Kitabı oku: «Gulf and Glacier; or, The Percivals in Alaska», sayfa 5

CHAPTER VIII.
ALIVE OR DEAD?

It seemed to Tom that he had hardly been asleep five minutes, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Wake up, my boy! Baranov is on the wharf, waiting for you.”

With only half his wits about him, and a vague remembrance of his experience the previous year, Tom sprang up hastily, crying out, “Is there a fire?” Then he saw his father’s expression, amused, but a little anxious, and remembered the plan for the day.

“What are you up for, father?” he asked, as he scrambled into his thick traveling suit. “You ought to be sound asleep in your berth.”

Mr. Percival smiled, in reply. “I wanted to see you start,” he said simply. Ah, these patient, loving, anxious fathers and mothers who get up early to see their children start, and sit up late to welcome them home! How little we think of it when we are boys – how the recollection of it all, and of our own heedlessness comes to us, in after years!

Fred was already up, as he shared Tom’s stateroom on the steamer. In a few minutes more they were out in the sweet morning air, and, stepping softly and speaking in low tones, not to disturb the sleepers, they passed through the gangway and down to the wharf, accompanied by Mr. Percival.

The sun was just rising, and the whole sky was golden with its coming, over the dark eastern hills. It would be an hour or more before his first rays would rest on the house-tops of Juneau.

There was the old hunter, leaning against one of the mooring-posts, and looking off over the quiet Sound, to the dim blue mountains beyond. At his feet lay a large pack, two tin dippers and an ax. In the hollow of his left arm he held two guns.

As the travelers left the steamer, he turned toward them with an alert air that belied his previous slouching attitude and straggling, iron-gray hair. The first greetings over, he proceeded at once to divide the luggage.

“I’ll take the pack,” said he, “and my ax. You two boys take the guns – we sha’n’t need to load ’em much before noon. Tie a tin dipper around your waist, each of ye. Here’s some twine.”

“Have you got provisions?” asked Mr. Percival.

“Plenty,” replied Solomon. “All ready, boys?”

“Good-by! good-by!” they said, still speaking quietly. While Fred, seeing a crimson handkerchief – which looked remarkably like one worn by Kittie the day before – waving from one of the little stateroom windows, waved his in return.

“Good-by, Fred. My dear boy,” turning to Tom, “take care of yourself. Remember, if you are delayed, I shall not leave Juneau without you. Allow plenty of time for the return trip. Be very careful of the guns. Good-by!”

The anxious father pressed both the boys’ hands. They turned away, and passing around the buildings at the head of the wharf, were soon out of sight.

Once more he saw them, as they climbed the first low hill, back of the town. They waved their hats to him, then disappeared in the edge of the forest.

All the party were rather grave at the breakfast table, that morning. Mrs. Percival had been greatly disinclined to consent to the hunt, but she was a strong woman, and was afraid of trusting her feelings in a matter where she admitted her husband was the best judge.

In the forenoon Randolph accompanied his uncle to the Silver Bow Basin, and inspected for himself the marvelous valley whose sands are so filled with precious metal that miners for years have worked in it here and there, successfully washing out gold with the rudest contrivances.

The superintendent in charge of the principal works showed them the tunnel, and the process of sluicing out the sand by a powerful stream of water, or “hydraulicking,” as he called it. The stream plunged into the sand in a deep pit, and then rushed off rapidly through a long tunnel which had been dug and blasted through the rocky heart of the mountain toward the sea.

“What takes the gold out?” asked Randolph.

“Why, we place those cross pieces, or riffles, at short distances all the way down, in the sluice-way which runs the whole length of the tunnel. On the upper side of the riffles is placed a quantity of quicksilver for which the gold has such an affinity (it sinks to the bottom of the stream), that it combines with it. Every week or so we have a ‘clean up,’ when a good many thousand dollars’ worth of gold is taken out and shipped South.”

“When do you begin to work?” asked Mr. Percival.

“Well, we calculate to commence operations about the first of May. It’s according to the season. Of course we can’t get our power until the snow melts on the mountains, and we get a good head of water.”

After a thorough examination of these mines, they returned to the village, and in the afternoon took the ferry boat to Douglas Island, where they once more inspected the great treadwell mine which sometimes turns out a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold in a single month.

The ore here is imbedded in quartz, which is crushed in an immense stamp-mill where the noise of the crushers was so great that the loudest shout could not be heard. Randolph and Mr. Percival could only communicate with the guide and with each other by signs, as they walked through the building.

While these two were off on their mining tour, Bessie managed, with the help of a cane and Mr. Selborne’s arm, to walk slowly along the main street of Juneau. There were a number of fur stores, and others with beautiful displays of Chilkat blankets and baskets, the latter in many odd varieties of shape and color.

Native women sat in groups, with their wares spread out on the sidewalk before them; baskets, carvings, silver bracelets, and a queer kind of orange-colored fruit which the visitors found were the famous “salmon berries” of Alaska.

Rossiter bought a silver spoon, finely carved, with some sort of a bird’s-head design.

“What kind of a bird is it?” asked the minister.

The Alaskan shook his head, to show he did not understand.

“What kind?” asked Rossiter again, very slowly, and a little more loudly, as one is apt to speak, in trying to converse with a foreigner.

The native seemed now to gather the meaning of the question, but was at a loss to express himself in reply.

Suddenly with a quick smile he flapped his arms like wings, and cried “Caw! caw!”

“Ah,” exclaimed Selborne, “it’s a raven!” and the vendor nodded his head violently, much gratified at the success of his pantomime.

Next morning the sole topic was, How soon will they return? Have they found any game? Won’t they be tired!

Captain Carroll pinned up a notice in the main saloon, stating that the steamer would sail at three in the afternoon, the repairs having been completed more quickly than he had expected.

Mr. Percival looked troubled at the change of plan, but there was no help for it. Every hour of delay was an additional expense to the company; and besides, certain perilous straits ahead had to be passed at exactly such a tide, and the captain had made his calculations accordingly.

Noon came, but with it no sign of the hunters.

One o’clock. All the Percival party, and indeed most of the steamer’s passengers who knew the situation and were acquainted with the boys, gathered on deck, gazing anxiously toward the high slopes which rimmed the town. Still no indication of the returning party.

Mr. Percival now packed his own valise, as well as those of his son and Fred, and told his family he should remain in Juneau if the boys did not return in time for the boat. The Queen was to touch here, contrary to its usual custom, to take a shipment of bullion on its way back to the States. The party could manage quite well on board ship during the intervening four or five days; and although Mrs. Percival’s heart was torn with anxiety, she could see no better plan.

At three o’clock, therefore, Mr. Percival stood on the wharf with the three portmanteaus, and the Queen, giving a long blast of its whistle, moved majestically northward.

The head of the family who had thus remained behind soon found comfortable lodgings for himself near by, and then repaired directly to the wharf, where he was sure the belated hunters would hasten at once, on their return.

Supper-time came, and a poor meal he made of it, at his lodging-house. Returning to the wharf he vainly paced the planks in the golden twilight until nearly midnight, when he slowly retraced his steps to his lodgings, full of forebodings and self-reproach for his weakness in consenting to indulge his heedless boy in such a reckless undertaking.

In the morning he was astir at sunrise, but his repeated and anxious inquiries failed to reveal any news of the absent ones.

Looking haggard and old, he set about raising a relief party, to start up the mountain at once. Alive or dead, they must be found!

CHAPTER IX.
THE SILVER-TIP

On leaving the wharf, Baranov had led the way directly up through the settlement, past the Mission School, until he reached the very outskirts of the village, where, in a half-cleared patch of ground, the boys stopped to get breath and wave a last good-by to their father.

“Naow,” said the guide, with some emphasis, “comes the tug of war. You’ve both got good thick boots on, I s’pose?”

Tom was well-equipped in this respect, and Fred’s shoes were heavy enough for ordinarily rough walking and weather.

“I’ve got a blanket apiece cached here,” continued Baranov, looking about him, and presently drawing out two bundles from beneath a big stump, where he must have hidden them the night before. “They’ll be pretty heavy for ye to lug, but thar’s no tent, and it’ll be cold enough before mornin’ to make you glad you brought ’em.”

He thereupon produced some twine and straps, and arranged a blanket on the back of each of the two boys, so as to make the loads as easy as possible.

“I’ve got my blanket and a rubber to put under us,” he added, “in my bag.”

“Ho, this isn’t any load!” shouted Tom. “It’s light’s a feather.”

Solomon smiled grimly as he swung his fifty-pound pack over his shoulder, picked up his ax, and started into the woods.

“It’ll grow a leetle heavier before night,” he remarked. “It’s a way them blankets have, in this country.”

“Which way are you going?” asked Fred, adjusting his eyeglasses for the tenth time, as he stumbled over a mossy log.

“Wall, I think we’ll strike into the old trail that leads up to the Silver Bow, and foller that fer a piece. Then – I’ll see.”

A rough tract of land lay between the clearing and the path. Baranov went right ahead, striding along over fallen trees and bowlders, with smoke-wreaths from his pipe floating back over his broad shoulders.

The forest was carpeted with deep, wet moss, into which the boys often sank to their knees; and more than once they tripped and nearly fell. The mountain-side was thickly wooded with spruce, yellow cedar and hemlock, the tough branches of which, wet with dew, twisted around their legs and swished into their faces.

“I say – Thomas,” sung out Fred, after ten minutes of this sort of work, “is that blanket – any lighter – than ’twas?”

“Not much! It’s gained – five pounds.”

“What do think – of the – scenery?”

The emphasis on the last word was caused by his setting foot on the slippery surface of a rock concealed by moss, and sitting down with great firmness.

“Well, it’s a pretty good fall landscape,” gasped Tom, leaning against a stump, weak from laughter.

But lo! the stump, like many others of its kind thereabouts, was decayed, and over it went, carrying Tom with it.

When the boys had struggled to their feet, they found that Baranov had stopped just ahead of them, and was chuckling over their mishaps.

“Look here, old fellow,” cried Tom, “is it going to be this way all day?”

“No, no,” said Baranov. “Mebbe I oughtn’t to hev laughed at ye. But I saw no harm was done. Ye’ve got good pluck, both of ye, not to ask me to slow up before naow. P’r’aps I put on a leetle extra steam, to see what ye was made of – with that ar light blanket” —

“O-oh!”

“But the wust on it’s over, for quite a spell. Thar’s the reg’lar Basin trail jest ahead. We can follow that for a mile or two, before strikin’ off up the side of the maounting.”

It was a relief to walk in a traveled path once more, although it was a very rough one.

It was just five o’clock when Solomon called a halt, and announced that they were something over three miles from the wharf at Juneau, having been a little more than an hour and a half in reaching this point.

“Isn’t this a glorious spot!” exclaimed Tom, throwing himself down beside the path.

The ground was clear for a little way in front of them, and just beyond lay the Silver Bow Basin, narrowing and winding far up among the mountains. On every side the forest-clad slopes rose in grand sweeps from the Basin, and curls of smoke here and there floated up from camps hidden among the trees.

“What’s that noise?” asked Fred, as a metallic clicking not far away fell upon their ears.

“Oh! thar’s always somebody prospectin’ raound with his pick,” remarked the hunter. “You’ll hear ’em all over the maountings, pretty much.”

Close beside them a stream of crystal clear water rushed over its stony bed, across the path toward the valley. The boys unfastened their dippers and drank deeply.

“Have some salmon berries?” asked Solomon. And he threw down a branch of the orange-colored fruit he had just broken off.

“Naow,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, “we must take to the woods. I gave ye that leetle piece of rough travelin’ to kinder harden ye fer what was comin’. Are ye ready, boys?”

“All ready!” they cried, springing to their feet. “Lead the way, Solomon!”

The hunter now left the beaten path and followed up the bed of the stream, which crossed it at right angles. It was hard climbing, and the boys had to stop for frequent rests. Their tramp proceeded, however, without special incident for a couple of hours more, when Baranov threw down his pack and called out “Breakfast.”

I ought to have mentioned that a cold lunch had been prepared the night before, and the three trampers had partaken sparingly of it before starting. Now, however, they had a sharpened appetite, and ate ravenously of the doughnuts, hard bread and sandwiches which Solomon brought out of his stores.

This halt occupied about an hour, so that it was nearly nine when they resumed their walk.

Their progress now became very slow. The picks of the miners were no longer heard, and they realized that they were in the veritable Alaskan wilderness. The rush of the little brook was the only sound that broke the silence of the moss-draped and carpeted forest.

They had passed beyond the brow of the mountain immediately overlooking Juneau, and, while the grade was not quite so steep, the evergreens grew more densely, and the stream was so narrow as to barely afford them a pathway. Of course their feet had been soaked during the very first hour of their climb. There was now not a dry stitch on either of the boys, below the waist.

For a few rods, Solomon had been peering here and there; Tom afterward declared he fairly sniffed the air for game, like a hound.

“What is it, Solomon?” called out Tom, picking himself out of a crevice between two wet rocks.

The hunter held up his hand for silence; then stooped and carefully examined a log just in front of him. Calling the boys, he pointed to it with one of his silent chuckles.

Fred adjusted his glasses and eyed the log critically. “It seems just a common, every-day log, don’t it, Tom?” he remarked in a guarded voice to that young man.

It was a fallen hemlock, lying directly across their path. Baranov laid his finger lightly on a small reddish spot, where the bark had been scraped off.

“A b’ar did that,” he whispered. “An not long ago, neither.”

The boys instinctively clutched their empty guns.

“Give me my rifle,” the hunter said, in the same tone. “I must load her an’ hev her ready in case we come on the critter sudd’nly. But I’ll let you do your own shootin’ ef I can. Fred, you must take the ax naow, an’ be awful keerful of it. Carry it blade aout from ye, an’ not over your shoulder. Naow foller me as easy’s you kin.”

They crept along, Indian file, for half an hour or more.

Tom’s foot sank into something that crunched under the moss.

“Snow!” he exclaimed; and indeed they all were standing on the edge of a huge snow bank.

Something about this appeared to please Solomon very much, though the boys could not tell why. But now he was stopping and pointing again. Ah! that was why the old hunter was gratified by finding that the trail crossed a snow bank. Master Bruin could pass through the thick scrub of the forest so deftly that even the keen eye of the best guide in Juneau could hardly distinguish the course of his journey. Not so when he crossed the snow. There was his track, plain enough.

“My! don’t it look like a boy’s barefoot mark?” exclaimed Tom, quivering with excitement. “Is he near here, do you think, Solomon? What sort of a bear is it? Is he a big one?”

Baranov answered at once, as he shouldered his pack and rifle again:

“The trail’s abaout an hour old. He’s a purty good-sized black b’ar, I should say. An’ it’s my opinion we can fetch him afore night.”

On they went, faster than before. Indeed, the boys soon noticed that they were now following a sort of beaten track – no other, Solomon assured them, than one of the famous “bear-paths,” thousands of which thread the deepest and loneliest jungles of Alaska.

They halted for a hasty dinner and then pressed forward. Baranov could not be positive that the same bear was before them on this hard track, but it seemed highly improbable that Ursus Americanus had left his easy highway for the almost impenetrable growth of evergreens on either side.

It was about three in the afternoon when Baranov halted so suddenly that Fred, who was next behind him, fairly tumbled against him, nearly upsetting the hunter. The latter, however, paid no attention to this. He was too much occupied in examining half a dozen hairs, which he had picked from a low spruce bough projecting across the path.

“What is it?” the boys whispered eagerly, their fatigue gone in a moment.

“Look at them ha’rs!”

“Why, they’re almost white! They are white at the tips.”

“The animil that went through here ahead of us, left ’em behind,” said the guide. “An’ it wa’n’t no black b’ar, neither, as you can see for yourselves.”

“What was it – not grizzly?”

The idea was not wholly a pleasant one, and the young hunters looked nervously around.

“No, no; it’s no grizzly. It’s my opinion that a big silver-tip, a glacier b’ar, some calls ’em, is just beyond,” rejoined Baranov.

“A glacier bear? I never heard of one before,” whispered Fred.

“They’re ugly fellers, an’ mighty scarce raound these parts. The trappers north of here call ’em Mount St. Elias b’ars, because there’s more of ’em there. The pelt’s wuth double a black b’ar’s. It’ll be great luck ef we find one.”

This whole conversation was carried on in an undertone, and without further noise or delay, the party pushed on.

At the end of half an hour’s forced march they found themselves on a sort of level tableland, at a great elevation above the sea. Here and there were patches of snow, and small glaciers could be distinctly seen on distant mountain slopes, toward the east and north.

The scene near at hand was utterly desolate and forbidding. The bear path, too, had “ended in a squirrel track and run up a tree,” Tom declared. He was on the point of proposing a halt for a rest, if not for the night, when he caught sight of a grayish patch in a clump of low spruces about a hundred yards distant. He was sure it had moved while he was looking. His heart beat violently as he gave a low whistle to attract Baranov’s attention.

The guide’s eye no sooner rested on the object than he sank as if he had been shot. The boys did the same, and cautiously crawled to his side.

“Slip a cartridge into that rifle quick,” he whispered to Fred. “That’s old Silver Tip, sure, an’ ef we work it jest right, we can drop him. Naow don’t you move for five minutes. Before long, you’ll see him start this way. When he gets up to that rock over thar between them two leetle spruces, Tom, you let drive. Don’t you fire, Fred, till Tom gets another cartridge in. An’ ef you miss him, run fer your lives.”

Before the boys could ask where he was going or what his plans were, the old hunter had disappeared in the undergrowth, taking his ax with him.

The wind was blowing freshly from Bruin toward them. In the course of a few minutes, which seemed hours, they saw the animal push his snout out from the boughs and sniff the air curiously. There was a strange scent, he thought, lingering about this mountain-top. What could it be?

Whatever its nature, it evidently acted like the reverse end of the magnet to the shaggy beast; for after a moment’s uneasy moving about, he started off in a line which would carry him very near the ambushed hunters.

On he came, crashing through the boughs and clambering nimbly over mossy bowlders.

Fred could feel that his companion was trembling from head to foot from excitement.

“Rest over that twig, Tom,” he whispered in his ear. “You can’t get a shot if you don’t.”

The two spruces were reached. Bang! slam! went two rifles; for forgetting Solomon’s injunction, Fred pulled the trigger almost at the same instant with Tom.

“Hooray!” shouted a welcome voice in the direction from which the bear had come. “You’ve done it, boys! Wait till I come before you go near him!”

With arms and legs flying like a windmill, and ax ready, Solomon came floundering along the bear’s track.

“Dropped him, fust shot!” he called out again. “He’s dead, sure enough – look out!” For at that very moment the bear struggled to his feet and made a mad rush toward his assailants.

Fred had thrown down his rifle at Solomon’s last shout, but Tom had the presence of mind to level his reloaded piece and fire. Then he turned to run, but Bruin, making one last plunge, threw out his big paw.

Tom felt a sensation like a shovelful of red-hot coals dropped down his right boot-leg, and with a howl of pain and fright, tumbled headlong.

Had not Solomon reached the scene at that very moment with his ax, this story might have had a sad ending. One mighty sweep of that terrible weapon, and the battle was finished.

“Are ye hurt, boy?” cried the hunter. “Your last shot did the business, but I had to kinder second the motion. Whar are ye?”

Tom sat up straight, shouted: “Here I am! Hurrah!” and with a very queer feeling in his head, rolled over on the moss.

When he came to himself, the first thing he saw was Solomon bending over him, chafing his hands and trying to force some kind of hot liquor down his throat. There was the tinkling of a tiny stream somewhere among the moss close by, and a big Douglas fir stretched its boughs overhead.

“Where – where are we?” he stammered, trying to rise.

“Naow don’t ye go to rushin’ raound,” counseled Baranov. “I’ve lugged ye off a piece to a first-rate leetle campin’ graound, an’ all you’ve got to do is to lay still whar ye be, while Fred an’ I fix things a leetle.”

“Is the bear” – began Tom, trying to remember, and wondering what made his head swim.

“He’s right whar we left him, an’ thar he’ll stay I reckon, till we get ready to borrer his coat. Got some kindling, Fred?”

“Here you are!” called that genteel young man, staggering up with an armful of dry boughs. His hands were covered with pitch and his eyeglasses dangled from the cord.

“Halloo, you scarred old veteran, you!” he cried, dropping on his knees beside Tom. “Feeling better? What a clip he did give you!”

Tom, beginning to feel conscious of a score or two of bees stinging his right leg, looked down at that member, and was surprised to find his boot was removed and its place supplied by bandages.

“You won’t be lame more’n a few days,” said Baranov consolingly. “He only jest raked you with his claws. But the bleeding made ye faint, most likely. You’re all right naow.”

It was very pleasant lying there and watching the other two in their preparations for the night. A roaring fire was kindled, and although the sun was still high, the warmth of the red flames was by no means unwelcome.

Slash, slash! went Solomon’s keen ax, and tree after tree came swishing down before its strokes. Some of them he trimmed with a dozen clips to each, and bade Fred carry the boughs into camp. As if by magic a framework of crotched sticks, props and rafters grew under the sheltering fir, boughs were piled on and across them, and by six o’clock there was a snug brush camp ready for occupancy, with a bed of fragrant fir boughs two feet deep. Then came the firewood – larger trees, felled and cut into six-foot lengths.

When a good pile of these had been provided, and not before, Solomon drove his ax into the trunk of the fir, pulled on his coat, and sitting down on a small log which, running across the front of the camp formed a sort of seat and threshold to it, opened his bag and drew out a black coffee-pot. This being placed on the fire, he started off for the scene of the late battle.

“I ’low we’ll have a good b’ar steak to-night,” he said, as he went. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

While he is preparing supper for the two tired and hungry boys, we will return to the gentler portion of the family, and follow the Queen northward on its voyage.