“Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak.“Dear Sir,—We are all right, but don’t know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory. Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige“Yours truly, ——.”
“Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak.
“Dear Sir,—We are all right, but don’t know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory. Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige
“Yours truly, ——.”
“Do you think that’ll do all right, boys?” he asked.
The others nodded assent, and so each signed his name. Folding up the paper and tying it in a piece of the membrane which he cut off a corner of hiskamelinka, Rob finally gave the packet to the old chief.
“Plenty talk-talk thing,” he said. “You bring peoples—get-um schooner—my peoples give-um flour, sugar, two rifle, hundred dollars.”
Without further comment than a grunt the old chief stowed the packet in an inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse’s rifle under his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to leave the coast.
The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.
Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.
“Well,” he admitted, “I don’t care! Idowant to go home!”
After the natives had departed, the young castaways, quite alone on their wild island, felt more lonesome and more uneasy than they had been before. The wilderness seemed to close in about them. None of them had any definite hope or plan for an early rescue or departure from the island, so for some two or three weeks they passed the time in a restless and discontented way, doing little to rival the exciting events which had taken place during the visit of the natives. It was now approaching the end of spring, and Rob, more thoughtful perhaps than any of the others, could not conceal from himself the anxiety which began to settle upon him.
In these circumstances Rob and his friends found the young Aleut, with his cheerful and care-free disposition and his apparent unconcern about the future, of much comfort as well as of great assistance in a practical way. They nicknamed theAleut boy Skookie—a shortening of the Chinook wordskookum, which meansstrong, orgood, orall right. Their young companion, used as he was to life in the open, solved simply and easily all their little problems of camp-keeping. Under his guidance, they finished the work on the bear-skins, scraping them and rubbing them day after day, until at last they turned them into valuable rugs.
It was Skookie, also, who showed them where to get their salmon and codfish most easily. In short, he naturally dropped into the place of local guide. The native is from his youth trained to observation of natural objects, because his life depends upon such things. With the white man or white boy this is not the case. No matter how much instinct he may have for the life of the wilderness, with him adjustment to that life is a matter of study and effort, whereas with the native all these things are a matter of course. It may be supposed, therefore, that this young Aleut made the best of instructors for the young companions who found themselves castaway in this remote region.
Thus, none of the three white boys had noted more than carelessly the paths of wild animals which came down from the surrounding hills to the shores of the lagoon near which they werecamped, although these paths could be seen with ease by any one whose attention was attracted to them. One day they were wandering along the upper end of the lagoon where the grass, matted with several seasons’ growth and standing as tall as their shoulders, stood especially dense. They noticed that Skookie stooped now and then and parted the tangled grass with his hands. At last, like a young hound, he left their course and began to circle around, crossing farther on what they now discovered to be an easily distinguishable trail made by some sort of small animal.
“What is it? What’s up, Skookie?” asked John, whose curiosity always was in evidence.
The Aleut boy did not at first reply, because he did not know how to do so. He made a sort of sign, by putting his two bent fingers, pricked up, along the side of his head like ears.
“Wolf!” said John.
“No,” commented Rob. “I don’t think there are any wolves on this island; at least, I never heard of any so far to the West. What is it, Skookie?”
The boy made the same sign, and then spread his hands apart as if to measure the length of some animal.
“Fox!” cried Jesse, with conviction; and Skookie, who understood English better than he spoke it, laughed in assent.
“Fokus,” he said, repeating the word as nearly as he could. Now he traced out the path in the grass for them, and, beckoning them to follow, showed where it crossed the tundra and ran along the stream, headed back to the higher hills which seemed to be the resort of the wild animals, from which they came down to feed along the beach.
“It’s as plain as the nose on a fellow’s face,” said John. “And some of these paths look as if they were a good many years old.”
Indeed, they could trace them out, many of them, worn deep into the moss by the dainty feet of foxes which had travelled the same lines for many years. It was a curious thing, but all these wild animals, even the bears, seemed not to like the work of walking where the footing was soft, so they made paths of their own which they followed from one part of the country to another. On this great Alaskan island nearly every mountain pass had bear trails and fox paths leading down to the valleys along the streams or from one valley over into another. The foxes as well as the bears seemed to find a great deal of their food along the beaches.
As the young native ran along the fox trail the others had difficulty in keeping up with him.
“What’s the matter with him? What’s up, Rob?” panted John, who was a trifle fat for his years. “Why doesn’t he keep in the plain trails?”
“Let him alone,” said Rob. “He may have some idea of his own. See there, he is heading over toward the beach.”
They followed him along the faint trail, dimly outlined at places in the moss, and soon they caught the idea which was in his mind. The path headed toward the beach and then zig-zagged, paralleling it as though some fox had come down and caught sight or scent of something interesting and then had investigated it cautiously. Others had trodden in his foot-prints, and so made this path, which at length straightened out and ran directly to the beach just opposite the place where the dead whale lay.
“Plenty—plenty!” said Skookie, pointing his short finger to the trail and then down to the beach where the carcass of the whale lay. Whether he meant plenty of fox or plenty of food for the foxes made little difference.
“They’re feeding on the whale, now that the boats have gone,” explained Rob. “That isplain. Skookie is just showing us the new trail they have made the last few nights.”
Skookie turned back and began to follow the trail toward the mountain. Without comment the others followed him, and so they ran the faint path back until it climbed directly up the steep bluff, fifty feet in height, and struck a long, flat, higher level, where the foxes all seemed to have established an ancient highway. Several trails here crossed, although each held its own way and did not merge with the others; as though there were bands of foxes which came from one locality and did not mingle with the others.
“Now, what made him come up here?” asked John, whose shorter legs were beginning to tire of this long walk. “We’re getting a good way from home.”
“Just wait,” advised Jesse. “We’ll learn something yet, I shouldn’t wonder. Skookie’s after something; that’s plain.”
Indeed, the young Aleut, not much farther on, began now to stoop and examine the trail closely. At length he pointed his brown finger at a certain spot near the trail. The others bent over the place.
“Something’s been here,” said Jesse. The moss had been dug out and put back again.
Skookie smiled and walked on a little farther and showed them several other such places a few yards apart. He held up the fingers of one hand.
“Fiveklipsie,” he said, and then swept an arm around toward the face of the mountains, remarking: “My peoples come here.”
“Oh,” said Rob; “he means that here is where his family come to set theirklipsietraps for foxes. I suppose these places are where the sameklipsieswere set five different times. I have heard that when they catch a fox in one place they always take up their trap and move it on a little way so that the other foxes may not be frightened away by the smell of the dead fox or the trap.”
“I wonder,” said Jesse, “if any fox would have good fur this late in the spring.”
“He might,” said Rob, “if he had been living all the time up in the mountains near the snow; but as the natives trap a good deal along the beach, I suppose they took up their traps some time ago. They never like to take fur unless it is good, of course.”
“Anyhow,” said Jesse, “I shouldn’t mind trying once for a fox. We might get a good one. I’ve heard they catch foxes sometimes—silver-grays or blacks, you know—that are worth three or four hundred dollars.”
“Or even more,” added Rob; “but that is when they’re very prime, and when they bring the top of the market.”
Skookie looked from one to the other, but finally made up his own mind. He led out on the way toward the barabbara, where very methodically he set to work carrying out his purpose. He rummaged among theklipsiebutts in the back part of the hut until he got one to suit him, and then without any hesitation led the way a few hundred yards distant from the hut where, parting the grass, he disclosed the cache or hiding-place where the owners of theklipsieshad secreted the traps; they, in their cunning, not wishing to leave the entire trap in the possession of any stranger who might come to the house.
Fumbling in this heap of narrow sticks, each of which was about as long as a boy’s arm, Skookie at last picked out one which suited him. They discovered that the end of it was armed with four or five spikes apparently made of old nails hammered to a point and filed into a barb.
Skookie now took this arm of hisklipsieto where he had left the butt or hub of the trap, and he loosened up the heavy, braided cord of sinew which passed from end to end through the butt. He pushed the butt end of the arm in betweenthese sinews so that pulling it sidewise twisted the sinews. Then he drove tight the wedges at each end of the hub, so straining the sinews tightly about the arm of the trap. Thus, as the boys readily saw, a great force was exerted when the arm of the trap was pulled back.
“That is what they call ‘torsion,’ I think,” said Rob. “It is like a gate-spring which pushes hard when you twist it. Look at those sinews—thick as your thumb—and even one little sinew is strong enough to hang an ox!”
Skookie went on with his work until he thought the strain on the arm was sufficient. Then he pulled the arm back and caught it under a slight notch which was cut in the side of the hub, which itself was open on one side to allow the passage of the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from it—something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of theklipsieresembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head back ready to strike a terrible blow.
“Natives get caught in these traps sometimes,” said Rob; “so the old trappers tell me. Sometimes they get crippled for life. You see, these iron points here strike a man just about at theknee joint, and that’s pretty bad when there is no doctor around.”
Skookie, going ahead with his work, fumbled in his pocket and fished out a piece of hide cord, which he measured off to a certain length between his arms; then, picking up a bit of stick, he whittled out a pointed peg and attached one end of his cord to this, while he arranged the other so that it would control the trigger which held the arm in place on the farther side of theklipsiebow. Now he stretched out his cord and pushed the peg into the earth as though it crossed a fox path, and made a motion of a fox walking along and touching his leg against the cord. To do this he took a long stick instead of using his own limb.
Whang! went theklipsie, the fanged arm whirling over so fast that the eye could hardly follow it, and burying its points in the ground. Skookie laughed and danced up and down, showing how it certainly would have killed a fox had the latter been there.
“Come on,” said John; “let’s go set it somewhere.”
“All light!” said Skookie, who understood a great many words from their apparent connection. He took up his trap, with the hub underhis arm, and headed off up the beach toward the spot where they had first seen the fox trail two or three hours before.
Following along the faint trail for some distance, but taking care not to step in it, he at length struck it where it passed through the tall grass. Here he squatted down and made some sort of strange passes over his trap, mumbling certain words in a strange tongue. Like all of his people, Skookie was superstitious. What he wanted to do now was to wish his trap good-luck. Having attended to this part of his ceremony, he drew his knife and began to detach a square of the thick, matted moss, making a cavity about arm’s distance at one side of the path. In this hole he buried the hub of theklipsieand covered it carefully with moss, so that nothing was left to show. The arm, which lay back still farther in the grass, he covered up lightly so that it also would be concealed from view. Then, carefully, he stretched his trigger string across the path, mixing it up with some of the dried spears of grass so that it lay a foot or less above the level of the path, or at just about the height at which the fore-legs or breast of the fox would strike it as the animal came walking down the trail. Having bent the grass above hisklipsie, and arrangedeverything so that the place showed no signs of what had been going on, Skookie at last smiled, stood back, and looked cheerfully at his work; then he cast a glance toward the skies, and made a sign with his fingers held downward as though to indicate falling rain.
“Bime-by water!” he said.
“He means that he wants it to rain,” said Rob, “so that the scent will all be washed off from the trap and from the ground around it.”
“Well,” said John, “if the water is about the way it averages, he won’t have to wait longer than to-night for his rain.” Which, indeed, was the case, for in the night, while they were all safely in the barabbara around the fire, the rain came as usual, sufficient to blot out all trace of their late work on the fox trails.
The following morning the boys at once began to wonder what luck had met their trapping operations. It did not appear to them likely that they would catch anything the first night; but Skookie, it seemed, was of a different opinion. After breakfast he led the way to the place where the trap lay, and without hesitation walked into the tall grass, stooped down, and at once held up to view a long, dark animal at sight of which the boys uttered a joint whoop of joy!
“We got him!” said John. “We certainly did get a fox, and the very first night, too.”
“Yes,” agreed Rob, “we did more than that: we got a silver-gray fox, and a mighty good one at that. Was there ever such luck, I do wonder!”
Skookie took it all as a matter of course, but the others were much excited over this discovery. They put the silky, handsome animal upon the ground and began to smooth out its fur. The fangs of theklipsiehad struck it in the back of the neck and killed it instantly, so that the coat remained quite smooth and undisturbed by any struggles. It was long and silky—dark, with white-tipped tail, and gray extremities on all the hairs of the back.
“This skin ought to be worth anyhow one hundred dollars,” said Rob, critically. “At least that would be my guess at it. The natives don’t often get that much, but sometimes a trader will buy a skin for fifty dollars and sell it for five or six hundred. That all depends on the sort of market he finds.”
“Anyhow,” said Jesse, “it proves that Skookie can trap foxes all right.”
The young Aleut was not disturbed by this praise, and proceeded to further prove his abilityas a trapper. Having again set hisklipsieat a point a few yards farther down the trail, he took up the dead fox and led the way back to the barabbara, where he undertook to carry the carcass in for his skinning operations.
At this Rob demurred, for he had already seen proof of the custom of the native trappers, who nearly always skin out their game at the fireside of the barabbara, and who are very careless where they leave the carcasses.
“No, you don’t!” said Rob. “We’ve just cleaned out that house, and we don’t want it mussed up again so soon. Let’s go over to the beach and skin our fox.”
Skookie, always docile and willing to obey, once more led the way, carrying the fox under his arm. At last he seated himself on the ground, sharpened his knife-blade on a stone, and began to skin out the fox, much as an old trapper would. He made a cut from one hind leg to the other, cut off the tail bone, pulled the tail off clean by the use of two sticks clamped against the bone, and proceeded to remove the skin from the body without splitting it along the belly—“casing” it, as trappers call it. So carefully did he do his work that he did not make the slightest cut around the eyes or ears or nostrils, and evenbrought off the whiskers of the muzzle without disfiguring the skin in the least.
Next he found a spreader, or tapering board, under the eaves of the barabbara, and over this he stretched his fox-skin, inside out, setting it away in the back part of the barabbara, where it would slowly dry without being exposed to the fire.
“Well, he certainly is a trapper, all right,” said John, admiringly. “Now I believe we could do that sort of thing ourselves. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get a lot of foxes here, and maybe make some money out of the skins some day.”
Rob shook his head. “I don’t think so,” said he. “Even this skin, although it is not yet rusty from the sunlight, is not perfectly prime, as you can see by looking at the inside of the skin. A really prime skin is white and clear, and you can see that this one is just a little blue along the back. That isn’t a good sign to me.”
Rob’s guess as to the fur soon proved to be correct. For four more nights they watched theirklipsietrap without success. On the fifth morning they found another dead fox in the trap, with the barbs through his back. This, however, was only a “cross” fox, and his fur proved so wornand rusty that Skookie scornfully refused to take off the hide. That ended their fox-trapping, for Rob refused to allow any more foxes to be killed. Skookie, apparently willing to go on with his work, or to stop as they preferred, smilingly took up hisklipsie, after he had sprung the trap, detached the arm, and restored the separated parts to their original hiding-places.
“Plenty times my peoples come here,” he said, smiling.
“That means,” said Jesse, “that some time or other, if we have luck, we may be discovered here by his people, even if our own people never find us.”
“Yes,” Rob added, “but I only hope that may be before winter comes and leaves us unable to get out.”
Although utterly remote from the ordinary haunts of man, our young hunters found their new environment one free from monotony, after all. The sea was never twice the same, and even the weather was capricious enough to afford variety. As spring wore on the region seemed to teem with wild life, whether on the earth, in the water, or the air. The gulls, crows, ravens, and eagles were continually passing, with clouds of shags or cormorants, which nested on the rocks a mile or so down the bay, together with numbers of oyster-birds, whale-birds, and other strange fowl of the outlying coast.
Each night and morning also there passed up the lagoon a stream of honking and chattering wild-fowl, the largest of which and most valuable, though least attainable, were the great Canada geese, which frequented this part of the island in large numbers.
“If only we could get hold of some of those fellows,” said John, longingly, one morning, as they saw an especially fine flock pass slowly up toward the head of the lagoon. “I’ll warrant they’d be good to eat. See, some of them can hardly fly yet, they’re so young.”
“Yes,” said Jesse, “if we had only thought of it last week, they probably would not have been able to fly at all—flappers, they call those young birds. Then we might possibly have killed some of them in the grass at the head of the lagoon.”
“We could kill all we wanted now with the rifles,” commented Rob; “but, as I said awhile ago, I don’t think we ought to use rifle ammunition for killing birds. No one can tell how much we may need our cartridges later on. No, I don’t think we will get any geese unless we can catch them with our hands. I haven’t much faith in those throwing-cords that Skookie was showing us.”
John turned to his friend Skookie. “S’pose you catch-um geese, Skookie?” he asked.
The Aleut boy surprised them very much by his sudden use of English.
“Sure!” he said. He had perhaps learned this word from associating with whites somewhere down the coast.
His prompt reply made them all laugh, but none the less it was of yet greater interest than this.
“How do you mean, Skookie?” asked Rob. “How can you catch a goose when you have no gun? You can’t get close enough.”
It was always a problem how much English the Aleut understood or did not understand. Now he made his answer by diving into the back of the barabbara and coming out with the curious bunch of thongs which the boys had noticed him carrying when they first encountered him on the beach—a dozen thongs attached to a common centre, each being a couple of yards in length, and each bearing at its extremity a perforated ivory ball perhaps of an ounce or so in weight.
“Well, that don’t look very much like a goose-hunt to me,” said John; “but it seems to me I’ve read about the Eskimos using something of this sort. Maybe it’ll work on geese, though it looks like a mighty funny kind of shot-gun to me.”
“It’s an old weapon of wild people,” said Rob. “I’ve read about that sort of thing. They use it in South America for catching animals, and there they call it thebolas, or balls. I think they use stones down there, and of course they are a great deal heavier than these little ivory weights.”
He motioned to Skookie to show how he proposed to use this curious device. The Aleut, understanding perfectly what was required, again caught the thongs by their central ring and deftly began to whirl them about his head. Aiming at a post which stood up in the grass near the barabbara, he finally cast loose his whirling thongs, which promptly wrapped tightly around the post as they flew. The young brown hunter grinned at this, and all the boys were surprised at the force with which the thongs clung about the object of the aim.
“Jinks!” said John. “I shouldn’t wonder if they’d kill a bird, if they hit it, or anyhow tie it up. The question is, how can you get close enough to the geese to catch them with this sort of arrangement. A goose is about the wildest thing in the world. I don’t suppose Skookie could hit anything very far.”
“I don’t know,” mused Rob. “But why not let him try? If the birds are done nesting, and the young ones are flying, they would make a mighty good addition to our table if we could get some of them.”
Another flock of geese passed by. Rob pointed from the thong-cords toward the geese.
“S’pose you catch-um?” he asked of Skookie.
The boy smiled, and without a word picked up his thongs and led the way along the shore of the lagoon. The others followed, seeing that he proposed to capture some wild-fowl in the native way, as he had once before intimated might be done.
He was no bad hunter, this young savage. After locating a big flock of geese which were sunning themselves on the mud flats close to the grass, he led his companions far back from the water, making a wide détour. At length he began to approach the fowl from a point where they would be concealed by the heavy grass. It seemed an age to the white boys, but Skookie was in no hurry. Like a cat he crawled and crawled, a few inches at a time, until finally he reached a point where they could hear the contented croaking and jabbering of the geese as they rested, entirely unsuspicious of any danger. It must be remembered that in this part of the world the wild-fowl are seldom if ever disturbed, and hence are far less suspicious than when they are near to civilization. If these honkers suspected anything at all now, they did no more than occasionally lift their heads and crane their long necks around. They could see nothing, because their pursuers were all crouched low beneath the tops of the grasses.
The Aleut boy kept on his stealthy approach—little by little—until finally he was within thirty or forty yards of the edge of the water, along which the great wild-fowl were scattered. Rob nudged him to get up and throw, but Skookie knew his own business better. Without uttering a sound he crawled forward rapidly a few paces, on his hands and knees, then sprang to his feet and ran rapidly through the grass toward the edge of the water, uttering the while wild whoops as he began to swing the thongs about his head.
“Look out!” cried John. “They’ll all get away! Why don’t he throw?”
But Skookie did not undertake to throw so long as the geese were on the ground. He knew that the young geese were weak and not used to flight, and that even at its best a wild goose is slow and heavy to take wing.
THE ALEUT BOY LAUNCHED HIS MISSILE INTO THE MASS OF FLYING FOWLTHE ALEUT BOY LAUNCHED HIS MISSILE INTO THE MASS OF FLYING FOWL
All these geese, some scores of young and old, intermingled, now began to scream, squawk, and honk, and clumsily to take wing as best they could. Thus they rose in a confused brown mass, almost in the face of the young hunter, who advanced rapidly, whirling the weighted cords about his head. At precisely the right instant, and not upset by the sudden clamor of the rising fowl, the Aleut boy straightened his arm in front of himand launched his missile with precision into the very middle of the flapping mass of flying fowl.
The execution done was perhaps no more than he expected, but as the white boys saw his success they broke into a cheer. As the startled flock screamed and honked away, down came two of the fowl, one with broken wing and another laid fair about the neck by the gripping cords which had encircled it. Before they could escape, all the boys were after them, plunging into the mud and water, careless of anything but their game. They found that one of their geese was an old gander, but the other was a fat young bird, which John fondled with the utmost interest.
“I’ll bet you this one’ll be good to eat!” said he. “Let’s go back and see how it goes.”
“I wonder if you ever will get enough to eat, John!” said Rob, reprovingly. “We have only had breakfast an hour or so. But I’m agreed that young wild goose will make a good change of diet for luncheon.”
He patted Skookie on the shoulder to compliment him on his skill.
“Plenty times me catch-um,” said Skookie, proudly, as he untangled his cords. “Plenty times my peoples come dis place.”
Whether he meant that his people had been hunting here very often, or intended to hunt here often, they could not understand. Happier than they had been for some days, they went back to the hut, picked the old goose, skinned out the breast of the young one, and began, somewhat unskilfully, to prepare for the cookery of their new game. The best they could do was to cut the breast of the fowl into strips and fry it with some of the bear fat in the broken skillet. Even so, they found it delicious eating.
Skookie, after the fashion of his people, sat on the ground cross-legged, and when it came his turn to help himself from the common dish he plunged his fingers into the hot contents, and fishing out a long piece introduced it into his mouth. When his mouth was full as it would hold he took his knife-blade, and after his fashion cut off a piece close to his lips, on the outside—the way in which most of these Northwestern natives eat their meat. The other boys, who had been reared with different ideas of table manners, looked at him with surprise. Skookie did not seem to notice, but munched away contentedly, repeating the performance now and then.
“If that’s the way they eat up here,” said John, at last, “I suppose we ought to learn how to doit.” So saying, soberly he began to sharpen his knife on a near-by stone, as he had seen Skookie do, and, taking a piece of goose breast in one hand, he partly filled his mouth and undertook to cut it off at the proper length. At once he uttered a wild cry, and dropped both knife and morsel to the ground. Blood flowed from his face, and he clapped his hand to the end of his nose, which he had nearly severed with the stroke of his knife, as it had slipped unexpectedly through the piece of meat.
“Now look at you!” said Jesse. “You’ve pretty near cut off your nose; that’s what you’ve done. That comes of forgetting the way you were brought up. Come here—let me see how badly you’re hurt.”
Skookie broke out into wild peals of laughter at this mishap, which left John none too well pleased. Rob and Jesse, however, bent over him as he whimpered with the pain, and did what they could to make amends for the disaster.
“Hot water is best for a cut,” said Rob, taking their tea-vessel from the fire and looking about for a piece of rag. Thus, in short, by the free use of hot water, he did at length stop the flow of blood in part, at least.
“John,” said he, at last, “you came mightynear spoiling your beauty. Your nose is turned up, anyhow, and now you have nearly cut off a half inch more of it. Lucky for you the cartilage was tough, or you would have looked more like an Ethiopian than an American. I guess it will grow fast again, although you will have to wear a handkerchief tied around your face and head for some time.”
“I don’t care,” mumbled John. “I wanted to see how they did it.”
“Well, you know now,” Rob assured him, in a matter-of-fact way. “But I would suggest that you eat in the ordinary civilized fashion after this, because you haven’t any more nose than you need, and your mother might not like you to come home with a part of it missing.”
It was some days before the smart of this wound was entirely gone, but it may be said that in time it healed and left but a slight scar at the lower end of the nose, although John for some days went about with a handkerchief tied about his face. This did not prevent his taking part in future goose-hunts, which came to be a regular part of their programme.
Before the geese had become too wise they succeeded in killing several dozen with the thongs, each of them taking his turn and throwing them,which they found not so difficult an art to master, after all. Skookie showed them how to smoke the breasts of these wild-fowl so that they would keep, and thus they made a valuable addition to their stores.
“
Natusalmon,” said Skookie one morning, poking his head in at the door of the barabbara, where the others still sat, washing up the breakfast dishes.
“What’s that he says, John?” asked Rob, who seemed less ready than the younger boy to pick up the native speech.
“Natumeansnothingornoornot,” interpreted John. “What’s the matter with the salmon, Skookie?”
They all crawled out of the low-hung door and followed the Aleut to the spot where they had left their fish concealed. They found nothing but stripped bones. Around the spot hung a crowd of great ravens and crows, protesting at being disturbed at this easy meal.
“We had six fine salmon there last night,” grieved Jesse. “They’re awfully hard to catch now, too, because they’ve got shy in the shallowwater. They’re all down in the big hole at the mouth of the creek, and it’s going to be harder and harder to get any. As for the whale meat that the old chief left, I don’t suppose it was salted enough, and it probably won’t keep.”
“We’ll have to build some sort of shelter for our fish and game,” said Rob, looking at the havoc which had been wrought by the birds. “It isn’t right to waste even salmon, abundant as they are—although they may not be so abundant after this, as you say, Jesse.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said John, after a moment’s thought, “I’ve got an idea!”
“Well, what is it?”
“You know, there was Uncle Dick’s fishing-rod we brought with us in the dory. I took it out and pushed it under a log at the top of the beach wall. Now, I put that rod in the boat carefully myself, because I knew how much Uncle Dick thought of it. I don’t suppose he’ll thank us for bringing it away, because it’s his best trout rod.”
“I don’t see what use it would be to us,” said Jesse. “It’s too light to tie a grab hook to, and even if you hooked it into a salmon the rod would break.”
“Yes,” said Rob, “a trout rod isn’t meant inany case for fish as heavy as this. Besides, you see, these salmon never take a fly; even if we had any flies to go with the rod, or any line, or any reel, for that matter.”
“The reel is on the butt joint of the rod; I’m pretty sure I saw it there. Come, let’s find out! I tell you, I’ve got an idea,” insisted John.
They all repaired to the beach where, as promised, John produced the rod from its hiding-place under the drift-wood log. True, the reel was there in place. Without delay he put the joints of the rod together, finding some difficulty in this, for the rain and salt air had not improved it in the least. None the less they threaded the line through the guides and found that everything was serviceable.
“Uncle Dick would not care,” said John, “if he knew just how we are situated.”
“Still, I don’t get your idea,” began Rob.
“Well, I don’t know whether or not it’s a very good one,” answered John; “but who’s got a few little hooks to lend me now?”
“Here are two or three,” said Jesse, fishing in his pockets. “They’re about big enough for bait hooks for trout, but salmon won’t take any bait. I don’t see what you mean.”
John made no comment, but cut off two orthree short pieces of the line about a foot in length. To each of these he attached one of the sharp-pointed little hooks and fastened them at intervals a couple of feet apart on the line. One hook he tied at the end of the line itself.
“Oh, I see!” said Rob. “You mean to throw that outfit as though it were a fly.”
John nodded. “If you can cast as light a thing as a little trout fly with this rod,” he said, “you ought to be able to cast these hooks—larger, not much heavier, and just about right to go straight. Anyhow, let’s go down and try.”
“Good idea!” agreed Rob. And they all departed, the Aleut boy with them, to the lower reaches of the stream, where, as has been said, the salmon now more frequently resorted.
As they stood on the bank above the big pool they looked down into it, and saw that the sea-tide run of the salmon had brought in the average number of fish. The whole interior of the pool, which otherwise would have had a dark-green appearance, seemed to be made up of melted silver layers, all in motion. There were hundreds of fish moving about, up and down, and round and round, hesitating about following up the thread of the fresh water, and not wanting to go back to the salt water, which lay behind them.
“My gracious, there’s about a million in there!” exclaimed John, peering over the edge.
“Yes, but Skookie couldn’t get any with the snag-pole now,” said Rob. “They’re getting wise and stay too far out. I shouldn’t wonder if your idea was a good one, if only that rod were stronger.”
Rob rubbed his chin meditatively. “You are welcome to try first. I don’t want to break that rod, and I know what will happen if you hook on to a big fish with it.”
John set his lips in determination, none the less, and stepped down to the edge of the pool. Slowly the interior mass of silver seemed to grow fainter. The fish saw him, and moved gently away to the opposite side of the pool. Presently, however, they could see the shining mass edge back again to the centre of the pool, where the deeper water was over the gravel.
John began to cast the hooks back and forward above his head, as every fisherman does in casting a fly. Little by little he lengthened the line, still keeping it in the air, until he saw he had out enough to reach well across the pool. Then, gently as he could, he dropped the line and its gang of hooks on the surface of the water. The hooks, being small, were not heavy enough to sink theline directly. John waited and allowed it to settle until the hooks were flat on the bottom on the farther side of the pool. He looked down on the water and saw the silvery mass divided in two sections, as though the line had cut it. The keen eyes of the fish, heedless as they usually are in the spring run, had now grown more suspicious, and they settled apart as the line came across them, visible against the sky as they looked up from below.
John made no motion for a time; but at last, as the fish began to settle back, he gently raised the tip of the rod, and began to work the hooks toward him across the pool in short, steady jerks. At first the line was too low to pass near the main body of the fish, but as it shortened the hooks began to travel up through the depth of the pool. Then, all at once—he never knew how, exactly—something startling happened. There was a sudden breaking of the surface of the pool into a shower of spray, and with a mad rush a big salmon twelve or fifteen pounds in weight nearly jumped into his face as he stood at the edge of the water.
Frightened, he dropped the tip of the rod, and every boy present gave an exclamation of surprise. The words were not out of their mouths before, suddenly, the water on the far side of thepool was broken and the spot at John’s feet was vacant. The fish, swift as lightning, had tumbled back after its leap across the pool and gone up on the other side in an attempt to escape the hooks, one of which, by chance, had fastened in the lower jaw. Therefore, as the fish could keep its mouth closed, it was ready for as fair a fight as though it had taken the fly, although little can be said in praise of foul-hooking a fish under any circumstances save those such as now existed, for these boys were in need of food.
John had caught trout before, and had seen many a good fish handled on a fly-rod. After the first rush or two of the fish he gathered in the line rapidly with his left hand and put a strain on the rod. The salmon at first did not attempt to repeat its earlier mad rushes, but in fright began to circle the pool, scattering all the other fish into a series of silver splashes as they spread this way and that.
Having got in touch with the fish, and finding that the hook still held, John now reeled in all the slack and settled down to a workman-like fighting of the fish, the others standing near him and volunteering suggestions now and then, of course.
“The tide’s coming in all the time,” said John.“If this fish ever leaves the pool and starts across on the flats, I don’t see what I’m going to do, because the creek’s too deep to wade now.”
The salmon, however, obligingly kept to the pool, once in a while making a mad leap into the air and shaking himself. Skookie, without advice from any one, stationed himself at the foot of the pool, and whenever the fish headed that way, he tossed a stone in front, heading it back and keeping it from running out toward the sea. Finally he motioned Jesse to take up this work, and without removing any of his scanty clothing, or asking advice from any one, walked up above the place where John was standing and deliberately plunged into the creek and swam across, taking up a position on the opposite side of the pool, where the tide-water was beginning to spread out into the flats. Thus the boys had the pool surrounded, and whenever the fish started one way in dangerous fashion, a stone thrown in front of him would usually turn him. All John had to do was to keep the strain of the rod on his fish and to see that he had plenty of line on the reel.
They fought the old fellow in this way for more than half an hour, until John’s arms fairly ached from the strain of the rod—a sturdy split bamboo of the best American make, which well withstoodthe skilful use it now was receiving. There is no need to break a fly-rod when the reel is full of line, and the strain can be eased to suit the rushes of the fish.
“Well, I don’t see that we are much closer to our salmon than we were when we began,” said Rob, at last. “It’s good fun, but a slow way of getting salmon. Can’t you pull him in on the line?”
John shook his head. “I’m afraid it would break,” said he. “Never you mind. We’ll get Mr. Salmon before we’re through. I can handle him all right, I’m pretty sure.”
He came near speaking too early, however, for now, with some impulse of its own nature, the salmon concluded it had had enough of this sort of thing and decided to go back to sea. With a long, straight rush it headed for the bottom of the pool. Rob and Jesse began to cast in rocks, but in spite of all their splashing the fish kept on taking out yard after yard of John’s line. At last John, still using all the strain the rod would stand, was obliged to follow on shore. The fish turned the corner of the pool and entered the narrow gut in the rocks which led out to the sea, where the creek entered it over a wide flat of shingle. John was able to keep his feet in thehurried rush along shore, and he kept touch with the fish all through the narrows and until it had reached the shallows, where the flats were now covered two or three feet deep with the advancing tide. Here the last inch of his line was exhausted, and he himself, desperate in his anxiety to keep his fish and to save his rod, followed until he was waist deep in the sea. The salmon did not swerve, but headed straight for some distant haunt which perhaps it remembered as existing out there in the ocean.
At length John could go no farther with safety, and in desperation gave the fish the butt, as an angler says. The rod bent up into a splendid arch, all its strength being now pitted against the power of the swimming fish.
The latter, somewhat tired by its long flight, felt this added resistance of the rod, and unable to gain any more line, since there was no more to gain, and to ease itself of the strain, flung itself high into the air just as the last limit of the rod was reached. Down it came with a splash, but this time apparently confused; for as it fell on the water and chanced to head up-stream, it started directly back over the course it had come. The long slack of the line could not be recovered fast enough to follow it, but the hookheld. A moment later the fish was back in the pool, the line back on the reel, and John, perspiring and flushed, was still master of the situation.
After that matters were simpler. The fish was more tired, and its leaps into the air were shorter and more feeble.
Without advice from any one, Skookie now ran out into the grass and found his long salmon gaff. Wading at the edge of the pool, he made one or two ineffectual attempts to gaff the salmon; then flinging the pole across the creek to the others, again he plunged in, swam across, and took up his stand near John, who by this time had shortened the line and was fighting the fish close in.
“Now we’ll get him!” cried Rob. “Go slow there, John. Don’t let him break away. He’s headed in now. Just lead him in. There!”
With a swift, sure movement the Aleut boy had gaffed the salmon, and an instant later it was flapping high and dry at the top of the bank. It seemed to them this was a better fish than any they had taken directly with the snagging-pole, although, as a matter of fact, it was the latter implement, after all, which had landed the fish.
John sat down on the shingle, tired after the long fight. He patted the rod affectionately.
“Talk about fun!” said he; “this is theonlyway to catch fish.”
Indeed, this proved much to be the truth within the next few days, for the salmon became so wary as to make it hard to reach them by anything but a long line. Sometimes it would be an hour before they could foul-hook a fish, but in this way they got a number of salmon—some of them fastened around the head, one or two, strangely enough, directly in the mouth, and several directly under the back fin. Again a fish might be hooked close to the end of the tail, and in such cases it was almost impossible to land it for a long time. But with skill and care the fly-rod, devoted to this somewhat crude form of sport, held its own, and much more than paid for itself in actual food, not to mention the added sport.
The routine of camp life, where one is obliged to do all the cooking and other work, besides providing food, is ordinarily enough to keep the camper pretty busy. The boys usually found enough to do with their hunting, fishing, cooking, and other work, but sometimes in these long Alaska days, where for almost twenty-four hours the sun shone and the darkest night was scarcely more than an hour or so of twilight, they found time to wander around their island in exploring expeditions.
At times they climbed one peak or another almost to the top, but from the loftiest eminences they attained they could see nothing of the interior of the island except more and more sharp and rugged peaks thrusting themselves up—a mountain region which, indeed, is little known by any white man, or even by the natives, who rarely go far inland.
A customary journey for them was along one or the other of the river valleys which came down to their bay, the mouths of which they could reach in calm weather easily by a short journey in the dory. Their favorite valley was that running back from what they called “Gull Rocks.” It was traversed by a good salmon river and was much frequented by wild animals. As it chanced, they did not run across any more bear, although continually here and elsewhere they saw signs where these great animals had done their work in salmon-fishing—heaps of bones where scores of fish had been partially stripped of their flesh.
On one particular day, as the young adventurers passed up this valley on an all-day tramp, they found the salmon heaps especially abundant, and observed that the numbers of crows and eagles were more than usually great.
“I think it’s a new run of fish coming in,” said Rob. “Probably the ‘humpies’ are beginning to run. They’re bigger than the red salmon, which we’ve been having so far. They’re better to eat, too; even the bears know that. We’d better look out or we may run across more bear in here than we want. See here where this big fellow was eating last night. I suppose he has gone back into the mountains somewhere by now.And here is where some foxes have come down and eaten what the bears left; and the crows are waiting to eat what the foxes left. And look there, at that fish-eagle! Old Mr. Osprey is working for his breakfast now.”
He pointed to a large, grayish bird which was circling above them, its neck bent down as it peered intently at the surface of the stream below.
“Watch him!” said Jesse. “There!”
All at once the osprey, which had been uttering a low sort of whistle, folded its wings and darted down, swift as a flash, at an angle of about forty-five degrees. With a resounding smack, and in a cloud of white spray, it disappeared from view beneath the surface of the water; but instantly, with a vast flapping, it rose and fought to get wing-hold on the air. Taking flight only with the utmost effort, the boys saw that it held in its talons a big salmon whose weight was all it could manage to bear away.
“Well, what do you think of that?” said Jesse. “Didn’t he do it easy? I should think he would break his back, hitting the water that hard.”
“Yes,” commented John; “if a fellow dives from a place ten feet high it’s fall enough for him; but this fish-hawk came from two or threehundred feet up in the air. They must be put together pretty strong or they’d smash themselves. Look at him go!”
Uttering now its shrill whistle, the osprey rose higher and higher in a wide circle, endeavoring to carry off its prize. Something seemed to agitate the bird, and a moment later the boys saw what this was. High up above, in still larger circles, was a larger bird—a male bald eagle, which now drew into position directly above the osprey.
“Now watch, and you will see some fun,” said Rob. “No wonder Mr. Osprey is mad; he’s going to lose his fish—that’s what’s going to happen to him. Watch that eagle!”
The two birds kept their relative positions—the osprey, either angry or frightened, still struggling to get away with its prey; the eagle, easily circling above it, itself now and then uttering a shrill cry—a scream-like whistle that could be heard at a great distance.
At last the osprey gave up the struggle and attempted to escape. With difficulty it detached one foot from the fish, which now fell down at full length and disarranged the osprey’s flight. Finally it succeeded in shaking the talons of the other foot free. The osprey made a swift sidedash and left the salmon to fall, at a height of, perhaps, one hundred and fifty feet or so.
The eagle, which seemed to be twice that high above the ground, now performed a feat which the boys could never understand. They did not see how he could fall much faster than the fish; yet before their eyes they saw the great bird half fold its wings and dart down swift as a flash. Before the salmon had struck the ground the eagle struck it, fair, with both feet, and, never touching the earth itself, swung in a wide, low circle, itself master by robbery of the prize which the labor of the fish-hawk had won.
“Look at that old thief!” said Rob. “It’s a funny thing to me that an eagle can’t very often catch fish for himself, plentiful as they are here. Yet you’ll notice that if an eagle is on a tree directly over the salmon he can’t start quick enough to catch a fish—it’ll always swim away from him. They catch some in shallow water, but they don’t seem to be very good fishermen after all. A bald-headed eagle would rather steal a fish from an osprey than to catch one for himself, and we’ve just seen how it’s done. Watch the old thief!”
The eagle, apparently contented with his morning’s work, leisurely rose and flapped on his waytoward a clump of small cotton-woods. At the summit of a small tree he perched, holding the fish under his feet and uttering now some short, shrill cries, which the boys could hear answered from the heap of brush which they saw was the nest prepared by these birds. There were scores of these rude nests scattered along the timber flats.
“Let’s go and see what they do now,” suggested Rob.
As they approached they saw the male bird clumsily flap down to the nest, where it dropped the fish. The hen eagle fell upon it with short, savage screams and began to tear it apart. They also saw, now and again bobbing above the rim of the nest, the heads of two young eagles.
Rob cast a critical look at the trunk of the tree. “I can climb that tree,” said he, at last, “and I have a mind to turn the tables on that old thief up there.”
He pointed to the male eagle, which was now flapping in short circles above the top of the tree, uttering hoarse cries of anger.
“You’d better look out,” said John; “old Mother Eagle will pick your eyes out if you’re not careful.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Rob; “butI’ll take care. Anyhow, here goes!” So saying, he threw off his coat and began to ascend the tree, a feat which grew easier as he reached the wide-spreading limbs. In a few minutes he stood almost under the nest. Here he kept his left arm in front of his face and made feints with a piece of branch at the mother eagle, which indeed came dangerously close to him. The boys below began to flop their arms and throw up their coats. At length both of the parent birds, contrary to what might be believed or may have been written regarding them, turned tail like cowards and abandoned their young to their fate. They perched on trees a hundred yards or so distant, and watched to see what would go forward. Rob worked his way on up the tree and peered curiously over the edge of the wretched brush-heap which served as the nest. Here he saw two large, ungainly young birds, not yet able to fly, but able to spit, scratch, and flap their wings. Getting a good foothold on a supporting branch, Rob made several attempts to get hold of the young birds. Finally he succeeded in getting one by the neck, and with a jerk threw it out so that it fell flapping to the ground. Skookie would have killed it at once, but the others stopped him. A few moments later they were owners of both these birds,and Rob had rejoined his companions at the foot of the tree.
“I’ll tell you what,” said he, as he wiped the perspiration from his face; “let’s see if we can’t make pets of these eagles. We nearly always have more than we can eat, and it’s the same sort of food these birds are used to; so why shouldn’t we tie them up and keep them around the hut? Maybe they’ll scare the crows and ravens away from our fish.”
“That’s a fine idea,” said John. “We’ll just try that. I had a couple of hawks once for pets. They ate a great lot, and they fought you, too, for a long while. My hawks used to lie on their backs and grab me by the hand every time I tried to feed them. I suppose these eagles will be worse yet.”
“Anyhow, we’ll try them,” said Rob. “Let’s wrap them up in our coats and take them down to the boat.”
This they did, and although the old eagles followed them for two or three miles, sometimes coming rather close, and frequently uttering their wild calls of anger, the boys had no trouble in making away with their young captives. The birds seemed rather stupid than otherwise, and were as ready to eat food from human hands asfrom the talons of their parents. They did not really become tame, but, having learned their source of food, in a few days became so indifferent to human presence that they would only ruffle up their scanty crests and beat their wings a little when approached. They never allowed one to put a hand on their heads, and, indeed, were very far from being friendly. Their presence about the camp, however, did serve in part to mitigate the nuisance of crows and ravens, which continually hovered about, trying to steal from the scaffold where the boys kept their supplies of meat and fish. All boys like pets, and these found their strange captives interesting enough at least to help pass the time.