CHAPTER XXXINEL-TE QUALIFIES AS A BRANCH PILOT
Although disappointed of their guide, there was nothing for the sledge party to do but push on and trust to their own good judgment to carry them safely to the end of their journey. So as much of the moose meat as could be loaded on a sledge, or several hundred pounds in all, was prepared and frozen that evening. Both then and in the morning the dogs were given all they could eat—so much, in fact, that they were greatly disinclined to travel during most of the following day.
The latest addition to the party, after being rudely awakened from the slumber into which Jalap Coombs’s singing had lulled him, called pitifully for his mother, and, refusing to be comforted, finally sobbed himself to sleep on Phil’s bear-skin in front of the fire. Here he spent the night, tucked warmly in a rabbit-skin robe, nestled between Phil and Serge with all his sorrows forgotten for the time being. In the early morning he was a very sober little lad, with a grievance that was not to be banished even by the sight of his beloved “doggies,” while the advances of his human friends were met by a dignified silence. He was too hungry to refuse the food offered him by Serge; but he ate it with a strictly business-like air, in which there was nothing of unbending nor forgiveness. To Phil’s attempts at conversation he turned a deaf ear, nor would he even so much as smile when JalapCoombs made faces at him, or got down on hands and knees and growled for his special benefit. He was evidently not to be won by any such foolishness.
He was roused to an exhibition of slight interest by the tinkling music of Musky’s bells when the dogs were harnessed; and when, everything being ready for a start, Phil lifted him on the foremost sledge, and tucked him into a spare sleeping-bag that was securely lashed to it, he murmured: “Mamma, Nel-te go mamma.”
The loads having been redistributed to provide for the accommodation of the young passenger, this foremost sledge bore, besides Nel-te, only the Forty Mile mail, the sleeping equipment of the party, and their extra fur clothing, the chynik, in which was stored the small quantity of tea still remaining, what was left of the pemmican, and an axe. As, with its load, it did not weigh over two hundred pounds, its team was reduced to three dogs, Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook. Serge still drove seven dogs, and his sledge bore the entire camp equipment and stock of provisions, except the recently acquired moose meat. This was loaded on the last sledge, which was drawn by five dogs, and driven by Jalap Coombs according to his own peculiar fashion.
As soon as the sledges were in motion, and Nel-te conceived the idea that he was going home, his spirits revived to such an extent that he chirruped cheerfully to the dogs, and even smiled occasionally at Phil, who strode alongside.
They crossed Fox Lake, passed up the stream that connected it with Indian Trail Lake, and finally went into camp on the edge of the forest at the head of the latter earlier than usual, because they could not see their way to the making of any further progress. Although they felt certain that there must be some streamflowing into the lake by which they could leave it, they could discover no sign of its opening. So they made camp, and, leaving Jalap Coombs to care for it, Phil and Serge departed in opposite directions to scan every foot of the shore in search of a place of exit.
On reaching this camping-place Nel-te looked about him inquiringly and with evident disappointment, but he said nothing, and only gazed wistfully after the two lads when they set forth on their search. For a time he hung about the camp-fire watching Jalap Coombs, who was too busily engaged in cooking supper and preparing for the night to pay much attention to him. At length the little chap strolled over to the sledges, and engaged in a romp with the three dogs who dragged his particular conveyance. Every now and then his shrill laughter came to Jalap’s ears, and assured the latter that the child was safe.
After a while the explorers returned, both completely discouraged and perplexed.
“I don’t believe there is any inlet to this wretched lake!” cried Phil, flinging himself down on a pile of robes. “I’ve searched every foot of coast on my side, and am willing to swear that there isn’t an opening big enough for a rabbit to squeeze through, so far as I went.”
“Nor could I find a sign of one,” affirmed Serge, “though perhaps in the morning—”
“Hello! Where’s Nel-te?” interrupted Phil, springing to his feet and gazing about him anxiously.
“He were about here jest as you boys kim in,” replied Jalap Coombs, suspending operations at the fire, and gazing about him with a startled expression. “I heered him playing with the dogs not more’n a minute ago.”
“Well, he isn’t in sight now,” said Phil, in a voice whose tone betrayed his alarm, “and if we don’t findhim in a hurry there’s a chance of our not doing it at all, for it will be dark in fifteen minutes more.”
As he spoke, Phil hastily replaced the snow-shoes that he had just laid aside. Serge did the same thing, and then they began to circle about the camp with heads bent low in search of the tiny trail. At short intervals they called aloud the name of the missing one, but only the mocking forest echoes answered them.
Suddenly Serge uttered a joyful shout. He had found the prints of small snow-shoes crossed and recrossed by those of dogs. In a moment Phil joined him, and the two followed the trail together. It led for a short distance along the border of the lake in the direction previously taken by Phil, and then, making a sharp bend to the right, struck directly into the forest.
When the boys reached the edge of the timber they found a low opening so overhung by bushes as to be effectually concealed from careless observation. The curtaining growth was so bent down with a weight of snow that even Nel-te must have stooped to pass under it. That he had gone that way was shown by the trail still dimly visible in the growing dusk, and the lads did not hesitate to follow. Forcing a path through the bushes, which extended only a few yards back from the lake, they found themselves in an open highway, evidently the frozen surface of a stream.
“Hurrah!” shouted Phil, who was the first to gain it. “I believe this is the very creek we have been searching for. It must be, and the little chap has found it for us.”
“Yes,” replied Serge. “It begins to look as though Cree Jim’s son had taken Cree Jim’s place as guide.”
Now the boys pushed forward with increased speed. At length they heard the barking of dogs, and began to shout, but received no answer. They had gone afull quarter of a mile from the lake ere they caught sight of the little fur-clad figure plodding steadily forward on what he fondly hoped to be his way towards home and the mother for whom his baby heart so longed. Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook were his companions, and not until he was caught up in Phil’s arms did the child so much as turn his head or pay the slightest heed to those who followed his trail.
As he was borne back in triumph towards camp his lower lip quivered, and two big tears rolled down his chubby cheeks, but he did not cry nor utter a complaint; nor from that time on did he make further effort to regain his lost home. The boys had hardly begun to retrace their steps when another figure loomed out of the shadows and came rapidly towards them. It looked huge in the dim light, and advanced with gigantic strides.
“Hello!” cried Phil, as he recognized the new-comer. “Where are you bound?”
“Bound to get lost along with the rest of the crew,” replied Jalap Coombs, stoutly. “Didn’t I tell ye I wouldn’t put up with your gettin’ lost alone ag’in?”
“That’s so; but you see I forgot,” laughed Phil. “Now that we are all found, though, let’s get back to the supper that you were cooking before you decided to get lost. By the way, Mr. Coombs, do you realize that this is the very stream for which we have been hunting? What do you think of our young pilot now?”
“Think of him!” exclaimed Jalap Coombs. “I think he’s jest the same as all in the piloting business—pernicketty. Knows a heap more’n he’ll ever tell, and won’t ever p’int out a channel till you’re just about to run aground. Then he’ll do it kinder keerless and onconsarned, same as the kid done jest now. Oh, he’s a regular branch pilot, he is, and up to all the tricks of the trade.”
Bright and early the following morning, thanks to Nel-te’s pilotage, the sledges were speeding up the creek on their way to Lost Lake. By nightfall they had crossed it, three other small lakes, descended an outlet of the last to Little Salmon River, and after a run of five miles down that stream found themselves once more amid the ice hummocks of the Yukon, one hundred and twenty miles above the mouth of the Pelly. Of this distance they had saved about one-third by their adventurous cut-off.
The end of another week found them one hundred and fifty miles farther up the Yukon and at the mouth of the Tahkeena. It had been a week of the roughest kind of travel, and its hard work was telling severely on the dogs.
As they made their last camp on the mighty river they were to leave for good on the morrow, they were both glad and sorry. Glad to leave its rough ice and escape the savage difficulties that it offered in the shape of cañons and roaring rapids only a few miles above, and sorry to desert its well-marked course for the little-known Tahkeena.
Still, their dogs could not hold out for another week on the Yukon, while over the smooth going of the tributary stream they might survive the hardships of the journey to its very end; and without these faithful servants our travellers would indeed be in a sorry plight. So, while they reminisced before their roaring camp-fire of the many adventures they had encountered since entering Yukon mouth, two thousand miles away, they looked hopefully forward to their journey’s end, now less than as many hundred miles from that point. To the dangers of the lofty mountain range they had yet to cross they gave but little thought, for the mountains were still one hundred miles away.