo for the
heavy dreamless sleep that follows severe and long-continued toil.
CHAPTER VI
WINTER LIFE AND INNUIT FRIENDS
That night as they lay sheltered from cold and from sound, snug in their
snow igloo, the four boats of the Bowhead battled past them on their way
down the coast, leaving no trace behind in the shifting ice and mush
of the narrowing waterway; the difference of a few hours in time, of a
few furlongs in distance, was so little, yet it meant so much! With the
passing of those four boats civilization shut her door upon the two boys,
and was to open it no more for a year and a half.
Yet they knew nothing of this, and slept serene in the hope of soon
rejoining their comrades. They woke to find the sun already up, and the
Eskimo gone. His tracks lay through the snow inland. While they wondered
if he had abandoned them he reappeared, bearing a scant handful of willow
brush which he had dug out of the snow in the valley beyond. With this
they managed to roast some strips of seal meat and make a satisfactory
breakfast. The wind had ceased, the air was keen but bracing, and they
did not mind the cold, which, after all, was not great. The first warning
of the terrible winter was on them, but it was not yet severe. Their
young blood leaped in the keen air, and they felt a relief from danger
that made them fairly frolicsome. The ship could not be far away, they
were sure, and they would find it and all would be well.
“There is one comfort about this way of living,” said Harry
philosophically; “you don’t have any dishes to clean up.”
“No,” replied Joe; “nor much to put in them, either.”
Then both boys noted the Eskimo’s manner. He stood looking toward the
north with a strange intensity. Over in that direction the snowy fields
of the pack ice stretched away to the limitless haze of the horizon. In
the distance these ice-fields seemed to quiver as the air quivers in
summer when the heat is intense. They trembled and wavered, and changed
from ice-fields to open sea that shone fair under the morning sun. This
sea was calm and free from ice, and seemed to move eastward, melting the
ice and snow before it as it went. They turned to watch this eastward
movement, and after a little a headland appeared in it, and both boys
gave a cry of delight.
“The ship! the ship!” they cried, and danced and swung their hats and
hurrahed. There she was at anchor by the headland, safe and sound as they
had left her, and their hearts glowed within them at the thought of home
coming.
“There she is!” cried Joe exultantly, “right north by Icy Cape! I
remember the headland there. Good Lord! What’s she doing?”
The Bowhead moved out from her anchorage on this quivering open sea with
never a sail set, and no smoke from her engines, and lifting up and up
seemed to climb the horizon to the northeast and disappear, a speck in
the high heavens; and as she did so the shimmering waters vanished,
leaving only the rough, snow-clad ice-fields, bleak and impenetrable.
Joe and Harry looked at each other. It was mirage, they knew that, yet
there had been the headland, and the ship, her every spar and rope
familiar to them. It was magic; that was what the Eskimo said, but he was
quite confident that it was bad magic, and that this was to show them
that ship and crew were lost, —had sailed far away to the unknown, never
to return. He would go to Icy Cape with them if they wished, but they
would find only winter ghosts there.
Nevertheless it was their only clue, and they decided to go. With their
friends camped only a few short miles to the southwest, they headed in
the opposite direction and began struggling through the mush ice, across
floes, making a toilsome but sure progress to the northeast. At noon they
camped on a floe, ate seal meat, and, after a brief rest, toiled on. At
night they camped as before. Thus for two days they steadily worked up
the coast. At nightfall of the second the wind came in again from the
west, with squalls of snow and a recurrence of severe cold, but the next
day they went on still, and by noon were rounding the headland. The air
was thick with snow, but in a lull they sighted what seemed to be the
ship, and cries of thanksgiving went up from the weary wayfarers.
“The ship! the ship!” they cried once more, confident that this could be
no mirage. The Eskimo shook his head.
“Bad magic,” he said; “ghost ship.” But the boys knew better. The Bowhead
lay at anchor in mush ice and among floes, ghostly enough in the whirl
of flying snow that made the outlines of spar and sail white against the
leaden sky, but the ship in very truth, and never so welcome a sight in
any man’s eyes. They shouted and hallooed, and listened in vain for any
response as they neared her, and their exultant hearts grew cold with
fear as they got none. A terrible weird loneliness brooded over her, and
it seemed to the exhausted boys as if they struggled to her side through
a bad dream.
There was no greeting as they stepped on deck, only the wail of the wind
through the icy shrouds. The deck was drifted with snow that held no
tracks. The cabin, the forecastle, the galley, all showed signs of hasty
leave-taking, and were untenanted. Then, once more in the cabin, the
truth came upon them with stunning force. The ship had been abandoned,
and they with it were left to face the long loneliness of the coming
Arctic night as best they could. Joe sat down with a pathetic slump in
his broad shoulders and buried his face in his hands, losing his cheerful
courage for the first time; nor did he note for quite a while that
Harry was face down on the captain’s berth sobbing with homesickness,
loneliness, and utter physical exhaustion. Of the hour that these two
spent in the full realization of their misfortune, it were best to say
little. Up to that hour they had been boys. In it they passed through the
crucible that melts and reshapes souls, and they came out of it men.
His anguish over and once more master of himself, Joe rose, and, stepping
to Harry’s side, laid a hand on his shoulder. Then he saw that Harry had
found peace in sleep, and knowing how much he needed it, he threw a quilt
over his shoulders and left him, going on deck.
The Eskimo had gone, and with him the dingey.
It did not change the look of serenity in Joe’s face. He had met and
conquered all fears and apprehensions in the hour that had just passed,
and one more misfortune could have no effect on him. He turned to the
galley, where he started a fire, and from the cook’s stores took the
material for a first-class hot supper. When this was ready, he went and
wakened Harry. The two did not say much, but they clasped hands in the
dusk of the cabin, and each saw the change toward manhood in the other’s
face,—the look of greater sturdiness, greater self-reliance, together
with a certain serenity which surely marks the man. Some fortunate men
acquire this serenity, self-poise, in the face of fortune, good or ill,
early in life; some never acquire it, and they, as well as the world, are
the worse off for that.
They slept warm and long that night, had a good hearty, hot breakfast the
next morning, and felt fit to face the world. It was a bright morning,
with the sun struggling through frost mists, and as they came on deck
they found quite a change in the position of the small floes overnight,
and some open water near the ship. Out of this open water came a
quavering hail.
“Kile, innuit” (Come here, man); “kile, innuit,” cried Joe with delight,
and the Eskimo paddled alongside in the dingey. He touched the ship
gingerly, but it neither flew away nor burned him. He climbed aboard and
looked earnestly at Joe and Harry, who shook his hand cordially. Then his
face lighted up with a broad grin.
“Nagouruk,” he said. “No more ghosts. Good magic. White man great ankut”
(wizard).
That was all. He thought it great magic that the boys had made the ghost
ship real and were living aboard it in safety. Henceforth he did not
question his own safety there, but the night before he had feared to go
aboard lest it sail off with him into the undiscovered country, as it had
in the mirage.
That day the two boys—we will call them boys still, though, remember,
they have the hearts of men—took stock of their situation, and found
it not so bad after all. The captain and crew were gone southward,
probably to safety, but they had left behind the ship, with abundance of
provisions and all sorts of supplies, including a good amount of coal.
There was really no reason why they should not be warm and comfortable
all winter long, and find safety with the returning whalemen the next
summer. If they had been short of provisions or without the splendid
shelter and the coal that they had, it might have been wise to attempt to
work south on the chance of catching a belated whaleship at Point Hope.
As it was, the chance was too slender, and it was best to face the winter
just where they were.
Thus they planned their life anew, and went leisurely about their
preparations. The Eskimo wished to leave them for a time. His family were
at the village at Point Lay, and he would see them again. He would come
back, perhaps bring his friends with him, and they would build another
village ashore, so that he might be near his white brothers. The boys
thought well of this. The friendly Eskimos might be of great help to
them, and already there was in Joe’s mind a half-formed plan in which
they were to be partners. So, loading him down with such provisions as
he could best carry, a rifle, and abundant ammunition, to his great
delight, they bade him good-by, and he started bravely through the snow
alongshore. They had no fear for his safety. He would burrow deep in the
drifts at night or in case of severe weather, and reach the village safe
and sound.
As if for his encouragement and their own, there followed several days of
halcyon weather. It was calm and the sun shone brightly; and though the
temperature remained below freezing and the thermometer went below zero
at night, the air was so dry that it did not seem nearly as cold as it
was. Yet they knew they were soon to face deadly cold, when the mercury
would drop to fifty below and fierce gales sweep over them for weeks,
and they must prepare for it. The position of the ship they could not
change, but it seemed reasonably safe. It was well behind the headland,
in shallow water; aground, as they soon discovered. The shore ice would
form thick about it, and it could not be touched by the moving pack,
which would grind back and forth all winter half a mile to seaward. Their
next care was to decide in what part of the ship they could live most
comfortably. The galley was large enough; it had the range, on which
they could best cook, and there were two bunks in it which the Chinese
steward and his assistant had occupied. No one is cleaner than a cleanly
Chinaman, and these bunks bore inspection. They might fumigate them and
bring up their own bedding and supplies, and it was by all odds the most
convenient place. For all this, Joe shook his head.
“It won’t do, Harry,” he said; “the place will be too cold. It is on
deck; and when the thermometer gets way down and the gales blow for a
month steady, we shall surely freeze to death.”
“I suppose so,” said Harry doubtfully; “but it is low amidships here
between the bulwarks. If we could only build a double house right around
it, the air space between the two would be a great protection,—and it is
_so_ handy. Tell you what, there’s some spare boards and stuff down in
the main hold. Couldn’t we do it with them?”
“Couldn’t make it tight enough,” replied Joe. “The wind would shoot
through and get at us. If it was buried deep in snow—but the snow would
blow away in the wind.” He pondered a moment, and shook his head.
“What’s the matter with ice, then?” answered Harry. “We’ve got all the
ice we want, right handy.”
Joe sprang to his feet with a laugh. “I believe you’ve got it, this
time,” he said. “We’ll make a regular Eskimo igloo all around it with ice
blocks, same as we used to read about in the schoolbooks. We’ll chink
them with snow and pour water on, and when it freezes we’ll be snug as
need be.”
They went immediately to work while the weather favored them. From the
floes alongside they cut cubical blocks which they hauled aboard with a
whip rigged to the main yard. These they piled one above another, about
three feet from the galley sides. A second row was then set up a foot
outside these, and the space between filled with snow. Thus they had two
ice walls with a free air space next the building. Spare spars placed
across this served for rafters, and they covered these with ice cakes
also. For cement, snow with water poured on was excellent, and at the end
of three days their protecting igloo was nearly finished. It filled the
space amidships from bulwark to bulwark, and the two architects were very
proud of their creation.
“When you are in Rome,” said Harry, “you must do as the Romans do,” and
in this he had solved the real secret of successful winter life in the
Arctic. Through a thousand generations stern necessity has taught certain
things to the Eskimos, and the explorers who most nearly follow their
methods are the ones who winter in safety and with least loss of life and
comfort.
Still in imitation of the ice-dwellers of the far north, they made the
only entrance to this big igloo through a low tunnel of ice cakes, well
chinked and mortared with snow and water, and with a deerskin doorway
that dropped curtainwise and could be fastened tight. Had Sir Christopher
Wren been viewing the completion of St. Paul’s Cathedral, he could have
done so with no greater thrill of pride than did these two beginners in
Arctic life their rough ice shelter from the cold to come.
“I think that makes it all right,” said Joe, with great satisfaction. “If
it doesn’t work we can retreat below, but with a good fire in the galley
stove it seems as if we might be comfortable here, even in the coldest
weather.”
They took stock of their provisions and coal and, as was to be expected,
found both ample for a large number of men. Trade goods still held out,
and they could purchase what the Eskimos had to offer during the winter,
if they cared to. Joe sighed as he looked at the whaling implements,
harpoons, bomb guns, and line, left just as they had been abandoned,
ready for instant use. He picked up a harpoon and handled it lovingly.
“I’ll have a shot or two with you, yet,” he said, “before we get out of
the wilderness.”
“How do you mean?” asked Harry; “there’s no chance to get whales in
winter, is there?”
A half-formed plan in Joe’s head took shape in that instant.
“No,” he said, “not in winter, but the whales begin to appear in the
leads in the ice very early in the spring. Long before the ships can get
up here to get at them, the most of them have gone north. Now, situated
as we are, we can do whaling right from the ice, if we can get the
Eskimos to help us. They will gladly do it for the blubber and meat,
and we shall have the bone. That is the best part of a whale nowadays,
anyway. Here’s what I plan for the spring and summer. We will get all the
bone and furs we can this winter to add to the cargo. We’ll be as careful
of the coal as we can, and if the Bowhead comes through the winter all
right, as I hope she will, we will try and take her south ourselves, with
the help of the Eskimos, when the ice opens next summer.”
Thus, well provided for in the present, and with roseate plans for the
future, they began the winter. Daily the sun got lower; so did the
mercury in the thermometer; and often for days there was no sight of the
former because of flying snow and the deep haze of frost-fog. The ice set
more and more firmly about the Bowhead, and the pack which ground and
crushed against the edge of the shore ice outside the headland no longer
made any answering movement in the frozen stretch about her. The winter
was upon them, and there were times when their ice igloo was put to
severe tests as a frost defender. It stood them all well, and with a good
fire in the galley range, it was always comfortable within. In the open
space between the galley and the igloo frost crystals collected, till,
in the glow of lamplight, the narrow way looked like a fairy grotto, all
hung with spangles and frost gems.
The temperature there was always below freezing, and Joe prosaically
suggested that it would be a good place to hang their fresh meat, if they
had any to hang.
“I wish our Eskimo friend would come back and spear a seal for us,” said
Harry. “We’ve had no fresh meat since he left. Suppose he got home safe?”
They were to have fresh meat soon, however, by way of a most interesting
adventure that began the very night after.
October had come, and with the middle of it a few brief days of mild
weather. The sun slanted upward in a low sweep from the southern horizon,
then down, after scarcely three hours, leaving behind it, as it set, a
running fire of beams that swept along the horizon like a prairie fire,
then the dancing splendor of the aurora and a full moon that swung the
circuit of the sky without setting. The refraction in the air, first
cousin to the mirage, gave this moon odd shapes that were indescribably
weird. Sometimes it was cubical, sometimes an elongated oval, and often
there were rainbows in the frost about it that made mock moons, two or
three ranged in irregular order, with encircling fires that were as
beautiful as ghostly. The boys, warmly wrapped in furs chosen from their
stock, would, on these calm nights, often promenade the deck for an hour,
viewing these phenomena and listening to the crash and grind of the pack
against the shore ice beyond the headland. This night they had done so,
then retired to the glow of their evening lamp, with books from their
stock. They were studying navigation, and a book on engineering and
seamanship from the engineer’s locker, that they might be better able to
handle the vessel if the chance came to them in the summer.
Weariness overcame them there, and Joe had already turned in, while
Harry dozed in the chair over his book. He started up once, thinking he
heard footsteps, then settled down again, sure that it had been only
imagination. There he slept while the footsteps came along the deck,
hesitated at the deerskin curtain, and then something tore it down. Harry
stirred uneasily, but did not wake. The steps, padded but scratchy,
came along the ice tunnel and hesitated again at the closed door to the
galley. Then something clawed at this door and shook it, sniffling. Harry
came to his feet with a bound and listened, uncertain whether he had
heard or dreamed. Then the sound went round the side of the galley, as if
something were crowding through the ice passage to the window.
“Joe!” cried Harry; “Joe, there’s something here!” Joe roused sleepily,
then tumbled out of his bunk with a rush, for there was a crash of glass
and a great white forearm came through the little window with a black
palm and long, hooked nails. Then the lamp went out.
Darkness, and the sound of heavy breathing, with a terrifying
recollection of that great arm and the palm with long nails!
The two boys crowded together in the corner of the galley, quivering and
terrified. The thought of the winter ghosts that the Eskimo had said they
would find at Icy Cape came to both, and did not seem like a foolish
superstition now.
“What is it? What is it?” cried Harry in terror. His voice sounded faint
and far away to him.
“Can’t you find a match?” replied Joe between his set teeth. He was
trying hard to conquer this superstitious terror, but he only partly
succeeded.
Harry tremblingly pulled a match from his pocket and struck it. The arm
was there, reaching and clawing, and behind it gleamed two fierce little
eyes. Joe snatched the 45-70 from the corner and began pumping shot after
shot at the little window. In the confines of the little room the report
was deafening, and the match went out at the first shot.
Harry lighted another. The arm hung limp and there was a heaving and
straining without that fairly cracked the galley walls, then silence.
“Ghost or devil or what all, I’ve finished him,” said Joe, after watching
for a moment with pointed rifle.
Harry relighted the lamp. His courage was coming back, but his nerves
were still shaky. Then he flung wide the door while Joe held the rifle in
readiness. Darkness was there, but neither sound nor ghost. Cautiously,
lamp in hand and rifle ready, they entered the space between the ice and
the galley sides, and there they saw their ghost motionless. He was bulky
and white, so bulky that he filled the three-foot space tight, with his
arm still stuck through the cabin window.
“Well,” said Joe, “he’s white enough for a ghost, but he isn’t one. He’s
a white bear, and a fine one. Let’s get him out of that and skin him
before he freezes.”
In the light of the ship’s lanterns they tugged and wrestled for an hour
to get the great creature out through the igloo entrance to the deck.
There they skinned him and cut him up, hanging the four quarters in what
they henceforth named their refrigerator. The pelt was a fine one, in the
full strength of the winter coat. In spite of the cold and dim light,
they took it off carefully, muzzle, claws, and all.
“There,” said Joe, “that skin will bring a hundred dollars in San
Francisco, if we can ever get it there. It is a good night’s work, if we
were scared to death. What do you suppose brought him?”
“Don’t know,” replied Harry, “unless it was the smell of that salmon.”
Both sniffed, and on the air from the igloo caught the faint odor of
the salted salmon that they had put on the galley range to simmer and
freshen. He was probably right. The white bear has a keen scent, and the
odor of cooking will draw him a long way across the ice.
They repaired the window, re-closed the igloo entrance, and though
somewhat apprehensive, slept soundly and unmolested until daylight. Then
they sought and found tracks showing where the bear had climbed a drift
and come aboard by way of the stern. Other tracks seemed to show that
their intruder had a companion that had circled the ship on the snow but
had not boarded it. This adventure gave them fresh meat, the first for a
long time, and they ate bear steaks till they were weary of them; but it
also gave them an idea for the capture of more valuable pelts.
“If white bears are coming our way,” said Joe, “we’ll try and fix things
so they’ll stop with us. We must make a little shelter on the deck aft,
and set a whale-oil lamp burning in it with a kettle of salmon stewing
over it. Then we’ll fix things so that if his bearness approaches it,
he’ll breast a string and set off a rifle. One of those old Springfield
muzzle-loaders that dad couldn’t sell, even to the mersinkers, will be
just the thing. We can load it half full of bullets, and it don’t matter
if it does burst. There’s plenty more of them.”
“Good idea,” said Harry. “If bears are coming, I’d like to have something
stop them before they get far enough aboard to scare me the way the last
one did. We’ll do it to-day.”
They did, but that night one of the terrible Arctic blizzards set in,
and it never let up for a month. Their trap was rigged, but they could
do nothing toward baiting it in such tremendous weather; they scarcely
ventured outdoors, and got along as best they could by the galley fire.
Yet the time did not hang very heavily on their hands. They read and
studied, played all the games there were aboard the vessel, and slept a
great deal. In the gloom and cold of the full Arctic night the tendency
to hibernate seems to come on men as well as animals, and they sometimes
slept the round of the clock at a stretch.
The fifteenth of November the gale ceased as suddenly as it had come up,
and they ventured out at high noon. The air was still, but intensely
cold. Clad in reindeer-skin suits from head to toe, with fur hoods, and
little but the eyes exposed to the frost, they looked about. A luminous
twilight hung over all the wastes of snow. To the north the sky was
purple black, flushing pink in quivering streams of light toward the
zenith, where glowed great stars. The heavens seemed, through this
luminous pink haze, these quivering bars of aurora, to have wonderful
depth and perspective. Great golden stars shone there, some far, some
seemingly very near, and the distance between the two was very marked.
The wonderful depths of infinite space were revealed to them as never
before, and they gazed in awe and delight.
“I never knew before,” cried Harry, “what was meant by the depths of the
heavens. At home the sky is a flat surface with holes poked in it that
are stars. Here you see them worlds, with millions of miles of space
before and behind and around them. It is wonderful. See the south, too;
it is afire!”
A little to the east of due south lambent flames sprang above the horizon
as if a great fire burned there. They shot up and moved westward as
though a great forest was going down before a smokeless conflagration. On
to the west they moved, and sank, glowed, and disappeared—burnt out.
It was the last of the midday sun, and they were not to see it again
until well into February. A faint breeze seemed to blow in from the
south, as if bearing a message and a promise that the sun would come
again. Joe sniffed this breeze.
“Come,” he said; “let’s set that bear trap. This wind from the south will
send the smell of burnt salmon miles and miles out on the ice. It ought
to bring a lot of bears.”
They did as Joe suggested, and as the south wind blew gently and a spell
of mild weather ensued, kept the toll-dish stewing for a long time. It
was two days before anything happened. Then they were both called from
the cabin by a tremendous explosion. They rushed to the trap and found
a bear sprawled before it, dead, with a big hole torn in his neck.
Nothing, moreover, was left of the Springfield musket but the breech. The
tremendous charge with which it had been loaded had blown the barrel to
pieces and shattered the bait stew as well.
“Whew!” exclaimed Joe. “We did things that time, didn’t we! How much did
you put in that old musket, anyway?”
Harry looked a little guilty. “Why,” he answered, “you said to fill her
about half full, and I did. There were nine bullets, I think.”
“Well, I should say so,” replied Joe, “by the looks of the bear. Guess we
won’t load quite so heavy next time. I don’t care for the old musket,
there’s plenty more, but it don’t do to tear up the pelt too badly. Great
Scott, what’s that!”
Both jumped, for, silhouetted against the aurora, figures stepped from
the drift to the deck and approached. The thoughts of both were of bears,
but a second glance showed these figures to be men, and in a moment they
were greeting their Eskimo friend of the ice and several others who had
come with him. Moreover, as they soon learned, the entire village was
ashore, having decided to move to the neighborhood of the ship, where
food and trade goods were plenty. They had come up with dog teams, and
the women were already carving huts from the deep snow just back of the
beach, in a spot sheltered from the north winds.
It was not until these other human beings appeared that the boys realized
how lonely they had been, and in their joy at the sight of fellow
creatures they planned a feast, to which they invited the whole village.
This took place the next day, and though the village numbered scarce
fifteen adults, they ate up pretty nearly the whole bear. However, it
made them very friendly toward the two Crusoes of the ship, and the boys
did not grudge the feast in any case.
You must not directly ask an Eskimo his name; they have a superstitious
dread of telling it to your face, but you may ask another, even in his
presence, and etiquette is in no wise outraged. So now, for the first
time, they learned that the one they had rescued from the floating cake
months before was Harluk, that his wife was Atchoo, while other men of
the village were Kroo, Konwa, Neako, and Pikalee.
[Illustration: HARLUK AND KROO]
They had plenty of dogs, sleds, two umiaks which they had brought on
the sleds, clothing, and a small amount of blubber and seal meat. That
was all; but they were happy, and viewed with no fear the narrow margin
which separated them from starvation in the Arctic midwinter. Their
snow igloos, carved deep in the drifts on the leeward side of a little
hill, and warmed by a stone lamp full of seal oil, were comfortable and
at first clean. When they were no longer so, they moved a few rods and
carved another without much labor. If the weather was not too severe,
the men watched the margin where the pack ice was ground back and forth
by the shore ice, and were sometimes rewarded with a seal. They tracked
white foxes, ermine, and now and then a wolf or a bear, and exchanged
the pelts with the boys for hard-tack, or blankets, or other necessaries
of life, and were singularly placid and good-humored. Everything with
them was “Nagouruk,” and their chief delight was to visit the ship, and
spend hours in the company of their white friends. The outer sheltering
igloo of ice cakes, which the boys had built over the galley, won their
admiration at once, and they gave it the greatest compliment that an
Eskimo can pay. Kroo, the oldest man, and in that respect the chief,
as chiefs go in a little Eskimo community, inspected it carefully and
solemnly, and then announced oracularly in his own tongue:
“It is good. The white brothers are almost as wise as Eskimos.”
Many conferences were held between Harluk and Kroo and the two boys as
to the prospects and methods of spring whaling in the ice, and as they
learned the ways of the whale from their dusky friends and the ease with
which they are captured by the Eskimos with their primitive weapons,
Harry and Joe became very enthusiastic as to the success which awaited
them with modern appliances. Harluk and Kroo were also greatly pleased.
The plan meant for them unlimited supplies of whale meat and blubber, and
both parties were impatient of the long night of fierce cold that must
still pass before they could begin. They got no more bears for a long
time, because the cold was so severe that their blubber lamps went out
and the tolling smell of stewing salmon failed them. Joe remedied this
in part by mixing the whale oil with kerosene, which did not freeze even
in the most severe weather, and finally he enlarged his lamp greatly,
using a square kerosene can for a reservoir, and filling it with kerosene
alone. This worked much better, and an occasional white pelt was added
to their store by this means. Out of this, too, came a most singular
adventure, which was of great service to the Eskimos, and no doubt saved
the lives of both boys, though it lost them a valuable bearskin.
It happened late in February, after the sun had begun again to smile at
them for a moment above the southern horizon, though his brief daily
presence seemed in no wise to abate the cold.
CHAPTER VII
THE GHOST WOLVES OF THE NUNATAK
The “Ankut,” as the Eskimos call him, the wizard, is the bane of
life among the peaceful Arctic villagers. He is generally of greater
intelligence than they, his craftiness mixed with great greed and
ferocity, and he brings strife and misery to the community on which he
fastens. Beginning with little tricks and pretended magic, he gains an
ascendency over the tribe which often ends in their giving up to him most
of their possessions and sometimes their lives. Growing thus in power
and audacity, he becomes a veritable tyrant, and his career usually ends
in the utter disaster of the people whom he rules, or else they in their
extremity overcome their superstitious fears and drive him out. In either
case he is apt to become an outlaw, living by brigandage, and working
ruin wherever he goes. Among the tribes of northern Siberia the Russians
have given him the name of “Shaman,” but in Alaska a Pacific coast term
is applied to him when he becomes an outlaw, and he is known to the
whalemen as a “highbinder.” Oftentimes he is a half-breed descendant of
a white father and Eskimo mother, and seems to inherit the evil cunning
of both races. Driven from a community by its utter ruin or by force, the
highbinders band together and rove about, preying upon the gentle and
superstitious villagers, and spreading disaster and terror wherever they
go. They play strange tricks, murder, and rob with no fear of anything
except superior force, and carry off boys and girls and sometimes grown
men and women into slavery.
[Illustration: VISITING ESKIMOS]
There came a week of chinook weather just at the last of February. The
Indian tribes a thousand miles to the south have named the warm wind from
the Japanese current “chinook,” from the name of a tribe whose habitat
was to the southwest of them, the direction whence this wind came, and
the name has come to be applied to it the continent over. Down there, no
doubt, this chinook melted the snow, and gave the first promise of coming
spring. The faint breath of it that reached the far Arctic regions where
our friends wintered could do nothing of that sort, but it did bring a
period of mild, clear weather, when the dry air seemed positively warm
during the few hours of sunshine, while through the long night, under the
dancing light of the aurora, the thermometer barely descended to zero.
The first night of this warm weather and faintly breathing southern air
brought two bears in from the ice-fields, one of which was killed at
the trap. The boys, rushing out, saw the other on the ice near by, and
Harry killed him by a lucky moonlight shot with the 45-70. Thus two fine
pelts were added to their collection, which now numbered ten fine and
three less valuable ones, captured by themselves or bought from their
Eskimo friends. Joe figured that the value of these in the San Francisco
fur market would not be less than a thousand dollars, and they decided
that they would keep watch while the south wind lasted and thus lose no
chances of getting more.
That night Harry called Joe hastily, and the two, fur-wrapped and rifle
in hand, listened into the magnificent whiteness of the moon-flooded
night.
“There!” cried Harry. “There it is!”
A low, half-fierce, half-mournful, wailing howl came from the ridge of
land above the Eskimo village. It was repeated to the right and left,
and came again and again at brief intervals.
“Wolves?” asked Harry.
“I should think so,” said Joe; “but”—
Both boys shivered and drew nearer together, as if for mutual protection.
The weird glamour of the Arctic night was upon them, and they thought
again of the story that Harluk had told them of the winter ghosts at Icy
Cape.
“Look there,” cried Joe. “The Eskimos are out.”
They dimly saw two figures, in the radiance of the full moon, come from
the direction of the Eskimo village. Silhouetted against the snow, they
moved to the right and left of the ridge, seemed to pause a moment, and
then went back. There came the wolf-like howling again, but this time
it had a sort of jubilant ring in it. It was heard no more that night,
though both boys were up for a considerable time listening for it.
At dawn the next day Harluk appeared with woe in his countenance.
“Good-by,” he said; “Eskimo all go to-day.”
“But why?” asked Joe in wonder; “are you not all right here with us?”
“Yesterday,” said Harluk, “plenty all right. Last night Nunatak (ice
spirit) people send ghost wolves for food. Eskimo put out plenty. Then
they go away. To-morrow night come again. Bimeby food gone, furs gone,
then they take Eskimo. More better Eskimo go away first. Too much winter
ghosts at Icy Cape.”
Joe was in dismay at the thought of losing the village. The companionship
of the Eskimos meant much to the two boys, and their leaving would break
up their plans for the spring. But at first all argument was in vain. The
Eskimos had had experience with the Nunatak people before. When Eskimos
settled in their realm, they must pay tribute to the ghost wolves sent or
move out. There was no alternative. If the wolves howled again, they must
put out something in food or furs or other property to appease them, or
else the ice spirit people would come and take the Eskimos themselves.
The boys conferred together about this new difficulty.
“What do you suppose it is?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know,” replied Joe; “but whatever it is, ghost wolves or real
ones, or just superstition, we must stop it. We can’t lose our friends
this way, and they must not lose their little stock of food and furs.
Will you guard the ship to-night and let me sit up with the Eskimos?
Ghosts must be pretty hard to hit, but we’ll see what a 45-70 will do for
them.”
There was a grim set to Joe’s square jaw, and Harry felt the spirit of
battle rise within him as he saw it.
“You go ahead,” he said; “and if the ghost wolves come to the ship, I’ll
deal with them.”
That night Joe sat in the snow igloo with Harluk, Atchoo his wife, and
the two Eskimo babies, one a child of a year or so, the other four or
five, both fat and roly-poly youngsters with beady black eyes that looked
in wonder at the white man. A blubber lamp burned brightly in the centre
of this igloo, while over it hung a kettle of melted snow-water. Round
the wall was a seat of hardened snow covered with a few sealskins. In
the corner was a bundle. Joe examined this bundle. It contained a small
stock of food, all there was in the igloo, and some furs. Harluk was
prepared to propitiate the evil spirits, should they again send their
representatives. Later in the evening more of the Eskimos came in, until
all the members of the village were concentrated in this igloo and that
of Kroo, the head man, near by. Fear of their ghostly oppressors was
strong upon the village, which, but for Joe’s offered protection, would
have been already far on the road south toward Point Hope.
About midnight Atchoo shuddered and drew her children to her. The other
Eskimos looked at Joe with their brown faces whitening with fear, for
right down the smoke-hole came that weird, wailing howl. Joe snatched the
rifle and scrambled out through the low passage. The moon shone brightly
on the still whiteness of the Arctic midnight, but there was no sign of
living creature in sight. Only over the ridge, some distance away, came
the howl again, this time with mocking intonation, as if the messengers
of the Nunatak people laughed at his futile efforts. Again it seemed to
come right from the ship, and Joe, baffled and angry, yet felt a chill
of fear thrill through him. He jumped as a figure appeared almost at his
feet, but it was only Kroo with a bundle of provisions and furs in his
hand, scrambling from the low passage of his igloo.
“The ghost wolves must be fed,” said Kroo resignedly. “My white brother
is brave, but he cannot shoot spirits even if he could find them. I will
go.”
Quaking with fear, but doggedly, the old man plodded through the snow
toward the ridge. He had gone but a step or two when Joe was close behind
him, walking as he walked, so close that from a little distance the two
would look like one man in the uncertain light. When they reached a
furrow between two drifts Joe dropped into this, out of sight. Kroo went
on a few rods farther, placed his offering on the snow, and turned back.
He would have paused by Joe, but the latter firmly motioned him on, and a
few moments later he entered the igloo.
There was silence for a long time, while Joe watched the bundle narrowly
where it showed dark against the white surface, holding his rifle ready
for instant use. The minutes seemed to stretch into hours. He felt a
chill that was not altogether cold, and his hand shook with a nervous
tremor that was very close to fear. Real wolves he did not care for, yet
with all his sturdy Anglo-Saxon sense, something of the superstition
of the Eskimos seemed to touch him. Civilization slips easily from us
when face to face with night, the wilderness, and the unknown. He had a
haunting feeling that something was near him, yet peer as he would he
could see nothing but the whiteness of the moonlit expanse of snow and
the black bundle, untouched, where Kroo had dropped it.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a gasp of alarm and surprise, for,
seemingly right behind him, sounded a snarling howl. He turned and looked
eagerly, and ran in that direction for a few steps, breathless, yet
there was no sign of man or beast. He listened intently. No sound for a
moment, then right behind his back the howl sounded again, this time with
a chuckle like laughter in it, and he gave an exclamation of disgust,
for the bundle no longer lay dark upon the snow. The ghost wolves had
found their offering and made off with it. It seemed to Joe, as he looked
about, as if he could see a blur of a white figure moving along against
a white snow ridge, and he brought his rifle to his shoulder to shoot,
then hesitated, thinking he must have imagined it, so indistinct was the
impression. As he hesitated, he saw another blur of white over a near-by
ridge, almost within arm’s reach, with what looked like an evil face in
it, and before he could turn, a heavy mass of frozen snow struck him in
the head and stretched him senseless. The figure of a white bear with the
face of a man leaned over him, then lifted its head and gave forth the
wolf howl, a different cry from the others heard that night. There was
no chuckle in this howl. It was rather a cry of rage which carried in
itself a command, and it had scarcely ceased before three other bear-like
figures hurried up. These, too, had the faces of men and they walked
erect, yet they left behind tracks of claws. Hurried low words were
spoken in Eskimo, and the four took up the motionless figure and carried
it away from the igloos, yet a little toward the ship, down a long furrow
behind a drift, to a place on the shore where the ice crushing in during
the early fall had left a sheltering ridge. Here they vanished with their
burden as if they had been dissipated into air.
Harry’s watch was long that night on the deck of the Bowhead. He felt
appallingly lonely long before midnight, and it was all he could do to
keep from setting out for the shore to see what was happening at the
igloos. The ghost wolves seemed less a matter of superstition now that
Joe’s sturdy presence was lacking, and he waited with apprehension for
their howling, and shivered with nervous dread when it began. He watched
narrowly, and saw what he thought was one figure go out from the igloo
and return in the uncertain light. Again he heard the howling, now far,
now seemingly near, and watching, with his rifle under his arm, he was
surprised to see a figure appear dimly in the snow far over on the ridge.
He saw this figure move back and forth. Then, to his astonishment, it
seemed to rise up from the ground in a horizontal position and move off,
disappearing again. All this was strange and disquieting, and for a long
time there was silence.
What seemed hours followed, and at last he could stand it no longer. He
fastened the galley door, took his repeating rifle under his arm, and
marched down the hard drifted snow off the Bowhead in the direction of
the igloos. As he did so, far off on the ice to the northward two great
white bears lifted their noses and sniffed the wind, which blew from the
south. On it came a faint odor of fish, always enough to attract any
white bear, but this odor was more appetizing than any the two had ever
smelled before. The salmon kettle was doing its work. Warily the two
great creatures took their way southward over the rough ice.
At the igloos Harry’s call for Joe was answered by the furry Eskimo head
of Harluk. He put this carefully out from the tunnel-like entrance and
calmly said Joe was no more. He was a good man and a noble friend, but he
was no longer even a spirit. The ghost wolves had no doubt eaten him, and
thereby he became as nothing. Killed in battle, eaten by real wolves, his
spirit would yet remain, but when the ghost wolves of the Nunatak people
got a man, he simply vanished. If Harry did not wish to vanish, it would
be well for him to come into the igloo.
Harry took Harluk by the shoulders and pulled the rest of him out into
the moonlight.
“Look here, Harluk,” he said. “You stop this nonsense, and tell me where
Joe is. Is he with you? If not, where did he go? Tell me and tell me
quick.”
Like cures like, says the old adage. Harry’s manner was so fierce that
he frightened his dusky friend, and for a moment drove some of the
superstitious fear out of him. He spoke to the point when he got his
breath. Joe, he said, had gone out with Kroo to bait the ghost wolves.
In this direction they had gone, over toward the ridge. Kroo had come
back, Joe had not. This was long ago.
“Harluk,” said Harry, “you get that repeating rifle that we gave you,
load it, and come with me. Tell Kroo to come, too, and bring his gun and
Konwa. The others shall stay with the women and children.”
The three came, reluctantly. Harry’s impetuosity carried them along,
but some distance behind. Any one of them would have faced danger and
probable death without a tremor, but this matter of ghosts was different.
They reached the place where Kroo had left Joe, and Kroo pointed out
his tracks, indistinct in the moonlight, then farther on they saw where
he had gone on. But they saw neither the bundle nor Joe. Unlike his
cousin, the Indian of the interior, the Eskimo has no special aptitude
in following a blind trail, hence it was Harry who first noted in the
snow the indistinct marks of clawed feet. At sight of this the three men
of the north collapsed together in a shivering bunch. The ghost wolves
had been abroad, their eyes saw the marks of their feet. Joe, brave and
able as he was, had been eaten and was now no more, even in spirit.
The Nunatak people were no doubt all about them at that moment, and
if they got back to the igloos safe, it would be a wonder. They headed
tremblingly for home, but Harry stepped resolutely in front of them. The
spirit of battle was fully roused in him now, and he had no thought of
ghosts. Joe was to be found, rescued if need be, and the Eskimos must be
made to help. Force would be of no avail. He must meet superstition with
superstition.
“Look here, Harluk,” he said, “do you not know that the white man is a
great ankut, a wizard much greater than any? Did we not make the ghost
ship real? Can I not make the spirit of a man or a place go into a little
box and come out again so that you may see it and hold it in your hand? I
tell you, if we do not find Joe and you do not help me, the ghost birds
of the white man’s Nunatak shall fly away with you. They shall hang you
head down in the smoke-hole of his igloo, and with fire shall torment
your bones as long as the ice lasts in the sea. Now will you come with
me?”
It was too bad, and Harry knew it, but there did not seem to be any other
way. It certainly had a great effect on his superstitious friends. They
drew suddenly back from him with an alarm that nearly made him laugh in
spite of the fact that he felt the situation to be critical. He held one
hand aloft and seemed to listen. “The ghost birds are coming,” he cried;
“I hear their wings!”
Konwa’s teeth chattered audibly, Harluk was sullenly silent under this
counter pressure of conflicting ghosts, but Kroo, the old head man, drew
himself up with a certain dignity. He seemed to conquer his fears, and
for the rest of the night he acted the part of a brave man. “There be
many wizards abroad to-night,” he said, “and my white brother is perhaps
one. Kroo will help his friends in spite of evil spirits.”
Then the hunt for the missing man began again. The full moon shone low on
the horizon, and the stately hosts of the aurora began to parade the sky
with flaunting crimson banners. The two lighted up the white wastes with
a radiance that was but little less than daylight, and with their help
they followed the claw tracks here and there. It seemed as if many ghost
wolves had been out that night, prowling along the hollows between snow
ridges. Here and there they found an imprint quite plain, showing the
mark of a heavy foot with claws on the front. By and by Harry found a
place where four of these converged in a spot, and something like a heavy
body had fallen in the snow. Kroo looked at this place intently.
“Bundle here,” he said.
Then the four tracks blurred into one another and went on. Harry had a
moment’s mental vision of the indistinct figure that had flitted back
and forth in the moonlight, then risen and gone off in a horizontal
position, and he guessed very nearly right as to the catastrophe. He
found shattered fragments of a chunk of ice on the snow, and on one of
these what looked like a spot of blood. A great anger swelled in Harry’s
breast at the sight of this, and for a moment he choked for words.
“See,” he said, showing the blood-stained crystal to the Eskimos; “they
have hurt him and carried him away. Here are their tracks. It cannot be
ghosts. Ghosts do not draw blood. We shall find them and kill them. Kill
them, do you hear? whether they are men or beasts.”
Kroo stepped forward and examined the deeper tracks critically. “Nanuk,”
he said; “bear; plenty bear.” Konwa, himself a mighty bear hunter,
corroborated the testimony.
This put new courage into Harluk and Konwa. Bears they knew and would
fight in any number, and for the first time they took an active interest
in the proceedings. The trail was broad and easy to follow in the soft
snow, and they went on for some distance. Down near the shore, however,
they lost it, and did not pick it up again. Then, at Kroo’s suggestion,
they spread out far apart and began to zigzag along the snow, each
hunting carefully.
But if the light-hearted Eskimos had in a large measure lost their
superstitious dread, the discovery of bear tracks had not helped Harry
to overcome his. Why should bears attack Joe and carry him off bodily?
Why had he not used his rifle before it happened? It was a good deal of a
mystery, and he could not help feeling that the whole affair was ghostly
and savored of the supernatural. This in no wise affected his courage and
eagerness in the hunt.
There certainly were bears about, real bears, for the two that had been
attracted by the salmon bait had nearly reached the ship. They slipped
along cautiously from hummock to hummock, and were much disturbed by the
presence of men ashore. These they winded; but the salmon bait was too
much for their hungry stomachs, and they went cautiously toward it. The
curiosity of madam bear, or else her hunger, was greater, for she was
well in front and stepped forward and breasted the fatal line, while her
lord and master stood to one side.
Meanwhile things had been happening rapidly over on shore. Harry, Kroo,
and Harluk, armed with rifles, Konwa with his great walrus spear, had
spread far apart and were hunting carefully for tracks in the snow,
but it was drifted so hard thereabouts that they found none. Harry was
nearest ashore of any, and he suddenly felt the snow giving way under his
feet. He gave a cry of alarm and went down out of sight, landing full
upon something solid, that in the indistinct light of an oil lamp looked
and felt like a bear. This creature turned and grappled him, yet there
was no clutch of bear’s claws, but rather the arms of a man that had
hold of him. The face that was turned toward him was not that of a bear
either, but seemed to be the evil face of a man.
“Kroo! Harluk! Help!” shouted Harry, and wrestled desperately with his
opponent.
Other bear-like figures seemed to swarm about him and join in the battle.
As he fought, he noted that he seemed to be in an igloo like that of one
of the villagers, and he backed toward the low entrance, clinging to
his adversary and dragging him with him. His rifle had dropped in the
beginning of the mêlée, but there was no chance to use firearms. It was
a hand-to-hand struggle, in which the numbers of his adversaries were
of little use to them. As he backed toward this igloo entrance, he saw
another figure rise from the further corner, not that of a man-faced
bear, this one, but of a fur-clad man. It seemed to take his part in the
conflict, and hustled toward the low entrance also. Then the lamp was
kicked over, and the affray went on in the dark. It was a strange mix
up, but Harry found himself outside after a little, where he could see
and act, and, seizing an opportunity, he dealt his opponent a stunning
blow in the face with his fist. It broke his hold, and he had a chance
to turn, just in time, for another man-faced bear was leveling a rifle
at him. Harry struck this aside as it went off, and the bullet whistled
harmlessly by. He grappled with this new adversary, and found himself
much stronger. Round and round on the snow they went; but another one
seized him from behind, and the two bore him to the snow, and held him
there.
The next moment he saw Joe, struggling weakly on the snow beside him,
held down by other men clad in bearskins. He heard these bear-like men
speak in Eskimo to one another. His own hands and Joe’s were hurriedly
bound with walrus-hide thongs; then the five men,—he could count them now
and take note of their actions,—rifle in hand, advanced toward the ship.
They began to shoot hastily and inaccurately, as Eskimos will.
The struggle had taken place almost entirely under the snow, and the
shot which had missed Harry was the first thing to call the attention of
Kroo and his men to the affray. Harluk and Kroo could not fire while it
lasted, lest they shoot their friends. Konwa, however, mighty bear hunter
and fearing nothing but ghosts, set his walrus spear at the charge and
plunged valiantly at the group. He received one of the first bullets from
the fusillade and fell. Kroo and Harluk, seeing themselves over-matched,
and both Harry and Joe out of the combat, emptied their rifles hastily
and without aim, then turned and fled before the superior numbers.
The battle seemed lost. Joe and Harry tugged in vain at their bonds.
Konwa lay face down upon his walrus spear, and Kroo and Harluk fled for
safety. One, who seemed to be a leader of the enemy, spoke to the others.
“Let them go,” he said in Eskimo. “We can get them later. Let us attend
to these two first.”
He beckoned to another, and the two took a stand by Joe and Harry. Harry
recognized the one by him as the man with whom he had first struggled,
and he saw with much satisfaction that one of his eyes was well closed
by that last blow. The other eye, however, looked upon him with an evil
gleam of vindictive triumph in it. He leveled his rifle full at Harry’s
head.
“Shoot,” he said to the other one, who had taken a similar position by
Joe. “We will be well rid of the dogs.”
Over on the ship madam bear had just received the charge from the
Springfield musket, and was plunging and kicking in the death agony on
the snow. Her mate watched this with dismay, then anger, and finally
rushed in blind fury at the thing that had hurt her. He swept the rifle
three rods away with one blow of his mighty paw. Then he plunged at the
toll kettle, bit at it, and crushed it to his chest with one great bear’s
hug. The tin can flattened, the oil showered from his shoulders to his
feet as he stood erect in his rage, and igniting, made of him a huge
torch that rushed landward over the snow, a dancing figure of flame that
snarled and roared, leaped and somersaulted.
Harluk and Kroo saw this strange apparition first, and fled to the right
and left with yells of superstitious fear. On it came, tearing across the
snow, right toward the outlaw Eskimos and their victims. The two about to
murder hesitated and lowered their rifles.
“What is it? What is it?” asked the men of the bearskins, one of another,
and the reply was but one word, “Ghost.”
Harry heard and saw, and quick-wittedly took advantage of the
opportunity. He struggled to a sitting position and shouted in Eskimo:
“Come, spirit! I, the wizard, command you. Come and burn them with great
fire. Come fire spirits all, and burn them.”
The strange figure of flame seemed to obey his words. It rushed, roaring
and capering, at them. It was too much for the Eskimo mind to stand.
The men who had themselves posed as ghosts were astonished at this far
greater apparition than they could make. With one impulse of panic fear
they turned and fled inland, leaving weapons and shedding their bearskins
to hasten their flight. Nor did they stop till they had disappeared
beyond the ridge.
The dancing figure of flame stumbled and stopped almost at the feet of
Joe and Harry. There was a groan, and it lay motionless, while the flames
flickered for a moment and then went out.
For some time Joe and Harry struggled with their bonds, but at last Joe
slipped his and released Harry. They looked the field over. Konwa lay
motionless where he had fallen. They examined the blackened figure that
had been their flame deliverer, and finding it to be the carcass of a
bear, guessed the strange accident that had set them free at the very
moment when their case seemed hopeless. They shouted for Kroo and Harluk,
and by and by the two came, hesitatingly. The sorrow of these two at the
death of Konwa was genuine but undemonstrative. They were willing to
believe that the battle had been with men clad in bearskins, but their
theory of ghost wolves was in no wise shaken. Yes, there was the carcass
of a scorched bear on the snow. They saw that, but they had also seen a
fire spirit dancing and roaring across the snow. This spirit might have
tipped over the kerosene kettle and burned the bear, but to say that the
bear was the spirit was foolish. They knew enough about wizards and their
work to know better than that. The white men were certainly great ankuts
as well as good fighters. They had driven away the ghost wolves for the
night, and they had brought forth a spirit of fire that had driven away
men, or ghost wolves changed into men. Anyway, the spirit of the white
man was evidently much the stronger, and they would have no fear as long
as Joe and Harry were by.
Thus reasoned Harluk and Kroo. The two boys saw that it was of no use to
argue with them and wisely let the matter stand. They gently carried the
body of Konwa back to the igloos, and Joe and Harry stayed with their
friends till daybreak. They had collected the weapons that their enemies
had dropped in their flight, and they stood watch lest they return, but
they saw nothing more of them. Joe’s head was slightly cut and somewhat
bruised from the blow he had received, and it ached, but otherwise he
was uninjured, and he made light of the whole matter. There was no sign
of the foe during the remainder of the night, nor did the ghost wolves
howl again.
At daybreak, fully armed, they made a careful survey of the ground. The
Eskimos, having no fear of the Nunatak people or their messengers as long
as the sun was shining, turned out to a man. They found near the beach,
in a big drift behind a sheltering ridge of ice, the igloo into which
Harry had fallen. It seemed a temporary affair, built, perhaps, for the
use of the outlaws in a future attack on the ship, or for a convenient
hiding-place while they terrorized the Eskimos. Joe had no recollection
between the time he was felled by the chunk of ice and the time he came
to in the igloo and feebly joined Harry in his struggle there. The place
was empty, except for one bearskin, evidently shed during the fight, that
its wearer might have more freedom. An examination of this pelt showed
the ingenuity of the outlaw Ankuts. The carcass had been taken from it
through a slit beneath. This left the skin of the hind legs and feet
intact, with the claws on. Walking in this bearskin suit, a man would
leave the trail of an animal with claws, and be nearly invisible in the
night, the white skin being so like the snow in color. Slipping along the
drifts, they could thus play all sorts of pranks on the superstitious
Eskimos with little fear of detection, and, as we have seen, even a white
man could be much puzzled by their antics.
The party warily followed the tracks inland. The blowing, fine snow had
nearly obliterated them in spots, but they found them again. Moreover,
they found two more bearskins, shed in the hurry of flight. A mile inland
they found also a larger and more carefully made igloo, with traces of
dogs and a sled. The marks showed that the outlaws had hastily harnessed
up their dog team and gone on, with all their belongings, straight toward
the interior. This probably ended them, so far as the little community
at Icy Cape was concerned, and they returned to the igloos, taking the
three bearskins with them. They were excellent pelts; and Joe, after
declaring the Eskimos to be half owners in them, proceeded immediately
to buy out their share. The Eskimos recognized this even-handed justice,
and admired and respected the boys for it. But when Joe tried to make
them see how foolish it was to believe in ghost wolves and the evil
spirits of the ice, the Nunatak people, they listened politely, but
smiled incredulously. Had the boys not fought with them and heard them
howl? Yes, there were bad men, too; but how did they know but the Nunatak
people changed their wolves into bad men and then back again at pleasure?
Thus the matter ended.
They buried Konwa the next morning. Harry thought they should read the
service for the burial of the dead over him, but Joe vetoed it. He said
that the Eskimos had funeral ceremonies of their own, and they ought not
to be interfered with. They placed Konwa on a small walrus hide, dressed
in his best furs, with his walrus-gut rain-coat over all. At one hand was
his sheevee, or big knife, in the other the walrus spear with which he
had made his last charge, and beside him were his plate and cup. On the
very top of the ridge they laid him, carried thither by the men of the
village, while his widow wailed loudly in the igloo. They brought stones
from a ledge, blown bare by the wind, and piled these in a little cairn
above him. Then they walked three times around him, chanting a weird
chant, while the widow still wailed in the igloo. Reaching the igloo on
their return, they walked three times around this, and chanted again,
while the widow wailed more loudly. Then the chanting ceased, the wailing
was cut off with equal abruptness, and the little village resumed its
round of daily life.
Harry carved the name “Konwa” deep on a board, and added the sentence,
“He died bravely, fighting for his friends,” and placed this over the
body, supported by the stones.
CHAPTER VIII
WHALING IN EARNEST
The bowhead whale spends his summers among the ice-fields that surround
the pole. What he does in winter is still a mooted question, but there
are many old whalemen who declare that the bowhead hibernates. Many of
them, they say, spend the winter about Bering Straits, and as far south
in Bering Sea as the Seal Islands. Here it is claimed that they lie on
the bottom and sleep till the warmer currents of the spring rouse them,
as they do the marmots, badgers, and brown bears on land, and at about
the same time. At any rate, the bowhead goes north with the ice in the
spring, comes down with it in the fall,—and then vanishes. He is not
found in the southern part of Bering Sea, nor in the north Pacific.
Hence, say the whalemen, who make a business of following him, if he does
not hibernate, what does become of him? Ordinarily, in the summer time,
the bowhead comes to the surface and breathes every forty minutes or so.
But now and then, for some cause or other, one will sulk, and the natives
have watched them lying close in shore in shallow water for five days
without seeing a movement or attempt to come to the surface to breathe.
Such whales are denominated “sleepy heads,” and when killed are found
to have a blubber that is watery instead of full of oil. The blubber of
more than one whale is thrown overboard after being cut in, because it
is deficient in oil. Whether there is any connection between the sleepy
heads and the hibernating may never be known, but if a whale can stay on
bottom without air for five days simply because he is sick or sulky, say
the whalers, ought he not to be able to sleep all winter in good health?
There is no certain answer to the question.
At any rate, the whales appear in the open leads from Point Hope to Point
Barrow about the middle of April. These are all young whales who seem
to be the early risers. After them come the cows and their calves, and
behind these, mostly in the open water, follow the older single whales.
Bachelors and old maids these, and perhaps lack of responsibilities
makes them lazy. As these are the last up in the spring, so they are the
first down in the fall. Sometimes they too go in with the ice, and in
that case the whaleships following do not get many. The whales which the
Eskimos capture are almost always the young, who go up first, and they
capture them quite easily from the ice. The Chuckchis about East Cape get
from twenty to thirty thousand pounds of bone annually, and the Alaska
natives about as much. This is bought in the main by traders or whalemen,
who pay in trade goods at the rate of about fifty cents a pound for the
bone. As good bone is worth about three dollars a pound in San Francisco,
it will be seen that the business is a profitable one for the buyers.
Yet the Eskimos are glad to dispose of their surplus for the white man’s
goods, and the returns are of great value to them.
There used to be in Bering Sea and the Arctic a small black whale with
a white spot near the small, which was easily killed and yielded good
blubber, but was weak in whalebone. These whales were all killed off
as long ago as 1885. Before them, and now probably extinct, were the
old 100-ton gray backs, the monster bowheads of all. These whales were
leviathans indeed, yielding sometimes four hundred barrels of oil, and
often three to four thousand pounds of whalebone. These were the prize
monsters of the early days of the bowhead fishery, and the lucky ship
that got through the straits and fastened to one or two of them was well
along toward a full trip at a blow. The last record of the capture of one
of these whales was as far back as 1876. They were sly, lazy old chaps,
exposing often only the edges of the gray spout-hole when blowing, and
having thus the appearance of a gull sitting on the water. It is perhaps
plausible that these great-grand-fathers of whales had survived the
glacial epoch, as is claimed for them. At least, they were of as great
age compared with the smaller bowheads as are the giant sequoias of
California compared with the redwoods of the present day.
After the battle with the highbinders, the community at Icy Cape saw
no more outsiders, but as day by day the sun rose higher and stayed
longer, they began to await impatiently the coming of the spring and to
prepare for it. March was a wild, uproarious month, intensely cold for
the most part, and with fierce gales blowing. The boys got a bear or two
and the Eskimos brought in a good number of smaller pelts, so that the
collection of furs grew steadily and bade fair to be of considerable
value. Joe used to figure it up every few days, and when it reached the
two-thousand-dollar valuation mark he was quite jubilant.
[Illustration: LOCKED IN THE ARCTIC ICE]
“Now,” he said, “if we can only get a good catch of whalebone while the
ice is melting and get the ship out safe, what happy fellows we’ll be!”
The Eskimos too began to prepare for whaling after their own fashion,
and the second week in April began their ceremony of propitiation. They
blackened their faces with soot and streaked them with red. They dressed
in their best clothes, with hoods fringed with wolverine fur, giving
their faces thus a halo of bristling hair that made them look quite
savage and warlike. Then they took bits of blubber carefully saved from
the preceding year and cut into little dice-like cubes. These they bore
in pompous procession to the grave of Konwa, and placed them thereon
with much ceremony, that his spirit might be propitiated. They marched
about his grave as they had at the time of the burial, then passed down
to the ice and across it to the first open water. Here they strewed
the remaining bits of blubber, that the spirits of the ice might be
favorable. Nor would they consent that the boys, or modern weapons,
should participate in the taking of the first whale. The others might
be captured as they pleased, but the first must be taken with all the
ceremonies and in the accustomed manner of their forefathers, else would
not prosperity come to their whale hunting.
They mounted walrus-tusk spears, tipped with slate, on long driftwood
poles. They sledded their umiaks out to the nearest open water, a half
mile or so from shore. Here they placed them ready for launching, and
built on the windward side a windbreak of ice and snow behind which they
found shelter, for it was still very cold. Painted and plumed, here they
waited for a week. One day the welcome cry of “Akovuk! akovuk!” (Whale!
whale!) rang from the watchers, and the spout of a whale was seen in the
open lead. The black body rolled along carelessly, heedless of danger,
till it was nearly opposite them. Then the harpooner took his place in
the bow of the umiak with two paddlers behind him. The others launched
the boat with a rush, and it slid of its own momentum across the space of
water till its bow gently rubbed the whale’s side. Kroo, the harpooner,
stood erect. With all his strength he drove the slate-tipped and barbed
harpoon into the whale’s side, pushing desperately on the long driftwood
pole. Then the paddlers backed rapidly away, while he threw overboard
about fifteen fathoms of walrus line fastened to the ivory harpoon, and
having along its length three sealskin pokes as floats. The wounded whale
sounded, and tried to roll the weapon out on the bottom, but failing in
this he rose again and began trying to lash the thing from him by blows
of his flukes at the pokes. By this time the other umiak was launched,
and another and another string of floats was made fast to him in a
similar manner, till, buoyed up so that he could no longer dive, and
exhausted with his battle with the light pokes, he lay sullen and was
lanced to death by Kroo, with an ivory lance on a driftwood pole. Then
there was great rejoicing among the villagers. The whale was hardly dead
before they began to cut bits of the outer epidermis, the blackskin, from
him and to bolt it raw, it being considered a great delicacy among “the
people;” indeed, many white men find its nutty, oily flavor pleasant.
Then they towed the carcass alongside the ice, cut “jug handles” in the
heavy floes, and reeved their walrus-hide lines through these. With
this primitive purchase they hauled the head up so that one side of the
bone could be cut out. Then they rolled the whale and cut out the other
side. Each native present received five slabs of bone. The crew of the
boat making the strike received ten slabs more each, then the harpooner
received the rest. Blubber and meat there was enough, and more than
enough, for everybody, dogs and all, and the event closed with great
feasting. Thus for the first whale; but the ancient customs having been
complied with, and the spirits of the dead and the ice having been duly
propitiated, they turned quickly to modern weapons, and the boys had
no difficulty in getting them to use the whaler’s harpoon and the bomb
gun. Some of them had used these before, and all had seen the whalemen
use them and knew their efficiency. As the fishing progressed, the whole
village, children and all, turned out, and the boys learned to brave the
cold and be as hardy and patient as they. With the good supply of bomb
guns and lances and harpoons of all kinds aboard the ship, the little
army was well fitted out, and sometimes they were able to kill a whale
from the ice with a single shot from a bomb. One whale came up and died
under the ice, but they blew the floe up and shattered it with tonite
bombs, and got at the carcass in this fashion. When the weather became
too severe, they retreated to the ship, and the boys entertained the
village there, while the villagers in turn entertained the boys.
The Eskimo women were greatly interested in the cooking methods and
implements of the boys and learned their use with surprising readiness,
though there were many laughable incidents. They gave names of their own
to many things, which were appropriate and interesting. Beans they called
“komorra,” from their word “komuk,” meaning little grub, the larva of
the gadfly. “Sava kora,” chopped larvæ, was rice, and they named baking
powder “pubublown,” their word for bubbling. Soap the children were
inclined to eat, but the older folks soon learned to use it, as well as
towels.
Whalemen are apt to be fond of “chile con carne,” as the Mexicans call
it,—a red-pepper condiment for meat that is wondrous strong. Atchoo got
hold of this one day and wondered long what it was. Finally she gave some
to a boy who was waiting about, boy-like, for a chance to taste things.
The boy helped himself liberally, and the contortions through which he
went on getting the full strength of the pepper were near to causing a
stampede among the women and children, who thought him possessed of an
evil spirit. When matters had quieted down, Atchoo took the balance of
the can of “chile con carne” and dug a hole in the ice, burying it deeply
there, and saying over it the words of an Eskimo incantation, which is
supposed to keep the buried spirit of evil from ever rising again.
The wife of Kroo was quite an old woman, and she did not take kindly
to the innovations in cooking. Finally, however, she was given some
rice, and persuaded to boil it for Kroo’s dinner. She retired to the
forecastle, and started a fire in the little stove there, that she might
not be observed in her work. Not long afterward cries of alarm were
heard, and Kroo’s wife rushed frantically from the forecastle, crying
that she had the devil in the pot.
She had filled the kettle far too full of rice; and as it swelled and
continued to pour out over the rim, she concluded that an evil spirit was
in the white man’s food, pushing it out continually.
But the matter of the explosive doughnuts was the most exciting, and
indeed came near being serious, not only in its immediate effects, but
in the setback which it gave the white man’s food in the opinion of
the Eskimos. Joe, who was the cook for the boys, had frequently made
doughnuts and fried them in oil for the delectation of the community, the
natives having a great fondness for them. Then he taught Atchoo how to
mix them up, and she seemed to learn very rapidly. One day, however, she
undertook to make them without supervision, and used water from melted
ice which had chunks of ice still in it. These chunks she incorporated
in the doughnuts, no doubt thinking, Eskimo fashion, that it was just as
good that way. The doughnuts fried, but the chunks of ice turned to steam
within, and about the time Atchoo was forking the doughnuts out into a
pan they began to blow up, scattering oil and the wildest consternation
among those waiting for the feast.
The first one popped on the fork as Atchoo was handing it to Harluk,
that he first might see how good a cook she was. The largest chunk of it
landed square in Harluk’s eye, causing him to dance with astonishment and
alarm.
“Hold on!” he cried. “No want to see him; want to eat him.”
Others blew up in the kettle, scattering hot oil, and sending the crowd
in a wild plunge for the doorway. Out they scrambled, Harluk well in
advance, as he had had the first warning. He plunged head first from the
outer end of the entrance and butted Joe, who was about to enter, into a
sitting position on the snow.
“Huh!” said Joe, partly because that is what one usually says when
suddenly butted in the stomach, but partly in surprise at this exodus
from the galley. “What is the matter?” he asked, as soon as he could get
breath.
The answer came from Pickalye, who was fat, and who scrambled out on his
knees and one hand, holding a hot wad of half-fried doughnut to the back
of his neck with the other. Finding himself outside, he ducked until his
head was well under one arm and he could lay his burnt neck gently in the
snow. From this contortionist’s position he looked up solemnly sidewise
at Joe.
“White man’s grub too much shoot,” he said.
The appearance of this fat Eskimo, tied in such an absurd knot to keep
the back of his neck cool, was too much for Joe, who went off into howls
of laughter, which were answered by cries from within. Hurrying thither,
Joe saw the fat on fire on the stove, the feet of Atchoo and her older
child protruding from beneath his lower bunk, while in the upper one lay
Harry in a worse gale of laughter than he. Joe put out the burning fat,
prodded Atchoo and her youngster from beneath his bunk, and by the time
he had found out who was burned and how much, and attended to them by
binding the wounds with moist cooking soda, he and Harry had sobered down
a bit and learned the cause of the disaster.
It was a good while before the Eskimos were willing to come into the
galley again, and Joe profited by it by having them set up housekeeping
in the forecastle while aboard ship. They did no more white man’s cooking
for some time, and doughnuts were especially avoided, but they were so
fond of them that Harluk finally induced Atchoo to try her luck again.
That day Harry beckoned Joe to look in on the forecastle. There was
Atchoo frying doughnuts, indeed, but she put them into the fat, turned
them, and took them out on the tip end of Harluk’s favorite seal spear,
which was at least six feet long.
With the exception of using modern harpoons and killing their whales
directly, when possible, with the bomb gun, the boys and their
assistants followed Eskimo methods with great success. The whales are
particularly unsuspicious when in the ice, and the killing of them was
usually attended with little excitement or danger. They did not attempt
to do anything with the blubber, as the distance they would have to haul
it from the open leads to the ship was too great. The bone of these
smaller whales was not so good either as that of those which come later
in the open water, but it was nevertheless of much value, and footed up a
thousand pounds or so to each catch. Thus the value of the stores aboard
ship increased quite rapidly, and by the first of June half a dozen
whales had added twelve or fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of bone to
the credit of the adventurers. They had paid the Eskimos a satisfactory
amount of trade goods for their share, as well as the meat and blubber,
and the little community was quite literally rolling in Eskimo wealth.
Joe was afraid that prosperity would give them ideas above work, as it
does some other more civilized people, but it did not seem to. They did
not work for the returns alone, but out of loyalty and admiration for
their white friends.
The sun now skimmed the northern horizon without setting, and daylight
was once more continuous. Gulls, terns, and ducks in clouds came along
the edge of the ice, working northward, and the weather was warm and
springlike. To the first gull seen the Eskimos sang a greeting. Just
as young people the world over apostrophize the first star they see at
night, and wish on it in the more or less firm belief that their wish
will be granted, so the Eskimos sang a greeting to this first gull:—
“Now yakaro, now yakaro,
Too loo kotaro.”
“Gull, gull, bring me good luck.”
On warm days the snow melted with great rapidity under this continuous
sunshine, and the brown tundra soon began to show between the drifts. Yet
the ice held firm, except that narrow leads opened here and there, and
there was no hope that the ship would be able to get off for more than
a month, in fact nearly two, and it would be that time also before any
ships could come in from below.
In this ice whaling the entire Eskimo community had participated, yet
such is the familiarity of the Eskimo with the world of ice that no
serious accident had happened to any one of them. It was not that
conditions were not often dangerous as well as uncomfortable, but that
the native instinct seemed always to find a way out of difficulty.
Pickalye’s two daughters, fine, strong young girls, were out on the
ice one day many miles from land, with a team of four dogs and a sled,
bringing in blubber from a whale that had been killed out there. A
sudden violent snowstorm came up, and they were in great danger of being
driven out into the pack and frozen to death. They lost the direction
and were obliged to abandon the sled, but each girl fastened two of the
dogs by their traces to her own girdle and let them go as they pleased.
The result was, that the homing instinct of the dogs brought them safe
to land, after many hours in the blizzard. They made the traces fast
to their girdles that the dogs might not break away and escape in case
they fell on the rough ice and were obliged to let go their grip on the
lashings.
The natives gave Harry the nickname of “the whale walker,” because one
day he was on an ice cake near the open lead with a bomb gun, watching
out for a whale that had been seen heading up the lead. The whale came
up just beside him, and before he could fire, rolled against the cake
and capsized it. Harry sprang for the only available dry spot, the
whale’s back near his tail, and running hastily from that dangerous
weapon up along the black length, sprang from his head to another cake
of ice, reaching it before the lazy leviathan had made up his mind that
anything out of the common was happening. Then he turned and discharged
the gun into the whale’s neck, breaking it at one shot. This whale was a
particularly large one, with a tremendous spread of flukes, and Pickalye
was so impressed with this that he ran toward the other villagers
shouting,—
“Come and see! Come and see! Our brother who walks on whales has killed
the one with the biggest feet in the ocean.”
After the ice whaling was practically over the village held a feast, a
sort of thanksgiving, at which each man who had struck a whale gave to
everybody else as many dinner parties as he had killed whales. Each of
these was followed by games, in which the chief was blanket tossing. A
large walrus hide was suspended horizontally three feet high by ropes,
which ran to springy but stout poles of driftwood, thirty feet away.
These gave additional spring to the walrus-hide blanket, around which
stood a dozen adults lifting on the edges. All the people came in their
best clothes, and the prominent whale catchers had a smear of black on
the left cheek as large as one’s finger. This was a special mark of
distinction. The ancient wife of Kroo, the head man, was the first to be
honored, and she climbed into the centre of the blanket with surprising
agility. Beginning, she gave a leap in the air, then as she came down,
the spring of the walrus-hide ropes on the driftwood poles, supplemented
by two dozen lusty arms, sent her high in the air again. Up and down she
went, kicking and waving her arms amid cries of exultation and pleasure,
and ceased only with utter exhaustion. Half a dozen girls rushed for her
place, but all gave way to the most agile, who first reached the centre
of the hide. Thus the sport went on, each following in turn, until all
who wished had been tossed.
Pickalye, fat and simple-minded, was one of the experts at this game.
He would take a sealskin poke and use it like a skipping-rope in the
air, and the great sport of the contest came in the sidewise yanks which
the crowd gave the hide as he leaped, in an attempt to upset him. This
was often successful, and when he came down on some one’s head, wrong
side up, as he generally did before the game was over, there was great
laughter.
They danced by the light of the midnight sun to the music of tom-toms,
the musicians being sheltered from the cold wind by an umiak turned on
its side. They had wrestling matches, in which the winner had to hold the
ring until beaten or exhausted, all remaining as long as they had breath
or strength. The feast finally ended in a grand football game on the
sea ice, at the close of which the best-dressed player on each side was
ducked in a water-hole.
The delicacies at these feasts were whales’ flukes and blackskin. The
blackskin, the outer epidermis of the whale, is best liked when frozen,
and then has a flavor something like that of muskmelon. The melting of
the snows had made the winter igloos uninhabitable, and they were now
living in their summer topeks,—cotton tents bought of the whalemen and
traders. There was much open water in the sea, and southerly winds were
beginning to crowd the main polar pack ice back toward the north. The ice
within the arm of the headland where the ship lay was beginning to show
many signs of weakening, and the boys began to look forward anxiously
to the time when they should get up steam on the engines and try to push
southward. They decided it was not wise to do this until the way was
fully clear, and meanwhile they kept good lookout for a final whale.
They were quite proud of their work during the winter and spring, as
well they might be: six heads of bone were worth at the lowest estimate
twelve thousand dollars; there were furs, principally white bearskins,
to the value of two thousand dollars, reckoning very conservatively;
and a few dollars’ worth of walrus ivory completed the list. They had
used a small proportion of the stores and a reasonable amount of the
trade goods left behind. They felt that it was a pretty good showing for
two boys. Moreover, Harry had a monograph on the habits of the bowhead
whale, gleaned from his own experience and the knowledge of the Eskimos,
which he felt ought to add value to his report to Mr. Adams. How far
away that other world which he had left only a year before seemed! His
father and mother—and Maisie; had they given him up for lost? A great
longing for home and friends and civilization came over Harry with these
thoughts,—that homesick longing which is like death itself, and which
sometimes kills when he whom it attacks cannot find relief in action,
cannot take some step, however slight, in the wished-for direction. He
went to Joe with tears in his eyes.
“For God’s sake, Joe,” he cried, “let us get out of this. I want my home
and my father and mother so that I can’t think nor sit still. Can’t we
start up the engines and push out of this rotten ice? Once in the leads
we could work south.”
Beyond a doubt homesickness is infectious. He had no sooner spoken than
Joe began to show symptoms of the malady.
“Home?” he said. “Of course we’re going home. We’ll clear away this snow
and ice from the deck and get ready for a start as soon as we can. A
little more thaw would let us out.”
They called the Eskimos to their aid, and began to work with feverish
haste. The ice igloo, which had been their protection for so long, but
which was now no longer needed, was chopped apart and thrown overboard.
They took soundings alongside, and found the ship still aground, but
thought perhaps that under a full head of steam they could work her off.
They sounded the wells and found she did not leak. They went over the
machinery carefully and made sure that it was all ready for use, so far
as they could tell from their studies of the previous winter. The thought
of really moving toward home filled them with a wild exhilaration, and
they hardly ate or slept for three days.
In the midst of all this fever of preparation Pickalye, fat and foolish,
came aboard and told them that they must wait. There was a great storm
coming; his bear bite had told him so. They must not try to move before
it had passed, else they would meet trouble. A bear had bitten him badly
in the leg three years before. Since then, whenever there was a big storm
coming, the spirit of the bear came and bit his leg again. It was biting
it now. Therefore this was a warning, and he would like something from a
bottle to rub his leg with.
Joe furnished the liniment, and the work went on. Nevertheless, two hours
afterward the wind blew up suddenly from the south, and increased in
violence rapidly, bringing snow with it. The Eskimos went ashore, nor
could they be prevailed upon to remain aboard ship. Their belief in the
power of prophecy of Pickalye’s bear-bitten leg was strong, and they
were familiar with these swift, terrible spring storms. At midnight,
though the sun was well above the horizon, the clouds were so thick that
it became quite dark. The boys felt the shoreward ice pressing against
the side of the ship. The vessel quivered and tugged at her anchor
chain. The ice was going out. They looked over the side and, to their
astonishment, found that it seemed to be dropping on the ship’s side.
That is, she stood up higher out of the ice than she had before. Joe
pointed this out to Harry; and when they were back in the galley, where
they could hear each other, he told what he thought the reason for it.
“The gale,” he said, “is pushing the ice northward so fast that it is
making low tide on the shore. I think the Bowhead is sliding along the
bottom, dragging her anchor, pushed by the ice.”
They could distinctly feel the shouldering crush of the ice and the
scraping as the vessel slid along. With much labor and difficulty they
put the other anchor overboard and let go a good length of chain cable.
Nevertheless, they drifted outward for some hours, slowly but surely.
Then there came a lull in the gale. It became light again, and the wind
went down rapidly. The sun struggled through the clouds that still flew
overhead, and showed them that, to their astonishment, they had drifted
and dragged the two anchors out well by the headland. To the northward
they could see in occasional flashes of sunlight the surf leaping high
on the main Arctic pack, driven back on itself, miles out. They were
dangerously near the headland, but the wind was offshore, and a heavy
floe lay between them and it, apparently grounded firmly at the shore
end. The ship swung free in water deep enough to float her, and the open
lead showed as far to the southward as the eye could see. Joe shouted
with exultation, and Harry fairly danced for joy.
“Hurrah!” he shouted. “We can steam south as soon as we can get the fires
up. Set a signal for the Eskimos to come out and help us. Then let’s get
below and fire up.”
The signal was set, and ten minutes later both boys were busy below
putting a fire under the boiler and getting everything in readiness for
departure. It was unaccustomed work, and though they had often planned
it together, there were many things over which they hesitated and were a
little in doubt. Thus the time passed rapidly, and though a black smoke
now poured from the Bowhead’s funnel, there was little steam on. Two
hours the boys were below before they realized it, and Joe finally said
with some uneasiness,—
“Wonder why those fellows don’t come aboard?”
“Don’t know,” said Harry. “You watch that steam gauge and I’ll go on deck
and see if they are coming. Is that their boat alongside?”
Something bumped and grated along the Bowhead’s side. Harry started for
the deck. Then something struck the ship again, this time hard enough
to jar it from stem to stern. Joe followed Harry up the ladder. As
they reached the deck the most astonishing change met their eyes. The
treacherous Arctic gale had veered to the north and was blowing again
with unexampled fury. Where had been open water for miles the Arctic pack
was now crowding down upon them. The first scouts of ice were already
bumping their sides, and the roar of the wind through the rigging seemed
like hoarse shouts of derision at the thought that a ship might escape
its fury. They had swung up alongside the shore pack, which stood firm,
and already the seaward ice was crushing against them. Working in the
depths of the fire-room, they had sensed nothing of this change, and now
the realization of it came upon them with stunning force.
Joe was the first to rouse from his stupefaction. “Go forward,” he said,
“into the chain locker. Knock the shackling pins out of both those cables
and let them run overboard. Then come down into the engine-room with me.”
Harry did as he was bidden in a sort of dream, the plunge from bright
hope to chill fear was so great. In the engine-room he found Joe,
sweating.
“We can’t do it,” he cried. “If the Eskimos had only come to us, we would
have been all right; but two of us cannot fire, and run the engine, and
steer ship, all at the same time, even if we could get out of the grip of
the ice. I’m afraid we’re done for.”
Even as he spoke the ship staggered. The ice had crashed against her with
such force that both boys were thrown from their feet. Joe stopped the
engines, which had been turning slowly.
“I’m afraid we’re done for,” he repeated, and took his way to the deck,
followed by Harry. The scene that met them there was one never to be
forgotten. No man may stand in the forefront of the onrush of the Arctic
pack and forget it. Cakes of ice leaped like wolves on its forward edge.
Behind them crushed the solid phalanx of the sea, white, resistless,
terrible. The wolf cakes sprang at the ship, and bit at it. They leaped
upon the solid shore floe, and climbed one another’s shoulders there, and
always just behind them came the forward impulse of that great white sea
of ice. The touch of this main pack crumpled the shore floe. It crushed
the Bowhead’s staunch sides as if they had been eggshells. The decks
burst from beneath with the pressure, the tall masts toppled and fell,
and the wreck, crashing and grinding into the shore ice, became but a
formless part of the ridge that the pack pushed up in front of it as it
moved majestically shoreward. Mightily, foot by foot, it moved. Ice cakes
burst with the roar of artillery, snapped like rifles, and the rumble of
floe on floe was like the onrushing hoof-beats of a million cavalry. The
cohorts of the ever-victorious Frost King were in full charge. Higher
and higher piled this ridge of onslaught, nearer and nearer the shore it
pushed, and the once staunch ship was rolled and pounded to chaff under
the hoof-beats of its white horses.
Out of the white turmoil of death and terror it is hard to tell how the
two boys escaped. Certainly neither of them knew. There was a confused
recollection of planks bursting beneath their feet, of spars that,
falling, mercifully spared them, of leaping and scrambling from toppling
cakes to unsteady, crumbling ridges, of the howling of winds in their
ears, and the sting of brine on their faces. Then they were being pulled
and hauled and hustled across the heaving shore floe by Kroo and Harluk
and others, who had rushed to their rescue and endangered their own lives
to help their friends. Panting, exhausted, both in body and nerves, they
lay in the little tents and listened to the howl of the gale.
They were safe; but the ship and its contents, their furs, their
whalebone, and all their dear and valuable possessions, were being rolled
and hammered in the mass of broken ice that the great Arctic pack was
still crushing and piling shoreward.
Yet they did not give way to grief or repining. Nothing could show the
manly spirit and self-reliance which their lonely life had bred in them
more than this. They were calm, even serene, thankful for their lives,
and confident that, having been spared those, they would yet be able to
win their way back to civilization with honor, if not with fortune.
It cured their homesickness, too. Nothing is so good for this as a batch
of real and present trouble and physical discomfort. Physical weariness,
a moderate amount of hunger, and something with which to battle, along
with a feeling that you can overcome it, will make any real man satisfied
with his lot. I know this sounds like a paradox; but just try it, as
Harry and Joe did.
CHAPTER IX
IN THE ENEMY’S POWER
There are no tides on the Arctic coast as we of the temperate zones
know tides. In calm weather the rise and fall of the sea is scarcely
noticeable. In time of southerly storm, however, the wind and ice carry
the water out across the shallow sea, and when the winds rage from the
north they crowd it back again upon the land. Hence, with the rush of the
ice pack to the shore there came a small tidal wave, with the result that
the pack and the shore ice, crowded and crumpled together, were carried
far up on the land. With the subsiding of the gale two days later, the
receding waters left this great ridge piled there thirty to fifty feet
high, a monument to the brave ship that it had wrecked, and to the power
of the primeval Arctic forces. Scattered through this rough ridge were
the remnants of the wreck. Here a mast protruded, there a shattered
plank of the hull, but to find anything of use to the wrecked Crusoes
was difficult. When the ice melted, as it would in part during the brief
summer, more might be revealed, but for now they were dependent on the
hospitality of their Eskimo friends.
Right royally was this hospitality exercised. The boys had reached shore
with only the clothes on their backs, but, thanks to the trade supplies
which they had earned in their whaling, the Eskimos were rich beyond
the dreams of Eskimo avarice. They had food supplies of all sorts,
clothing, blankets, and calico in plenty, rifles, shotguns, ammunition,
cooking utensils. Out of all these they outfitted the boys, even giving
them an extra tent of their own in which they might set up their own
housekeeping. To be sure the disaster was a bonanza in a way to the men
of the ice. The broken timbers and spars of the staunch vessel would
furnish fuel and wood for them for a long time to come, any iron which
they might find as the ice melted would be eagerly seized upon, and they
might even hope, as the summer proceeded, to get much in the way of food
supplies. Yet their hospitality was in no wise tinged by this. The custom
of sharing prosperity with all has come down to the tribes from time
immemorial, and is never questioned except by the outlaw “highbinders.”
The boys, aided by their dusky friends, searched long and diligently, and
were finally rewarded by finding a portion of the galley. This was buried
in the top of the ridge half a mile from where the disaster had occurred
and a mile from the place where other portions of the ship, the spars and
one mast, protruded. Such is the rending and disintegrating force of the
floes grinding one on another.
In this portion of the galley they found the chest which contained the
ship’s log and other papers, including Harry’s report of the conditions
of the whaling, some extra paper, and his entire camera outfit. There
also was Joe’s journal of the events of the trip to date. They were
overjoyed at this, but search as they would, nothing further of value
turned up. The hull below decks seemed to have been carried down in the
crush and sunk; at any rate, they never saw it more. Two busy weeks
passed thus, and they were not altogether unhappy. They had seemingly
lost all chance of returning with wealth, but their lives were spared and
the summer was at hand, when ships would surely appear and rescue them.
They talked this matter over together and with Harluk and Kroo. The
ships, said Harluk wisely, would be late in that summer, if they came at
all. He knew this, because each storm had ended in a wind from the north
which brought the pack in. He had noticed that when the storms began this
way, they kept it up through the summer. The main pack was very heavy,
and was crowded up against the shore now. It might not move for weeks. If
there did come a southerly blow and carry it off for a day or two, the
wind would end up in the north and bring it back. The boys had seen.
Harluk indicated the mighty ridge of ice alongshore with a sweep of the
hand, and Kroo nodded confirmation of this. The boys looked at each other.
“Then,” said Harry, “if the ships cannot come to us, we shall have to go
to the ships. They will surely be at Point Hope, and if we go there we
shall meet them.”
“Of course they will,” agreed Joe. “Father will be up here on a ship of
some sort. He will be anxious to see if there is possible news of us. He
is a whaler, and he will not go out of the business just because one ship
is lost. We will go to Point Hope. How long will it take, Kroo?”
Kroo meditated. “When the ice is gone,” he said, “s’pose take umiak. Not
blow too much, you catch Point Hope in twenty sleeps. S’pose blow a good
deal, no can tell.”
“But if the ice stays, we will have to go overland,” replied Joe. “How
long will that take with a good dog team?”
Kroo’s answer to this was “Ticharro pejuk?” which is a sort of Eskimo
“How do I know?” There was some snow left in places, and they might
follow the coast on the ice for a good way. At Cape Beaufort they would
have to make a turn inland, as no one could pass Lisburne heights on the
coast. There were mountains and there would be much soft tundra. It was
a good deal of an undertaking. He could not tell. It was better to stay
till the sea opened.
Thus reasoned Kroo and Harluk, and the others gave assent to this, but
the boys were not to be moved. There was nothing for them to stay for
now, and they were determined to go, even if the trip was to be a hard
one. The Eskimos said little more. They knew if the boys had decided to
go, go they would, and in their own way. A team of three dogs was picked,
the best in the village, their goods were packed on the sled,—food enough
to last for weeks, rifles and ammunition, blankets, and their little
tent.
The parting was hard. The two boys had not realized before how much
attached they were to these brave, gentle, kindly friends; and as for the
Eskimos, they were like children about to be deprived of their parents.
The village wept, and at the last moment Harluk declared that he would
not let his brothers go alone. He would travel with them to Point Hope,
guide them on their journey, and then come back to his wife and children.
Atchoo embraced him and bade him go, and Kroo came gravely forward to
Harry and made him an address in Eskimo that was quite flowery, and the
purport of which was that he wished Harry to become his brother, to which
Harry cheerfully assented, assuring him that he was the brother of them
all, and wrung his hand, thinking the matter was to end there.
Not so. Kroo took from his poke his ancient ivory pipe, carved from
a walrus tusk to represent the body and flukes of a whale, its stem
cunningly fashioned of whalebone. He held this toward the sun with one
hand, pointed at Harry with the other, and solemnly recited something
which sounded like poetry but which had few words which Harry could
understand. It seemed like an ancient ritual. Then he passed the pipe
to Harry and looked at him expectantly. Harry looked at Joe in some
dismay. He did not know what ceremony demanded of him in return. But the
ever resourceful Joe pulled from his own pocket a briarwood pipe with
imitation amber mouthpiece and German silver mountings, quite a pretty
pipe.
“That belongs to the mate,” he said, “but I guess he won’t mind. I found
it in the cabin one day, and it has been in my pocket ever since. Hurry
up, he’s looking anxious. Recite him something or other.”
Kroo was indeed looking anxious, and Harry hastened to imitate him so far
as he could. He held his pipe up to the sun, pointed at Kroo, and recited
with all the elocutionary power he could muster:—
“Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
And down she run,
Hickory, dickory, dock.”
He looked at Joe with nervous eye as he did this, but Joe was solemn as
a deacon, never moving a muscle. Kroo and the other villagers seemed
much impressed with the Mother Goose rhyme, no doubt thinking it an
incantation of much power, and the incident was happily ended with the
transfer of the pipe and another hearty handshake.
Thus they bade good-by to their friends, and with Harluk in the lead and
the dogs tugging at the loaded sled, took their way down the coast on
the ice. For the first few days travel was not difficult, and they made
good progress. They were inured to Arctic weather, and the mildness of
spring and the thought that they were headed toward home, even though
defeated and impoverished, filled them with exhilaration. In three days
they made something over sixty miles, taking them well below Point Lay
and promising an exceptionally quick trip. The Arctic pack was still
glued to the shore, and the travel over it was safe. After the third
night’s sleep, however, they found an unexpected obstacle. The river
known to the Eskimos as the Kukpowrak enters the sea here, flowing far
from the interior and flooded by the spring thaw, a rushing torrent. It
was impossible to ford this river, and its warmer waters had opened the
sea ice for a broad space as far out as the eye could see. It effectually
blocked their further passage. Harluk wished, Eskimo fashion, to sit
down by the bank of this river and wait till the snows were fully melted.
Then the floods would fall as suddenly as they had risen, and they would
be able to ford it.
“How long will that be?” asked Joe.
Harluk meditated, and then answered with the vague and irritating
“Ticharro pejuk.”
“Ten sleeps?” said Joe; “twenty sleeps?” but the answer was still
“Ticharro pejuk,” and it was evident that Harluk himself did not know. To
attempt to pass the river mouth on the ice was a doubtful thing at that
season. At any time a wind from the south might send the floes out to
sea, and those on them would be lost.
It was possible that by proceeding up river they might find an ice jam
on which they could cross, and after thinking the matter over for half a
day, Joe decided that it would be wise to go upstream for a considerable
distance in the hope of finding a passage. There was still snow in many
places on the banks, and they took advantage of this where possible.
In other places the sled did not go badly over the tundra moss, yet
travel was much slower than on the ice, and in thirty-six hours they had
hardly made fifteen miles. They found dwarf willows and alders, scarce
three feet high, plentiful along the banks of this river, and flocks of
ptarmigan in these so tame that they would not rise at a rifle-shot.
They killed many of these, and with plenty of willow wood for fire,
lived well. Yet it was anxious work, and, as they proceeded, much more
difficult; moreover, twenty miles from the coast they entered a height of
land, almost a mountain range, through which the river broke in a series
of falls. Here in three days’ struggle through ravines and up limestone
slopes they hardly made ten miles. At the top they found better going,
but here the river seemed to trend more to the east, and they had the
humiliation of working away from their destination in spite of their
labor.
“Confound it,” said Joe ruefully, as they camped late one afternoon,
“we’d have done better to start before it began to thaw at all. Then it
would be a straight trip on the ice and nothing to bother us but cold,
and that’s no great harm.”
“I don’t see much use in this,” replied Harry, weary and somewhat
discouraged. “We might follow up this river a hundred miles. Seems as if
we had gone most as far as that already, and still there is no chance to
cross. We’ll have to do as Harluk says, sit down and wait for the water
to run out.”
“I think we’ll camp here for a day,” said Joe. “The dogs are tired and so
am I. Besides, we are almost out of dog feed. If we watch out, we may get
a caribou. There were tracks back there. I’d like some deer meat myself.”
[Illustration: CAMP ON THE TUNDRA]
The northernmost deer of the American continent is the caribou, sometimes
called the American reindeer. He differs from the Asiatic reindeer
mainly in size and length of limb, the caribou being taller and larger.
Otherwise, physically, they are much alike, live on the same food, and
have the same general appearance. But while the Siberian deer is easily
domesticated and is bred and handled in vast herds by the natives, the
American type is wild and untamable. He loves the barren wastes of the
far north, and every summer migrates to the northernmost shores, even
passing on to the unexplored islands off the coast in the Arctic sea.
Here he roams and feeds until the fierce gales of winter drive him
south to the first shelter of the low clumps of firs and birches which
mark the limits of the barren grounds. Hardy, restless creatures, the
caribou often wander in immense herds, following a leader as sheep do.
The Eskimos hunt them in summer when they approach the Arctic shores, and
know their habits well, taking particular advantage of their curiosity.
The hunter sits down among the rocks when a herd is in sight and imitates
their hoarse bellow. Some of the herd will surely draw near to see what
this motionless object is. Round and round it they circle, approaching
nearer and nearer, until one is within reach of the hunter’s weapon.
Sometimes the herd will run the gauntlet of a line of hunters just
because one stupid animal has gone that way in his attempt to escape,
and the rest are determined to follow his lead. At such times the Eskimo
hunters lay in large stocks of meat and furs and consider themselves
wealthy, for the hide of the caribou makes splendid clothing for them.
It is very light and impenetrable to the wind, and no garment so
successfully resists the Arctic cold as this. The Eskimo uses the hide,
tanned, for thongs for nets and lines. A split shinbone makes a good
bone knife, and fish-hooks and spears are made from the horns, while the
tendons of certain muscles make fine and strong thread for sewing with
the bone needle. Hence, as with the walrus and seal, the whole animal is
utilized. The caribou has a great hoof, split nearly to the hock, which
spreads and enables the animal to travel in soft snow or boggy tundra,
where an ordinary deer would sink.
This hoof, too, is sharp, and gives the animal a firm footing on ice. It
is also a weapon of defense far more formidable than the horns. A blow
from it is like that of an axe, and woe to the hunter who comes within
reach of the fore hoofs of a wounded and desperate caribou. Thus shod the
caribou can travel faster on the ice than any other animal, and, when at
bay, can slay a wolf with one well-directed blow of its hoof. Yet the
animal is so stupid and timid that it rarely uses this weapon, and then
oftener in a blind struggle than with intent to do harm. Such are the
deer of the barren grounds, which Harluk and the two boys set forth to
hunt.
Harry and Joe had repeating rifles, but Harluk was armed only with his
ivory-headed spear, tipped with a triangular steel point. With this
in hand he led them, first, to a pinnacle of limestone, about three
miles away. The tundra was bare and brown, patched here and there with
snowdrifts, and undulating to the southward in a sort of rolling
prairie. Behind them and on either hand were the rough peaks of the
height of land which they had gained the day before,—a scene bare,
desolate, but fascinating, a bit of primeval chaos left over in the
making of the world. Standing on this summit, Harluk scanned the horizon
to the east and south, and finally pointed due east in silence. Joe and
Harry looked carefully. They saw slowly moving dots on the plain some
miles away. These had not been there a moment before. As they watched,
others appeared, as if out of the ground.
A herd of caribou was rounding a low hill at a swinging trot. By and by
there were perhaps forty in sight, traveling northwest at a quite rapid
rate, as if fleeing before something.
“Kile,” said Harluk, and putting his head down, he started north at a
good rate of speed, evidently bound on intercepting them. The Eskimo
is not a good runner, but he is persistent. Harluk plunged on, falling
over his own feet, but scrambling up again, leaving dents in the soft
tundra moss, and still keeping up the pace, which bade fair in the end
to wind Joe and Harry, until he reached a place that suited him in what
seemed to be the path of the advancing herd. It was a wide, shallow
valley between two low limestone hills. It was dotted here and there with
scattered boulders, and the ground was rough with broken rock chinked
with deer moss. Harluk placed the boys behind boulders at the extreme
right and left of this valley, and bade them wait motionless until deer
came near enough to shoot. He himself hastily built a little circular
inclosure of stone in which he could crouch unobserved.
A half hour passed, during which there was no sign. The sun was low,
and Harry shivered, sitting motionless in the chill of the valley. A
snow-bunting came flitting along and lighted fearlessly beside him, and
the next moment a great snowy owl swept over the ridge and down upon
the snow-bunting, which wriggled between Harry’s feet for protection.
The owl glared at him fiercely for a moment with great round eyes, then
slipped into the air again, and vanished down the valley. As Harry
watched him, he saw branching antlers, and a caribou came around the
curve, followed by more and more, feeding and wandering toward him.
He sat rigid, his eyes fixed upon them like a dog at the point. They
nibbled at the gray moss, unconscious of danger, but lifted their heads
and gazed in surprise as a most discordant bellow came from the circle
of stone where Harluk lay hidden. Their manner changed in a moment from
shambling and slouchy to alert, upheaded, and vigilant. They pawed the
earth and sniffed suspiciously, then began to move toward Harluk’s stone
fort. Their heads were high, their muzzles thrust forward, and they
trod with dainty alertness where before they had shambled. Out of the
tail of his eye Harry could see Harluk’s hand and fur-clad arm waving
grotesquely above the stones. It was this that had held the attention
of the herd and toward which their curiosity was leading them. Within
twenty minutes the whole herd were circling about the little inclosure of
stone, drawing nearer and nearer to the hand that waved above it. They
were within gunshot of either Harry or Joe now, but neither might shoot
lest he endanger Harluk. Moreover, neither boy had shot deer before, and
the sight of forty of these great creatures within gunshot had given both
the buck fever. Harry found himself shaking as with the palsy, and had an
almost irresistible desire to throw his gun in the air and halloo.
The deer were very near Harluk now, and his beckoning arm had shrunken to
the tip of his mitten, now lifted a little, then slowly withdrawn. The
deer fairly crowded forward to look for it. As their muzzles appeared
over the stones, Harluk leaped to his feet with a tremendous yell. The
effect was to paralyze the herd for a second. They stamped and snorted,
but stood firm while Harluk lunged with his spear full at the shoulder
of the nearest. The shaft went home, and the deer sank to the ground
transfixed to the heart. Immediately there was a tremendous stampede
among the deer. The stupid creatures rushed this way and that, colliding
with one another in a paroxysm of terror, then started down the valley
again in the direction whence they had come. In this sudden confusion a
caribou was knocked fairly from his feet, falling against Harluk from
behind and tripping him. He scrambled to his feet again with a rush and
carried Harluk clinging mechanically to his back, too surprised to do
anything else. As the herd clattered by, Harry saw Joe spring to his feet
and begin to jump up and down, wave his rifle in the air, and halloo. He
shouted to him to quit that and shoot, and then it came to him that he
was doing precisely the same thing, nor did he seem to be able to stop,
even when he was conscious of it, until the herd was well by him.
Such is the effect of the buck fever. In its delirium people are
sometimes conscious that they are acting absurdly, but do not have the
power to stop it.
By the time the herd was so far down the valley that it was nearly out of
gunshot, Harry and Joe had come to sufficiently to do some wild shooting.
This had no effect but to bring an equally wild yell from Harluk, who
rolled from his perch at the whistling of the bullets and abandoned his
quarry. Of the forty caribou among which they had been for a half hour
or more, they had secured but one. However, they had enough meat for the
present, and they divided up the animal and started back for the camp
with it on their shoulders.
They reached the spot where they had camped before the hunt, and stared
and rubbed their eyes with many exclamations of astonishment and alarm.
There was no trace of tent, sled, or dogs. All had vanished. They threw
down their burdens and looked at one another.
“Are you sure this is the place?” asked Harry.
In reply, Harluk nodded his head vehemently, and Joe pointed in silence
to the heavy stones they had used in place of tent-pegs. They still made
a quadrilateral which marked the spot, but there was nothing more.
“What are we going to do?” faltered Harry. For a moment he felt as if
the ghost people of the Nunatak were not so unreal after all. He thought
he saw the same feeling reflected in Harluk’s face, and the fantastic
loneliness of the country seemed to impress itself upon him more than
ever. It was like a bad dream, in which, all things being unreal, nothing
was too strange to happen.
Joe broke the spell with sturdy common sense. “I’ll tell you what we are
going to do,” he said. “Here’s deer meat in plenty, and I’ve got matches
in my pocket. We’re going to cook some venison and have a square meal.
Then we’ll hunt for tracks. I don’t believe anybody could get away with
that outfit without leaving a trail behind. You and Harluk cut some
steaks off that rump while I get wood.”
The two turned to the carcass of the deer, while Joe started down the
bank and round a jutting corner of cliff, toward some willow shrubs. As
he passed down along the side of the cliff, he had a strange feeling that
some one was looking sharply at him, and turned just in time to see a
face at his elbow,—the same evil, half-white face that he had seen in the
night at Icy Cape, when he was struck on the head with the piece of ice.
He gave a cry of astonishment and alarm, but was seized and tripped from
behind, and any further outcry stopped by a blanket being bound tightly
over his head. In spite of his struggles, he was effectually gagged,
bound, and carried behind a projection of the cliff.
Harry heard this cry of Joe’s, and answered it, thinking it was a call.
Then, getting no reply, he went on with his very simple preparations for
the meal. These done, he went in search of Joe. He could not see him
among the willows. He called and got no answer. The ghostly loneliness of
the Arctic came over him with telling force. Was Joe, too, to disappear
and leave no trace behind?
“Joe!” he shouted; “Joe!” and the cliffs across the Kukpowrak answered
with mocking echoes; that was all. Then he turned, and he, too, was
seized by three men, who had stealthily approached him from behind. He
was bound and silenced as Joe had been, but not before he had shouted
twice for Harluk at the top of his lungs.
One of the men who had captured him swore at this in good round English;
then, leaving one to guard Harry, two of them hastened to the camp with
rifles, but Harluk the wise had followed Harry empty handed, seen his
capture, fled back to the camp, and with both Joe’s and Harry’s rifles
was scurrying across the tundra in the direction of the sea, as fast as
his Eskimo legs could carry him. Fired upon, he dropped behind a boulder,
and pumped such a fusillade of shots back at his two would-be captors
that one of them dropped his rifle with a cry of pain, put his hand
to his leg, and went hopping off toward shelter in a hurry. The other
followed; but just before he reached safety he threw up his hands, and
plunged heavily forward on his face. Harluk’s last shot had caught him
under the left shoulder blade and passed through his heart.
The Eskimo gave a yell of triumph and defiance, and then fled on, with
his two rifles, over the ridge and out of sight; nor did the enemy make
any attempt to follow him. Had they done so, they might have seen that,
after he had placed a good safe distance behind him, he climbed the
highest peak near by, and sat there, motionless, watching for hours.
Then he carefully picked his way back, keeping in shelter as much as
possible, still clinging to his two rifles, one of which held a few
cartridges. The magazine of the other was full.
Of the party which had captured Joe and Harry, the evil-faced half-white
man, who had sworn in English, seemed to be the leader. He took his way
back to those who were guarding Joe and Harry, and bade them take the
gags from their mouths and the bonds from their feet. Harry no sooner
found his tongue free than he used it.
“Look here,” he sputtered; “what does this mean? Why have you attacked
us? We have done you no harm.”
The half-breed smiled an evil smile, and pointed at his eye. Harry
remembered the fight in the snow igloo, the blow with which he had closed
his opponent’s eye, and now he remembered the face.
“Bimeby plenty sorry,” the half-breed said. “No fire ghost come now.”
Harry and Joe were led back to the camping-spot. There lay the body of
the dead; and as the half-breed looked at it he scowled and looked at
his own roughly bandaged limb, which caused him to limp painfully. He
pointed at the corpse and then at the two prisoners.
“One dead now,” he said; “bimeby two dead.” Then he laughed a mirthless
laugh.
Strongly guarded by five fierce-looking outlaws with rifles, there was
no reasonable chance of escape, even when the lashings were taken from
their hands as well, and the two boys submitted to being loaded with
the venison they had shot, and marched on up river. A quarter of a
mile away they found their dog team harnessed into the sled and their
belongings securely packed upon it, guarded by a single outlaw. Here,
too, was another team of four dogs and a sled, and traces of several
days’ camping. It was evident that in coming up the Kukpowrak they had
marched right into the camp of the outlaw Ankuts who had personated the
ghost wolves, and whom they, with the lucky aid of their impromptu fire
spirit, had so signally defeated. Now the tables were turned; but they
were totally unprepared for the further surprise that was in store for
them. That was to come many days afterward, however.
The Ankuts cooked venison here and made a meal. The chief outlaw bound up
his wound more carefully, and though it was slight, insisted on riding
as they went on up river. This overweighted the sleds, and the boys were
forced to shoulder part of the load. Indeed, they soon found that, though
they were not treated harshly, their position was much that of slaves,
and they were so closely watched that escape seemed impossible without
great risk of being shot down in the attempt. Thus for two days they
followed the course of the Kukpowrak, then they bore off to the left
across a nearly level table-land a day’s journey.
There was no sign of human being on this three days’ march; bare tundra
and gray limestone or blue slate rocks made the scene one of peculiar
desolation, yet, though neither the highbinders nor the boys knew it,
a solitary figure kept watch of all their movements and was never far
behind them. All the savage hunter had been roused in Harluk, and he
trailed the band with the vindictive persistency of an Apache brave. He
lived on an occasional ground squirrel or small bird knocked over among
scrub willows, and kept his precious ammunition for more deadly use. It
had been well for the highbinders if they had reckoned more carefully
with Harluk. He had seen his comrade Konwa dead. He had seen one of the
enemy fall by his own hand. Henceforward the gentle and timid Eskimo was
changed into a bold, aggressive, cunning, and bloodthirsty fighting man.
The highbinders were to hear from Harluk again.
At the end of the third day’s journey they came to a scene of wild and
singular beauty. The table-land opened out into an oval valley rimmed at
the further end with abrupt, sharp-pointed hills, at the base of which
another river flowed northward. This valley, to the surprise of the boys,
seemed a bit out of another world. In it was no snow, and the grass was
already tall. Moreover, there the willows grew to a much greater height
than elsewhere, and were already pale green with young leaves. Compared
with the gray, bare, Arctic desolation through which they had traveled,
it was like a bit of paradise.
Harry, tired out and discouraged, groaned at the sight of this beauty
spot. “What’s the matter with you?” asked Joe.
“It makes me homesick,” said Harry. “It reminds me of the marshes down by
the Fore River in early May. It’s like home.”
“Well, I guess it’s likely to be home for us for a while,” said
Joe philosophically. “It looks as if the highbinders made it their
headquarters. See all the igloos down there, and the people, too!”
They noted many good sized stone igloos, chinked with deer moss, at their
right as they wound down into the valley, and a small stream, which
seemed to issue from the ground near by. It seemed as if little clouds of
steam rose from this stream, especially at its source, and at sight of
it Joe gave an exclamation of appreciation. “I know about this now,” he
said; “it’s one of those hot springs I’ve heard the Eskimos tell about as
being inland here. That is why the willows are so tall and everything so
forward. It keeps the place warmed up the year round.”
But it was little of the brightness and beauty of this little
warm-weather oasis in the bleak surroundings that the boys were to see.
They were ordered to drop their burdens on reaching the igloos, and
presently conducted to one of the strongest built and least prepossessing
of them. Once within this, the low entrance was blocked with stone and
they were left to themselves.
CHAPTER X
“THE FEAST OF THE OLD SEAL’S HEAD”
The igloo in which Joe and Harry were confined was unlighted except by
sundry chinks in the stones through which rays of light pierced the
gloom. These showed, as soon as their eyes had become accustomed to the
semi-darkness, the customary raised bench at one side covered with some
ancient deerskins for a couch, a stone blubber lamp, a stone fireplace in
the centre, where charred willow twigs showed that some one had once used
it, and nothing more. Yet so weary were the boys with their day’s toil
that they threw themselves on this questionable couch and soon slept the
sleep of utter fatigue. Some hours later they roused refreshed, and were
greeted by a cautious “’St! ’st!” from the blocked entrance. Stepping
quickly there, Joe, saw through an opening in the stones a good-natured
Eskimo face that lighted up with a smile at sight of him.
“Here,” it said in Eskimo. “Plenty eat. By and by have trouble.”
A fur-clad arm thrust what looked to be a bundle of grass through the
aperture in the stones, and the Eskimo hurried away. Joe opened this
bundle and found in it several small white fish, just warm from the fire
and cooked without salt, yet appetizing to the hungry boys, who made a
meal of them forthwith. Nevertheless, though it was evident that they had
a friend, his words were far from reassuring, and the boys speculated
much as to what was to happen to them. Through the chinks in their rough
stone prison they managed to see a good deal that was going on in the
little village, and it did not take them long to guess something of
its ways of life. It was evident that it was a highbinder stronghold,
and that a band of a dozen or so of these marauders lorded it over the
rest of the community, which seemed to consist of a dozen more Eskimos,
one or two men, but mainly women and boys and girls. They saw these
latter bring fish from the river and firewood from along its banks,
one or two women cooking, boys and girls doing menial service at the
bidding of the Ankuts, who stalked among them with airs of superiority
that were comical. Not so comical was their brutality to their youthful
slaves, whom they did not hesitate to strike or kick brutally at
little provocation. These seemed to be in a state of abject submission
to their oppressors, and the sight made the blood of the boys hot with
indignation, not unmixed with apprehension as to their own treatment
in the near future. They discussed the situation, and tried to make
plans for an escape, but it did not seem that this could be attempted
immediately. To get out of their stone prison would be an easy matter,
but once free, the chances of further escape from among the band of
well-armed men who surrounded them would be slight, indeed. They must
wait a more favorable opportunity, reserving the chances of a dash for a
last resort.
As they talked and watched, they heard low moans of pain that came from
a near-by igloo, and a wail of “Ah-nu-_nah_! Ah-nu-_nah_!” (Sick! Sick!)
This was repeated at intervals and seemed to grow louder. By and by a boy
issued from this igloo and went with seeming reluctance to another one
some distance away, whence he issued with one of the Ankuts. The two came
back to the first igloo, and the wizard took up his position in the open
space directly in front of it. This was in plain view of the boys, and
they watched further proceedings with much interest.
Soon the Eskimo boy appeared again, bringing a couple of white fox skins.
These he laid at the feet of the wizard, who regarded them contemptuously
for a moment and then spurned them with his foot. The boy retired again,
and after a longer time reappeared with several small ermine pelts. These
he added to the fox skins and waited. The wizard shook his head, but the
boy also shook his despondently, saying “Naume” (No more).
This seemed to satisfy the wizard that he was receiving all that he
could get in payment for his services, and he finally picked up the
pelts and laid them behind him. The boy reentered the igloo and came
out leading an old woman, whose wails of “Ah-nu-_nah_!” were louder as
they reached the spot where stood the wizard. She pressed both hands to
her head, as if that were in great pain, and crouched before the Ankut,
who was immediately transformed from an immobile and haughty personage
into a sort of wild skirt dancer. He whirled about the old woman in a
circle, and from his clothes somewhere appeared a couple of great knives
with which he juggled in an astonishing manner, tossing and catching
them deftly, and surrounding himself with a circle of flashing steel.
Harry gave an exclamation of astonishment at this. It was so little
like the clumsy and awkward manner of the every-day Eskimo. A crowd of
people had surrounded the group, and gazed with wonder and awe on this
performance, scattering like leaves in the wind when the dancing juggler
of knives swung too near them. The wizard soon began to howl and clap
his hands to his own head, still in some mysterious manner keeping the
knives whirling. The sick woman had forgotten her own pain in wonder
at this exhibition, and sat mute and open-mouthed. Suddenly the wizard
shouted, “Come out, spirit! Leave the woman’s head and come out!” He
whirled up to the side of the sick woman before she could recover from
her astonishment, slipped one of the knives out of sight again in his own
clothes and with the other made a slash that cut deep into her temple,
and pretended to draw something from the wound. This he held up in the
sight of the surrounding crowd.
It was a curious, brown, many-legged worm, such as are found in rotten
wood, and which no doubt infest the tundra moss, or might have been
obtained from driftwood from the sources of the Kukpowrak, which has its
rise far inland in the timber line. The crowd murmured with astonishment
at this, the wizard retired to his igloo with his fox and ermine pelts,
and only the boy remained, sitting in stolid grief beside the old woman,
who lay where she had dropped at the slash of the knife. It had cut
deeper than the wizard perhaps intended. Certainly he had cured her
headache, for she was dead.
The barbarous cruelties of the Ankuts, in their attempts to deal with
the sick, are beyond description, and the boys had seen only one of the
least, but they turned away, sick at heart, and willing to believe that
the little oasis in the midst of the barren wastes was anything but an
Eden to those who must live there under the cruel rule of the pretended
wizards.
It seemed, however, that they were soon to be released from their
confinement. When they again looked out, they saw that the body of the
old woman had been removed, and there was a considerable stir among the
inhabitants of the little village. In the open within the circle of
igloos sat the Ankuts, cross-legged, each with a rifle in his lap and
a big knife at his hand. About them, at a respectful distance, stood
the others of the community: two men, dejected and spiritless looking
chaps, among whom Joe thought he recognized his friend of the fishes,
three women, and six or seven boys and girls. All had the indifferent
and apathetic air of slaves, which they were. As they looked, the boys
saw two of the Ankuts approaching, and a moment after the stones which
blocked the entrance of their prison were removed and they were bidden to
come out. The two Ankuts marched them to the circle and stood by them.
Harry had a singular feeling of weakness in the knees in this march, a
wild desire to put out across the hills at top speed coupled with this
feeling that his legs might give way under him at any moment. Somehow
he had not feared these men before, but now things looked ominous. He
glanced at Joe, who was watching him narrowly. Joe walked erect and
defiant.
“Whatever you do,” said Joe, “don’t let them see that you are afraid of
them. Put on a bold front; it may help us.”
So Harry braced himself and tried to get the limp feeling out of his
knees, and hoped he succeeded in looking brave and cool. It was evident
that they were before a sort of self-constituted board of judges. The
evil-faced half-breed seemed to be the head of these, at once chief judge
and prosecuting attorney. He spoke somewhat at length, always referring
to Harry and Joe as “our white brothers.” He told of their interference
between the Eskimos at Icy Cape and the “ghost wolves of the Nunatak.”
Such interference with the Nunatak people, who were the fathers of
wizards, he explained, was deserving of punishment. He told how the two
had battled with the Ankuts in the snow igloo and outside, that night.
How they had driven them away with fire spirits, robbed them of their
bearskins, and otherwise ill-treated them. Such actions were deserving
of punishment. He told how one of their comrades had fallen before the
rifle of Harluk when the Ankuts had captured the two. For this also, he
argued, they were deserving of punishment. The slayer of the Ankut was
not there. Then these, his friends, must answer for his misdeed. This is
the barbarous idea of atonement the world over.
To all these statements the other Ankuts solemnly wagged their heads and
chorused: “It is so.” Especially were they vigorous in their wagging when
the half-breed said: “They are deserving of punishment.”
“And yet,” continued the half-breed with a malicious smile, “the white
men are our brothers. They, too, are wizards. They work with spirits of
fire, and they rob the Innuit, the people, even as we do.”
“It is not so,” broke in Joe fiercely. “We do not rob the people.
Instead, we trade with them, and give them good things in exchange. We
are the friends of the people, as you well know. We are truly their
brothers, as you call us in derision. But have a care. The white men are
very many. They are more than the grass in summer in number. They are
very wise, and can see far. Have a care how you punish us. The great
chief of the white men will know of it, and will send his thunder ships
to punish you, if you do us harm. If you do not set us free, there shall
be no more Ankuts among the tribes. The great white chief will see to
that.”
Thus spake Joe, indignantly and fearlessly. Harry thought him very
handsome as he stood erect and thus poured out defiance at his armed
enemies; but he could not help wondering what the effect would be and
whether such talk was wise. He was surprised to see the apparent change
in attitude of the Ankuts after it was made. They looked at one another
in silence. Then the half-breed spoke again.
“What my white brother says may be true. Yet the white chief is a long
way off, and the Ankuts are very near, if they choose to punish. Still, a
feast is better than a fight. What say you?” he said to the other Ankuts,
looking from one to another with his evil smile still on his face. “Shall
our white brothers suffer punishment, or shall we bid them to a feast?”
The same smile seemed to run around the circle of Ankut faces, and they
all wagged their heads vigorously. “It shall be a feast!” they affirmed
in unison, and there was something sinister in their satisfaction in this
change of programme.
Harry poked Joe with his elbow. “Great Scott!” he said in a low tone,
“but we are pulling out of this in great luck.”
His knees ceased to feel weak under him, and he had great admiration for
Joe’s boldness, which had seemingly brought this happy change about. But
Joe did not altogether share his delight.
“I don’t know about this,” he replied in an equal undertone. “They don’t
look very feasty.”
It was a fact that they did not, nor did the listening drudges who stood
outside the circle. A certain wide-eyed horror seemed to pierce their
stolidity and apathy, and their faces, as they looked at the boys, showed
it. The two wizards who had brought them out conducted them back to the
igloo with much ceremony.
“Our brothers will rest here,” they said, “while the feast is prepared
for them. It will be a great feast,—and there will be nothing but the
bones left when it is over.”
Joe and Harry entered the igloo and sat down on the bench. The doorway
was not blocked again, but the two Ankuts stood just outside, rifle in
hand, as if on guard. A little later one of the Eskimo servants appeared
bearing on a flat slate stone the head of an old seal. This he placed on
the floor in the middle of the igloo, looking appealingly at the boys,
but hastening away without a word. Then two Ankuts appeared, each leading
by the leash three heavy-chested, wide-jawed dogs that snarled and fought
one another as they came. These six dogs were hurriedly released at the
igloo door and driven in. Then the Ankuts again blocked the entrance
with the heavy, flat slate stones, making it much more secure than
before; so secure, in fact, that escape from within would be well-nigh
impossible. Then one of them cried out in a loud, jeering voice:—
“This is the feast, O white men, to which you are bidden,—the feast of
the old seal’s head. Eat and be merry,—and there shall be nothing but
bones left.”
The sound of retreating footsteps was drowned in the snarling and
scrambling of the six wolf dogs, already fighting in a blurred mass in
the centre of the igloo over the old seal’s head.
The Eskimo wolf dog that one sees in Arctic Alaska is quite different
from the Eskimo dog of the Yukon and the lower mining camps on the great
northwest possession. The latter are more often mongrels, interbred
with all sorts of dogs from civilization, and lack much of the robust
fierceness of the Arctic type. On the desolate northern shores the pure
type is much like the gray wolf, and is no doubt a descendant from him,
sometimes intermixed with latter-day blood from the same source. Indeed,
it used to be no uncommon thing in the Eskimo villages to see a captured
wolf tied to a stake in the village and used for breeding purposes. The
usual color is a dingy gray black; sometimes almost pure black, as is
the occasional wolf. These dogs are large, very agile, and have a jaw
that is full of great teeth and as strong as iron. Ordinarily, when well
fed, they are not vicious; oftentimes they are even frolicsome, like
the civilized dog; yet such is the strength of their iron jaws that
even a playful nip from them is a serious matter, and hence the Eskimos
never encourage them to sportiveness. Neither do white men who have once
experienced a grip from those jaws. Their wolf blood, while making them
hardy and strong, gives them an understrain of fierceness which is apt
to make them dangerous neighbors, especially when hungry. Their fights
among themselves are tremendous and bloody, and at such times a man who
would separate them must enter the combat armed with a heavy weapon
capable of laying one out at a blow. Otherwise his own life is in danger.
It was six magnificent specimens of this type that were walled into the
igloo with the boys and were already battling fiercely at the feast of
the old seal’s head. Purposely left unfed since the boys arrived, they
were in a ferocious mood. Joe and Harry drew together and tried hard
to make themselves very small against the wall at the farthest corner
of the igloo. As yet the dogs paid no attention to them, and after the
seal skull had been well polished and the battle subsided, they still
were unmolested. Yet the intent of their captors was evident. Such is the
cruel custom that has come down in the traditions of the Ankuts of Eskimo
land from time immemorial. The enemy of the wizards is put to the feast
of the old seal’s head. If he survives, he, too, is a wizard, and wins
the equal respect of the tribe. If he is not a wizard, in very truth,
his polished bones are all that remain when the igloo is opened and the
famished wolf dogs are taken out.
Harry had felt fear and discouragement before in the midst of his strange
adventures in this strange land, yet never had terror possessed him so
completely as now. In the gloom of the igloo he could see the glare of
the eyes of the savage creatures as they crouched on the floor, half
lazily, yet half ready for a spring, and he expected every moment that
one would attack him. This he well knew would be the signal for a rush
from them all, for the instinct of the wolf pack is strong even in the
most docile Eskimo dog, and when one fights they all do. He could feel
the quiver of Joe’s elbow where it touched his as they shrank to the
igloo wall side by side, and knew that his consciousness of the danger
was equal to his own. Yet though filled with a dumb terror of what was to
come, neither lost his self-control. Their hardy, independent life, the
dangers and disasters which they had already faced, had bred in each the
courage of strong men, the self-reliance of pioneers, and, though their
case was desperate, neither was willing to think that it was hopeless.
Quietly Joe was feeling with one hand along the rough stones of their
prison. By and by he found something, and passed it over to Harry without
a word. It was a long, angular piece of the slaty rock, something like a
rude stone hatchet. Such a weapon might save a man’s life. Yet it could
save but one. The man who wielded it might escape in the mêlée which was
liable to come at any moment. It was a slim chance, but it was all there
was. The weaponless man would be torn to pieces. Harry felt the devotion
and courageous self-sacrifice which could make this priceless gift to a
friend at such a moment, and his heart swelled within him as he clasped
Joe’s hand in the dim light. He tried not to take this rude weapon, but
Joe pressed it on him, and after a little he consented, mentally resolved
that he would wield it in Joe’s defense in preference to his own. It is
such deeds and such resolves that try the temper of men’s souls and prove
them truly noble.
Time passed, how slowly only those who have faced similar terrors can
tell. Moments seemed to stretch out into hours that in turn became an
eternity. It seemed to Harry as if he were growing numb with waiting, and
he had wild thoughts of forcing the attack with his primitive weapon.
He even suggested it to Joe, who promptly vetoed the idea. Their low
voices seemed to rouse the dogs and make them more uneasy, and they said
no more. By and by, in the passing of what seemed weeks, they began to
hear sounds from outside. It was a low murmuring, which grew louder into
sounds of hilarity. There seemed to be shouts and laughter and the rude
music of tom-toms. The Ankuts were feasting in celebration of the cruel
death which they thought might be already coming to their enemies. About
this time both pricked up their ears with a vague feeling of hope.
Somebody or something was scratching and working at the wall of the igloo
outside,—the wall directly behind them and toward the low bluffs that
rimmed the little valley. The change from dull expectation of calamity
to a thought of hope sent a thrill of energy through each. Yet there was
renewed danger in it, too, for the sound roused the wolf dogs, and made
them more restless. They began to growl and move uneasily about. It was
an ominous moment. Then there was the scraping of a stone, and a bar of
light shone into the gloom of the igloo, bringing with it a voice,—the
voice of Harluk. It was tremulous with excitement and apprehension.
“Oh, my brothers,” it cried, “are you there?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Joe. “Quick! Something to fight with.”
The need was indeed great, for the six wolf dogs were already crouching
and snarling. Another moment would bring the conflict which they so
feared. Quick as a wink Harluk’s hand was thrust through the aperture
with his sheevee, his long knife, in it. Joe snatched this with a cry of
delight. It was long, heavy, and keen,—an admirable weapon for a fight to
the death at close quarters. The flash of this knife in their faces had
its effect on the pack. They drew back and hesitated. In their lives they
had learned well the prowess of a man with a weapon in his hands; and the
wolf dog of the tribes is as wise as he is fearless.
Joe took a single step, coolly, toward them. “Help Harluk,” he said
briefly to Harry; “I’ll keep these devils at bay. But for God’s sake,
hurry!”
There was no need of this admonition. Harluk and Harry pried and tugged
desperately at the stones. They came slowly, but surely. The pack were
bounding over one another now on the far side of the igloo, lashing
themselves into a fury of onslaught.
“Quick, my brothers!” cried Harluk. “It is big enough.”
Harry looked at Joe. Moments were precious, yet still the pack hesitated,
awed partly by the flash of the big knife, partly by his cool and
constant gaze. “Go!” cried Joe. “I’ll follow you.”
Harry plunged through the narrow opening with a great thrill of delight
as he felt himself in the outer air. As he disappeared from the igloo,
the pack surged forward, but Joe had been waiting for this. He met the
foremost with a reach of the long knife full in the breast. With a howl
of pain that was his death cry, the brute turned, biting the animal next
to him in his agony, and starting a fight among themselves, which took
their attention from Joe for a moment. Deftly and quickly he backed
through the opening, keeping his eye upon the whirling pack, and holding
the bloody knife still in readiness for instant use. A moment and he was
safe outside, where he found Harluk and Harry, each with a rifle cocked
and ready in his defense.
Without a word Harluk passed his rifle to Joe and hurriedly thrust the
stones back into the wall of the igloo, shutting in the struggling and
bloody pack. They were safe from this danger, but outside a new one
menaced them. The hilarity among the dozen well-armed Ankuts was rapidly
approaching a state of frenzy. A chief item of their feast was a peculiar
liquor made by steeping toadstools in water, which produces what is
known to the whalers as a “toadstool drunk.” This potion first induces
an ordinary sort of intoxication, but this soon passes into a sort of
fury, in which its victims seem possessed with a demoniacal strength and
ferocity. Under its influence the Ankuts were far more to be feared than
before. Hiding behind the igloo, the three watched them carefully. As yet
they had no suspicion that their prisoners were escaping, and after a
little Harluk touched each of his friends. “Come,” he said quietly, and
they followed where he led.
To make the situation clear, we must go back to Harluk’s previous
movements. He had followed the band of Ankuts warily on their way to the
stronghold with their prisoners. Not once had he lost sight of them, not
once had they suspected that he followed. He had not been sure, however,
in which igloo the boys were confined until he had seen them taken out
for the trial and then escorted again to the prison. He had seen the
wolf dogs shut in with them, and knew that he must act at once if he
would rescue them. The beginning of the Ankut feast had favored this,
as well as the lay of the land. From the low bluffs a narrow ridge ran
down nearly to the igloo. This gave him shelter in his approach, and it
was behind this that he led the boys away from the igloo, but only for
a little way. Then, still sheltered by the intervening rise of ground,
he turned and led them down to the bank of the stream of warm water,
just where it emptied into the larger river. Here was an umiak, turned
bottom side up on the bank, with a couple of paddles beside it. As they
stooped to lift this umiak into the water, there was a wild howl from the
direction of the village.
“Hurry, my brothers!” cried Harluk; “they are coming.”
There was now a tremendous uproar, and the Ankuts were seen tearing down
the slope toward them at full speed. They hurriedly pushed off, and Joe
and Harluk seized paddles and sent the light boat spinning out into the
stream. There was the sound of shots and the spattering of bullets around
them as they did so. The Ankuts had opened fire. Harry reached for a
rifle and Joe nodded to him.
“See if you can’t stop some of that,” he said. “Plug that white-faced
one, if you can.”
Harry hesitated a second. He had never before attempted the life of a
fellow creature. Then something stung his left arm. One of the Eskimo
shots had grazed him. His hesitation vanished in a second, and he fired
coolly at the foremost Ankut. The man stumbled and fell headlong.
“Good!” cried Joe. “You poked him. Give ’em another.”
Again Harry fired, and another Ankut spun round like a top and rolled in
a heap. Had not the toadstool poison been working in the Ankut veins,
they would have been more cautious, and it would no doubt have gone hard
with the three, but in their drunken frenzy the wizards came right on,
firing a wild fusillade and yelling at the top of their lungs. They ran
faster than Joe and Harluk could paddle, and drew steadily nearer. Two
shots pierced the skin boat, and the water began to come into it. Joe
laid down his paddle and took up the other rifle.
“We’ll fight it out right here,” he said.
The interchange of shots grew more rapid. Two more Ankuts fell, and even
their crazy ferocity began to waver before so well-directed a fire. The
umiak was a third full of water now, and Harluk turned its prow back
toward the shore. There was an ugly gleam in Harluk’s eye, and he gritted
his strong white teeth together, and now and then snapped them as a
dog might. The Ankuts hesitated and stopped. Then an unexpected thing
happened. Two shots came from behind them, and a fifth wizard sank to the
ground.
“Nagouruk!” yelled Harluk, in his own language. “Kill some more; I come!”
The two Eskimo men whom Harry and Joe had seen treated as slaves had
slipped up to the dead Ankuts, taken their rifles, and joined the fray.
The Ankuts were bewildered. Drunk as they were, they realized that the
tide was turned against them. Five of their number were already dead, and
shots were coming upon them from seemingly all sides. They wavered. The
bow of the umiak struck the bank and Harluk, with a yell, sprang from it
and ran toward the wizards. His big knife flashed in his hand, and he
yelled in a berserker rage. The stumbling, shambling run of the coast
native was no longer his. He seemed to bound like a panther toward his
prey. The apotheosis of the timid Eskimo had come, and he was a barbaric
war god, glorying in the fray.
Cowards always at heart, the Ankuts turned and fled across the tundra
toward the hills, pursued by shots from Joe’s and Harry’s rifles and
those of the two village Eskimos. All but the white-faced half-breed.
He stood his ground and reserved his fire as Harluk approached. His lip
curled in that evil smile, and he leveled his rifle coolly. Harluk was
face to face with doom.
Yet he never hesitated, but leaped on, shouting his defiance and
swinging the big knife, yet red with the blood of the wolf dog. At ten
feet the half-breed pressed the trigger. Surely Harluk’s amulet was
potent that day, for the cartridge failed to explode. The half-breed
cursed, snatched at the lever, then cursed again, for that, too, failed
to work. The cartridge was jammed. Then he clubbed the rifle and swung it
full at Harluk’s head. The Eskimo yelled derisively, ducked, and sent the
big knife home to the heart of the chief of the Ankuts. His blood mingled
with that of the wolf dog that had been less fierce and vindictive than
he.
A moment Harluk stood over him with the dripping knife in hand, then
turned with Joe and Harry to the pursuit of the other Ankuts; but fear
added to their toadstool frenzy lent them speed, and they disappeared
over the hills, plunging through the soft tundra moss. The battle was
over.
Harry sat down on the battlefield, feeling faint and sick. The horror
of carnage was on him. True, they had fought in self-defense, and the
Ankuts richly deserved death, yet the sight of men slain with his own
hand filled him with remorse, and he felt for a time that his own safety
was dearly bought. The sting in his arm, unnoticed during the excitement
of the battle, came back and turned his thoughts away from this after a
moment. He examined it. The Ankut bullet had cut a slit in the fleshy
part and passed on, doing little damage. He bandaged it as best he could,
and, though Joe was solicitous, declared it was nothing.
The Eskimos came flocking about, and their gratitude at their deliverance
was so great that he felt better. After all, great good had surely come
to these poor people, and he felt that the traditions of his nation
justified a war of emancipation. That was the way Joe put it, and he was
no doubt right. They buried the dead wizards in the unfrozen earth, not
far from the hot spring, and then ate a hearty meal, prepared for them by
the grateful Eskimo women.
Not until then did they remember the wolf dogs shut up in what had been
their prison. Harluk and the two Eskimo men released them from the igloo,
nor did they, at Joe’s orders, attempt to either harm or tie them up.
He said that he had no wish for revenge on them, but he did not care to
have such animals around, and in this Harry agreed with him. Some time
afterward the two Eskimos reported to Joe that the other dogs had also
vanished. No doubt they had joined the fugitives, and the dominant wolf
blood would again make a wild pack of them. It was really a serious
matter, but somehow the boys did not care. They found the presence of an
Eskimo dog of any sort very distasteful to them.
For some days they waited in the Ankut stronghold, keeping watch lest
the enemy return, but seeing no signs of them. Harluk declared that they
probably would not. They had received such a trouncing, and the odds
were so much against them, that they would no doubt go on either to
some other outlaw rendezvous, or else take up peaceful life with some
Eskimo community for a while. This is the way of the defeated Ankut.
And now, rested and recuperated, the problem of further action came up,
and was discussed in a council of the whole. To travel across the fast
softening tundra toward Point Hope, without dogs, was a difficult, if
not impossible, matter, and they decided not to try it. By this time
the ice must be out of the sea, and there was a chance of a ship. Their
wisest course would be to proceed again to the coast. This would not be
difficult. There were two umiaks at the village. They patched the one
riddled by Ankut bullets, and, loading their belongings into the two, the
whole community set gayly forth downstream. To the Eskimos who had been
held in subjection it was a happy deliverance, and their gentle natures
brightened up wonderfully at the thought of escape. They would not allow
either the boys or Harluk to do any work. They paddled, prepared meals,
made camp, and showed their gratitude in a hundred ways, till they bade
fair to spoil their deliverers.
CHAPTER XI
“THE VILLAGE WHERE NO ONE LIVES”
The sudden summer was upon the Arctic, and in the days that followed the
boys, in spite of their homesickness and anxiety in regard to the future,
reveled in it. The tundra grew green, and seemed almost in a night to be
spangled with countless flowers. Once, at camp, Joe wandered back into a
grassy meadow, and found Harry there before him. Tears were running down
his cheeks, but they were happy tears.
“Look, Joe!” he cried. “Come and see our old friend here. Oh, how good it
is!”
The meadow was blue in patches with myosotis,—forget-me-nots,—and among
them a yellow bumble-bee was buzzing and bustling in busy way, just
as contentedly fussy and self-important as he would have been among
the buttercups two thousand miles south. Down on his knees beside this
messenger went Joe, with tears in his own eyes and thoughts of the
Nantucket meadows of his childhood.
“And oh!” cried Joe. “Here’s another one. See!” This other one was a
little brown butterfly that flitted gayly along in the warm breeze. Thus
the two worshiped these spirits of sunshine, translated to their desolate
northern wilderness for its brief summer festival. The snow-buntings and
Arctic sparrows, already happy with nests and eggs, sang rapturously,
and the ground squirrels sat at the mouths of their burrows and wrinkled
their rat-like noses at the voyagers. It was a happy season, coming so
soon after struggle, death, and disaster. The Eskimo boys and girls had
lost that look of stolid misery which their life under the rule of the
highbinders had given them, and blossomed into joyous, playful children.
Even the river seemed to dance and dimple along its shallows.
Perhaps the daintiest spirit, the most chastely exquisite creature of
the whole Arctic summer, is the little bird known to the naturalists as
the hyperborean snowflake. Verily, a snowflake it is as it flits through
the rosy glow of misty mornings over the tundra bog so richly carpeted
with purple, yellow, and white. Here, in a fairy garden, grow the purple
primrose, the golden cowslip, and the white-cupped dryas, and here
flits and sings its dainty song the snowflake bird. Its plumage is as
pure as a newly opened lily, the spotless white showing more perfectly
by contrast with the jet-black bill and wing tips. At the edge of its
snowy tail are two black dots. All else is a fluttering flake of purest
snow, and it seemed to the boys as if in it summer had transformed the
frost-flakes into a living, breathing spirit of melody.
Thus for many days they glided along the placid shallows of this winding
river, content in freedom, sunshine, and bits of summer, that reminded
them of home. Yet by and by Harry became uneasy.
“Joe,” he said one day, “it seems to me we have traveled far enough to
reach the sea. Where do you suppose this river empties? Its course winds
so that it is hard to say just which way it carries us, though, to be
sure, the general direction is northerly, but don’t you think it is
pretty well to the east of north?”
“That’s what is worrying me,” confessed Joe. “In the nature of things we
must come out north of our old camp at Icy Cape, but I had hoped for no
great distance north of that. Yet no man knows what river’s headwaters
we struck. I hope it is not the Colville. That would land us a couple of
hundred miles to the east of Point Barrow, and unless we had phenomenal
luck we’d have to winter up here again.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” cried Harry hotly. “I’d sooner turn and tramp south
across the tundra. We’d at least be headed toward home, and every mile we
made would be sure gain.”
Thus anxiety came to them again, and they began to watch with care the
general direction in which they were floating. It proved to be, as near
as they could guess, northeast.
“This won’t do,” said Joe, “northeast is the trend of the coast up here;
we’re not getting much nearer the sea. However, we’ll hold on a few days
longer.”
Neither Harluk nor the other Eskimos could help their knowledge of the
river. The Eskimo knows the coast well and the streams for a few miles
back of it. Beyond that, except in particular instances, the land is
unknown to him. After another week, and just as they were about decided
to camp and make a land reconnoissance to the westward, their stream
took a turn to the northwest and they paddled on merrily. The course lay
through low bluffs that bordered the river on either hand, and in these
bluffs, one day, Harry noted strata of dark stone. They landed, out of
curiosity, and examined these black veins.
“Why, it’s coal!” exclaimed Harry in astonishment; and so it was,—a sort
of semi-bituminous coal that is not so very different from cannel coal.
The low bluffs were full of it in veins varying from a few inches wide to
eight or ten feet. There was enough coal in sight to supply a city, with
the promise of countless thousand tons in the veins beneath the surface.
“Coal,” he explained to Harluk and the other Eskimos who had gathered
about them, much interested by their enthusiasm, “to burn, makes fire,
like wood.”
At this the men of the ice shook their heads incredulously. It was time
for the midday meal, and Harry essayed to show them that he was right. He
built a good fire of willow wood and piled bits of the black stones on
it, but it would not ignite that way, and his Eskimo friends wagged their
heads and murmured “Kukowillow,” which is an Eskimo word which may be
freely translated “big fool.” Here Joe came to his rescue. He carefully
built a cylindrical oven of the larger blocks that had fallen from the
bluff, and started a snapping wood fire in it. Little by little he added
fine coal to this, and was soon gratified to find it ignited. The Eskimos
looked on, with smiling incredulity at first, then with wonder, but as
the fire grew and began to consume the oven itself, they calmly withdrew
from the burning black stones. It was magic, and the stones did not
really burn. Joe had only made them think so. Harluk knew he was a great
wizard. He had seen his performances at Icy Cape, and this was another
one. It was all very well for wizards to burn stones, but the Eskimos
knew better than to try it.
This was the Eskimo solution of the matter. The coal measures of northern
Alaska extend from the coast near Cape Lisburne eastward far into the
interior. The rivers that run to the sea cut through them and expose vast
quantities of the precious fuel. On the seashore at Cape Sabine the coal
falls from the bluffs under the action of the frost, and may be picked
up by the ton. With a little ingenuity this coal may be made to burn
and give heat even by very primitive methods, yet the tribes freeze,
and eat uncooked food, with these vast reservoirs of warmth untouched
beneath their feet. They have seen it burn in the stoves and under the
boilers of the whaleships, yet they take no advantage of it. Some have
tried to burn it in the open, and failing, were convinced that only the
white man’s magic could make use of it. Others have found heat enough in
blubber and driftwood or willow twigs, and do not care to try to utilize
the more difficult fuel.
Some days later, they found their little river flowing gently into an arm
of the sea which Joe, climbing a bluff and taking a survey, declared to
be Wainwright Inlet. Harluk, too, recognized the place, and said that the
river which they had traversed was the Koo of the tribes. Just north of
them was Point Belcher, and Harluk pointed out, on the other side of the
inlet, a place which he called “Nunaria,” otherwise “The Village where No
One Lives.”
The story of this “Village where No One Lives,” of the events which led
up to its settlement and abandonment, is one of the most extraordinary
which the Arctic has yet revealed. The annals of New Bedford whaling
contain the first part of it. The traditions of the coast tribes reveal
the latter part, the wild and tragic sequel. These last Harluk knew well,
for the tale has come to be an epic, related about the blubber lamp
during the winter night, when the bitter wind blows without, and the
Nunatak people are abroad and shout down the smoke-hole.
This is the story compiled from both sources:—
In the summer of 1871, forty or more splendid ships, the pick of the
New Bedford fleet, were following the whales along this ice-bound
coast. The pursuit had been one of more than common difficulty. The
ice was everywhere, and again and again, even in midsummer, the ships
had been in great danger from it. Boats were crushed by the shifting
floes, and before September was fairly in, three staunch ships, the
brig Comet, the barks Roman and Ashawonks, had been wrecked and their
crews transferred to other vessels. The season was at an end, and the
situation of the remaining ships one of grave peril, for the ice was
closing rapidly around them and it seemed impossible to work out of it.
There were not provisions enough to winter the crews, and frequent and
serious consultations were held by the captains. By way of precaution,
men were set to work building up the gunwales of the boats that they
might better resist the waves, and they were sheathed with copper to
keep the ice from harming them. An expedition of three boats was now
sent down the coast to see how far the ice extended. This returned and
reported that it was utterly impracticable to get any of the main fleet
out; that the Arctic and another vessel were in clear water below the
fields which extended to the south of Blossom Shoals, eighty miles below
the imprisoned crafts; and that five more vessels, now fast in this lower
ice, were likely to get out soon. The leader also reported, what every
man knew, that these free vessels would lie by and wait to aid their
imprisoned comrades. It is a part of the whaleman’s creed to stand by his
mates. To remain with the imprisoned ships was to perish with them, and
they decided to abandon them.
It was a sad day. The signals for departure,—flags at the masthead,
union down,—were set, and with heavy hearts they entered their boats and
pulled away, a mournful flotilla. Women and children, families of the
captains, were there, and the keen north wind blew over the frozen sea,
chilling the unfortunate fugitives to the marrow. At night they camped on
the beach, turning the boats bottom upward and covering them with sails,
making a comfortable refuge for the women and children. The rest found
shelter as best they might.
“On the second day out,” says one who took part in the expedition, “the
boats reached Blossom Shoals, and there spied the rescue vessels lying
five miles out from the shore and behind a long tongue of ice that
stretched like a great peninsula ten miles farther down the coast. Around
this point they were obliged to pull before they could get aboard. The
wind blew a gale, the sea threatened the little crafts with instant
annihilation, but still the hazardous journey must be performed, and
there was no time to be lost in setting about it. The boats started on
their almost hopeless voyage, the women and children stifling their fears
as best they could. On rounding this tongue of ice, they encountered the
full force of the southwest gale, and a sea that would have made the
stoutest ship tremble. In this fearful sea the whaleboats were tossed
about like corks. They shipped quantities of water from every wave
that struck them, and all hands bailing could hardly keep them afloat.
Everybody was soaked with freezing brine, and all the bread and flour
aboard was spoiled. The strength of the gale was such that the Arctic,
after getting her portion of the refugees aboard, parted her cable and
lost her port anchor, but brought up again with the starboard one, which
held until the little fleet was ready to sail. By the second day all were
distributed among the seven vessels, from two to three hundred souls
each,—a total of 1219 refugees. They set sail, and reached Honolulu in
safety.”
Thirty-four staunch vessels were thus abandoned to their fate, and only
one, The Minerva, was released in safety the next summer from the grip
of the frost king. More than a million dollars was abandoned to the ice
and the Eskimos, and ruin brought home to many a fine old New Bedford
shipping concern.
The sullen winter set in. The ice closed rigidly about the doomed ships
scattered along the coast from Point Belcher to Blossom Shoals, and a
wild carnival of loot began for the natives of the north coast. News
seems to spread in strange ways in the Arctic. The Eskimo tells much, yet
he learns more by the observation of his fellows. Most of all, however,
he seems to have an instinct which is more subtle still; and the tribes
learned the news in all these ways. To the place of great riches traveled
all who had the means of travel. From the bleak coast east to the mouth
of the Mackenzie, from the sandy peninsula of Point Hope and from points
between, each community saw another pack up and move, and hitched up
their dogs and followed, knowing well that the prize for such a journey
at such a time of year must be great, else it would not be attempted.
By the time the winter sun ceases to rise in the southward, but merely
lights the southern sky with a rosy glow at what should be noon, three
thousand Eskimos had assembled and begun to build the greatest Eskimo
village known to history.
The skin topeks were set up. Caves in the bluff became dwellings. Where
the wind had swept the ledges bare, they quarried rough stone and built
igloos of these, chinked with reindeer moss and banked with snow for
warmth. Many of them, too, began to dismantle the ships and build rude
cabins of the wood and sails. Such were the nondescript abodes of the new
village, and here they settled down in the darkness and terrible cold
of the Arctic midnight, content, for near at hand were provisions and
loot such as had never been dreamed of in the wildest flights of Eskimo
imagination. The looting went on continuously and peacefully, at first,
for there was more than enough for all. The village became crowded with
cabin fittings, wrecked deck houses, spars, ropes, sails, and all the
metallic paraphernalia of a full-rigged ship. In the holds they broke
into the flour barrels and scattered the contents about in willful play,
for they knew nothing of the value of flour. Hard bread they prized, but
flour was then to them a thing of no meaning, and there are aged Eskimos
alive to this day who will tell with sorrow how they wasted the precious
stuff, throwing it at one another and setting it adrift down the wind in
glee.
The ivory, they prized, the oil, and especially the whalebone, which they
eagerly appropriated and took ashore, hiding much of it as well as they
could from one another. Later, when all had been taken from the ships
and trouble and distrust had come, the villagers began looting from each
other.
But at first all went well. With plenty of the prized hard-tack, with
meat in barrels, with oil in great profusion, and wood and iron galore,
it seemed as if the Eskimo millennium was at hand, and that the tribes
might live in peace and plenty here for a long time to come and—who
knows?—out of their prosperity found a permanent city and develop a
higher scheme of Eskimo civilization than they had hitherto known.
Yet it was not to be, and the very plenty that might have been their
upbuilding became their undoing. The serpent of envy entered their
below-zero Eden, and set tribe against tribe and family against family.
Men began to quarrel over articles of loot aboard ship. There was not
room to stow their wealth in the igloos, and the women and children
fought over what was outside.
The supply of liquor had been in the main destroyed, but on one or two
ships this had been overlooked in the haste of leaving, and after a time
it was discovered. It was not very much among three thousand Eskimos, but
a little liquor goes a long way among these hardy men of the north, and
once this began to get in its work among them, no man can describe the
extraordinary scenes which ensued. Tribal animosity which had been dulled
by plenty and a common object grew keen again, and the men of one village
fought with those of another until sometimes a whole tribe was wiped out.
As the wild orgy increased and the supply of liquor gave out, they broke
into the ships’ medicine chests, and tinctures and solutions of deadly
drugs were used with fatal effect.
The horror lasted until the spring sun was well above the southern
horizon, and scarcely half the people of the new city were left to see
him rise. These were half-clad, and emaciated by the terrible deeds
and mishaps of the winter. The dogs, neglected and unfed, had gone
“molokully”—crazy—with the cold and hunger, and were roaming the waste of
snow, or were mercifully dead. The remnant of the people had no means and
were in no condition to travel, yet travel they must. The daze of their
orgy was over, and the place was become a place of horrors to them. Dead
lay in every igloo, and in Eskimo land an igloo in which some one has
died is henceforth a place of evil, and no man must take shelter there.
There were no doubt stores and material enough left in and about the
vessels that were unburned to support the people remaining in comfort for
a long time to come, and could they have had a chance to recuperate, they
still might have made a village unique in size and prosperity, but they
would have none of it.
Silently and in terror the remnant of the tribes scattered and hastened
to their former homes, but only a part ever reached them. Sick and
emaciated, their dogs dead or scattered, the journey was one of hardship
long to be remembered, and the miles were marked with the bones of those
that fell by the way.
This is the story of “Nunaria,” a place of ghosts and of the dead. To
this day no Eskimo will willingly enter its precincts. The ice and gales
of winter, the frosts and thaws of spring, the deluges of rain and the
grass of summer, work hard to obliterate it, yet still it may be found,
and its ruin tells the tale of one brief winter of too much plenty, and
the evil effect of a sudden plethora of the good things of civilization
and city life on the Innuit. With him, as with the rest of us,
self-control is not easily learned where abstemiousness is continually
forced. It takes a far greater man to stand sudden great prosperity than
it does to survive lean years and narrow opportunities. Harluk expressed
this in one brief Eskimo phrase. “Amalucktu amalucktu, peluk,” he said.
“Too much plenty is no good.”
There is a brief sequel to the story. The next spring an enterprising
trader brought up in his ship a three-holed bidarka from Unalaska. When
the ship was stopped by the ice, he manned the bidarka, and went on,
paddled by two men. He reached the village of death through the narrow
leads opening in the pack. Here he found no living thing save the foxes
and crows making revel among the bodies of the dead. But he found much
store of whalebone and ivory,—so much that he reaped a harvest and was
able to visit the capitals of Europe in the style of a bonanza king.
Yet, after all, what he got was not the half of the store the ships had
accumulated during their summer cruise. What had become of the balance?
Let us see.
Harluk would not join Harry and Joe in their exploration of Nunaria. It
sufficed for him to point it out from the bluff opposite. They set out
alone. Strange sights met their eyes in this village. Traces of former
topeks could be found here and there by the white bones, which showed
in the grass. Others built of stone had partly fallen in, but still in
part retained their shape. From one of these a white fox bounded, and,
on looking within, they found a litter of young foxes snuggled within
the remnants of some ancient fur garments, among the bones of the man
that had worn them. Here an arm bone was stretched out through the tundra
grass, as if reaching up for aid. There a white skull grinned at them
from the dark corner of a tumbled heap of rocks which had been a home
of the ancient village. They found the brass cover of a ship’s binnacle
over the ashes of a long-abandoned fire. The dark and mouldy remnants of
an uneaten meal were in this strange pot, showing to what base uses the
tribes had put the ship’s instruments. Scattered about in inconceivable
confusion that time could not obliterate were the useless fragments of
the loot of the ships,—rotten ropes, decayed canvas, rusty iron, blocks,
and wooden wreckage of all sorts, grown with tundra moss, half buried
in waving grass, yet visible still in dismal disorder. There were many
spots, very many, where this grass was longer and greener than the rest,
and they knew that underneath were the bones of the dead of that dread
winter of too much plenty.
In one of the igloos they found a couple of splendid walrus tusks, half
hidden in a corner, and in two others single slabs of whalebone, still
but little harmed by the weather and the passage of time.
“Queer there isn’t more of this stuff,” said Harry, as he kicked out the
slab of whalebone from the dark and grewsome hole.
“I don’t think so,” replied Joe. “Of course the traders and whalemen knew
of the place and carried off all they could find. They never got half
that was on the ships, though. I imagine the natives never brought it
off, but that it was burned or sunk with the vessels.”
“Hum,” said Harry. “But it might pay us to look pretty closely.”
Joe looked at him with a new thought in his eye. “Do you think so?” he
said, meditatively.
“Why not?” asked Harry in reply, and they continued their search. Yet
they found nothing more of value among the igloos or on the tundra. It
was after they had given up the search and were on their way back along
the low bluff that they made a further discovery.
“Harluk told about part of the village that lived in what he called a
‘kitekook.’ What sort of an igloo is that?”
“That’s so,” replied Joe; “I had forgotten. Why, ‘kitekook’ is the Point
Hope word for cave. We haven’t seen any caves yet. They would be in the
bluff, seems to me.”
For a long time they searched the bluff without finding anything. The
disintegrating forces of frost and thaw each spring change the face of
all Arctic cliffs. Crumbled by the frost and torn off by the water, the
warm weather often brings the fronts down in little landslides. The
streams gully through them and cut them away so that the face of nature
often changes greatly in a single year. The low bluffs along the inlet
showed many marks of this violence. By and by Joe, scrambling along the
débris at the foot of the bluff, gave a shout to Harry, farther on.
“Here’s a wolf’s den, or a cave, or something,” he said. “Come and see
it.”
The wolf’s den was a hole in the bluff, half smothered in the débris
which had fallen and obscured it. There was hardly room to crawl in,
but Joe managed it, while Harry waited outside in some excitement. In a
moment Joe called out:—
“Here,” he said in a smothered voice; “take this.”
A splendid slab of whalebone was passed up through the hole. After a time
Joe followed it, much besmeared with dirt, but with a radiant face.
“I think we’ve made a find, this time,” he said excitedly. “That is one
of the ‘kitekooks,’ and it is chock-a-block with the finest bone you ever
saw.”
The slab which he had passed out was, indeed, a beauty, and was worth
many dollars. They proceeded with the hunt with great enthusiasm and
found several other “kitekooks” well stored with bone. Joe’s eyes snapped
with excitement.
“There’s fifty thousand dollars’ worth of splendid bone stowed right in
this cliff,” he said, “and it has been waiting for us for twenty-five
years. The people who came here that summer after cleaned up what was
in the other igloos, but they never found this. Probably there had been
a landslide that spring and blocked the caves. The Eskimos could not be
hired to come here, and only they knew about it. It’s a bonanza! Hurrah!
this will pay for the loss of the Bowhead, twice over.”
Harry examined the five caves that they found, and decided that Joe’s
estimate of the value of their find was a very conservative one. To him
it seemed nearly double that, and after excitedly figuring the probable
value, Joe was inclined to agree with him. It was certain that they had
found a fortune, and the only question was as to how they might realize
on it. The bone was worth that in San Francisco, to be sure, but they
were a long way from San Francisco, and the problem of getting there
themselves was still a great one. Their great hope was that Captain
Nickerson would be on the coast again with a vessel and would find them
that summer. They decided to keep the presence of the bone a profound
secret even from Harluk and his fellows. They returned to the camp and
said very little about what they had seen. Harluk thought this reasonable.
“None but wizards,” he declared solemnly, “might unharmed visit a place
of ghosts, and he saw that they even were wise enough not to talk about
it.”
This find in the Village where No One Lives kept the boys chained to the
locality, much to the sorrow of the Eskimos, who wished to get farther
away from it. There were plenty of fish in the inlet, and wild ducks
were tame and present in great flocks. They lived well, but they did not
like to be so near the place of ghosts. But the boys were firm. It was
midsummer, and just about the right time of year for ships to be off that
coast, and they did not wish to leave their find. They decided that the
bone must stay where it was until they could take it out and place it
on a ship of their own, and they would better wait right there on the
chance of such a ship. Thus they lingered on, week after week, in a vain
hope. No ship came. As a matter of fact, it was one of those seasons that
Harluk and Kroo had predicted, when the Arctic pack hugs the coast and it
is difficult and often impossible for ships to get beyond Blossom Shoals.
All too soon the brief summer waned, and their hopes waned with it. While
they hesitated, the heavy sea ice pressed in nearer the coast and cut off
any possible chance of a ship. The ducks flew away, the river froze over,
and there was mush ice all along the coast where the pack had not frozen
to the shore. The cold was coming on exceptionally early, and they were
much dejected over the prospect. The wind blew keen from the north, and
snow whitened the once blooming tundra. The winter was upon them before
they knew it, so rapidly does it come in that land of ice.
In the midst of this trouble Harluk came to them with a face of good news.
“My brothers,” he said, “good luck is surely coming to us. The dogs have
come back.”
Eight or ten gaunt dogs were eagerly snatching at food that the Eskimos
threw to them; then, their hunger satisfied, they allowed themselves to
be tied up, and lay down by the topek doors in contentment.
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.
“Strong and well as we are, with a good dog team,” said Joe, “we ought to
be good for fifteen miles a day, even in poor traveling. Let us call it
a hundred miles a week. It should take us not over five weeks to reach
the Yukon. Then with a good trail we can go either to Dawson City or St.
Michael. In any case, it means that we get out and get home. It is now
September. If we could reach St. Michael before the last of November, we
might catch a late steamer for San Francisco or Seattle. At any rate, we
would be among white men. It is better than staying on this coast for
another winter, which is just what we’ll have to do unless we start.”
It was rather a desperate venture, but neither was willing to live Eskimo
fashion on Eskimo food for another eight months of terrible cold. It
made their hearts sick to think of it. On the other hand, the thought of
heading toward home, with a chance of reaching it, set the blood leaping
in their veins again, and they went about preparation with feverish
haste. Fortune favored them, as it does the brave. The very next day a
school of belated beluga came puffing and plunging alongshore headed
south through the mush ice, looking like a foam-crested wave as they
rolled along.
The Eskimos seized this opportunity with keen delight, and Harry and
Joe joined in the hunting. The beluga is the stupid little white whale
of the Arctic, fifteen or twenty feet long and white as milk. The whole
community hastened out on the floes and in the umiaks on the seaward
side of the school. Here, suddenly, they attacked them with shouting and
shooting, with beating of paddles and thrusts of lances. A part of the
school got away, but a dozen or more were shot, lanced, or driven ashore,
where they stranded in shallow water and were easily killed. It was a
feast in store for the natives and provision laid up for the winter,
but it meant much more for the boys. The flesh of the beluga is not bad
eating for man or beast, and it furnished supplies for themselves and
dogs, sufficient to undertake the trip.
They were not long in getting away. The gratitude of the natives still
held good, and they could have anything they wished. They took five of
the strongest dogs and a good sled. They loaded this with beluga meat,
furs, a slab or two of whalebone slipped slyly in, “for a sample,” as Joe
said, ammunition, their papers, and the two repeating rifles. They did
not ask Harluk to accompany them. Such a trip meant taking him from his
wife and children for a long time, and he was perhaps needed for their
support. He and his Eskimo friends would work down the coast to Icy Cape
and join the little village there.
Good-bys were said with genuine sorrow on both sides, and the boys set
their faces to the south, toward new and stranger adventures.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE HEART OF BLIZZARDS
Joe estimated that they made their fifteen miles the first day. The
tundra was smooth, and had just snow enough for good traveling. The next,
the dogs, unused to their masters, balked, and they hardly did five, to
their great vexation. The day after was better, and with patience and
firmness they taught the animals that they must obey. Then some rough
traveling bothered them. Still they got on, and at the end of the first
week they had probably eighty miles to their credit. They were hopeful,
and planned to do more the next, but they made Sunday a day of rest.
It was a solemn thing, this cutting loose from friends and supplies and
braving the unknown interior, and it made them thoughtful of observances
that they had neglected in igloo and topek. Harry took from his inner
pocket the little Bible that he had carried all through the trip, and,
opening its pages, stained with Bering Sea water, at random, found the
book of Psalms. He read aloud to Joe, and the simple grandeur of thought
and eloquent beauty of phrase steadied and heartened them both. Then
they talked long of their home and friends, and, resting in the shelter
of their tent while the dogs lay content in the snow outside, felt that
the observance of the day had been worthy, and a wise thing. They made
it their custom thereafter. Yet in all this talk of home Harry never
mentioned Maisie to Joe. But that is not saying he did not think of her.
The fourth day of the next week carried them over a range of hills to a
second, higher table-land. They had been helped in their journey by a
river, on whose level, snow-covered ice they worked southward at a good
rate of speed. Its course seemed fairly direct, and they made in speed
what they lost by not going in a straight line. The four days must have
added nearly another fifty miles to their journey, and Joe was jubilant.
He began to predict that they would reach the Yukon in good season, and
get out by steamer from St. Michael that fall.
The very next morning they waked cold, in spite of their furs, and found
a gray and sunless dawn, across which a keen north wind sang. They
hitched up and pressed on, but the sky grew grayer, and soon the world
was a whirling mass of snow. They drifted before this wind for a mile or
two, the snow getting deeper, and their progress slower every moment.
Soon it was half knee deep, and the load began to be heavy for the dogs.
Now and then they looked up at the boys wistfully, as if wondering why
they did not seek shelter. For two hours they struggled on, not so much
because they wished to as that on the level plain there seemed to be no
cover.
By and by Harry began to wonder if he was dreaming. The snow under foot
seemed to be trodden and the walking easier. Then he began to have what
he thought were fleeting glimpses of shadowy forms that surrounded them,
yet never came near enough to be really seen. He spoke of this to Joe,
who had been plugging along in a sort of weary daze behind the sled while
Harry led the way for the dogs.
Joe waked up at this, and together they examined the ground. There
certainly were countless tracks of hoofs under foot, though the rapidly
falling snow blotted them out very soon.
“They are caribou tracks,” said Harry.
“But where are the caribou?” asked Joe.
“All about us,” replied Harry. “I keep thinking I see them, but the snow
is so thick and blinding that I can’t be sure. See!”
They had stopped during this consultation, and, looking directly back,
they could see dim antlered forms that divided as they approached, and
went to the left and right of them, passing on into the blur of snow.
An immense herd of caribou, perhaps miles long, was drifting before the
gale, and by some strange chance had inclosed them within itself. The
animals, stupid, and dazed by the snow, paid little attention to them,
but pressed aimlessly on, as if blown by the storm. It was a strange
experience, this being the centre of an invisible herd that made a path
for them in the wilderness of snow. It lasted for another hour, and
yet they had hardly a glimpse of the deer. It came to an end when they
reached a broad gully that marked the course of a stream. In the shelter
of the bank of this the snow had drifted deep, and here the tracks
swerved and left them in the snow.
“We’d better camp here,” said Joe. “We’ve had enough for one day, and
here is a good spot.”
The weary dogs dropped panting at the word, but Joe took a rifle from the
sled.
“It seems a shame,” he said, “after they’ve broken a path for us for
hours, but I want one of those caribou.”
He stepped back a few rods into the fog of the storm, and in a moment a
single shot sounded. After making the dogs fast, Harry went back to him.
A fine buck lay dead with a bullet through his heart.
“I could have had more,” said Joe, “but one is all we can carry with our
other luggage.”
As they stood, two gray, shaggy forms sprang out of the storm, and would
have fallen upon the dead caribou, but seeing the boys they hesitated
and drew back with red tongues hanging from between their gleaming white
teeth. A shot from the rifle laid one low, and the other vanished like
a flash. They were gray wolves, which always hang about the flank of
the caribou herds and fall upon the weak or wounded. Half frozen as the
boys were, they skinned and cut up the caribou the first thing. Then in
the shelter of the gulley they set up their tent, and with their meat
and sled-load inside it banked it deep in the drift. For the dogs they
dug a snow igloo and made them fast to the sled, with which they blocked
the entrance to it. Thus the dogs, well fed on deer meat, had shelter
sufficient for their needs in spite of the blizzard. They themselves were
snug in the little tent banked deep in the drift. There was no chance to
get wood for fuel, but here they learned the wisdom of Harluk, who had
insisted that they make a part of their load a seal poke of blubber and
a rude lamp. With this they toasted caribou steak, and it added to the
warmth of their den.
[Illustration: TOILING ON THROUGH THE DRIFTS]
The storm continued for a week, the third since their departure, and
when it broke and they struggled on through the deep drifts, they at
once realized that their progress must be slow indeed. Yet, after all,
they made about ten miles a day by patient toil, one going ahead and
breaking a road for the dogs, the other following the sled and helping it
along. They had ten days of beautiful weather, too, and at their end they
guessed that they had made, altogether, nearly two hundred miles south.
It was early October now, with the Arctic winter well upon them, yet they
did not suffer from the cold, so well had they learned Eskimo methods of
defense against it. To their great delight, about this time they began to
find timber. It was small, it is true, and consisted of scattered clumps
of little birches and alders, with here and there a pigmy fir. They
danced and shouted about this first fir till the dogs no doubt thought
them “molokully.” It seemed like an outpost of the home land of trees,
real trees! They had seen none for a year and a half, and were fairly
homesick for timber. They had wood now for their cooking, yet the timber
was a hindrance to them. The wind-swept and hardened snow gave way under
its protection to soft and fluffy drifts, which made the traveling far
more difficult. And about this time they caught another storm. A genuine
blizzard, this was, with some fall of snow, but mainly wind and cold.
They were obliged to camp, as before, nor did the gale let up for three
weeks. It was maddening, but there was no help for it. These terrific
Arctic gales sometimes last for literal months, and they were fortunate
to escape as they did.
They fed the dogs lightly during their enforced leisure, but even thus
their provisions began to run low, and they were anxious. It began to
look as if it would be months instead of weeks before they reached the
Yukon, yet they were not discouraged. It was better to steadily, though
slowly, progress toward home than to wait in inaction. When fair weather
came, Joe decided that they must hunt before going farther. This they did
for two days steadily, plunging round through the waist-deep snow, with
a fox, a white owl, and several ptarmigan as the result, just about what
they ate during that time. This was not worth while, and they struggled
south again, with the fast lowering sun as a guide. Another week passed
with slow progress, but the timber got thicker and ptarmigan became
plentiful. There was hardly need to shoot these. They were tame enough to
be knocked over with a stick.
It was weary work, and the last of their supplies was gone when they came
out on a low bluff, the bank of a considerable river. Below them, on the
river ice, was a winding mark through the snow. It might be a caribou
trail, and they plunged eagerly down to it.
There were the footprints of moccasins and marks of a sled!
Harry felt much as he thought Robinson Crusoe must have when he saw the
famous footprints in the sand. They had been so long without seeing human
beings that it seemed as if the country must be utterly uninhabited, but
this proved something different. They turned and followed this trail up
river. Then they rounded a bluff, saw smoke and heard the barking of many
dogs, and from a cluster of timber huts a group appeared, and a man came
to greet them.
“Nagouruk, nagouruk,” shouted Joe, and greeted him in Eskimo, to which
the other replied hesitatingly in a few words of the same language.
Others, men, women, and children, poured out of the village and received
the two adventurers hospitably.
“We’ll camp with these people for a while,” said Joe. “We must till we
can get provisions enough to move on.”
Harry assented. Indeed, both boys were heartily tired of their struggle
against the odds of snow and fast approaching darkness. They were
assigned an empty igloo, but preferred to build one of their own out
of wood, brush, and snow, which had the merit of being clean. Their
new-found friends were generous, had plentiful supplies of dried fish and
frozen meat, and the boys lingered with them at first to rest. Later, the
midwinter blizzards made it impossible for them to travel.
The inland Indians of northern Alaska are few, but scattered villages
of them may be found along the larger rivers. They are much like the
Eskimos in their habits and dress, but are taller and of stronger build.
Their dialect is different in many respects from that of their cousins of
the coast, yet they have many words in common, and meet in trade often
enough to be able to talk to one another. The boys learned that the
river on which they dwelt flowed into the sea to the westward, and were
convinced from their chart that they had reached the headwaters of the
Kowak, which empties into Kotzebue Sound. When they talked of going on,
the Indians told them it would be impossible. The snows, they said, were
very deep, which the boys knew to be true. The country to the south was
one of rugged mountains, which they would be unable to cross. Besides,
they argued, what was the need? As soon as any one could travel in the
spring, they themselves were going down river to meet the tribes of the
great sandspit at the meeting of rivers with the sea. Thither, they said,
came all the tribes of the coast to meet those of the rivers and exchange
goods. Sometimes, too, ships appeared, and they would perhaps find white
men there.
Thus, still baffled, the two waited doggedly for the spring, hopeful
still, not giving way to useless repinings, yet very weary of the bonds
of frost that held them fast. The Indians lived a simple life, not so
very different from that of their Eskimo friends. They kept their igloos
in severe weather. When it was mild, they trapped red and white foxes,
wolverines, and ermine, and kept a keen eye out for caribou, whose coming
meant a feast and many hides for traffic in the spring trading-meet, to
which they looked forward. The sun vanished and came again. The winter
solstice passed, and day by day he rode a little higher in the southern
sky. February came and March, with its wild gales, and the flying snow
that drifted back and forth across the country in clouds that obscured
the sun at noon, and sometimes wrapped the igloos deep beneath its
whelming white volumes, again drifted away from them and left them half
bare to the keen winds; then April with its mild air, a sun that left
them little night and settled the snow till it was as hard as a floor
where packed in solid drifts. The Indians prospered, and the boys shared
their prosperity. Early in April a great herd of caribou shambled by the
village, and the whole community turned out to slaughter them. Never
had they killed so many deer; indeed, far more were shot than could be
properly attended to, and many were left to the wolves. There was little
hunting to this. The stupid caribou, running hither and thither, were
shot down with repeating rifles, which are as plentiful among the wild
tribes of Alaska as among civilized hunters. Then the herd, so great that
the slaughter seemed in no wise to diminish it, passed on.
“Our white visitors,” said the head man of the village, “have brought
good fortune with them. There shall be a feast.”
“Look here,” said Harry to Joe privately, on hearing this; “you don’t
suppose this is any seal’s head business, this one, do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Joe, “this is to be a real banquet, I think.”
A real banquet it was, indeed. The largest igloo in the village was the
scene, everybody in the place was present, and the amount of deer meat
eaten was astonishing. Then there followed an entertainment in the nature
of private theatricals. Each hunter in turn gave a description of the
most exciting event in his life, suiting the action to the word, and
making of it an exceedingly interesting and dramatic recital. Humorous
scenes in every-day life, and amusing mishaps in hunting and fishing,
were also acted out in realistic fashion, and brought shouts of laughter
from all.
The crowning number in the entertainment, however, was a cake walk done
by the boys, who blackened their faces with soot and gave the burlesque
with much spirit. They were called upon to repeat this until they were
obliged to quit from sheer weariness, and then they laughed themselves
out of breath at the queer antics of their friends, who began immediately
to imitate this novel form of entertainment. It was the first really
hearty laugh they had had for a long time, and it did them both a world
of good.
Then came the start down river, and the bustle of preparation, together
with the homeward thought, put them in great spirits. Half a dozen
sleds, each with its team of dogs, were piled high with provisions,
caribou hides, fox, ermine, and wolverine pelts, and the whole community
started down the stream on the hard settled snow. The boys computed
that they had a journey of two hundred miles ahead of them, taking into
account the windings of the river, and that their destination was the
sandspit at Hotham Inlet. The Indians verified this on being shown the
chart, and seemed to have a good understanding of a map. They moved by
leisurely stages, stopping often for a day or two to rest or on account
of bad weather. Yet the weather in the main was delightful, varying
between the freezing-point and perhaps zero or a little below, with a
dry air and mainly a bright sun that made it a pleasure to be alive.
In traveling, the head man of the village led, over the hard crust, or
breaking a path through softer snow on rude snowshoes. His own team and
sled followed, then another team with a man or boy leading, and so on.
The women and children strung along between the teams where the snow was
soft, or on either side where it was hard. The dogs were intelligent and
well trained, and the work of guiding them thus in single file was not
difficult.
Early May found them a hundred miles toward their destination, and here,
in one day, many interesting things happened. They had found their two
slabs of whalebone, brought from the Arctic coast, of great value to them
in trade. They had split one of these into small strips and peddled them
out in barter to the men of the tribe, who coveted whalebone, and were
as eager as stage Yankees for a trade. They had bought with this, among
other things, two pair of rude snowshoes, and on the day I speak of,
while the tribe rested, they started down river on an exploring trip. It
was warm and bright, and thawed a little in the sun in sheltered nooks.
The Kowak in its middle course winds among cliffs, carving its way
through high bluffs on one side, leaving alluvial stretches of level
flats at the base of other heights opposite. From one of these sheer
bluffs, facing the south, wind and sun had taken the snow, and as they
approached they saw sticking from the dark soil of its surface white
objects like weather-worn logs of driftwood.
“Funny!” said Joe; “they look like bones, those logs. See, there are
some that look like the knuckle-bone of a ham, and there are others like
rib-bones.”
“Yes,” said Harry, taking up the simile, “and there are two that stick
out of the frozen mud like an elephant’s tusks, only they are curved too
much and about fifteen feet long. Let’s get nearer.”
As they approached, their interest gave way to wonder. The seeming bones
were bones in very truth, piled fantastically and protruding in strange
profusion. Harry climbed by knobs and steps of bone part way up the bluff
and shouted down to Joe.
“These are tusks, mastodon tusks, sticking right out of the bank, and
here is a bit of the skull sticking out with shreds of hide and hair on
it. There must be a whole one frozen into the bluff here.”
Joe climbed up and viewed the remains with him. It really seemed as if,
concealed in the frozen mud behind the great tusks, the whole creature
might be preserved, in cold storage as one might say, kept during the
long centuries, and exposed by the crumbling of the bluff during the rush
of the river torrent in spring. An astonishing number of bones were in
this place, all of the mastodon, and the only explanation seemed to be
that in the forgotten ages when the frozen zone was a warm one and the
mastodon roamed there in large numbers, this ground must have been a deep
bog, in which many of the creatures became mired and were in a great
measure preserved, as peat preserves things. The boys settled it in this
way to their own satisfaction, at least.
“Come on,” cried Joe, in exuberance of spirits, “let’s ride the
elephant.”
“Ride the mastodon, you mean,” replied Harry; and each scrambled for a
tusk. “Get up!” cried Harry, “cooning” along to the tip of his tusk. “Get
up old fellow and give us a ride. Great Scott, he’s moving!”
The tusks of the mastodon, moving together, dipped gently and easily
downward and both boys shot off them into space.
It was a matter of twenty feet to the soft snow, and they plunged into it
out of sight.
Behind them came the great tusks, hundreds of pounds of weathered ivory,
plunging through the snow nearer the base of the cliff. They missed the
two by a little, but they missed them. Harry felt himself smothered in
a whirl of snow, then falling again for a short distance, and finally
brought up on a soft turf, where he lay for a moment half dazed by the
thud with which he struck. Then he scrambled to his feet and looked
around. He was in a low-roofed, wide cavern, dusky with a greenish pale
twilight. Joe was sitting up on the ground by his side, rubbing his elbow
and leg alternately and looking foolish, as no doubt he felt.
“Where are we, anyway?” asked Joe, and the query was pertinent if the
answer which he got was not.
“Riding the elephant,” replied Harry, with a rueful grin.
Over their heads, ten feet away in the snow roof through which they had
come, were four holes which let in the nebulous twilight by which they
saw. They and the mastodon tusks had come that way. To get back was
another matter.
They looked about with much curiosity not untempered with dismay. They
were beneath the crust of an enormous drift that the winter storms had
whirled over the mastodon cliff. Under their feet was a mixture of mud
and bones from the cliff, carpeted with grass and moss. Around them grew
willows. The slender top branches of these had been caught by the first
damp snow of early autumn and bent beneath it till they twined, holding
the bulk of it up. This had frozen there and the succeeding snows had
piled above it, leaving the place free, an ideal natural cold frame for
the shrubs and grass of the bottom land. These appreciated the shelter,
and feeling the thrill of spring in their dark world, were already
putting forth young green leaves. Up and down stream the cavern extended
indefinitely. On one side it ended abruptly against the cliff, on the
other it tapered down to the river ice, already worn thin on its edge
and beginning to thaw.
For an hour they wandered back and forth in this strange cavern, their
eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. It was fortunate that this
had not happened a few weeks later. Then the freshening flood of the
river would no doubt have drowned them like rats in a hole. Now they
were free—to wait for the flood, unless they could get out. But both
boys were Yankees, and there is always a way out of a scrape, though it
sometimes takes a Yankee to find it. Joe suggested that they climb the
stubby willows and thence dig their way up, but his plan failed, for he
could not get footing enough to get through the snow. Instead, he fell
again to the bottom and rubbed his other leg. Harry suggested the plan
that ultimately succeeded. With his knife he cut stout willow stakes and
sharpened them at the end. Then walking toward the ice till they were
blocked by the low roof, they began to dig a tunnel slanting upward and
outward. It was a long dig through frozen crust and layers of damp snow,
but they finally emerged like ground squirrels in the spring, and found
the glare of the sun on the snow quite blinding.
That night in camp the head man of the tribe came to the boys to trade.
He wanted more whalebone, and he offered them things which they had not
seen before. These were rough ornaments of green jade, some mere bits of
stone, others rudely chipped into shapes. One of these was a rude image
of Buddha such as Harry had seen in Chinese collections. Harry marveled
at this greatly, but the Indian could give no explanation concerning it
except that his father had got it in trade from a coast native. By what
strange mutations this had come from its Oriental fatherland may never
be known, but the north has its routes of trade as have other regions.
Things go from hand to hand among the tribes, and this had probably
passed in centuries of time through Tartar tribes to the Chuckchis, over
to the Diomedes, down the coast to Hotham Inlet, and up the river to the
father of the head man. Now it was on its way back to the sea, and may
ultimately reach its fatherland by circumnavigating the globe. Who knows?
It was while examining these jade ornaments that Harry noted something
else that gave him a start of surprise. He thought at first it was a
yellow and dirty image of a seal carved from a walrus tooth, such as
he had bought at the Diomedes as a curio and lost in the sinking of the
Bowhead. He picked this up carelessly and was astonished at its weight.
He put the point of his knife to it and it left a clear, dull yellow
streak. Then he passed it to Joe without a word.
It was a two ounce nugget of pure gold, hammered or carved into that rude
semblance of a seal which is the delight of the Eskimo image maker. Joe’s
eyes snapped at sight of it and he bought it forthwith, though he had to
give a good deal of bone for it. The head man had seen his eyes snap when
Harry handed it to him, and made him pay accordingly.
The head man could not tell whence this little image of pure gold came
except that he had got it in trade from a man of the coast tribes who
came in to the sandspit to trade from along the coast to the south.
Like the jade Buddha, it might have passed from hand to hand for a long
distance.
As they continued their journey, another tribe joined them, coming down a
tributary of the Kowak; then others came, and soon the little expedition
was a large one, steadily and leisurely progressing down river. It was
toward the end of May. The days were long and warm; indeed, there was no
night, for though the sun set for a few hours each day, only a gentle
twilight marked his absence. The tributaries from the hills were running
free of ice and threatened to flood the surface of the river, which was
still solid. Signs of the spring break-up were numerous, and when the
little army reached a long winding canyon among abrupt hills, there was
much discussion whether they should continue on the ice or take to the
banks. The easy but unsafe route of the main river ice was decided upon,
and they entered between the hills and pressed on. They traveled rapidly
now, and there was much uneasiness among the Indians, who seemed to fear
something from behind. The ice was solid in the main, yet in spots it was
flooded, and the increase in volume and rush of the water beneath had
worn holes through it in other places. They pressed on with all the speed
they could command, watchful always of the menace from behind.
It was on the second day that it came. They were between perpendicular
bluffs, difficult if not impossible to climb, when a shout went up from
those in the rear. As if at a signal, every one stopped and listened.
Far behind them could be heard a dull sound, faint, yet ominous. Somehow
it reminded Harry of a still spring night when he had been boating late
on the Charles River, and had heard across the water the steady hum
of electric cars, speeding hither and thither in the city, a vibrant
undertone like the quivering of tense wires in a gale.
A shout went from one end of the long line of sledges to the other.
“Emik kile! Emik kile! Gur!” it said. “The water is coming! The water is
coming! Go!”
At the word dogs and men, women and children, sprang from listening
immobility into intense action. The dogs surged against their collars,
and the sleds bounded forward. The men, shouting, ran beside them, urging
them on with whip and voice. Mothers caught their smaller children to
their shoulders, the older ones scampered beside them, and all rushed
forward down the river, fleeing from that menacing hum, which was drowned
for the moment by their own uproar. On they went, splashing across the
flooded places, daring the thin edges of the water-holes, unmindful of
the danger under foot, thinking only of what was bearing down upon them,
still miles behind. As they plunged on, they scanned the rude cliffs
anxiously for a gully or a break that would give them passage to the
upland, but they found none. Little need to lash the dogs; their own
instinct told them the danger only too well. Their tawny sides panted,
and their tongues hung from their dripping jaws.
A half mile, and still no escape to the right or the left. The women and
children kept up with wonderful endurance, yet the pace was telling on
them, and the weaker already lagged behind.
They had ceased to shout and urge one another on now. The race for life
took all their breath. Out of the unknown distance behind them the low
vibrant hum had increased to a grinding roar, in which there were sounds
like cannon-shots,—the bursting of the ice under the pressure of the
oncoming flood. Just ahead of Harry a youngster stumbled, then sprang to
his feet, limping badly. The fall had wrenched his ankle, and he could
no longer run. Harry hesitated for a second. There was an indescribable
terror of that mighty uproar thrilling through him. What was the life
of a little Indian boy to him? But it was only for a second, this
hesitation. Then with a gasp of shame at the thought, he snatched the
youngster to his shoulder, and ran on, panting for breath, his nerves
quivering with the bodily fear which no man can avoid, yet strong in the
determination that his manhood should not fail in the crisis.
The roar of the flood suddenly grew louder yet, and he looked behind
as he fled. Round a bend in the river he caught a glimpse of what was
coming. The ice sprang into the air in great cakes, that were caught by
a white wall behind and crushed into whirling rubble. It did not seem to
come fast, this great white wall of ice and foam, yet it gained on them
rapidly. In this look behind he saw Joe. He was near the end of the line
of flight, helping along an Indian grandmother, who bore in her arms her
little granddaughter, while the mother with a babe stumbled along at her
side, her black eyes wide with terror. Their dogs with the loaded sled
had outrun them both in this wild race.
Cries of encouragement sounded ahead once more. Those in the front of
flight had seen a gully in the bluffs through which they might escape.
Harry saw them turn toward this, and he stumbled and gasped along under
his burden with renewed hope. Dogs and men foremost in the race leaped
into this gully and scrambled upward. He was near it now, running in a
sort of bad dream, with the tremendous crushing roar of the flood seeming
to whelm him in its waves of sound. Cannon boomed in this uproar, volleys
of musketry pulsed through it, and the steady hoof-beats of the white
horse cavalry of the flood rolled deafeningly on. Now he was at the bank,
and plunging up it, too weak to do anything more than drop with his
burden at the safety line. He was among the last to reach safety, but Joe
was behind him.
The Indian mother with her babe was at the edge of the ice. Twenty
feet behind them were Joe and the older woman and the child. Behind
them again, not a dozen rods away, rolled the great white wave in the
forefront of the flood. The river ice swelled to meet this wave. It
rounded up, bulged, burst, and was tossed in the air in huge cakes,
springing a dozen feet upward, engulfed in the white seething wall as
they came down. In front of this the grandmother fell, sending the girl
rolling ahead of her on the ice. Joe snatched up the child, turned as
if to help the woman, and then the ice lifted under him, sending him
spinning toward the bank. A moment and the ice burst beneath his feet. A
great cake rose and tossed him up, still clinging to the child, and then
he was half smothered, bruised, and soaked in a whirl of ice-cold water,
and sank and rose on the edge of the flood, washed into the eddy that
whirled in the gully, and still he clung half unconsciously to the child.
It was the little one’s father that pulled him out, with Harry a good
second, yet distanced by paternal love. The flood was roaring through the
canyon, breaking its fierce way to the sea, but the careless travelers
were safe from its tumult; all but the old grandmother, whose devotion
to the child had cost her her life. She had found the death that is so
common to the Eskimo and the other folk of the wild north,—to vanish into
the white arms of the flood, or go out to sea with the ice.
They traveled on by land, over melting snow, and across ravines in which
splashed torrents. The Kowak was open to the sea, and summer navigation
had begun.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MEETING OF TRIBES
The Kirghis and Tartars of eastern Europe and Central Asia have held
annual trading fairs from a time beyond which record does not go. Their
restless progenitors, moving eastward, took the custom with them to the
shores of the northern Pacific, northeast to Bering Sea and the limits of
Siberia, and with them it must have crossed the narrow ice-ridden straits
and found a resting-place in Arctic America. The great sandspit between
Hotham Inlet and the waters of the ocean, at the head of Kotzebue Sound,
has been the scene of this meeting for no one knows how many centuries.
When the chinook winds melt the snows, and the Arctic ice pack retreats
northward from Bering Sea and the straits, thither the tribes flock from
hundreds of miles in all directions. Down the Kowak, the Selawik, and
the Noatak rivers from the far interior come the taller, more distinctly
Indian-featured men of the mountain fastnesses and scant timber,
bringing jade from their mysterious hills, and fox, ermine, wolverine,
and caribou pelts. From Point Hope and the coast far to the north come
the squat tribes of the sea line with their ivory, blubber, whalebone,
and white bearskins. From the Diomedes and East Cape sail the dwellers on
the straits, their umiaks built up with skins on the sides, that the rush
of waves may not whelm them in mid sea, their wives and children at the
paddle, and their leathern sails spread to the favoring gale. From King’s
Island, rocky eyrie to the south, where they dwell in huts perched like
swallows’ nests on the side of sheer cliffs, come others, while even the
far shore of Norton Sound sends its contingent.
Wives, children, dogs, boats, sleds, and all earthly possessions they
bring, leaving nothing behind but the winter igloo with its entrance
gaping lonely where barbaric life had swarmed. They set up their topeks
on the sandspit, which, for eleven months in the year so desolate and
bare, now seethes with life. They visit back and forth. They exchange
news of the berg-battered coast and the snow-smothered interior, and they
trade. Hunting and fishing and trapping is business with an Eskimo;
trade is his dissipation. During the weeks of this annual fair, things
pass from hand to hand, and come back and are traded over again, in the
pure joy of bargaining. Not only inanimate objects pass current, but the
tribesmen, in the exuberance of barter, sell their dogs, their children,
and sometimes their wives. It is a mad carnival of exchange.
The spirit of barter was in the air, and the boys found themselves
entering keenly into it, yet with an eye to the future rather than for
the purposes of mere trade. Their future travel must be by water, and
they wanted an umiak, but those who had them also wanted them. They found
one that belonged to a Point Hope man, however, that could be bought,
but not at the price which they could pay. In vain they offered caribou
hides, wolverine pelts, and almost everything they had. The price was not
sufficient, and they would have given up had the eye of the Eskimo not
lighted on the jade Buddha. Harry noted his interest in this, and the
Yankee in him rose up.
[Illustration: ESKIMO FAMILY TRAVELING]
He vowed that the bit of green stone was priceless and could not be
parted with on any account. The Eskimo offered various articles for it.
Harry would not sell. The owner increased the price. Harry turned his
back with much indifference. He remembered the lesson of his trading
with the little people of the Diomedes. How long ago that seemed! But
the recollection of it was still there. Joe looked on this with much
interest, well concealed. He had failed to buy the umiak. If Harry could
do it, he was glad, but it would not do to show his gladness. At length,
baffled, after offering everything but what the boys wanted, the Point
Hope man went away. Joe laughed at Harry, who was chagrined. But the
next day the Eskimo came back, bearing the umiak, which was a small one,
upside down on his shoulders. He staggered beneath its weight, and it
so nearly covered him that only his feet appeared. It had a ludicrous
appearance of walking by itself. He emerged from beneath this and laid it
at Harry’s feet.
“Will the white men give me the little stone for this?” he asked. With
wonder in his heart Harry waited a moment, not to seem to yield too
easily. Then he passed over the bit of jade and placed his hand on the
umiak. The bargain was completed.
Thus it is with the Innuit. He is a shrewd trader, yet, sometimes, for no
explainable reason, will give his all for a bauble, and in this he is
perhaps not so very different from white men, after all. This peculiar
trade left the boys with much merchandise still on their hands, and with
this they bought trade goods and supplies for the furtherance of their
journey. They sold their dogs and sled, and prepared for a boat trip
to Bering Straits, where they might find ships. Failing in this, they
planned to work south along the coast. Under no conditions would they go
north. They had had enough of that.
About this time they took an inventory of their possessions. They had a
tent, umiak, rifles, and ammunition, flour, sugar, salt, matches, and
clothes rather the worse for wear, but new muckalucks. They had a few
battered kitchen utensils, sufficient for rough camp housekeeping, a
little dried fish, and some caribou meat, but not much. They had also
vigorous health, courage, and a great desire to get home, and they
planned to make a start soon, but while they planned things happened.
As may be imagined, among such a horde of barbarians from strange
villages all was not law and order. At first the excitement of trading
and the novelty of the situation kept everybody busy, but by and by
barter got to be an old story. Contests and games became prevalent,
trials of strength in wrestling, shooting-matches, blanket-tossing, in
which if no one volunteered to be tossed they went out and caught some
one, who was tossed whether he needed it or not. Barbarians are like
children, and those who lost at the games were not always good-natured.
But the sport of all others at this meet seemed to be football. Not the
Rugby game, but a sort of go-as-you-please match, in which a few started,
then newcomers joined the weaker side, till hundreds swept back and forth
across the tundra, sometimes for many hours. There were no rules to this
game; it was simply get the ball back any way you could, and some of
these ways proved to be rough indeed. Yet all these things caused only
minor fracases and individual discontent. There was another matter which
threatened to make things more serious, and in fact did so. That was the
making of “hootch.”
If you mix flour and water and let it ferment, then distill the mixture
by means of a rude apparatus, the result is “hootch.” Probably the
coast natives learned this method from some renegade white man; then
the business spread. It came to the sandspit that summer, and, as a
result, old single-barreled shotguns were in great demand. If you take
one of these and put the butt of the barrel in a good hot fire, the block
becomes unbrazed from the breech and the barrel is a tube. It serves as
the worm of a primitive still. Many of these machines were set up in the
topeks on the sandspit, and the resultant hilarity became noticeable long
before the boys discovered its cause. They foresaw trouble, but they
could do nothing to prevent it. They did remonstrate with old Panik, the
head man of the tribe with which they had come down river, and toward
whom they had very friendly feelings. Indeed, since the kindness of the
village to the boys had been in part repaid by their help in saving the
youngsters from the river ice, there had been strong bonds of brotherhood
between them all.
Panik had become infected with the desire to make the new drink, and had
paid many skins to a Chuckchis for the old gun. He built a small fire at
his topek door, and while Harry argued with him he thrust the butt of the
barrel into it with a cheerful grin.
“You shall drink with me,” he said. “The new drink is very good.” And
then there was an explosion, and Panik sank to the ground without a cry.
The old gun was loaded, and the heat of the fire had discharged it. The
chief was dead, and Harry and Joe were much pained and horrified by the
accident.
They helped bury him with much ceremony and genuine sorrow, but the
matter did not end here. The Indian is more vindictive than the Eskimo,
and the relatives of the old chief took up the matter. They blamed the
Chuckchis who had sold the gun, even intimated that he had loaded it
purposely, and they demanded either his life in return, or the payment
of a large amount of goods. The Chuckchis, as I have said before, are
a truculent and warlike people, and this one resolutely and scornfully
refused reparation. Then there was a fight, and the Chuckchis killed one
of Panik’s relatives with his own hand.
The feud thus begun spread rapidly, the hootch adding fuel to the flames,
and in twenty-four hours the camp was a pandemonium. All took sides,
though few knew just why, or with whom, and a wild free fight ensued.
Eskimos, maddened with the vile liquor, ran amuck, killing whatever came
within reach, until they were themselves killed, and life was nowhere
safe for a moment.
It was of no use for the boys to interfere, and they soon saw that their
only safety lay in flight. This agreed with their plans to get away as
soon as possible, and they were fortunate in having a boat and sufficient
outfit. Accordingly they quietly loaded the umiak, bade good-by to such
of the villagers as were sober and they could reach without danger, and
were about to embark when the Point Hope man who had sold them the umiak
appeared. He was tipsy, like most everybody else, and in quarrelsome
mood. He laid his hand on the umiak and demanded it back, saying that he
was not satisfied with the terms of the trade. It was of no use to reason
with him; he was not in a condition to understand things. Behind him came
other Eskimos, also armed and equally tipsy, and matters looked decidedly
unpleasant. It seemed as if they would have to fight to retain their
property.
Joe took the matter in hand. “Stand by,” he said, “ready to shove off;
I’ll reason with this fellow.” He beckoned the Eskimo back a step from
the water, and the other followed with a satisfied leer. Probably no one
can be so insolent in the eyes of a white man as a half-drunken barbarian
when he thinks he is safe in the abuse of power.
“You say the umiak is yours?” said Joe, quite humbly. Harry’s blood began
to boil at this submissive tone, but he held his tongue.
“Yes,” replied the Eskimo, stepping nearer to Joe threateningly, “it is
mine, and you must—ugh!”
Joe had suddenly caught a wrestling grip on him, and before the tipsy
man of the ice knew what had happened, he was swung into the air and
sent whirling into the shallow water of Kotzebue Sound, gun and all. Joe
sprang to the umiak. “Shove off!” he said sharply, and putting his own
shoulder to the light boat, with Harry’s help it slid into deep water
while Joe sprang aboard. A roar of laughter went up from the crowd on
shore as the discomfited Eskimo staggered to his feet, and tried in vain
to use his wet gun on the fast receding boat. Then a moment after, the
mood of the crowd changed, and they began to shoot, but none of the shots
took effect. The wind was at their backs, and under steady strokes of the
paddle the umiak was soon out of shooting distance. The last the two boys
saw of the great trading fair at Hotham Inlet was a group of their former
companions standing on the beach shooting at them. The last they heard
was the uproar of drunken riot and occasional rifle-shots as the land
blurred in the distance behind them. They were free once more, headed
south, and the dancing waters of Kotzebue Sound flashed around them as
they spread their deerskin sail before the freshening breeze.
“We are well out of that,” said Joe, glancing to windward with a
sailor-man’s eye, “but I don’t exactly like the looks of the weather.”
Harry noted the gathering clouds to northward, the discontent in the
voice of the wind overhead, and agreed with him. The shallow waters of
the sound were already leaping in a jumble of waves, from whose white
caps the wind-snatched spindrift swept to leeward. Their light boat
danced along like an eggshell before the wind, safe as yet, but with it
he well knew they could go only with the gale. They were bound to sail
before it. After all, what matter? That was the direction in which they
wished to go, and the harder it blew the faster they would go. So while
Joe stood by the steering paddle, Harry busied himself in making all snug
aboard, and tried not to fret about the weather.
Meanwhile the weather was fretting all about him. An hour, two hours
passed, and what had been a little blow grew into a big one. The skin
boat, light as a cork, fairly flew before it. Often it seemed to skip
from wave to wave, taxing Joe’s skill at the steering paddle to the
uttermost to keep it head on. To turn sidewise to the wind and sea was
to be rolled over and over in the icy waters and be lost. Yet Joe kept
her straight. Now and then some invisible force seemed to drag the
cockleshell down, and a rush of foam came aboard, but she rose again, and
Harry bailed out before the next volume of water could come in. It was
wet and exciting work, but still neither boy lost his head, and still
they kept afloat. There was a hissing roar in the waters and a howl of
the wind overhead that made it difficult to hear one’s own voice even
when shouting, but a nod of the head or a look of the eye was enough for
a command from the skipper, and Harry obeyed promptly and steadily. Never
had he admired Joe so before. The sturdy young whaleman seemed to glow
with power as he sat erect in the stern of the umiak, his cap gone and
his long hair blown about his set, watchful face, his will dominating the
elements and shaping their fury to his purpose.
On they drove through a period of time that seemed endless. There was
no night to fall, else Harry was sure that it would have come and gone,
and still Joe steered, erect and immobile as the Sphinx, while Harry
bailed till he felt as if all the waters of Kotzebue Sound must have come
into the boat and been thrown out again. His very arms were numb with
weariness and the chill of it. How long a period five hours is can be
known only by those who have passed it in physical discomfort and with
great danger continually threatening, yet even such a period passes. Five
hours, ten miles an hour at the very least, they were making a record
passage of the sound, yet the lowering clouds and the mist blown from
tempestuous waves gave them no glimpse of any land.
Once Harry thought he could hear a dull booming sound, like the roar
of cannon, but he could not be sure. The strain was telling on him, he
knew, and he laid it to fancy. Then after a time he forgot it, for they
seemed to enter a stretch of tremendous cross seas, seas which fairly
leaped into the umiak and filled it faster than he could bail out. He
worked with the tremendous energy of despair, and then the tumult ceased
more quickly than it had arisen. The boat seemed gliding into still
waters, and the booming roar grew very loud, for it sounded from behind,
down the wind. He looked at Joe and saw his face lose its look of grim
determination for the first time since the wind had begun to blow. Joe
nodded his head over his left shoulder, and as Harry looked, a trailing
cloud of mist lifted and showed a rugged cliff, in the shelter of which
they were.
The umiak had made port, where, they knew not; it was enough that it was
a haven of refuge. The boat glided gently up to a shelving beach and
touched. Harry attempted to spring out, and fell sprawling to the earth,
which he embraced, partly because he was so glad to see it, but mainly
because his legs were so cramped and numb that he could not use them.
When he scrambled to his feet, he found Joe limping painfully out, much
like an old man, so great had been the strain of his vigil, so cold the
water that had deluged him. They set up the tent in a sheltered nook, and
Harry made a fire from driftwood, which was plentiful. He had matches in
a waterproof safe in his pocket, else their plight had been worse, for
everything in the boat was wet through and had been for hours. They made
a meal of what they had, the last of their caribou meat and some dried
fish, put great driftwood logs on the fire in front of their tent door,
turned in beneath the canvas in its grateful warmth, and slept for hours
and hours, utterly exhausted.
The storm continued for two days more, in which they did little except
keep warm and pile driftwood on their fire, drying out their supplies as
best they might. These were in sad shape. The flour was nearly spoiled,
the sugar and salt melted and mixed, and the bulk of their matches
soaked. These last they dried with much care, and made some of them
serviceable again, but the most of their provisions were practically
ruined.
When the storm broke, they climbed the hills behind them and looked
about. Then their wonder was great. The umiak had been driven to the
one harbor on that rocky shore, the one spot for miles to the east or
west where they could land in safety. Had they come to the land a dozen
furlongs either side of it, the surf must inevitably have overturned
their frail boat and drowned them in the undertow. The discovery chilled
them at first,—death had been so very near, so seemingly inevitable.
Then it heartened them greatly. They felt that the watchful care of
Providence was over them still, and that its aid was ever present,
however great the unknown dangers about them.
Descending the hills again, they took their rifles and began to explore
the little inlet, following it back into the hills, and keeping a sharp
outlook for game, which they sadly needed. They found nothing but a
snow-bunting or two, too small to shoot except in extremity, and a sort
of gray Arctic hawk, which promised to be but poor eating. Probably there
would be ptarmigans back farther, but they did not see any. At the head
of the inlet they found a brawling stream which descended from the hills
over mica-schist ledges and along sands that sparkled with yellow mica.
Harry sighted this mica as he stooped to drink from the stream, and
scooped up a handful of it with eagerness. He called to Joe, and both
examined it closely, but it was plainly mica.
“What did you expect it was?” asked Joe.
“Well,” replied Harry, “the same as you, judging from the way you rushed
up when you saw me scoop it up.”
Then they both laughed, and Joe took the yellow seal from his pocket and
looked at it lovingly. “It was down this way somewhere that this came
from,” he said. “What we’ve got here is fool’s gold, though.”
“So it is,” said Harry. “All the same, a mica-schist country is liable to
be gold-bearing. We had a course in mineralogy at the prep school, and I
learned about such things. What do you say if we prospect for a day?”
They would better have been hunting. They knew that, but the gold fever
is a strange thing. The germs of it had been planted in their systems by
the purchase of the singular nugget from the old Kowak River chief; now
the sight of some mica in a stream had stirred the dormant microbes into
action.
They tore back to camp and brought the umiak paddle to use as a rude
shovel. They had nothing better. Harry also brought their one pan. Hunger
was not to be thought of, home and civilization could wait; they had the
gold fever. There is surely something in the Alaskan air that makes men
peculiarly susceptible to this disease. During the last fifteen years a
hundred thousand men have left home and friends, lucrative positions, all
the comforts of “God’s country,” and risked fortune, health, and life
because of this burning fever in their veins. Where one has succeeded
thousands have failed, yet still they throng to the wild north, driven
by the insatiable thirst for sudden wealth. Though the boys did not know
it, the crest of this wave of hardy immigrants, wild fortune-seekers,
and adventurers was already surging toward them from the south, and had
nearly reached the wild coast that harbored them. Perhaps its enthusiasm
had preceded them in the air. Anyway, they had the gold fever.
They dug the sparkling micaceous sand from the banks of the little creek,
and Harry panned it, as the miners say. He filled the pan with it, added
water, and by whirling and shaking the pan and flipping the water over
the sides of it, he washed out all the lighter particles. As he reached
the bottom, he proceeded more carefully, and both boys watched the
result with eagerness. To “pan gold” well is not easy and requires much
practice, but almost any one can with a trial or two pan it roughly. As
the last of the sand was washed away by the whirling water, Harry set up
a shout.
“Black sand!” he said. “We’ve got black sand!”
“Humph!” said Joe, much disappointed. “What of it? It isn’t black sand
we want, it’s gold.”
“Yes,” replied Harry excitedly, “but that’s a sign. The black sand always
comes with the gold in placer mines. Wait till I wash this sand away.”
He whirled the pan with great care, and the heavy sand gradually
disappeared. Then the boys looked at each other and shook hands. In the
bottom of the pan lay several yellow flecks. Gold without a doubt, but
not much of it. As a matter of fact, their discovery amounted to very
little. Scarcely a stream in the Rocky Mountains, from Central America to
Cape Lisburne, but in it you may find these occasional flecks of gold.
To find it in paying quantities is altogether another matter, as many a
gray-bearded prospector has learned after years of toil and rough life.
But the boys were too young and inexperienced to realize this. They
thought that fortune was verily within their grasp. They prospected up
and down the stream, and never realized that they had not eaten dinner
and were very hungry.
Yet wherever they went they found nothing but these faint prospects, and
after long hours, fatigue and hunger finally asserted themselves and
they started back for camp. As they tramped, weary and disappointed, they
came round a bend in the creek and Joe’s eyes lighted up. There on the
water’s edge, strolling along a clay bottom thinly strewn with micaceous
sand, were three ptarmigans, picking up bits of gravel for the good of
their crops, as such birds do. They looked large and plump in the eyes of
two hungry boys.
“Lie low,” whispered Joe, “and we’ll have one of those birds.”
They watched them eagerly from behind a sheltering mound on the bank. The
birds pecked leisurely for a while, then went toward the bank and settled
contentedly beneath some dwarf willows in the sun. Paddle in hand, Joe
slipped noiselessly forward, got behind the clump of willows, crept round
it, and with a sudden blow of the paddle laid out a ptarmigan. The others
flew.
“There!” said Joe. “Here’s a good bite for dinner. Let’s hurry back.”
With renewed energy they hustled back to the camp, three quarters of a
mile away, and soon had the ptarmigan broiling over a good fire. They
made some rude flapjacks with the remnants of their spoiled flour, and
ate the bird pretty nearly bones and all.
“There,” said Harry, “I feel better. Pity we did not have the rifle
along. We could have had the two others. However, they’re up there
somewhere and will do for another meal. Wonder what these fellows find to
eat.”
He picked up the crop of the ptarmigan and opened it with his knife.
“Buds, bugs, and gravel,” he said. “Not a very tempting diet, but we may
have to come to it ourselves. Hello, what’s this?”
In the gravel in the bird’s crop were three or four pebbles, not much
larger than grains of rice, but flattened and yellow. They examined these
with growing excitement.
“It’s gold!” exclaimed Harry. “It’s gold! we’ve been prospecting in the
wrong places.”
“I should say we had,” said Joe, giggling somewhat hysterically; “but we
can’t kill ptarmigans enough to make a gold mine.”
“No, no,” cried Harry, too much in earnest to appreciate a joke. “It’s
the clay bottom. The birds picked up the nuggets there. Gold sinks
through sand in the stream just as it does in the pan. We should have
gone down to ‘bed rock,’ as the miners say. There’s where it is. Come on
back!”
The sun had swung low to set behind the northern cliffs, and it lacked
but two hours of midnight. But there would be no darkness in that
latitude in late June, and forgetting fatigue, they hurried back to the
spot which they now called Ptarmigan Bend. Here a bed of stiff clay
seemed to underlie the bed of the stream, leading down to a mica-schist
ledge over which the waters rippled as if from an artificial pond.
From the edge of this little lagoon they scraped sand and pebbles,
getting well down into the clay with the now frayed and worn paddle. The
clay flowed from the pan in a muddy stream, the sand easily followed, and
they scraped out the larger gravel with care, panning the sand beneath it
again. Then they set down the pan and shook hands with each other once
more.
In the bottom of the pan were a dozen of the flat nuggets such as had
been in the ptarmigan’s crop, and one large one, the size of a large
bean! They were on bed rock surely, and the gold that had tantalized them
for a time seemed about to yield itself up in quantity.
CHAPTER XIV
STAKING OUT A FORTUNE
The red sun sank behind the northern cliffs, hid there three hours,
and slanted eastward and upward again, and still the boys toiled on,
oblivious. Panful after panful of the sand they scraped from the clay
bottom, now in the edge of the stream, now back toward the tundra, and
always they found gold. At length their rude paddle-shovel was worn to a
frazzled stick and they themselves were in not much better condition, but
in Harry’s worn bandana handkerchief was a store of coarse and fine gold
and nuggets that was quite heavy.
Fatigue will finally, however, get the better even of the gold fever, and
along in mid-morning, pale and hollow-eyed, quite exhausted with toil and
excitement, but triumphant, they stumbled down to camp and turned in, too
tired to eat,—indeed, there was little but damaged flour that they could
eat. They slept ten hours without stirring, and the sun was low in the
northwest when they awoke.
Joe rubbed his eyes open and sat up. He found Harry, the bandana in his
lap, poring over the store of gold.
“Gold,” said Harry, “is worth about sixteen dollars to the ounce, as
the miners reckon it. I should say we had about three ounces here.
Forty-eight dollars,—not bad for a first day’s work!”
“Um-m, no,” said Joe; “but I wish you’d take part of it and go down to
the store and buy some provisions. I’m hungry.”
Harry looked at him. Was Joe daft? But no, Joe was the saner of the two.
“We’ve got gold,” Joe continued, “and we’ve got grit,—at least some of
mine’s left, though not much, but what we haven’t got is grub. Seems to
me the next thing to look out for is something to eat. The gold will wait
a day for us, but there is something inside me that says the other won’t.
We’d better go prospecting for food this time.”
Harry put his hand on his stomach. “Joe,” he said, “I declare you are
right. You generally are. Fact is, I was so crazy over this yellow stuff
in the handkerchief that I had forgotten everything else. We’ll hunt
to-day.”
They made a sorry breakfast of some heavy cakes made from the last of
the spoiled flour, then took their rifles and went down toward the sea.
The cakes were heavy within them, but their hearts were light. They
ranged through a little gully seaward and to the east, seeking for
ptarmigans but finding none. They might have hunted for the other two
up at Ptarmigan Bend, but each felt that it would not do. The moment
they sighted the diggings it was probable that they would fall to mining
again, and they knew this and kept away. Through the gully they reached
the shore, a narrow strip of pebbly beach at the foot of rough cliffs,
and here in long rows, sitting on their eggs on the narrow ledges, they
found scores of puffins. They are stupid little fellows, sitting bolt
upright on greenish, blotched eggs that are not unlike those of the
crow, but larger. The flesh of the puffin is not bad eating when one
is hungry, and the boys found these so tame that they hardly flew at a
rifle-shot. In half an hour they had a dozen, and tramped back to camp,
well satisfied that they need not starve. By the time two birds were
cooked and eaten the sun was behind the cliffs, and the gray of the
Arctic midnight was over all. They sprang to their feet refreshed and
about to plan to resume digging, when Joe held up his hand with a look
of consternation on his face. A long unheard but familiar sound came to
the ears of both boys, and Harry’s face reflected the dismay that was in
Joe’s.
The sound was the rhythmic click of oars in rowlocks, and it came up the
placid waters of the inlet from the sea.
A few days before, how gladly they would have heard that sound. Oars in
rowlocks meant white men. Eskimos and Indians paddle. Each stepped to his
rifle and saw that it was loaded, and then they stood ready to defend
their claim against all comers. So quickly does a white man distrust
another when there is gold at stake.
A moment, and a boat came round the bend, a rude boat, built of rough
boards and well loaded, but with only one occupant. This seemed to be an
oldish man, a white man, roughly dressed. He rowed steadily but wearily,
without looking up. By and by the bow of the boat struck the beach not
far away, and the man turned his head over his shoulder toward the bow
and seemed to speak to the air. Then he nodded his head, stepped out,
drew his boat up a little, and came toward them.
“Morning, gents!” he said. “How you finding it?”
The boys put down their rifles and greeted him cordially. They had
nothing to fear from this little unarmed man who limped as he walked.
After all it was good to see a white man, and his coming presaged much
for their safe return to civilization.
“You’re not miners,” he said, after looking them over keenly.
“No,” replied Joe, “not exactly. We’re whalemen. We were wrecked up on
the Arctic coast about two years ago, and we’re working our way back to
civilization.”
“Want to know!” exclaimed the other. “Well, you’re most to it now.
Civilization is working right this way pretty fast, that is, if you’ve a
mind to call it that.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Joe in wonder.
“Mean?” replied the little man. “I mean that there’s sixty thousand
people up in this country at this minute, only none of ’em have got quite
up to here except me. They’re piling into Nome as fast as the steamers
can bring them, and they’re spreading over the country as fast as horse
and foot will take them. It’s the biggest rush the Alaska diggings ever
saw.”
“Nome!” queried Joe. “Where’s that?”
The little man looked at him a moment. “Oh, I forgot,” he said. “You’ve
been away two or three years, and it all happened since then. Nome is
about two hundred miles south of this by sea. I’ve just rowed in from
there. They found beach diggings there a year ago that were mighty rich,
and the whole earth piled up there this spring. You can’t get a foot of
ground anywhere down there for fifty miles. It’s all staked. I came in
there late last fall and couldn’t get anything then. Got a notion in my
head that there was good ground north here and started across tundra in
the winter. Froze my feet and had to crawl back on my hands and knees.
Started out again this spring with this boat. Paid a hundred dollars
for it. Rowed alongshore as far as Cape Prince of Wales. Father-in-law
got aboard the boat there, and he’s been sitting in the bow ever since
telling me where to row. He directed me here. Father-in-law has been dead
these ten years.”
Joe and Harry looked at each other, and the little man noted it and
smiled sadly.
“I know,” he said, “it sounds queer. Well, it _is_ queer. Course ’tain’t
so, but it seems so. Ain’t nobody there, it’s jest my notion. A man gets
queer up in this country if he’s too much alone. I reckon it’s a sign,
though, and I’m going to find something good. Now, I’m hungry. Will you
eat with me? My name’s Blenship, what’s yourn?”
The boys helped Blenship get his outfit ashore, assured that they had
found a friend. He had a pick, two shovels, two regular gold pans, a
queer machine something like a baby’s wooden cradle which he called a
rocker, and a good quantity of civilized provisions and utensils, besides
a camp outfit. The boat was heavily loaded, and it was a wonder to them
how he had made the long trip in it in safety. This he could not tell
much about. He had simply “followed directions.” He had “sour dough”
bread of his own cooking, and it did not take him long to broil some ham
in a little spider. Then he invited the boys to fall to with him, and
they were not shy about doing it. What if they had just eaten puffin?
Real bread and ham! It made them ravenous.
After the meal they told Blenship of their discovery. His eyes glistened
at sight of the nuggets, but he did not seem much surprised.
“Just as I expected,” he said. “I’ve come at the right time for you,
though. You want to stake that ground right away, and then I’ll stake
what’s left. We can’t be too quick about it, either. You may see forty
men coming over the hill at any minute. If you got all this with a wooden
stick and a bread pan, there’s stuff enough there for all of us. Wait a
minute, though, let’s see what father-in-law says.”
He stepped down to his boat for a moment, then came back.
“Father-in-law is gone,” he said. “Couldn’t raise him anywhere. Guess
this is the place he meant for me to come to. No need of his staying
round, long as the job’s done. Now let’s stake that ground, then we’ll
be safe. You are entitled to five claims. One of you is the discoverer.
He can stake discovery claim and number one above and number one below;
then the other can have one above him and one below him. That’s all you
are good for. Then I come in with one above and one below, and I’ve got
powers of attorney enough in my pocket to stake all the rest of the
creek. Got about forty men to give me powers of attorney when I left on
this trip. They get half of each claim I stake for them. I get the other
half, which ain’t so bad in this case. Come on.”
They worked steadily for several days, cutting and shaping stakes from
driftwood, measuring distances carefully with Blenship’s fifty-foot
tape, posting location notices, and now and then stopping to prospect
a locality. Blenship always went down to “bed rock” for his prospects.
He handled a pan with the marvelous skill of an old timer, and his eyes
always glistened at the result.
“Boys,” he declared one day enthusiastically, “this is the richest creek
the world ever saw, I believe. I want you to elect me recorder of this
district. We’ll call it the Arctic District, and I have a notion that I’d
like to call this ‘Candle Creek,’ ’cause its prospects are so bright.
Then I’ll record the claims duly, and we’ll be all registered and can
hold everything according to law. What do you say?”
The boys were only too glad to thus find a mentor and friend, and
cheerfully agreed to everything. An Alaska mining claim, according to
United States law, consists of twenty acres, generally laid out in a
parallelogram, 330 feet each side of the creek, making a width of 660 in
all. Their five claims meant a hundred acres, and, if even moderately
rich, were a fortune. In the end they had the entire creek staked from
source to mouth, the number of powers of attorney which Blenship
produced being prodigious.
In spite of the hard work, perhaps because they were living well on
civilized food, they never seemed to tire, and were as frisky as
young colts. Ten days had passed, and never a sign of the invasion
of prospectors which Blenship had so confidently predicted. Since
the father-in-law episode the little man had given no signs of his
“queerness,” unless this story of thousands to the south were one. On the
other hand, he seemed very sane and shrewd, and kindly in all ways. He
shared his provisions in return for help in staking his numerous claims,
and the boys could see that his advice was friendly and worth following.
The day the last stake was driven he insisted that they celebrate, and
got up a bountiful meal with his own hand, making a bread pudding with
real raisins from his stores, which filled the boys with unalloyed
delight.
“There!” he said, as he lighted his pipe after the meal was finished,
“now we’re fixed. If old Tom Lane comes up here and wants the earth,
he can have it, but he’ll have to pay good for it. You and I could
work those claims and take out a few hundred dollars’ worth of gold a
day until the ground freezes up, and then we wouldn’t more’n pay our
expenses up here and back and the cost of living. That isn’t the way
money is made in the mining business. You just stake the claims and hold
on to them until the man comes along who has the millions to work ’em in
a big way. There’s several of those men up in Nome already, but the king
of them all is old Tom Lane. He’s got his men out spying round all over
the country, and it won’t be long before one of them drops on to this
place. Then we’ll drive a bargain that’ll make the old man’s eyes stick
out. Meantime I’ll just show you boys how to build and work a rocker, and
we’ll get out a few hundred a day and wait developments.”
Blenship showed them how to handle the rocker that very day, and left
them at Ptarmigan Bend gleefully running sand through it while he
prospected his various claims more thoroughly.
[Illustration: PROSPECTOR AND HIS OUTFIT]
A miner’s rocker is ingenious in its simplicity. It is generally a wooden
box, having a rough sieve-like hopper at the top, and an inclined plane
of canvas within. You shovel the sand into the hopper, then pour in water
and rock gently. The water washes the sand down along the inclined plane,
where riffles catch the heavy gold, while the sand washes over and out
at the bottom. It is a simple matter to work this, though, like the gold
pan, its perfect manipulation requires much skill and judgment. At the
end of an hour the boys made their first clean-up, and were delighted
at the amount of gold that lay yellow in the riffles. They worked thus
with great glee till Blenship returned, long past the supper hour. He
inspected the results, and even he was roused to enthusiasm at the
quantity of gold that they had.
“I declare,” said he, “it’s about ten ounces, and most all small nuggets.
Probably as much more fine gold went right through. You’ve been rocking
too hard. A rocker is like a woman; you’ve got to humor her or she won’t
work well. Let me try the tailings.”
He panned the heap of sand that had gone through the rocker, and showed
them the fine gold still left in it.
“You only got about half on’t,” he said. “Geewhillikins! but that little
pond is a pocket for you. There’s a young million right in a few rods, or
I miss my guess. I’ve got some rich spots upstream myself, but they ain’t
in it with this one. I’d like to try some sluicing on that. It would be
dead easy. You could dam the creek at that little gap up above and get
at all this clay bottom, and have plenty of water for the sluice. How
would it do for me to go into partnership with you boys for a time, and
we try this thing? Reckon we could fix up some kind of a trade, couldn’t
we?”
“What do you think?” said Joe to Harry.
“I think,” answered Harry, “that Mr. Blenship is more than kind to us. I
for one will heartily accede to any agreement that he wants to make.”
“And so will I,” Joe assented warmly.
“Listen to that, now,” said Blenship in mock despair. “Here I was
planning to drive a hard bargain with them, and they put me on my honor.
Anything I want to do! Humph! Well, this is what I propose. Suppose we
get to work and sluice here at Partridge Bend. You give me a hundred
dollars a day every day of actual sluicing, as general manager; you take
the rest. If you ain’t suited at the end of the first three days, we’ll
call the bargain off.”
“Agreed!” said Harry. “Agreed!” said Joe, and they set to work.
They blocked the stream with stones, and stuffed tundra moss into the
crevices, then piled turf over the whole. With the pick they hewed a
gully in the mica-schist ledge that dammed the little pond and let the
water out. Then they knocked Blenship’s boat to pieces and made a rude
sluice with the boards. This they braced upon driftwood logs set on the
right slant for sluicing. Blenship, skillful as a woodsman with his axe,
hewed more sluice timber out of driftwood logs, and finally the structure
was complete. There were still no signs of other prospectors, and the
boys began to think Blenship’s story of the thousands in the country just
south of them must be another delusion of his.
Finally, everything was complete. Blenship showed them how to shovel into
the sluice so that enough but not too much dirt should be present in it,
and then turned on the water. For two hours the boys swung the shovels
lustily, and found it very fatiguing work indeed. Blenship managed the
flow of the water so that it should work to the best advantage during
this time. Then when the boys were thoroughly weary he shut it off and
called a halt. Joe and Harry rested on their shovels, puffing.
“Time to clean up,” he said. “Now we’ll see whether I’m worth a hundred
dollars a day or not.”
With water in his gold pan he washed the remaining sand from riffle to
riffle, and finally collected the gold in a yellow heap in the pan at the
bottom of the sluice. It was quite a little heap, and Blenship weighed
it, pan and all, in his hand, thoughtfully.
“Reckon there’s about three pounds of it,” he said coolly. “Say seven
hundred dollars.”
Joe and Harry looked over his shoulder with bulging eyes. Seven hundred
dollars! Two hours’ sluicing! Neither before had realized the full import
of their good fortune. If they could do that in two hours,—in a day, a
week, a month! Their heads whirled. And then all three started.
A shadow had fallen across the pan.
Blenship whirled sullenly and savagely, reaching toward his hip with an
instinctive movement, though no weapon hung there. Then he laughed.
“Oh, it’s you, Griscome, is it? Be’n expecting some of you fellows this
ten days. Come to camp and have a bite with us?”
“No, thanks,” said the other, a tall man in a blue shirt, stout boots,
and a slouch hat, “my outfit’s back here. Pretty good clean-up for a
little work.”
“That’s so,” replied Blenship. “And that ain’t all. The whole creek’s
like that from top to bottom, and it’s staked from bottom to top, and
recorded. I’m the recorder. We’d ’a’ staked the benches, only the powers
of attorney give out. Better stake ’em, they’re likely good.”
“Much obliged,” said the other. “Guess I will. So long.”
He went out of sight over the hill in long, swift strides.
“What are the benches?” asked Joe. “Will he stake them? Who is he?”
“One at a time, young feller,” said Blenship. “He is one of Pap Lane’s
men. The benches are the hillside claims. He may stake ’em, but I doubt
it. He won’t wait. He’ll light out across tundra as fast as his horse can
carry him, and tell his boss about this. Meanwhile we can wait, and we
might as well get what’s coming to us. If one of you boys will try and
handle that water, I’ll show you how to shovel.”
Joe thought himself a good deal of a man, but he could not keep up with
the other in shoveling. He hung sturdily to his task, however, and for
three hours more shoveled wet sand and clayey gravel into the sluice
while Harry regulated the water according to occasional directions from
Blenship. The latter instructed Joe in the best methods of scraping bed
rock, and showed him how the best of the gold was liable to lie in the
little hollows of the clay, and be missed by an inexperienced hand.
At the end of three hours Blenship ordered a cessation of work once
more, much to Joe’s relief, for five hours of labor with the shovel had
thoroughly exhausted him. He lay back on the tundra while Harry and
Blenship cleaned up. The result showed Blenship’s superior skill in
mining, and the longer run. It was nearly double the other.
“Guess we’ll call it a day’s work,” said he. “Pretty near two thousand
dollars. Have I earned my hundred?”
The boys thought he had indeed, and pressed him to take more for his
share, but he resolutely refused. In the tent he took from his outfit a
pair of miner’s scales and weighed out his wages carefully, putting them
in a little chamois bag in his bosom. The balance he turned over to the
boys, and they stowed it in the bandana with what they already had.
“You see,” said Blenship, “the better showing your little pocket makes in
the next ten days, the better price the whole creek will bring when Pap
Lane or the Alaska Commercial Company or some of those fellows come up
here to buy it.”
“But why should we sell?” asked Joe.
“Young feller,” said Blenship, “don’t you make no mistake. If you can
sell out your share of this creek at a good price, you do it. You’ve got
a little spot that’s mighty rich. The rest of your claim may not pay for
the labor of working it. Two months from now it will be frozen up, and
will stay so for nine months more. A man with a million behind him can
take this creek and work it to advantage. You and I might peck at it for
ten years and then not get a living out of it. If you get a good chance,
sell.”
As if in proof of what Blenship said, the next day it rained, the
swelling waters carried out their rude dam, and it was three days more
before they got it repaired and began sluicing again. Yet when they did,
they took out three thousand in a single day. The next day it was only a
thousand, because they had used up part of their ground and had to move
their sluices, which took time. But on the third they found a hollow in
the clay bottom that was a veritable treasure house, and yielded up over
five thousand dollars in fine gold and nuggets.
That morning three men came over the hills with packs on their backs.
They camped near by and examined the notices with much disgust. It did
not please them that the whole creek was staked.
Blenship greeted them jovially, showed them his records in proof of
the validity of the claims, and advised them to stake the benches,
which they did. They prospected these and found a certain amount of
gold there. Others came, on foot and with pack-horses,—evidently the
story had spread. The place began to assume quite a mining-camp air.
Meanwhile Blenship and his lieutenants worked on industriously. They were
questioned much, but not otherwise disturbed. The newcomers were as yet
too busy prospecting and staking ground for themselves.
One day Harry dropped his shovel with a start. The long roar of a steam
whistle sounded from the sea. A steamer! How it brought back memories of
the Bowhead, now scattered in ruin along the Arctic shore, and through
her the home thought again. Suppose Captain Nickerson should be aboard.
Perhaps he was bound north once more in search of them. The bustle of the
new camp and the glamour of the greed of gold slipped from him like a
garment, and his soul soared from it, free, back to the home fireside and
his father and mother. The voice of Blenship recalled him.
“Come on, boy,” he said kindly; “let’s keep her a-going. I reckon that’s
old Pap Lane come up in his steamer to see about this new strike. We want
to have a good clean-up just going on when he strikes camp.”
An hour later Blenship stood by his tent door talking with a
square-shouldered, resolute-looking man of perhaps sixty. His hair was
gray, but there was no stoop in his figure and he seemed in the prime of
forceful life.
“Pshaw! Blenship,” he was saying, “you have no business to stake all this
creek. Even discovery would only entitle you to three claims, and you
must have twenty. You’ll have to pull up and let my boys go in.”
“Nearer forty claims than twenty,” Blenship declared coolly, “and every
one of them staked on a good power of attorney from good hard-headed men
in Nome. If you try to cut them out, they’ll fight you, every one of
them, and you know what that means in the Alaska courts. No, sir, those
claims are legally staked, on the square, and I propose to hold ’em.”
“But you can’t stake except on an actual discovery of gold,” continued
the big man. “Do you mean to say you have found prospects on every one of
them?”
“Colonel,” said Blenship, “you come with me and see.”
The two were gone two hours and came back, still arguing the matter.
“All the same,” said the big man, “it’s only prospects, and the ground
is more than likely to be spotted. What I want to see is actual outcome
of gold from it before I consider any such preposterous price for a
controlling interest in it.”
“You do, do you, colonel?” queried Blenship calmly. “Well, just step this
way.”
Blenship stepped down toward the sluices where Harry and Joe stood, as
had been quietly planned by the wily little man.
“Colonel,” said he, “these are Mr. Nickerson and Mr. Desmond, discoverers
of Candle Creek diggings, the richest in the known world. Boys, this is
Colonel Lane, of California, now of Nome. He’s also about the richest in
the known world, but, like Julius Cæsar or whoever it was, he’s looking
for more mining-fields to conquer. Gentlemen, show Mr. Lane what’s in the
riffles.”
The boys stepped aside and Colonel Lane stepped up to the sluice boxes.
He looked from riffle to riffle without a word. It was the result of a
full half day’s shoveling, and fate had been kind to them.
The big man looked long in silence, then he whistled. But in a second he
chuckled.
“Blenship,” he said, “I wouldn’t have thought it of you. You salted the
sluice boxes. You’ve put in all the gold you had in camp when you heard
me coming.”
“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Blenship, with scorn, “all the gold we have in camp!
You must think we are pretty slow miners. Boys, come down to the tent and
open the poke for him.”
With trembling hands Harry drew out the bag of dust and nuggets from its
hiding-place and opened it. The colonel looked long into this bag, lifted
it, and then whistled softly for the second time.
“Why, confound it!” said he. “There’s a good twelve thousand dollars
there. Do you mean to say you got it out of that little mud-hole you are
working out there?”
“All on’t, colonel, all on’t. That’s the richest bank—mud-bank—I’ve seen
yet, and I’ve been in placer mining all my life. Now, colonel, come out
here and talk with me. There’s no man in this world can handle this creek
the way you can. It’s the biggest thing the country ever saw. Come out
back while I argue with you.”
The two walked back on the tundra together, and Harry tied up the poke
and put it in its hiding-place again. Joe, weary with his morning’s work,
sat down in the tent, but Harry wandered outside. His thoughts were still
of home and the people there. He had heard the steamer whistle again, why
he did not know. Home was not so very far away now, he felt that, but
the thought made him only the more homesick. He noted some men coming up
the creek, seemingly strangers, but strangers were plentiful there now.
Probably these were more people from the ship coming up to join those who
were with Colonel Lane. There was a big man a little ahead of the group,
and Harry did not notice that as he approached he looked earnestly at him
and almost broke into a run. The great man rushed up to him, took him by
the shoulders, and turned him round, looking him square in the face,
then let out a roar that echoed from the surrounding hills.
[Illustration: SLUICING AT CANDLE CREEK]
“It’s him!” he bellowed. “It’s him! Great jumping Jehoshaphat, it’s him!
I knew he’d turn up. You couldn’t lose him. Didn’t I see him go overboard
in the straits in a livin’ gale of wind and come back bringing a Yukon
goose with him? It’s the seven-time winner, cap. But where’s Joe?”
Joe answered for himself, rushing out of the tent and flying by the great
boatswain of the Bowhead,—for who else would it be?—into his father’s
arms. A moment later Harry was gripping Captain Nickerson’s hand with
one of his, the big boatswain’s with the other, and laughing and crying
and talking all at once, while Mr. Jones, the taciturn first mate stood
by, erect and solemn, and seeming to look as if all this waste of words
was a very wrong thing. When the two boys were released from the hands
of Captain Nickerson and the boatswain, the first mate extended his, and
though his face twitched with emotion all he said was, “How d’ do. Glad.”
Evidently Mr. Jones’s characteristics had lost nothing in two years.
Captain Nickerson was grayer, and there were lines of care about his eyes
that had not been there before. But these seemed to slip away as the
boys told their story and he realized that he had them both back again,
sound and hearty. Mr. Adams had fitted out another ship for him the
following spring and he had made a trip north, but the ice had been very
bad and he got no certain news of the boys, yet somehow neither he nor
the folks at home had been willing to give them up for lost. Therefore he
had come up again this summer, whaling, but determined to lose no chance
to get news of them. By chance he had found at Point Hope the native
from whom they had bought the umiak. He had told him how two white men
who might be the missing ones had been at the Hotham Inlet trading fair
and gone south across the bay. He had followed on the slender clue, had
sighted Lane’s steamer, and landed. And so they talked on, oblivious of
all except that they were reunited again after so long a time. Harry and
Joe forgot their gold, and the captain, full of news from home for them,
asked nothing about their present condition.
Meanwhile Blenship and the colonel, arguing earnestly back on the tundra,
had noticed the commotion.
“Who are those people?” asked the big man.
Blenship did not know, but he was not going to let a little matter of
ignorance spoil a good bargain. “Those,” said he, “must be the wealthy
friends of my partners from the States. They’ve been expecting some
people up on their own steamer, exploring. I reckon they’ll be glad to
see how well the boys have done.”
“Look here, Blenship,” said the colonel hastily, “I reckon I’ll have
to take your figures on this trade. You are empowered to act for your
partners, aren’t you?”
“Certainly, colonel, certainly,” replied Blenship, with a twinkle in his
eye.
“Well, it’s a bargain, then,” declared the colonel. “Shake hands on it.”
The two shook hands solemnly and hastened back to the tent. Mutual
introductions followed, then Blenship spoke. “I’ve sold the creek,
boys,” he said, “and the colonel has driven a hard bargain with me, but
I reckon we’ll all have to stand by it. In the first place he gets my
rights in all the claims I’ve staked, and that’s most of the creek, for
fifty thousand dollars. Ain’t that right, colonel?” The big man nodded.
“Next he buys a controlling interest in discovery claim and the two above
and below, belonging to you two boys, fifty-one per cent. of the five
claims, for just a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, cash and
notes, you to retain forty-nine per cent. interest in them all and to
receive that proportion of the net earnings, the proper share of expenses
being taken out. Reckon he’ll stick you bad on them expenses.”
“Look here,” said Captain Nickerson. “What’s all this?”
“Oh,” said Blenship, “I thought you knew.” The colonel was shaking his
fist at Blenship, but he pretended not to notice it. “Show him the poke,
man!” he said to Harry.
Harry drew the gold from its hiding-place and untied the neck of the sack
once more. The big boatswain waited just long enough to see this gold,
then he bolted from the tent. Outside they could hear him slapping his
great leg with a noise like the report of a pistol and gurgling something
about seven-time winners, but within they were too much interested in the
story of the placer discoveries to heed.
CHAPTER XV
HOME AGAIN
The boys slept that night in clean linen on board the Maisie Adams,
Captain Nickerson’s new ship. What a thump Harry’s heart gave when he
saw the name on the stern and realized who it was that had come to
rescue him! A thought that had been vaguely his for long, a desire that
had been but a blush deep down in his heart, grew to a dominant purpose
in a moment, then. Maisie’s clear gray eyes shone out of memory with a
new light in them, and the thought of home-coming thrilled him with an
ecstasy more potent than ever before.
The next day the final papers in the mining deal were passed on board
Colonel Lane’s steamer, a splendid vessel, the T. H. Lane, named for
himself. It is thus that the pioneer of the present day exploits the far
regions of the earth. He comes with an army at his command, with every
resource that steam and modern invention and unlimited capital can
furnish, and at the nod of his head cities spring up, great industries
flourish, almost in a day.
What pleased Captain Nickerson more than anything else in the adventures
which Joe and Harry related to him was the story of the finding of
the stores of whalebone at the village of Nunaria. His own father had
been an officer in the unfortunate fleet, and the finding of the bone
seemed to come to him as a fitting inheritance. But before he sailed
north to make the discovery good he turned the vessel’s prow toward
Nome, and there transferred the boys to one of the numerous steamers
ready to sail for Seattle. The two should bear home the news of their
own good fortune,—home to the waiting, anxious mothers in the east.
And so they parted, and the boys, steaming south on a staunch vessel,
gazed with tears in their eyes on the smoke of the Maisie Adams, which
bore resolutely north again toward the straits and the fascinating,
mysterious, dangerous region where they had been the captives of the
frost for two long, eventful years. It may as well be said here that
Captain Nickerson found the long lost bone without difficulty, and on his
way south stopped at the little village of Point Lay, where he found
Harluk and Kroo living frugally and contentedly. Before he sailed away he
rewarded the gentle friends of the two boys with stores and supplies that
made them far richer than they had ever dreamed of being.
Seattle and civilization in very truth came next. How the city had grown,
and what a pleasure there was in its bustle, the roar of traffic, and the
throngs of well-dressed, busy men and women in its streets. Here they
stopped only long enough to replenish their wardrobes, bettered already
somewhat by the “slop chest” of the Maisie Adams, but still far from what
they should be, and to send two telegrams to the people at home. They
followed the messages on the first train for the east, and now let us
leave them, flying across country as fast as steam can carry them, and
see how matters stand at Quincy Point.
Like Captain Nickerson, Mr. Desmond had grown grayer in the years that
had passed. To take up the débris of a broken fortune and out of it
build a new one is no easy task. He had toiled faithfully, yet only a
very slender success had thus far rewarded him. There was depression in
his line of business, and the limited capital which the downfall of
the house had left him made it uphill work. Yet it was not so much the
business cares as anxiety as to the fate of his only son that weighed
most upon him. He had never for a moment given him up for lost, yet when
the first summer passed without news of the absent ones the stoop came
into his shoulders again, and the lines of care deepened on his face.
More and more he had come to depend on the simple, cheery faith of Mrs.
Desmond, whose hope and trust in the watchful care of Divine Providence
had never for a moment seemed to waver. What it had cost her to keep up
this cheery calm, no one but a wife and mother can tell. It is upon the
good women of the world that these burdens come, and right nobly do they
bear them.
It was on a bright day at the last of August that Mr. Desmond received
that telegram at his office, gave the clerks a half holiday as a slight
token of thanksgiving, and came down on the noon train. Mrs. Desmond met
him at the door.
“What is it, Frank?” she said. “Aren’t you well?”
“Why, yes,” replied Mr. Desmond, casting about for a way to break the
good news to her gently; as if news could be broken, or good news ever
needed it! “Why, yes, I’m more than well, I”—And then Mrs. Desmond took
him by the shoulders and looked once in his face, and knew.
“Who can deceive a lover?” said one of the wise ones of old, and these
two were lovers still and always would be. The father had brought the
happy story in his face, and when he clasped his wife in his arms and
told it in words, it was the second telling.
I’ve said something in this story about the rapidity with which news
travels in Eskimo land, but you ought to see it go in a New England
village. It flutters with the pigeons from house-top to house-top. It
comes to the doorstep with the morning’s milk, before you are up, and the
expressman leaves it with a package at eight at night. You may start the
story ahead of you and then follow it down street on a bicycle, but it
will leave you a poor second at the far end of the town. Thus it became
known before sunset that Harry Desmond, whom everybody thought had been
lost in the Arctic, was on his way home, alive and well, and great was
the rejoicing thereat. Everybody seemed to take especial pride in the
safe return of the young man, and the Adamses were in quite a flutter of
excitement about it.
“Isn’t it splendid?” said Mrs. Adams to Maisie. “I feel as if Harry quite
belonged to us since he pulled you out of the water that day nearly three
years ago. He must be almost a grown man now, and you’ve grown up quite a
bit yourself. How the time does fly!”
Maisie had indeed grown up quite a bit. The change from girlhood to young
womanhood, which seems to come so suddenly with the lengthening of the
skirt and the doing up of the hair, had come to her, and the coupling of
her name so intimately with Harry’s sent a swift flush mantling her round
cheek. Harry had been her playmate and friend since early childhood,
and now he was coming back grown up, and she was grown up too. She felt
her cheeks burn under her mother’s kindly scrutiny, and she hastened to
change the subject, but the thought of Harry came back now and then, and
the color with it.
Harry’s father and Mr. Adams met the two boys in Boston, but Joe left
immediately on the train for the Cape. His mother was waiting for him,
he knew, and the thought would brook no delay. Mrs. Desmond waited for
Harry at the house. She knew that if she came to the station, she could
not help laughing and crying over him at once, and the reticence of the
New England blood bade her avoid the chance of a scene. Queer thing, the
New England blood,—sensitive, full of pathos and lire and enthusiasm, all
masked beneath the cool steel of seeming indifference. All the neighbors
saw her meet him at the door quite sedately; none of them saw the passion
of mother love revealed after the door was shut, nor would she have had
them see it for worlds.
Harry sat for a long time with his strong brown hands clasped tight in
his mother’s slender white ones. Now she wondered at his height and manly
strength, again flushed with secret pride at the new look of character
and decision in his face, and vowed that she had lost her boy after
all,—he was a man now. He told them in brief the story of his adventures,
but said nothing of the placer mine and the bargain with Colonel Lane.
Somehow he wanted to wait on that, to keep it till the last.
“How has the business gone, father,” he asked after a while. “Did you
manage without me in the office?”
“Not over well,” replied his father soberly. “It has been a long hard
pull on very little capital. Still, we are getting on.”
Harry noted again the gray in his father’s hair and the lines of patient
determination about the mouth that had not been there when he went away,
and felt his heart thrill with joy at the thought that he had come back
amply able to help him. He knew now that he had not cared for the money
for its own sake. He had enjoyed the excitement of getting it. He had
been glad that he and Joe could go to college together; they had planned
that on the way home, and he felt now that he realized the value of a
college education as he had never done before. But here was a better use
for money than all that. He could lift the burden that his father had
borne so patiently and put the family back where it had been before the
business disaster. This was a greater happiness yet in his home-coming.
“Would fifty thousand dollars help you, father?” he asked quietly.
“It would indeed, my boy,” replied his father, smiling rather sadly, “but
I don’t see where I am to get it.”
“Well, I do,” said Harry triumphantly. “I’ve some things up my sleeve, as
the boys say, that I haven’t said anything about yet. I wanted them for
the last. In the first place, though, here’s a little present from the
Arctic for you and mother. Wait till I open my grip.”
His hands trembled as he pulled out the bandana handkerchief and opened
it, just as they had when he did the same thing for Colonel Lane up at
Candle Creek.
“Why, my son,” said his father in astonishment, “what’s this?”
“Gold, daddy, gold!” shouted Harry, dancing round the two in his
excitement and delight. “Just a little souvenir that I mined up in the
Arctic with my own hands. We got out twelve thousand, Joe and I. That’s
only a little of it, but I thought it would make a nice thing for a
present when I got home. There’s about a thousand there. I’ve got notes
for the rest.”
“Why, Harry!” ejaculated his mother, her eyes gleaming with delight in
her son’s success. “Don’t tear around so. The neighbors will think the
house is afire.”
“And so it will be in a minute, mother. That isn’t half of it. Look at
this, and this.” He threw down two long envelopes filled with documents.
“There’s notes of Colonel Lane, the millionaire mining magnate of
California, for about seventy thousand dollars, and there’s the papers
that show I am a quarter owner in the richest placer mine in all Alaska.”
His father’s eyes gleamed as he looked carefully at these papers, and
Harry gave his mother a hug that he must surely have learned of the polar
bears up at Point Lay.
“Mother,” he said, “when I was a little fellow” (you would have thought
him at least thirty now to hear that, though not to see him), “you used
to fry doughnuts for me and make one that was like a man. I want you to
fry me two now, big ones, and make ’em twins. That’s Joe and me up at
Candle Creek.”
Harry caught up his mother in his arms and danced a wild whirl about the
room, finally seating her breathless and laughing on the sofa, while
his father looked on with pride in his face and two tears shining on
his cheeks. No one but he knew what a load the tidings of good fortune
had lifted from his shoulders. With ample capital he would show the
business world what the house of Desmond could do. The stoop was out of
his shoulders again and Harry knew it, and would have gone through every
hardship of the two years again for the sight.
Supper was announced before they had done talking over this glorious
news, and Harry was not so excited but that he did full justice to home
cooking. In the evening there came a ring at the doorbell, and Mr. and
Mrs. Adams came in—and Maisie.
“Well,” Mr. Adams said, “you went away a boy and you have come back a man
grown. If being lost in the Arctic for two years or so will give people
such size and rugged health as that, I should advise it for lots of them.”
Harry blushed and stammered at the sight of Maisie. She had grown up too,
he thought, and how lovely she was! As for Maisie, she was cordially glad
to see him, but as demure about it as the most proper young lady should
be. Only when she went away she glanced up at him shyly and said,—
“Did you bring me that aurora borealis that you promised me the last
thing when you went away?”
Then indeed Harry found his tongue, though he blushed in the saying. “You
are like the aurora yourself. Come sailing with me to-morrow, will you
not?”
Maisie blushed too, as who would not at so direct a compliment from a
handsome, broad-shouldered young man.
“Why, yes, thank you,” she answered. “I’d like to very much. Shall it be
at ten? Your knockabout is down at the boat-house. Good-night.” And as
she tripped daintily down the broad walk to the street, Harry wondered
what need there was of street lamps when she was out.
During the evening Mr. Adams asked him if he was ready to make that
report concerning the whaling in Bering Sea and the Arctic, and was much
pleased when Harry handed him quite a pile of manuscript, some of it
written in pencil, and all stained with salt water.
“I’ll put this in better shape in a day or two,” he said. “It contains
all I could find out about the subject, and I think is accurate.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mr. Adams, “this looks good. The company is
already formed and ready to start business. They will be glad to get
this;” and he tucked it under his arm just as it was, saying it bore
greater evidence of reliability in that shape, and he wanted to show it
to the directors without change.
“Let us see,” he said, “you were to have a salary of twenty dollars a
month for this work, and you have been gone practically thirty months. I
will see that a check for six hundred dollars is made out to you.”
Harry had another thrill of pleasure at this. It was not the money so
much, but he felt that to have won Mr. Adams’s approval in this way was
worth while. He determined privately that Joe should have half. He had
certainly helped him earn it.
The next day was one of those rarely perfect days that often come to
New England in early September. The warmth of summer still lingers in
the air, but there is with it too the glow and exhilaration of autumn.
A faint breeze blew in from the west and lifted the August haze till
distant objects stood out clear and sharp in outline,—a glorious day.
It was quite a bit before ten when Harry called for Maisie, but she
was all ready, and chatted demurely of many things as they walked down
the well-remembered path to the boat-house. There Griggs, the ancient
ferryman, greeted Harry with a whoop, much like that he had raised two
years and a half before in answer to his shout for assistance.
“W-e-ll, I swanny!” he exclaimed. “But I’m glad to see ye. Allus knew
you’d get back somehow. How you have growed, though! Well, well! this is
like old times, ain’t it? Ain’t been a day go by but I think how you
swum for the young lady here, an’ I pulled you both out. How be ye?”
Harry shook hands with Griggs cordially, and noted that the old man had
not changed a particle in the time that had passed.
“Kept the boat all ready for ye ever since,” said Griggs. “S’pected you’d
be along some day and want a sail in her. Here she is.”
There she was, indeed, with every line and cleat in place, and Harry
felt as if greeting an old friend as he helped Maisie in and hoisted the
sail. The little boat glided gently down the river, and out into the
wider waters of the bay. As Harry looked about and noted every object in
the familiar scene, it seemed to him as if he had hardly been away a day
instead of two years and a half, as if the home life only was real, and
all the strange things that had happened to him had been but a dream. Yet
when he looked at Maisie and found her grown up to the verge of young
womanhood, he felt as if he had been away for years and years, and hardly
knew the dainty lady who sat on the windward side and trimmed ship as a
good sailor should. He was thoughtful and silent until Maisie looked up
at him roguishly, and said,—
“Well, why don’t you tell me all about it? It must be something very
serious that keeps you silent so long. You used to chatter fast enough.
Is it an Eskimo young lady?”
Harry laughed. “I’ve seen Eskimo young ladies,” he said, “though I wasn’t
thinking of them at just that moment. Some of them are quite pretty,
too,”—Maisie pouted a bit at this,—“though they don’t dress in what you
would call good taste.”
“Tell me about them, tell me all about everything,” said Maisie, and
Harry, nothing loth, launched into stories of his adventures, and the
strange sights he had seen, that lasted till it was time they were home
for lunch. He was modest in relating his own share in the dangers and
excitements, but Maisie saw through this and gave him perhaps a larger
share of credit than he deserved. How strong and handsome he was, she
thought. Of course he had been brave and noble, and now her eyes filled
with sudden tears, and again shone with excitement and admiration, as he
told of being lost in the Arctic pack, battling with the highbinders, and
being chased by the river ice on the Kowak.
And so this modern Desdemona listened to her sun-bronzed Othello until
the boat had swung gently back with the tide almost opposite the cottages
at Germantown.
There Harry finished the tale, and Maisie noted that they were almost
back again, with a sigh. A sudden impulse seized her.
“Let me take the boat in to the landing,” she said. “There isn’t much
wind.”
She slipped quickly to the stern and seated herself the other side of the
tiller. The boat was lazing along with the helm amidships and there was
no need for Harry to move. Maisie’s hand dropped beside his, and with a
sudden masterful impulse he laid his own over it.
And Maisie? She looked up at him with those clear, cool, beautiful eyes,
and he said— But I shan’t tell you what he said. It is no affair of ours,
and nobody was supposed to know it for a time, except, indeed, their own
fathers and mothers, who, of course, vowed that the young people were
altogether too young for such plans, and then gave their blessing.
Nobody was supposed to know, but it is funny how news will travel in a
New England village, and the fact is, all this occurred right opposite
the cottages, and as likely as not some one was using a field-glass at
that very moment.
At any rate, the knockabout sailed herself for several minutes right
across the place where Harry plunged in to save Maisie once, and only
the kindness of fate and a very light wind prevented them from being in
danger of another ducking.
Griggs, the old ferryman, was not so very far away either, and he looked
at them with a very knowing smile as they walked soberly up the path to
the house. So perhaps _he_ told, but I am not going to.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Young Ice Whalers" ***
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