CHAPTER VA PARSON AT THE WHEEL
Phil had been sitting alone in the pilot-house, where, in the chill darkness, the weight of his responsibility seemed almost too great to be borne. He had held out bravely until this moment, but now it seemed as though a great black wall of difficulty was reared against him, and that it was gradually enclosing him on all sides. The many channels revealed by the waning light of that day must all be explored ere the right one could be determined. Phil dared not consider how many days might thus be spent, for he knew he had no days nor even hours to spare.
At any moment now the river might close, and once caught in the relentless fetters of its ice theChimomust remain motionless until crushed and swept away by the resistless fury of the spring floods. In the meantime what would become of her little company, stranded there in the open river, exposed to the full fury of arctic blasts, remote from human habitation, and equally so from any visible supply of fuel? They had not even the fur clothing without which none may spend a winter in that region.
To be sure, as soon as the ice would bear them they might make their way to some wretched native village, and there drag out a miserable existence during the long winter months. Even in that sorry retreat there could be no hope for Gerald Hamer, who must either be left behind to perish, or taken with them to meet an equallycertain fate from exposure. As poor Phil reflected on these things he asked himself why he had so obstinately forced the expedition farther and farther into the wilderness, day after day, until he had at length brought it to this danger point. Why had he not laid the boat up in the first winter harbor that offered? He could remember that they had passed several very good ones, some of which were in the vicinity of Eskimo villages.
Why? Because he had made up his mind to reach Anvik, and declared his intention of doing so, and his Yankee grit was not of the kind to be daunted by obstacles nor turned back by them from an uncompleted duty. Why? Because he had promised Captain Hamer to carry him to Anvik. Phil Ryder did not often make promises, being opposed to them on general principles, but when he did make one he kept it. Why? Because while he was thus thinking, that cheery voice came ringing out of the darkness, bringing with it such a thrill of hope and relief that just to hear it was worth all the toil and anxiety expended in reaching that point.
Serge was down in the galley cooking supper, and whistling a melancholy little tune, that tried its best to sound cheerful as he did so. Poor Isaac, the millwright, homesick, grief-stricken, and despairing, was working by lantern-light on a rude coffin for his dead comrade. Mr. Sims, morose and silent, was busy with his machinery, while Gerald Hamer tossed wearily but weakly beneath the piled-up coverings of his narrow bed.
All heard the first shout of that unknown voice, and each suspended operations to listen. When it came again, and they heard Phil’s answering hail, all rushed to the gangway on that side, that is, all except the sick man, and there, holding flashing lanterns to guidehim, they excitedly awaitedthe approach of the unknown.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE UNKNOWN
THE ARRIVAL OF THE UNKNOWN
While they peered vaguely into the gloom, listening for the slatting of sails or the rattle of oars, he suddenly swept alongside, seated in an Eskimo kyak or skin boat, very similar to the one in which Phil and Serge had made their perilous voyage on Bering Sea a month before, only much smaller.
They could see that he was a white man, wearing a thick, close-cut brown beard; but otherwise he might easily have been mistaken for a native, so completely was he enveloped in a kamleika. The hood of this was drawn over his head, while its ample skirts were fastened to the coaming of the hatch in which he sat, so as to prevent the entrance of water.
“Well, if this isn’t a bit of good-fortune, then I don’t know what good-fortune is!” he exclaimed, smiling up at the eager faces peering at him from the steamer’s side. “May I come aboard?”
“May you come aboard?” cried Phil. “Well, sir, I rather think you may, for even if you didn’t want to, I am afraid we should capture you and drag you on board by force. Why, we couldn’t be more delighted to see you if you were the President of the United States himself.”
“I doubt if you can be half as happy to see me as I am to meet with you thus fortunately and unexpectedly,” laughed the stranger.
“In that case,” replied Phil, “you must be the very happiest person in the world, for you have made me almost that.”
During this interchange of courtesies the stranger had been unlashing his kamleika, and now, stepping lightly from his fragile craft, he gained the deck, to which his kyak was also lifted.
“Ah! but this is cosey and comfortable,” he remarked,as he entered the well-lighted mess-room, which opened from the galley and was warmed by its glowing stove. Serge had just finished his preparations for supper, and the well-laden mess-table did indeed present a sight calculated to cheer the heart of a hungry man, especially one who had been for hours battling with the ice of an Alaskan river.
“You gentlemen seem to be travelling and living like princes,” continued the stranger; “but I must confess to considerable surprise at finding you on the river so late in the season. You are bound down and out, I presume?”
“No, sir,” answered Phil, “we are bound up the river, and hope to reach Anvik before it closes.”
“Anvik!” cried the stranger. “Why, that is the place to which I also am going.”
“Alone, at night, and in a bidarkie?” asked Phil, incredulously.
“Yes,” laughed the other, “though I was only trying to cross the river to-night for fear it might close before morning, and leave me stranded on the farther bank. It was a reckless thing to undertake, I acknowledge, and but for your timely presence I might have come to serious grief ere this. It had grown so dark before I sighted your lights that I could no longer avoid the floating ice, and was in great fear that my boat would be cut open. You may believe, then, that I was glad to see them. Now, to find myself seated among those of my own race, and at a civilized table after a rather trying experience of Eskimo hospitality, caps the climax and renders my content complete.”
“Are you on a hunting or fishing trip, sir?” asked Phil, anxious to establish the status of this new acquaintance.
“Neither, just now,” was the laconic answer.
“Trading, perhaps?”
“Not exactly.”
“Travelling for pleasure?”
“Yes, so far as it is a pleasure to do my work.”
“Prospecting?”
“For some things, though not for gold.”
“In government employ?”
“No.”
“Working for the company, perhaps?”
“If you mean for the fur-trading company, I am not.”
Phil was nonplussed, and knew not what to ask next. In fact, but for the stranger’s affable manner and quizzical smile he would not have pushed his inquiries so far as he had. Finally he said: “I need not ask if you are a good boatman, for any one who can manage a bidarkie as well as you do must be that. I do want to make one more inquiry, though, and I hope you will excuse my inquisitiveness, but we are in distress and greatly need assistance. Are you a Yukon pilot?”
“For that part of the river lying between here and Anvik I am,” replied the stranger. “In fact, I know it so well that I would not hesitate to run it in the dark. Furthermore, to satisfy your very proper curiosity concerning an utter stranger, who has forced himself upon your hospitality, I will say that I am a trader, a prospector, a fisherman, a hunter, a boatman, a mechanic, a writer, a teacher, something each of a lawyer, a physician, and a surgeon; and, above all, I am a preacher of the Word of God, for I am a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and stationed at Anvik.”
“Oh, sir, are you, really?” cried Phil. “Then you are the very man I have wanted most to meet. Had I not heard that you were at Anvik, and believed you would help us, I don’t think I should have dared bringthe boat even as far as I have. I was trying to make up my mind what to do next, and had almost decided not to attempt a further ascent of the river, but to go into the best winter-quarters we could find to-morrow. You see we are all mixed up as to the channels, and greatly afraid of being caught by the ice.”
“As well you may be,” replied the missionary. “But, pardon my curiosity, you speak of bringing the boat to this place as though you were her captain. Is that the case?”
“No,” replied Phil, with a flush. “I am only her first mate, while Serge here is second, and Mr. Sims is engineer. But I am acting as captain during the illness of our real captain, Mr. Gerald Hamer, who is down with the measles.”
“Indeed?” said the missionary, gravely. “I am very sorry to hear that, for in this climate, especially, measles is a serious sickness and has been a terrible scourge on the river. I have just been spending a few days at one of the Shagelook villages installing a native teacher in place of one who died of measles a few weeks ago. How long has your captain been ill?”
“Since the day we entered the river.”
“And do you mean to say that you have navigated the steamer all this distance without help?”
“Oh no, sir! I have had the help of Serge, who is a capital sailor and can talk Russian besides, and of Mr. Sims, who is a first-class engineer, and of Isaac, who is a millwright, but who makes one of the best firemen I ever saw, and we had another millwright, only he died last night, and a native pilot part of the way.”
“Well, you have certainly shown an immense amount of pluck and perseverance,” exclaimed the missionary, “and I don’t think I know another boy of your age who would have done as well, for you don’tlook as though you were out of your teens yet. Are you?”
“Almost,” answered Phil, again flushing. “That is, I shall be in two years more.”
“And Serge?”
“He is almost as old as I am.”
“How about Isaac?”
“Oh, Isaac is most twenty.”
“Well, Mr. Sims,” said the missionary, turning to the engineer, “I congratulate you on your crew.”
“Yes,” assented the man, gruffly, “they’re a pretty plucky lot of boys. We’ve been mighty short-handed, though, since the cap’n took sick, and Martin died, and my assistant was set ashore for mutiny, and I for one am powerful glad to see another white man come on board, even if he is a parson.”
Smiling at this equivocal compliment, the missionary asked if he might visit the captain, and was conducted by Phil to the sick man’s bedside. As they came away he said to the young mate: “Your captain is dangerously ill, and the sooner you get him to Anvik, where there is a doctor, the better. Therefore I would advise you to up anchor and make the run to-night, especially as I fear the river may close before morning.”