A Woman who went to Alaska Part 26

"Do you want it loaded?" he asked.

"Yes, please, and I will call after supper for it," said I, in a low tone, while going out the door.

Early this morning, putting on my furs and carrying a small shoe box under my arm, I ran over to the Mission. In the hall I was met by B., to whom I handed the box. He took it quietly and went directly to his room, reappearing in a moment and handing it back to me, saying significantly as he did so: "Three doses of that are better than one, if any are needed," which remark I understood without further explanation.

I have brought the box to my room and have placed it under the head of my cot upon the floor, where, in case of emergency, it may be of service. It is not a pretty plaything, and will not be used as such by me, but I shall feel safer to know it is near at hand.

Little did I know when I selected my room the day Mollie brought me upstairs that on the other side of the board part.i.tion slept the man who had killed another in the early winter; and, though the murderer has so far never molested me in any way, still he sometimes gets what they call "crazy drunk," and is as liable to kill some other as he was to kill the first; then, too, thin board walls have ears, and I have heard the mutterings and threats of these wretches for a number of weeks.

I have been exceedingly sorry for a month past to see the preparations my friends, the Swedish women in the Mission, are making to go to Nome, and now they expect to start tomorrow. They must be in town to put everything in readiness for the opening of the "Star" when the first steamers arrive from the outside. The weather is bright and pretty cold today, making the trails good, but in a thaw they are bad and are now liable to break up at any time. Quite a party will go to Nome, Mr. L., M. and others, and they will travel with dogs. I dread to see my Swedish friends, the only white women in this camp with whom I can be friendly, leave Chinik, for I shall then be more alone than ever. If this tiresome ice in the bay would only move out so the boats could get in, we should have others, but there is no telling when that will be. Many are now betting on the breaking up of the ice, and all hope it will be very soon.

May second: My Swedish friends left very early today for Nome, and only Miss L. from the Home is there, sweeping out the place; but B. and the visiting preacher will go with her to the Home today, closing the hospitable doors of the Mission for a time. This evening they held a meeting for the natives in camp, and I attended, but it seemed like a funeral without the friends now "mushing" on the Nome trail.

A woman has come to live at Mellie's, and is a study in beaver coat, dyed brown hair (which should be grey, according to her age), and with, it is reported, a bank account of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, after having lived in Alaska nearly five years. She is called a good "stampeder," has a pleasant, smiling face, but is usually designated "notorious."

May tenth: Mollie went out early with Muky, her dog-team and guns, to escort Ageetuk, Alice and Punni Churah, with their mother, who is Mollie's aunt, to their new hunting camp in the mountains. At seven in the evening Mollie returned with wet feet. Tomorrow she will take a net, and some other things they have forgotten. They have gone to take their annual spring vacation and hunt grey squirrels for a month, living in a hut in the meantime. The weather is warm and springlike.

May thirteenth: The captain has been obliged to go to Nome on business, weak and ill though he is, and has been for months. It did not seem to me that he could live through the winter, and he is far too weak to take this long trip over the trail, but he says he is obliged to go, and will return at the earliest possible moment. He has taken Fred, the Russian boy, and a team of nine dogs, leaving after supper, and intending to travel night and day, as we now have no darkness.

The dissipated men around camp, idle and drunken most of the time, with nothing to occupy their attention after the long, tedious winter, still spend their hours in gossiping, swearing, drinking, and gambling, knowing no day and no night, but making both hideous to those around them. As a destroyer of man's self-respect, independence, and dignity, there is nothing to compare with the accursed liquor. There are numbers of instances in camp proving the truth of this statement. There is the English clergyman's tall and handsome son, well educated, musical and of agreeable manners--fitted to grace the best society, but--liquor is to blame for his present condition, which is about as low as man can sink.

It is ten in the evening and I am in my little room upstairs, the only white woman in the camp except Mellie and two like her. Down stairs in the bar-room the men are singing, first c.o.o.n songs and then church hymns, with all the drunken energy they can muster. The crash of broken gla.s.s, angry oaths, and the slamming of doors reaches my ears so frequently as to cause little surprise, the French cooks in the kitchen adding their share to the disturbance. In a distant part of the hotel lies the little sick girl, her cot rolled each night close to the bedside of her mother, who tries to soothe her in her pain, Mollie and the wicked little Eskimo servant being the only women besides myself in the house. The noise and confusion increases down stairs, and I shall sleep little tonight. I will look at my revolver and see that its contents have not been removed.

May fifteenth: Here I am alone with the little children, a bad native girl, and a gang of the worst men in Alaska, Mollie having gone out hunting. At midnight Sim, Mellie and several others left for a dance at White Mountain, but it was two o'clock in the morning before the house was quiet. While I lay perfectly still, and trying to sleep, a man's stealthy footstep pa.s.sed my door. He walked in his stocking feet--bare floors and walls echo the slightest sound, and my ears are keen. Was it a friend or foe? What was his object? My heart beat with a heavy thud, but I remembered the loaded revolver under my bed, and thanked G.o.d for it.

After a long time I slept a fitful, uneasy sleep for an hour, and dressed myself as usual at half-past six o'clock, feeling badly for want of needed sleep. Afterwards I washed, dressed and fed the children, amusing and entertaining them in my accustomed way. Ageetuk's house being closed, little Charlie is kept here all the time, Polly looking after him nights. A saloon keeper named Fitts, villainous in reality as well as in looks, is hanging around continually, wearing the blackest of looks at every one, having been in trouble nearly all winter, and closing out his saloon a few weeks ago. A big Dutchman, burly as a blacksmith and well soaked in whiskey, lounges about in blue denim and skull cap, winking his bleared eyes at Polly and swearing soundly at his native wife when she steps inside the doors to look after him.

All went well for a while today after Mollie's leaving, Jennie coaxing to be carried to her grandmother's for a visit, to which I consented, until Charlie and I sat down to supper, which I had spread, as is my habit, in the living room. During the day I had turned matters well over in mind, and decided, with Mollie's advice, to sleep in her bed alongside of Jennie's cot, and to have grandmother stay with us, locking the doors of the rooms, as they should be. To my consternation, when I chanced to look for the keys in the doors, there were none, showing plainly that they had been removed.

This looked like a trap. There was nothing to do, much as I disliked it, but to ask for the keys, as I would never spend the night in the house without them. Soon afterward the steward entered, and I very calmly and politely asked for the door keys of the two rooms, saying that I would spend the night with Jennie. With cool insolence he replied that he would lock them himself.

Again the trap. I made no reply. I saw that he had been drinking--that he was not himself, and that it was useless to argue with him.

After waiting for an answer, and getting none, the man went out carelessly, leaving the door ajar behind him. At that moment the supper bell rang and he, with others, sat down to the table.

"She wants the keys to the doors, she says," drawled the man I had spoken with regarding them.

"What did ye tell her?" demanded one of the ruffians.

"I told her I would lock the doors myself," said the fellow.

"What does she want of keys? Who is she afraid of? It must be you, Bub; 'tain't me," said one.

"You're a liar!" shouted Bub. "It's the genial dispenser of booze here beside me she's afraid of."

"I'll see to her after supper, you bet!" shouted an official voice, at which I shuddered. A general hubbub now ensued; among others I could distinguish the word "black-snake whip," but I had heard enough.

I was planning as I listened. Leaning forward I kissed the little child beside me, and said softly, "Eat all your supper, dear, and then go to Polly. 'Sully' is going to grandma's."

Throwing a light wrap over my head, I ran out of the front door, and around the west end of the house, careful not to pa.s.s the dining-room windows, where the men would see me, and hastened to grandmother's cabin, knowing that I should there find Jennie. Grandmother lived alone except for O Duk Dok, the deaf girl, and they must give me shelter for the night.

Here I found Jennie quite happy, with her deaf friend sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, while her grandmother was busy with her work.

In a few words I explained to the old woman the situation, and I was made welcome, Jennie being pleased to remain in the cabin all night. I knew Polly would put Charlie to bed when the time came, and the boy was safe enough where he was. I did not believe the gang would disturb me in grandmothers' cabin, but I feared they would loot my room in my absence.

Here Jennie could a.s.sist me. I now asked her to have O Duk Dok go out for the native named Koki, and bring him to me, which she did, the deaf girl understanding by the motion of the child's lips what was being said.

O Duk Dok then drew on her parkie, and went out.

"Koki," said I, when the native had entered the room a few minutes later, and closed the door behind him, "will you go to my room--Number three--in the hotel, and get some things for me?"

"Yes," was the laconic reply of the man.

"Here is the key of the door. Between the mattresses of the bed you will find two books, and in the shoe box on the floor there is a revolver.

Bring them to me under your parkie so no one shall see what you have.

Take this little key, lock my trunk and be sure you fasten the door behind you. You won't forget?"

"All right. I no forget," and Koki grinned, and went out.

He did not forget. In about twenty minutes he returned, bringing the keys, revolver, and diaries which I had kept hidden for fear the lawless fellows might find and destroy them.

I now felt much relieved. I did not think the gang would come to the cabin, but in case they did there was the revolver, and grandmother's two doors had locks, which if not the very strongest, were better than none, and I fastened them immediately after Koki's departure.

May eighteenth: The night I slept in grandmother's cabin with Jennie pa.s.sed quietly for us. I slept in my clothes and muckluks, an old quilt and fur parkie on some boards being my bed, though grandmother finally gave me a double blanket for covering when I asked for it.

It was long past midnight before we slept. The child was restless, and urged her grandmother to tell her Eskimo stories. O Duk Dok slept heavily, unconscious of all around her. My own senses were on the alert.

I listened intently to catch every sound, but we were too far away from the hotel to hear the carousal that I well knew was there in progress.

The mushers from the dance were hourly expected home, and would then add their part to the midnight orgies. The low droning of the old Eskimo woman, telling her tales of the Innuits, of the Polar bear, the seal and the walrus, of the birds, their habits and nestlings; this was the only sound I heard.

After a time the others slept and I went to the window and looked out.

At my right, only a stone's throw away, was the Mission, its windows and doors all fastened, and its occupants gone. I felt a heart-sinking sensation as I thought of the friends who were there lately. Across the way was the old schoolhouse, in which were the musician, his partner and the deaf man, who had been bitten by the mad dog. They were within calling distance, and for that I felt thankful. I had dreaded the night in the cabin for fear that I should suffer for fresh air, but seeing a broken pane of gla.s.s into which some cloth had been stuffed, I removed the latter, and allowed the pure air to enter. Of course the place was scented with seal oil, but grandmother's cabin was comparatively tidy and clean.

Next morning, when we knew that breakfast was over, we went in a body to the hotel, grandmother carrying Jennie on her back, according to Eskimo custom. Some of the men were still sleeping off their dissipation of the night before. Nothing was said about our remaining away, and the Eskimo women spent the day with us. Others also came, called quietly in to see Jennie, and remained to the meals I was glad to give them for their company.

When six o'clock arrived, and still we saw nothing of Mollie, I felt anxious. If she did not return it meant another night in the native hut for us. Eight, nine, ten o'clock--thank G.o.d! She had come at last. I could have hugged her for joy. She had nearly one hundred ptarmigan, enough to last till the captain came home, and would not leave us again alone.

Later: The captain returned from Nome, having made the trip of eighty-five miles and back by dog-team in four days and nights, a very quick trip indeed. The "toughs" have subsided, and are on their good behavior for the present, at least, fearing what the captain will say and do when their last doings are reported, but I understand that most of them are mortally offended at my remaining at grandmother's, as no one takes offense so easily as a rogue when his honesty is doubted.

CHAPTER XXV.

STONES AND DYNAMITE.

The last week of May has finally come, and with it real spring weather.

The children play out in the sand heap on the south side of the house for hours together, enjoying the warm sunshine and pleasant air, the little girl clothed from head to foot in furs. Never has a springtime been so welcome to me, perhaps because in striking contrast to the long, cold winter through which we have just pa.s.sed. From the hillside behind the Mission, the snow is slowly disappearing, first from the most exposed spots and rocks, the gullies keeping their drifts and ice longer. Mosses are everywhere peeping cheerfully up at me in all their tints of gorgeous green, some that I found recently being tipped with the daintiest of little red cups. This, with other treasures, I brought in my basket to Jennie when I returned from my daily walk upon the hill, and together we studied them closely under the magnifying gla.s.s.