CHAPTER XITHE BOYS CARRY THEIR POINT
Never in his life had Phil Ryder been more perplexed than he was at the astonishing statement just made by Kurilla. It was incredible that his father should be in that country. Why should he be? There had been barely time for him to receive the letter sent out by Nikrik, and he could not possibly have reached the Yukon Valley since then.
“How do you know it is my father?” he demanded of the native. “Has he been here? Did you see him? Why didn’t he wait until I came back?”
“Him no come. Him go up river. Me no see him. You fadder, yaas.”
“What can the man mean?” asked Phil, in despair of obtaining any intelligible explanation and turning to the missionary for aid.
From that time until they reached the station, which they found in a state of excitement over the news, the missionary questioned Kurilla in his own tongue, and by the time they were inside the house he had gleaned all the information the Indian possessed.
“He says,” began the missionary, turning to his eager audience, “that he obtained his news from a Nulato Indian, who left St. Michaels only three days ago, and came by way of the Divide and the Anvik River. He is a friend of Kurilla, and spent a couple of hours with him this morning, after which he continued his journey. According to him, as understood by Kurilla,a schooner containing Phil’s father and another white man reached the Redoubt soon after theChimoleft. The other white man was sick, so that none of the natives saw him; but Phil’s father spent his whole time making inquiries of every one about the boys, and where they had gone, what sort of a man they had gone with, and what chance there was of overtaking them.”
“I am afraid he did not receive a very flattering description of the man they had gone with,” remarked Gerald Hamer, who was by this time out of the hospital and able to join the pleasant family circle.
“About that same time,” continued the missionary, “the revenue-cutterBearcame down from the northward, bringing the crew of a wrecked whaler, so that for a while there were many white men and much confusion at St. Michaels. Then both theBearand the schooner sailed away, taking most of the white men with them, but Phil’s father stayed behind. By-and-by news came from Nulato that theChimohad passed that point without stopping, on her way up the river.”
“Which is news indeed,” muttered Gerald Hamer, “seeing that Nulato is a good one hundred and fifty miles beyond here.”
“Isn’t it?” laughed the missionary. “And, to cap the climax, the same runner that brought that information announced that you would undoubtedly be frozen in before you had gone much farther, whereupon Phil’s father began making preparations to follow and overtake you by dog-sledges. He started the day before our informant left the Redoubt, and was accompanied by two other white men, though whether one of them was he who also came on the schooner, Kurilla did not find out. So there you have the whole story as straight as it can be obtained; but, considering the channels through which it has come, there issuch an opportunity for errors that I should not be at all surprised if a number had crept into it.”
“Nor I,” admitted Phil, “though I can’t doubt that my father has arrived in this part of the country, impossible as it may seem, for surely no one else could have any object in announcing himself as my father, or going to such trouble in hunting me up. Nor can I doubt that, having conceived some absurd notion that I am likely to get into trouble, the dear old pop has set forth on a wild-goose chase after me. I fancy I can see him at this moment politely trying to breathe, or to swallow raw seal, in some native hut, or careering over the river behind a team of runaway dogs, or wrestling with the intricacies of an Eskimo whip, or having some of the other delightful experiences that he is certain to encounter. There is one thing that won’t bother him, though, and that is snow-shoeing, for he learned that long ago in Canada.”
“How fond he must be of you!” said the missionary’s wife.
“Yes, indeed, he is!” cried Phil. “And I of him, for we are everything in the world to each other.”
“And how anxious he must be!” murmured the teacher.
“I suppose so; though I don’t see why he should be, for he taught me to take care of myself long ago. I am beginning to get pretty anxious about him, though, and it seems to me that it is clearly my duty to organize a relief expedition at once and go in search of him. What do you say to that, Serge?”
“I say I should feel exactly as you do if he were my mother,” answered the lad from Sitka, who was immediately afterwards covered with confusion by the outburst of merriment that greeted his remark.
“I mean—” he stammered.
“Of course,” interrupted Phil, teasingly, “we understand.You mean that if my father were your mother, in which case you and I would probably be brother and sister, you would feel in duty bound to go in search of him or her, as the case might be.”
“Oh, you get out!” laughed Serge.
“The very thing I am proposing to do. And, really, Captain Hamer, now that my father has appeared on the scene, and gone up the river, I don’t see how you can any longer have an excuse for refusing to let Serge and me follow after him. If we don’t overtake him this side of Forty Mile, we shall certainly find him there. Then we can all go out together by way of Chilkat, and I know that out of gratitude for your kindness to me, if for no other reason, my father will gladly undertake to place your order for goods in San Francisco.”
“Your argument is certainly a strong one,” admitted Gerald Hamer, hesitatingly, “and it really begins to look as though you had gained your point after all.”
“And we ought to start as quickly as we can,” urged Phil, eagerly, “in order to relieve my father’s anxiety as soon as possible, and also to prevent him from getting lost, which, I am sure, any one is likely to do on the Yukon. When it comes to procuring dogs for the trip, I would advise you to buy Kurilla’s team, if possible, for I give you my word they are far and away the very best lot of haulers I have ever driven. As for their feed, I was invited to a certain wedding to-day, though I regret that I was forced to decline the invitation, that resulted in a sledge-load of prime dog-fish—no, I don’t mean that either, for they were salmon—which, I believe, can be bought cheap.”
Thus rattling on and unhesitatingly offering advice on all subjects connected with dog-sledging and snow-shoeing, even going so far as to express the opinionthat for their work Norwegian skis would be far better than the ordinary snow-shoe of the country, Phil succeeded within a few minutes in establishing the fact that his long-cherished expedition was really to be undertaken.
As he remarked in a low but exultant tone to Serge after they had gone to bed that night: “Hurrah for snow-shoes and sledges, old man! We have got them at last, as I told you we would from the very beginning.”
And Serge, who was almost asleep, roused himself sufficiently to reply: “What did you say? Oh yes, I know. Hurrah! Good-night.”
Whereupon the Yankee lad disgustedly hurled a pillow at him with such force as to effectually banish sleep and provoke retaliation that resulted in Phil’s bed coming down with a crash. Upon this its occupant remarked that he always did despise civilized beds anyhow, and that hemlock boughs in front of a rousing camp-fire were good enough for him.
In the meantime some of the preliminaries of the tremendous journey, to which the boys looked forward with such delight and their elders with so many misgivings, had been arranged that very evening. The best obtainable map of the Yukon was studied, and marked with such private information as was possessed by the missionary.
“If you could only overtake them before reaching the Tanana River,” he said, reflectively, “you might cut off the great arctic bend of the Yukon, and save several hundred miles by going up the former river, crossing a divide to a branch of Forty Mile Creek, and following it down to the camp at its mouth. I suppose, though, they will have passed the Tanana long before you get there, and so you will be obliged to follow the great bend for fear of missing them.”
“I suppose so,” assented Phil, “but I don’t care. The longer the trip the more fun we’ll have.”
“You will find it long enough before you get through,” remarked Gerald Hamer, significantly.
“I hope so,” returned the irrepressible lad. “I like to have enough of a good thing.”
An hour or more was devoted to making out a list of the articles necessary for the trip. While from then until the very time of departure Phil kept thinking of and adding new items to this list, Serge was kept equally busy in trying to reduce its length.
Before Kurilla was dismissed that evening both he and his son Chitsah were engaged to accompany the boys at least as far as Forty Mile, a distance of one thousand miles, though beyond that point they would not promise to go.
From Kurilla also Gerald Hamer agreed to purchase, at his own price, his fine team of dogs, of which bushy-tailed Musky was leader, big Amook and Mint were steer-dogs, and Luvtuk and Shag completed the nimble-footed quintet. This was hereafter to be known as Phil’s team, for, having already had some experience in driving them, it was believed that he could manage them better than dogs unaccustomed to his astonishing pronunciation of the native words of command. Kurilla was to bring them to him the very next morning to be fed, for in dog-sledging it is a rule that every driver shall feed his own team, in order to win their regard and persuade them that he is not an unmitigated evil.
The season was now late November, and though the morrow was Thanksgiving day, or believed to be such in absence of any proclamation to that effect, it was to be devoted to preparations, and the start was to be made at sunrise of the following morning. Therefore Phil’s last words of the night were:
“I am dead tired, old man, but I want you to wake me early all the same, for I shall have only one day in which to feed my dogs and teach them to know me.”