Harper's Round Table, July 16, 1895 Part 4

"Eh? What? Who are you, sir? What does this mean? Phil Ryder! You young villain! You scamp! Bless my soul, but this is the most wonderful thing I ever heard of!" cried the astonished Commander, staggering back into the cabin, and pulling Phil after him. "May, daughter, look here!"

At that moment there came a yelping rush, and with a chorus of excited barkings Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook dashed pell-mell into the cabin.

After them came Serge, Jalap Coombs, and the horrified Quartermaster, all striving in vain to capture and restrain the riotous dogs. As if any one could prevent them from following and sharing the joy of the young master who had fed them night after night for months by lonely camp-fires of the Yukon Valley!

So they flung themselves into the cabin, and tore round and round, amid such a babel of shouts, laughter, barkings, and crash of overturned furniture as was never before heard in that orderly apartment.

Finally the terrible dogs were captured, one by one, and led away. May Matthews emerged from a safe retreat, where, convulsed with laughter, she had witnessed the whole uproarious proceeding. Her father, still e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. "Bless my soul!" at intervals, gradually recovered sufficient composure to recognize and welcome Serge and "Ipecac" Coombs, as he persisted in calling poor Jalap. The upset chairs were placed to rights, and all hands began to ask questions with such rapidity that no one had time to pause for answers.

From the confusion Captain Matthews finally evolved an understanding that the boys were still desirous of reaching Sitka, whereupon he remarked:

"Sitka, Sitka. It never occurred to me that you had any desire to visit Sitka. I thought your sole ambition was to attain the North Pole. If you had only mentioned Sitka last summer I might have arranged the trip for you, but now I fear--"

At this moment there came a knock at the door, and when it was opened the Quartermaster began to say, "Excuse me, sir, but here's another--"

Before he could finish his sentence a small furry object jerked away from him with such force, that it took a header into the room and landed at the feet of the Commander on all fours, like a little bear.

"Bless my soul! What's this?" cried Captain Matthews, springing to one side in dismay.

"It's a baby!" screamed Miss May, darting forward and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the child. "A darling little Indian in furs. Where did it come from?"

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Phil, remorsefully. "To think that we should have forgotten Nel-te!"

"Are there any more yet to come?" demanded the Captain.

"No, sir; the whole ship's company is present _and_ accounted for,"

replied Jalap Coombs. "But with your leave, sir, I'll just step out and take a look at our boat, for she's a ticklish craft to navigate, and might come to grief in strange hands."

So saying, the honest fellow, who had made an excuse to escape from the cabin, where he felt awkward and out of place, as well as uncomfortably warm in his fur garments, pulled at the fringe of long wolf's hairs surrounding his face, and shuffled away. A few minutes later saw him in the forecastle, where, divested of his unsailorlike parka, puffing with infinite zest at one of the blackest of pipes filled with the blackest of tobacco, and the centre of an admiring group of seamen, he was spinning incredible yarns of his recent and wonderful experiences with snow-shoes and sledges.

In the mean time May Matthews was delightedly winning Nel-te's baby affections, while Phil and Serge were still plying the Captain with questions.

"Were you saying, sir, that you feared you couldn't take us to Sitka?"

inquired Serge, anxiously.

"Not at all, my lad," replied the Captain. "I was about to remark that I feared you would not care to go there now, seeing that there is hardly any one in Sitka whom you want to see, unless it is your mother and sisters and Phil Ryder's father and Aunt Ruth."

"What!" cried Phil, "my Aunt Ruth! Are you certain, sir?"

"Certain I am," replied Captain Matthews, "that if both the individuals I have just mentioned aren't already in Sitka, they will be there very shortly, for I left them in San Francisco preparing to start at once.

Moreover, I have orders to carry your father to St. Michaels, where he expects to find you. So now you see in what a complication your turning up in this outlandish fashion involves me."

"But how did my Aunt Ruth ever happen to come out here?" inquired Phil.

"Came out to nurse your father while his leg was mending, and incidentally to find out what had become of an undutiful nephew whom she seems to fancy has an apt.i.tude for getting into sc.r.a.pes," laughed the Captain.

"Has my father recovered from his accident?"

"So entirely that he fancies his leg is sounder and better than ever it was."

"And are you bound for Sitka now, sir?"

"Certainly I am, and should have been half-way there by this time if I hadn't been delayed by a report of some sort of a row between the Chilkats and a party of whites. Now, having settled that difficulty by capturing the entire force of aggressors, I propose to carry them to Sitka as legitimate prisoners, and then turn them over to the authorities. So, gentlemen, you will please consider yourselves as prisoners of war, and under orders not to leave this ship until she arrives at Sitka."

"With pleasure, sir," laughed Phil. "Only don't you think you'd better place us under guard?"

"I expect it will be best," replied the Captain, gravely, "seeing that you are charged with seal-poaching, piracy, defying government officers, and escaping from arrest, as well as the present one of making war on native Americans."

CHAPTER XL.

IN SITKA TOWN.

The long-beaked and wonderfully carved Chilkat canoe was taken on the _Phoca_'s deck, the anchor was weighed, and, with the trim cutter headed southward, the last stage of the adventurous journey, pursued amid such strange vicissitudes, was begun. As the ship sped swiftly past the overhanging ice-fields of Davidson Glacier, out of Chilkat Inlet into the broad mountain-walled waters of Lynn Ca.n.a.l, and down that thoroughfare into Chatham Strait, Captain Matthews listened with absorbed interest to Phil's account of the remarkable adventures that he and Serge had encountered from the time he had last seen them at the Pribyloff islands down to the present moment.

"Well," said he, when the recital was finished, "I've done a good bit of knocking about in queer places during thirty years of going to sea, and had some experiences, but my life has been tame and monotonous compared with the one you have led for the past year. Why, lad, if an account of what you have gone through in attempting to take a quiet little trip from New London to Sitka was written out and printed in a book, people wouldn't believe it was true. They'd shake their heads and say it was all made up, which only goes to prove, what I never believed before, that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, after all."

"Yes," replied Phil; "and the strangest part of it all is the way that fur-seal's tooth has followed us and exerted its influence in our behalf from the beginning to the very end. Why, sir, if it hadn't been for that tooth you wouldn't have come to Chilkat, and we shouldn't be in the happy position we are at this very moment."

"You don't mean to say," cried Captain Matthews, "that it turned up again after your father lost it?"

"Oh yes, sir, and it's been with us, off and on, all the time."

"Then at last I can have the pleasure of showing it to my daughter.

Would you mind letting me have it for a few minutes?"

"Unfortunately, sir--"

"Now don't tell me that you have gone and lost it again."

"Not exactly lost it," replied Phil. "At the same time, I don't know precisely where it is nor what has become of it, only it is somewhere back in Klukwan, where it originally came from, and I have every reason to believe that it is in possession of the princ.i.p.al Chilkat Shaman."

"I declare that is too bad!" exclaimed the Captain. "If I had known that sooner I believe I should have kept right on and sh.e.l.led the village until they gave me the tooth, so strong is my desire to get hold of it."

"And so secured to yourself the ill luck of him who steals it," laughed Phil.

That afternoon the _Phoca_ turned sharply to the right, and began to thread the swift-rushing and rock-strewn waters of Peril Strait, the narrow channel that washes the northern end of Baranoff Island, on which Sitka is situated. Now Serge stood on the bridge beside his friend, so nervous with excitement that he could hardly speak. Every roaring tide rip and swirling eddy of those waters, every rock with its streamers of brown kelp, every beach and wooded point were like familiar faces to the young Russo-American, for just beyond them lay his home, that dear home from which he had been more than three years absent.

Suddenly he clutched Phil's arm, and pointed to a lofty snow-crowned peak looming high above the forest and bathed in rosy sunlight. "There's Mount Edgec.u.mbe!" he cried; and a few minutes afterward, "There's Verstoroi." Phil felt the nervous fingers tremble as they gripped his arm; and when, a little later the cutter swept from a narrow pa.s.sage into an island-studded bay, he could hardly hear the hoa.r.s.e whisper of: "There, Phil! There's Sitka! Dear, beautiful Sitka!"

And Phil was nearly as excited as Serge to think that, after twelve months of ceaseless wanderings, the goal for which he had set forth was at last reached.

The _Phoca_ had hardly dropped anchor before another ship appeared, entering the bay from the same direction.

"The mail-steamer from Puget Sound," announced Captain Matthews.

This boat brought but few pa.s.sengers, for the season was yet too early for tourists; but on her upper deck stood a gentleman and a lady, the former of whom was pointing out objects of interest almost as eagerly as Serge had done a short time before.

"It is lovely," said his companion, enthusiastically, "but it seems perfectly incredible that I should actually be here, and that this is the place for which our Phil set out with such high hopes a year ago. Do you realize, John, that it is just one year ago to-day since he left New London? Oh, if we only knew where the dear boy was at this minute! And to think that I should have got here before him!"