CHAPTER IV.ON ALASKAN SOIL.
The acquaintance between the Boy Scouts and Swiftwater Jim, which had begun with Rand’s rescue of the old Klondiker, ripened before many days of the voyage had elapsed into something like warm friendship and the miner became a wellspring of joy to the young men in the wealth of adventure narrative that fell from his lips and the quiet humor of his views of life. His removal by Captain Huxley, to the saloon deck on which they were berthed, gave them constant opportunity for meeting him, and as the novelty of the scenery and surroundings gradually wore off, they turned more and more to his companionship and plied him incessantly with cross-examination as to the peculiarities of the new land which they were about to enter.
At one time in command of a whaler in Bering Sea waters, his ship had been one of six crushed in the ice of the Arctic sea, the crews ofwhich had been forced to winter at Point Barrow, the most northerly point of the United States, where the government had established a whaling relief station.
The enormous burden thrown upon this relief station by the influx of so great a number of dependents coming from the whalers, who had no means of getting away, threatened starvation for all and only by the greatest good fortune did word reach the government at Washington, which at once took steps for their relief. Lieut. Jarvis of the Revenue Marine Service, who was in the east at the time on furlough, from his ship, a revenue cutter engaged in patroling Bering Sea to protect the seal fisheries, volunteered to make the effort to relieve the starving men, although he was leaving the bedside of a sick wife whom he might never see again. Bering Sea and the Arctic are frozen over six months at a time, and the relief expedition must be made over the frozen tundra and uninhabited snow waste, eighteen hundred miles in extent, from the Seward Peninsula to the “top of the continent,” as Swiftwater Jim termed it.
The problem as to how to transport the food for these men over this great expanse of country,barren of trails and almost impassible in places, was solved by Lieutenant Jarvis and his aides. By assembling from the various reindeer stations which the government had established in the Far North, a large herd of reindeer which they drove the entire distance to Point Barrow, they arrived just in time to relieve the hundreds of men who were on the verge of starvation.
“I tell ye,” said Swiftwater Jim, in telling the story to the boys, “I have never seen anything on earth since that looked so good as them deer. There we was, a dirty, unsightly mob so near to death that we had lost about all resemblance to humanity, and not a single human feelin’ left for each other. It was every man for himself and mighty little that he could do, then.
“That feller Jarvis was the man for the job. That relief expedition was received very much as I hear explorers are met by the savagest tribes of Africa, and if it hadn’t been for the nerve of those three officers at the head of it, they would have lost their lives and the provision they had brought would not have lasted three weeks. But those fellows took command at once; headed off a mutiny, distributed the provisions daily and formonths ran that gang, made up of the off-scourings of the seas, by reg’lar army discipline.
“For the months before the ice broke up, and vessels could come after us, he governed with a mighty stiff hand, and every man who was fed by government relief, and thay wan’t nothin’ else, was compelled to live up to regulations of cleanliness and daily exercise, which is the only thing that will save a man’s health in that deadly Arctic climate where the bill o’ fare is only about one line long, and a healthy body is the only thing that will save a man’s mind from that deadly depression that ends in insanity. When the ships come finally, that mob of whaler men was cleaner and healthier than they ever were in their lives before and they had a mighty lot of love and respect for Jarvis and the officers with him.
“It was about the biggest sacrifice a man ever made, that voluntary trip of Jarvis, and I believe that Congress, after thinkin’ a long time about it finally acknowledged it by votin’ him some kind of a medal. As for me I hain’t been able to look a poor little reindeer in the face since.”
With his vessel a splintered derelict in the ice of the Arctic sea, Swiftwater had taken to miningand had covered a good part of Alaska in his wanderings.
Col. Snow had noticed with considerable interest the growing intimacy between his young charges and the miner and had taken occasion himself to have several talks with the ancient “sourdough” as Swiftwater insisted on calling himself. The Colonel had found among the army officers returning to their posts in the North several old friends of his army days and had taken the opportunity to make some inquiries as to the miner with evidently satisfactory results. These army officers Col. Snow took occasion to introduce to the Boy Scouts and the element of courtesy that is a strong feature of the West Pointers’ character showed itself in the consideration given the boys by these grizzled men, several of whom had won their spurs during Indian outbreaks in the West and later learned the stern demands of war in Cuba and the Philippines.
Their journey was enlivened by many a good story of camp and field and incidentally the officers evinced a strong curiosity in the organization of the Boy Scouts about which they asked many questions.
The day the “Queen” arrived at Ketchikan, thefirst port in Alaska, Col. Snow, after starting the boys on a sightseeing trip through the town, put in some time in company with Swiftwater Jim in the office of the United States Commissioner, who is practically a local judge. When all had returned to the steamer that night, Col. Snow called the boys together in the big saloon of the vessel for a talk.
“You know,” said the army officer, “that after I have seen you and the machinery disembarked in Skagway, I must leave you to carry out my mission to Controllers Bay and Valdez, and that I shall not be able to join you in the Yukon Country until later in the summer. It has been my purpose, of course, to place you in charge of a competent manager who will really command the expedition the rest of the way until the machinery is installed on the timber land that I intend to exploit. Of course you will be furnished with sufficient expert Indian labor to assist in navigating the streams over which this freight must be transported, for there are no roads, and water at this season of the year is the only transportation available. What do you think of Swiftwater Jim for commander-in-chief, guide, philosopher and friend to this expedition?”
“B-b-bully,” exclaimed Pepper, adopting the vernacular of an ex-President.
“The very man for the place if I understand what we are to do,” commented Rand.
“Faith, now we will see Alaska; and what we don’t see, Swiftwater is the man to tell us about,” cried the enthusiastic Gerald.
“Well, if we can get him,” said the cautious Don, “there’s nobody we’d like so well.”
“I might as well tell you that it’s all arranged,” said the Colonel. “He was the best man I could find for the work I want done, and I took the first opportunity to arrange with him; but at the same time I am glad that you are all so well satisfied.
“I must have you understand that Swiftwater will be the leader of the party and in all things you will be under his direction. I do not think it will be necessary for me to tell you that the discipline will be perhaps a little more strict than it has been in the ranks of the patrol at home, and while it will not be on an unrestricted army basis, there will be some resemblance and I shall trust to your experience as Scouts to induce in you cheerful acquiescence.”
“It will be something like a campaign then,” suggested Dick.
“It will be a good deal like a campaign,” smilingly replied the Colonel, “and while there will be much that is enjoyable and novel, there won’t be much peaches and cream about it. Plunging into a wilderness as you must, you leave behind all the comforts and most of the sanitary safeguards of civilization, and it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of your health that you adopt certain rules of diet and comfort.”
“Do we have to diet?” inquired Pepper, doubtfully, whose mind reverted to certain milk and porridge days, imposed after an orgy of green fruit and its consequent painful disturbances.
“I didn’t use the word in the sense that you mean, Pepper,” said Col. Snow. “There will be plenty to eat and I hope well prepared, but you must govern yourself as to how you deal with it. Food in most parts of Alaska is a costly proposition, but I guess we shall have enough to go round unless the wild life increases your already healthy appetites.”
“I hae ma doots,” said Don, falling into his Gaelic-accented English, as he often did when he seemed to be wrestling with a problem, “if yon appetite of Pepper’s can increase much wi’out straining the capacity.”
“Look after your own appetite,” said Pepper, growing red, “I read once in a book that four thousand years of oatmeal porridge, three times a day, had wiped out every appetite and spoiled every stomach in Scotland.”
“There, there,” admonished Jack, “that’ll be about all of that. You fellows are about even now. The smallest sort of an appetite may prove to be an inconvenience before we get out of Alaska.”
“I want to say, Colonel,” said Rand, rising and facing the army officer at “attention,” “that I think I speak for the whole patrol when I promise in their names the most earnest fidelity and strict attention to rules and regulations until our mission up here is finished.”
“Yes, yes,” echoed the Scouts, springing to their feet and saluting the Colonel, who also rose and returned it with a smile of acknowledgment. At the same moment Swiftwater Jim entered the saloon.
“Young men, your commander,” said Colonel Snow, waving a hand toward the miner. With one accord the patrol turned toward the grizzled Alaskan and saluted. Jim turned red with pleasure and waved a knotted hand in recognition.
“Glad to see ye, boys, but salutin’ won’t be necessary ev’ry time we meet. I used ter be satisfied on shipboard if a man jumped about a foot high every time I spoke real serious, but I guess we can get through this job without much loud bossin’. I simply want ter sejest that I ain’t very good at argying, so I hope we shan’t have much of that.”
One by one, the boys shook hands with the miner in token of fealty, and from that time until the steamer reached Skagway spent several hours a day with him in what he called his “first class in gettin’ on the job.” The most of this work included thorough instruction in the geography of Southeastern Alaska and Southern Yukon territory, the Colonel’s land being located in the Canadian dominions. Especially was their attention drawn to numerous waterways as shown on the maps, which must form the highways for all transportation during the summer time, and knowledge of whose location, size and tributaries formed a man’s best safeguard in this almost pathless wilderness.
A visit was paid to the hold, this time with the captain’s permission, to enable Swiftwater to estimate the amount of freight that was to be handledand the best way of distributing it among the transports. The boys went with him to learn something of their new duties in this connection.
“I move,” said Rand, “that that earnest young sleuth, Mr. Jack Blake, be appointed guide to this expedition to the dark and creepy hold. He knows where everything is, for he has fallen over it all, I hear.”
“He might meet Monkey Rae,” said Dick with a mock shudder, “then think of the carnage.”
Dublin and the Raes, fearing Captain Huxley’s possible report to the authorities at Skagway, had “jumped the ship” as the commander of the “Queen” expressed it at Ketchikan, the first port of call in Alaska, and Dick’s fears were therefore groundless, but Jack, who had learned the lesson of taking a joke goodnaturedly grinned feebly, and readily dived into the hatchway and down the ladder. The electric lights had been turned on, and the hitherto Egyptian darkness of the hold had vanished. They readily found their consignment, and the miner went over it carefully.
“What ye got here?” he asked, kicking the heavy case before referred to, which the boys had brought along on their own initiative. “Pianny?Don’t believe we need any pianny, up Yukon way. There’s plenty piannys in Alaska, now, but I remember the first one that was brought in. It’s up in Dawson yet. It was brought in on the first rush in ’98. Cost four hundred dollars in the States and two thousand dollars to haul up from Skagway. The last time I heard it, it was being mauled by a feenominon, who had a patent pianny-playin’ wooden arm on one side, and it sounded like a day’s work in a boiler factory at one end and a bad smash in a glass pantry at the other. I heard some o’ them educated Cheechakos talkin’ about art, but I didn’t care for it much.”
“It isn’t a piano,” said Gerald as the laugh subsided. “It’s a little enterprise of our own, and is to be put in storage in Skagway until we’re through with our work.”
“Wa’al,” replied the guide, as he tested its weight, “we don’t have to handle it then, and that’s something of a load off my mind.”
The next day when the boy Scouts awoke they found the vessel anchored in the picturesque harbor of Skagway, the end of the “Inside Passage.”
CHAPTER V.A NEW MODE OF TRAVEL.
Their stay in Skagway was brief. It was the point of parting between Colonel Snow and his young charges, as it was necessary for him to hasten a way westward to another part of Alaska on his mission, which would occupy some weeks. The boys parted with him reluctantly and with some little feeling of homesickness, but he promised to join them as early as possible and assured them that he had placed them in safe hands, with ample means for their return to Skagway should sickness or accident befall them.
Except for the brief glimpses of native and local Alaskan life which they had obtained during the stoppages of the steamer at Metlakatla, in the Annette Islands, a reservation set apart by Congress for the now civilized Tsimpsean Indians, a tribe which, with their devoted missionary head, William Duncan, immigrated fromBritish Columbia to secure, it is said, greater religious liberty, and at Ketchikan, a thriving town, the boys here gained their first real impressions of Alaskan conditions. They found Skagway a town of about fifteen hundred people, set in a great natural amphitheatre surrounded by mountains capped with perpetual snow. It is connected with the outside world by a cable to Seattle, and by other parts of Alaska by telegraph, and has electric lights and a telephone system. A fine school building and several churches that reminded the young Scouts of many Hudson river towns, and wiped out the last remaining evidences of homesickness, were among the attractions, and the sight of a real railroad equipped with locomotives, cars, shops and station were among the marvels found where they had expected to find a wilderness.
It was from this town that thousands of prospectors and adventurers started in 1897 and 1898 in the rush to the Klondike, and Swiftwater told them many stories of the terrible winter trip over the White Pass in those years in which hundreds of men lost their lives and thousands of horses were killed.
With Colonel Snow they made one or twotrips into the surrounding country, visiting the nearby Chilkat and Chilkoot villages, during two days that Swiftwater had gone over to White Horse in Yukon territory, at the other end of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad, a distance of 112 miles, to make arrangements for boats and Indian guides and boatmen to carry their machinery into the wilderness. The boys were greatly interested in this first near view of Alaskan Indian life in the two villages which they visited, and in comparing the natives with the Indians with whom they had been associated in their trip to the Canadian Rockies. The Alaskan Indians were shorter in build, more squatty in figure and broader faced than the Crees and the other Southern red men. Jack, who had been poking about into the various corners of the first village, which were composed of huts and sod houses, came back with a look very like disgust in his face.
“I say, Don,” he exclaimed, “for goodness sake don’t do anything to get adopted into this tribe,” referring to an episode of their journey in search of the lost mine, when Don had for obvious bravery been made a fullfledged Indian.
“Sure, I’ll na do anything to deserve it; itwould be naething to be proud of. They do not look much like our friends in Canada.”
“There are two points in which I find they are identical,” said Jack.
“What are those?” asked Rand, “color and clothes?”
“No,” replied Jack, “dirt and dogs. The dirt must have been here when the Indian came onto this continent, but I’ve wondered whether the Indian found the dog when he came here or the dog found the Indian. They seem to have been inseparable ever since.”
“D-d-do you s’pose they have dog days up here so near the pole?” asked Pepper.
“Begorra, it looks to me as if all days might be dog days around here,” suggested Gerald, who was surrounded at that moment by at least a dozen of the hundred animals in the village.
“You would be surprised to know,” said Colonel Snow, “that the dog is really the most important animal, except perhaps the reindeer in our Northern possessions. Little of this country would have been explored or settled except for his good services. There was a time when as much as two thousand dollars has been paid for a good dog up here.”
The Indians were persistent peddlers, offering the handsome baskets, hats and blankets which they are peculiarly skilful in making, and the boys would have loaded themselves down with souvenirs had not Colonel Snow suggested that they would have plenty of time to supply themselves before they left for the south again.
Two days later, Swiftwater Jim, having returned from White Horse, and the freight having been taken from the steamer’s hold, it was placed on cars of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad; the “piano case” as it had come to be called having been put in storage until their return, and early in the morning of a June day the boys bade farewell to Colonel Snow and boarded the train for White Horse.
The journey required nearly six hours, but the first half was a stiff climb to the top of the pass and through such magnificent scenery of mountain and gorge that the boys scarcely noticed the passage of time, beguiled, as it was, with thrilling tales by Swiftwater Jim, with the story of the fight of the Argonauts against the winter horrors of this same trail in the early days of the great gold rush.
They arrived at White Horse about fouro’clock in the afternoon, and were met by six halfbreed Indians headed by a well-known guide of that region known as Skookum Joe, who spoke good English and greeted Swiftwater as an old friend. He had been charged with securing the crews for the two boats that Swiftwater Jim was to use in the trip, and he introduced the men whom Jim greeted in the “pigeon” Siwash of that section, used as a means of communication with the natives who do not speak English.
“I send up river for um,” said Skookum Joe, “Dey know dat country. Good work when no rum; rum, no work,” referring to the prevalence of the liquor habit among the Indians since they have come into contact with the whites.
“This here is going to be a traveling lodge of the Cadets of Temperance, especially so far as natives is concerned,” said Swiftwater Jim, “and consequently everybody will work on this voyage.”
As the cases of machinery were removed from the cars they were opened and the assembled parts as far as possible taken to pieces. These the Indians wrapped in heavy canvas, making convenient bundles or “packs” for handling, and obviating the necessity of transporting the heavymaterial of the cases. Bundled together the entire freight was transported by teams to the water front, where were tied up two commodious shallow flat-bottomed boats into which it was loaded. To this was added provisions sufficient for two months, which Swiftwater had contracted for on his previous visit to the town, and sundry tents, tools and blankets.
Much of the clothing with which the boys had provided themselves had been left at Skagway as it was not needed for the present season. As it was necessary to pay duties on the machinery which had been brought from the United States into the Canadian territory, and to give bond for the two arms and personal equipment which was to be taken into the woods, but eventually returned to American territory, Swiftwater visited the Custom House, and while there introduced the Scouts to the Commissioner of Customs, who spent part of the remainder of the afternoon in showing the boys the town and the natural beauties surrounding it.
Among other places they visited the barracks, where they were introduced to the small squad of Northwestern Mounted Police, the splendid organization maintained by the Canadian Governmentfor the preservation of order in its western and northwestern possessions. Its members are recruited from among ex-soldiers of the British army, with a reputation for hardihood and intrepidity second to none.
The station squad, composed of four members, received the boys cordially, and showed considerable interest in the organization of the Boy Scouts in the United States. Major McClintock, head of the station, apologized for the necessity of registering the young men at the barracks as police regulations required.
“This is a vast and wild territory, and we police, who are responsible for law and order here are few and far between. It is necessary for the safety of all that we know as far as possible just who the people are who come into Yukon territory. Besides, this country is a refuge for hundreds of men who find life unpleasant in more civilized sections, and we must keep them under supervision. By the way, I have just received notification from the United States marshal at Ketchikan that three queer characters dropped off the steamer from Seattle there and were heading for the Klondike, and would probably pass through here, and he asksus to keep an eye on them. Thus far I have seen nothing of them.”
“Dublin, Rae and Monkey,” exclaimed Rand.
“Oh; you know them, do you?” said Major McClintock.
“Jack here knows them very well,” said Dick with a grin.
“Chance for more detective work, Jack,” urged Rand.
“Faith, he might join the Mounted Police,” cried Gerald. “Major, won’t you give Jack a chance with your troop?”
The boys joined in the laugh, and Jack, who had begun to enjoy the joke on himself, told Major McClintock of their various encounters with the three men, and all that was known of their careers.
“Well,” said the officer, “we’ll keep a sharp eye out for them.”
The head of the Mounted Police, who seemed very familiar with the Boy Scouts of Great Britain, told them something of the great organization in England headed by General Baden-Powell, with whom he himself had served in South Africa.
As they bade him good night the Major saidthat the jurisdiction of his post extended over the territory to which they were going, and that some time during their stay there one of his patrols would call on them.
At an early hour the next morning, Swiftwater and the boys went down to the boats, aboard which the Indian crews had passed the night, and were there joined by Skookum Joe, who was to go with them as far as the mouth of the confluent upon which Colonel Snow’s land was located, at which point he was to join a steamer running on down the Yukon River to Dawson.
They floated out upon the swift current of the Lewes River, which many miles further away is joined by the Pelly to make the Yukon, the Behring Sea, some eighteen hundred miles away.
The passage down the Lewes was comparatively easy except for the rapids through which the Indian boatmen guided the flat-bottomed craft by long steering oars, one at each end and one at the side. Swiftwater had placed himself and Jack, Don and Gerald in one boat, and assigned Skookum Joe and Rand, Pepper and Dick to the other.
The run through the small canyons and therapids was an exciting one to the boys, who were unused to such rough waters, where it seemed almost impossible at times to avoid the dangerous rocks that reared their heads above the current. By Swiftwater’s direction the boys were allowed to take a hand at the oars at times, beside the Indian oarsman, to accustom them somewhat to the ticklish navigation of the rivers. While they found the navigation something new, their previous experience in canoe work had taught them sufficiently “the feel of the water” to make them fairly useful.
Pepper, who always threw a good deal of enthusiasm into anything he attempted to do, was barely saved from going overboard several times, and when once left alone with the side oar, succeeded in dipping the blade under a piece of hidden rock and was thrown by the swift motion of the boat high in the air, alighting somewhat breathless on the mass of tarpaulined freight in front of him, luckily without serious injury. The oar, however, went by the board and was lost.
“Wh-wh-what was that?” gasped Pepper, as he got his wind again and began to caress his ribs where the oar handle had struck him.
“I’ve only got one guess,” laughed Dick, “butI should say it was the bottom of the river,” while Rand sarcastically suggested that it wasn’t part of the business of this expedition to try and clear the channel of the Lewes.
It was eight o’clock in the evening, and the sun in that high latitude was still visible when the boats reached the mouth of the stream known as Gold Creek, which entered the Lewes from the southeast. It was some miles up this confluent that Colonel Snow’s land lay, and by direction of Swiftwater the Indian boatmen skilfully rounded the batteaus out of the current of the Lewes into the Creek and into a little backwater formed by a projecting sandy point between the two streams. Here the water was fairly deep, and as no trees came down to the water’s edge two of the Indians held the boat up to the bank, while the third sprang ashore with coils of rope and two long iron stakes which he drove deep into the gravel and sand, and tied the stern and bow of the boat to the bank. The other boat was fastened the same way, and Swiftwater, springing ashore and stretching his long legs, cried: “All ashore; we’ll make camp here, tonight.”
CHAPTER VI.THE BIGGEST BEAR IN THE WORLD.
As soon as the Boy Scouts had set foot on land Swiftwater drew the boys about him and assigned certain of the camp duties to each, directing the Indians, however, to the heaviest tasks of “making camp.” A large number of stones were gathered at the highest point of the sand and gravel, and a rough fireplace constructed. Two of the Indians, under the direction of Rand were sent across a short strip of meadow, which intervened between the point and the adjacent forest, for a supply of firewood. Rand took his rifle along under Swiftwater’s direction, for protection, and with the suggestion that he might see something worth shooting, although he was enjoined not to meddle with moose or caribou.
“Not that I think ye’ll see any,” said Swiftwater, “for they’re mighty scarce here, but it’s a poor time of year for the meat. Still, there’s a few cats and other varmints in this section ofthe country that don’t like strangers, and they make it lively for you.”
“Do the cats belong to the Indians?” innocently inquired Jack, remembering the aborigines’ fondness for dogs.
Swiftwater laughed.
“I never seen an Injun that cared to keep one of ’em longer’n he could let go of it,” said the miner. “I’m talkin’ of lynxes and the lou‘g’rou (loup garou), the Injun Devil, that is still pretty thick in this country.”
The Indians who had come with the expedition were no exception to fondness for dogs, and had brought two shaggy, short-eared, long-nosed brutes with them that had never barked or uttered a sound except to snarl at any stranger who came near them and absolutely refused to make friends with anyone. One of these accompanied Rand and the two Indians into the woods and began nosing around in the bush and underbrush, while the two men were engaged in cutting light wood into short lengths and tying it together in bundles.
They accumulated nearly two hundred pounds apiece; loads that Rand doubted their ability to lift, much less carry to camp. They were aboutready to start back when there came from a thicket forty yards distant a shrill scream that sounded like a child in distress. At the same moment the yelp of a dog was followed by a succession of snarls and screams so nearly human that Rand started toward the thicket crying:
“Quick, the dog is worrying a child.”
“Na, cat; killum malamute,” and with his axe in his hand the Indian rushed ahead of Rand into the thicket.
As Rand entered the brush the sounds of the struggles and the snarls and screams were intermixed with the loud commands of the Indian to the dog. Rand raised his rifle as he burst through the brush after the guide, and saw the dog and a mass of gray fur mixed up in a writhing rolling combat that tore up the grass and raised a cloud of dust and mold and leaves. Before he could get a chance at a shot the Indian had dashed in and with a single blow of his axe had ended the fight.
When the dog’s owner succeeded in separating the dog from the dead animal, no small task, for the former was made furious by the wounds he had received, Rand saw the prey to be a short, heavy creature with stumpy tail and tassled ears.
“Wild cat,” muttered the Indian, turning the dead animal over with his mocassin, so that its formidable claws could be seen, “easy killum dog.”
Examining the wounds of the dog, which were not serious, he pointed to the cat and administered several severe kicks to the dog, which ran snarling toward the camp, while the guide picked up the body and returned to where his companion stood fastening his bundle, having apparently taken no interest in the contest. There was a short exchange of gutterals and then each of the Indians stooping down placed a band of strong cloth around his forehead, slipped it under the cord around the wood, and, with the aid of his companion, easily raised it to his back and walked off to camp as if it was a burden of no moment.
“Well, I see ye met up with a cat,” said Swiftwater, as Rand and the Indians returned, “and at that ye only got the smallest of the tribe.”
“If the others can fight any harder than this specimen, I don’t believe I want to meet any of them. I thought there was a child in the thicket.”
“Lots of these cat varmints have voices jest like a human. Ye can’t tell a panther from a squallin’ child sometimes.”
Bacon, canned beef, potatoes and coffee had already been brought from the boats and the Indians soon had a rousing fire which soon heated the stones to red heat. Three of these had been joined together to make a sort of three corner oven and into this the potatoes were placed, while over another portion of the fire the bacon was fried and the coffee boiled.
A large tarpaulin had been brought ashore and spread upon the sands, and upon this, or upon stones placed thereon, the party seated themselves and ate their repast from tin or thin wooden plates. A day of excitement and vigorous exercise had furnished them with strong appetites and the rather coarse food of the camp was greatly relished.
Arrangements for the night had been made by raising a large tarpaulin over one of the boats upon several of the crossed bars, forming a sort of shelter under which were spread several of the light mattresses that were part of the equipment; and Swiftwater directed that the Scouts should all “turn in” to this improvised barracks together, while he and Skookum Joe retired to the other boat. The Indians were given several small canvas coverings known in the army as“dog tents,” and were to sleep around the fire, which one of them was delegated to replenish during the night.
The attraction of the big campfire and the beautiful clear sky overhead filled the boys with aspirations to “camp out,” and they were rather inclined to grumble at Swiftwater’s orders compelling them to sleep on the boat.
With the growing soldier spirit of the Scouts, they resented being coddled, as Gerald chose to express it, and he voiced the sentiment of the patrol when he said:
“Why can’t we sleep by the fire, Swiftwater? I feel as if I was being sung to and then tucked in same as I used to be at home.”
“Ye’ll have camping out enough before ye’re through with the woods; and I’m not going to take any chances with all that tundra over there, and that swamp back beyond of starting the season with six fine cases of malaria on my hands. Until ye’re a little better acclimated and a little more hardened, it’s better for ye to sleep with a board or two under you.”
The good sense of the old scout’s argument as well as a fine appreciation of the miner’s thoughtfulness for their welfare led the boys to at onceacquiesce, and Rand voiced their appreciation.
Although it was early in the season, and the insect world had hardly awakened to life, there were a sufficient number of mosquitos about to remind the boys of Colonel’s Snow’s injunction regarding the supply of nettings, and Jack, after several vigorous slaps, murmured sleepily:
“Gee, that certainly sounded like a voice from home.”
“They’ve got the good old Jersey accent,” replied Jack.
“Straight from the Hackensack meadows,” said Rand, referring to the once most favored habitat of the mosquito in the East.
“I hae ma doots,” said Don, “if that is a mosquito I killed just noo. I think it was some new kind of night bird.”
How long he had been asleep Jack did not know, when he was aroused by the growling of the two dogs on the shore, and crawled out from under the tarpaulin. The night was clear, and there was a fine starlight. In the East there was the faintest glimmer of dawn. The fire on shore had died down, but the embers still shone. The Indian who had been on watch had risen from his seat and followed the dogs, which had rungrowling up the strip of sand toward the meadow which lay between the water and the woods. Evidently there was some game in sight, and Jack crawled back under the tarpaulin and grasped his rifle, a Remington repeater. He did not arouse any of the others as he had really seen nothing, and was a little sensitive to possible ridicule.
He ran up the gangplank and stepped ashore. The other Indians were still asleep and Jack took the trail of the sentinel, whom he could dimly see in the distance.
The latter turned as he heard Jack’s footsteps on the gravel, and waited for him.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“No know,” replied the Indian, “maybe bear, dogs no fight, only growl.”
Dimly through the dawn Jack could make out a black mass lumbering slowly down through the meadow toward them. The dogs ran around it in circles, merely growling and offering no attack. At a word from the Indian, however, they ran in snarling on the animal, which stopped, and with a loud “woof” reared up on its haunches, showing an enormous height.
“Bear; shootum,” cried the Indian, who hadonly an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired another shot.
The animal let out a snarling cry, and, grasping one of the dogs which had ventured within reach of its enormous paws, squeezed the life out of it before it could let out a cry. The Indian gave a yell and ran in on the enormous animal, and with a well-directed blow of the ax split its skull open between the eyes. At the same time Jack, as a precaution, fired another shot into the creature’s open mouth, and it rolled motionless on its side.
The shots and the cries of the Indian had aroused every one on the two boats, and Swiftwater and Skookum Joe came running over the sands, rifles in hand. By this time the early dawn of the high latitude had rendered all objects visible, and the boys had also joined Jack and the Indian, who was circling cautiously around the huge brute, trying to ascertain the fate of the dog, which was still clasped in the death clutch of the now motionless animal.
“Ha,” exclaimed Swiftwater, “a kodiak, and a corker; the biggest one I ever saw. You fellers were lucky to get him on the first shot, forthat breed can make an awful mess if they start to fight. Hey, Skookum, catch hold and let’s flop him over.”
Having satisfied themselves that the bear was dead, the miner and the guide, with the aid of the Indians, moved the enormous mass which, with the Indian’s blow, had slumped down upon its hindquarters. With the greatest difficulty they succeeded in straightening it out. The Indian dog had been squeezed into a shapeless mass, and, ascertaining this, the Indian gave it no further attention for the time being.
“Mighty good thing you had a softnosed bullet in that rifle,” said Skookum, pointing to the gaping wound in the breast of the bear. “That spread, and did the business right away. A steel jacketed bullet would have gone straight through and would not have done so much harm. Then you might have been where the dog was.”
Jack, who had been seized with a sort of buck fever after he realized what he had shot, was trembling with excitement as he received the almost envious congratulations of his friends.
“Begorra, we’ll courtmartial you and drop ye from the Patrol,” said Gerald, “if ye insist grabbing all the glory for yourself this way. Whydon’t you let us know when you are going out after adventures?”
“Yes, this is the second time that you have gone knight-erranting by your lone,” said Dick, “and I can see nothing for it. If this Patrol of Boy Scouts is to get any chance to make a reputation it will have to put Mr. Jack Blake on a leash, and tie him to our wrists when we lie down to sleep.”
“Weel, if that big bear or whatever it is, is really dead, ye’ve certainly made a better job of it than ye did with Monkey,” exclaimed Don, and, with the laugh that followed, poor Jack felt that the ridiculousness of that episode on the steamer had been practically wiped out.
Swiftwater and Skookum measured the huge brown carcass that lay stretched on the sand before them, and found it to be nearly ten feet from tip to tip. They guessed its weight to be about eight hundred pounds.
“That’s about the limit,” said Skookum, “tho’ I did hear of a skin once that measured thirteen feet.”
“Well, Jack,” said Swiftwater, “you’ve killed the largest meat-eating critter, in the world—carnivorous I think ye call it. There’s none biggerthan the big brown bear of Alaska. Some say he isn’t so fierce as the grizzly, but he is nearly twice as big, and there’s certain seasons that he’ll fight at the drop of the hat, as the sayin’ goes. I never see one so far from the coast before. He’s called a kodiak because he hangs out down on Kodiak Island and on the Alaska and Kenai peninsulas.”
“Yes,” said Skookum Joe, “he likes salmon better than a Siwash, and he set on the river bank and fish for himself all day long.”
“Smellum salmon,” spoke up one of the Indians, pointing to the fire where some skin of the rough, Indian smoked fish had been thrown by the aborigines the night before.
“Wa-al,” said Swiftwater, with a grin at the Indian, “I reckon they could ‘smellum’ some o’ that seal oil o’ yours down to Seattle.”
The Indians set swiftly to work while the boys looked on curiously, and soon had the enormous brown hide of the animal off the body. The latter they cut up and such portions as were available they put aboard the boats. A few steaks were cooked for the boys for breakfast, but, as Swiftwater suggested, they found the meat dry and tough and very lean. The Indians seemedto relish it, however, and the remaining dog ate enormously.
Swiftwater promised Jack that as soon as they reached their destination he would arrange for the proper curing of the skin which he could have as a trophy.
“No,” said Jack, “that goes to the Patrol for the floor of our room back in Creston, and if there is any glory attached to this matter that don’t really belong to that Indian with the ax, I shall be glad to hand that over to the Patrol.”
As they had all been aroused so early, Swiftwater gave orders for an immediate start up Gold Creek as soon as breakfast was over, that they might get in a long day and possibly reach their destination before night. Just as they were aboard and were about casting off, one of the Indians who had disappeared for a time came running down to the water with a small bundle of fur in each hand. One was the skin of the wild cat killed the night before; the other the skin of his dog crushed to death by the bear that morning.