Harper's Round Table, June 11, 1895 Part 4

"But you don't do it again, Philip, my son!" he cried. "That is, the next time you feels inclined to wander from home and stay out nights, ye may go, of course, but you'll have to take me along. So ef you gits lost, I gets lost likewise; for, as my old friend Kite Roberson useter say consarning prodergal sons, 'It's allers toughest on them as is left behind.' But Phil, what be ye doing with that furry little beggar? Is he the pilot ye went sarching for?"

"Yes," laughed Phil, lifting Nel-te down from his shoulders. "He is the pilot who is to lead us from this wilderness, and if you have got anything to eat, you'd better give it to him before he devours one of the dogs, which he seems inclined to do. I can answer for it, that he has been on short rations for several days, and is properly hungry."

"Have I got anything to eat?" cried the other. "Waal, rather! How does fresh steaks, and roasts, and chops, and stews strike your fancy?" With this he pointed to one side of the camp, where, to their astonishment, the boys saw a quant.i.ty of fresh meat, much of which was already cut into thin strips for freezing and packing.

"Where did it come from?" queried Phil, looking at Serge; but the latter only shook his head.

"It's jest a bit of salvage that I raked in as it went drifting by,"

explained Jalap Coombs, his face beaming with gratified pride. "It's some kind of deer-meat, and _for_ a deer he was pretty nigh as big as one of those elephants back yonder in the moss cave. You see, he came cruising along this way shortly after Serge left, and the dogs give chase and made him heave to. When I j'ined 'em he surrendered. Then I had my hands full in a hurry, driving off the dogs and lashing 'em fast so as they couldn't eat him, horns and all, and cutting of him up. I hain't more'n made a beginning with him, either, for there's pretty nigh a full cargo left.

"But how did you kill him? There wasn't any gun in camp?" asked Phil, utterly bewildered.

"Of course there warn't no gun," answered Jalap Coombs, "and likewise I didn't need one. Sich things I leave for boys. How did I kill him, say you? Why, I jest naturally harpooned him like I would any other whale."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

JALAP AND THE DOGS SING A LULLABY.

"Harpooned a moose!" cried Phil and Serge together; for they had by this time discovered the nature of the sailor's "big deer." "And where did you get the harpoon?" asked the former.

"Found it, leaning agin a tree while I were out after firewood," replied Jalap Coombs, at the same time producing and proudly exhibiting a heavy A-yan spear, such as were formerly used by the natives of the Pelly River valley. "It were a trifle rusty, and a trifle light in the b.u.t.t,"

he added, "but it come in mighty handy when it were most needed, and for an old whaler it are not a bad sort of a weepon. I'm free to say, though, that I might have had hard luck in tackling the beast with it ef he hadn't been already wounded. I didn't know it till after he were dead, but when I come to cut him up, I saw where he'd been bleeding pretty free, and then I found this bullet in his innards. Still, I don't reckin you'd have called him a mouse, nor yet a rat, if ye'd seed him like I did under full sail, with horns set wing and wing, showing the speed of a fifty-ton schooner. If I hadn't had the harpoon I'd left him severely alone; but I allowed that a weepon as were good enough for a whale would do for a deer, even ef he were bigger than the sun."

"It's a rifle-bullet, calibre forty-four," said Phil, who was examining the bit of lead that Jalap Coombs had taken from his "big deer." "I wonder if it can be possible that he is the same moose I wounded, and without whose lead I should never have found Cree Jim's cabin. It seems incredible that he should have come right back to camp to be killed, though I suppose it is possible. Certainly good fortune, or good luck, does seem to be pretty steadily on our side, and without the aid of the fur-seal's tooth either," he added, with a sly glance at Serge.

As soon as breakfast was finished, Phil and Serge slipped away, taking a sledge, to which was lashed a couple of axes, with them. They were going back to bury the parents of the child, who was so happily oblivious of their errand that he did not even take note of their departure.

The lads had no idea of how they should accomplish their sorrowful task.

Even with proper tools they knew it would be impossible to dig a grave in the frozen ground, and as they had only axes with which to work, this plan was dismissed without discussion.

They had not settled on any plan when they rounded the last bend of the little stream and gained a point from which the cabin should have been visible. Then they saw at a glance that the task they had been dreading had been accomplished without their aid. There was no cabin, but a cloud of smoke rising from its site, as from an altar, gave ample evidence of its fate. A blazing log from the fire Phil left in its hearth must have rolled out on to the floor directly after his departure. Now only a heap of ashes and glowing embers remained to mark Nel-te's home.

"It is best so," said Phil, as the two lads stood beside the smouldering ruins of what had been a home and was now become a sepulchre. "And oh, Serge! think what might have been the child's fate if I had left him behind, as I at first intended. Poor little chap! I realize now, as never before, how completely his past is wiped out and how entirely his future lies in our hands. It is a trust that came without our seeking, but I accepted it; and now beside his mother's ashes I swear to be true to the promise I gave her."

"Amen!" said Serge, softly.

They planted a rude wooden cross, the face of which was chipped to a gleaming whiteness, close in front of the smouldering heap, and near it Serge fastened a streamer of white cloth to the tip of a tall young spruce. Cutting off the limbs as he descended, he left it a slender pole, and thus provided the native symbol of a place of burial.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A FLYING-FISH-CATCHER FROM OLD HONG-KONG--YO HO! ROLL A MAN DOWN!"]

As they approached the camp they were astonished to hear Jalap Coombs singing in bellowing tones the rollicking old sea chant of "Roll a Man Down!"

"A flying-fish-catcher from old Hong-Kong-- Yo ho! roll a man down-- A flying-fish-catcher comes bowling along; Give us some time to roll a man down, Roll a man up and roll a man down, Give us some time to roll a man down.

From labbord to stabbord away we go-- Yo ho! roll a man down."

Jalap's voice was not musical, but it possessed a mighty volume, and as the quaint sea chorus roared and echoed through the stately forest, the very trees appeared to be listening in silent wonder to the unaccustomed sounds. Even Musky, Luvtuk, big Amook, and the other dogs seemed by their dismal howlings to be expressing either appreciation or disapprobation of the sailor-man's efforts.

The performers in this open-air concert were too deeply intent on their own affairs to pay any heed to the approach of the returning sledge party, who were thus enabled to come within full view of a most extraordinary scene unnoticed. Just beyond the camp, in a semicircle, facing the fire, a dozen dogs, resting on their haunches, lifted both their voices and sharp-pointed noses to the sky. On the opposite side of the fire sat Jalap Coombs holding Nel-te in his arms, rocking him to and fro in time to the chorus that he was pouring forth with the full power of his lungs, and utterly oblivious to everything save his own unusual occupation of putting a baby to sleep.

"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!" roared Phil and Serge, unable to restrain their mirth a moment longer. "Oh my! Oh my! Oh, Mr. Coombs, you'll be the death of me yet! What ever are you doing? Didn't know you could sing! What a capital nurse you make! What a soft voice for lullabies!

The dogs, too! Oh dear! I shall laugh at the thought of this if I live to be a hundred! Don't mind us, though. Keep right on. Please do!"

But the concert was ended. Jalap Coombs sprang to his feet with a startled yell, and dropped the child, who screamed with the fright of his sudden awakening. The dogs, whose harmonious howlings were so abruptly interrupted, slunk away with tails between their legs, and hid themselves in deepest shadows.

"There, there, little chap. Don't be frightened," cried Phil, darting forward and picking up the child, though still shaking with laughter.

"It's all right now. Brother Phil will protect you, and not let the big man frighten you any more."

"I frighten him indeed!" retorted Jalap Coombs, indignantly. "He was sleeping quiet and peaceful as a seal pup; and I were just humming a bit of a ditty that useter be sung to me when I were a kid, so's he'd have something pleasant to dream about. Then you young swabs had to come creeping up and yell like a couple of wild hoodoos, and set the dogs to howling and scare the kid, to say nothing of me, which ef I had ye aboard ship I'd masthead ye both till ye larnt manners. Oh, ye may snicker! But I have my opinion all the same of any man as'll wake a sleeping child, specially when he's wore out with crying, all on account of being desarted. And I'm not the only one nuther. There was old Kite Roberson who useter clap a muzzle onto his wife's canary whenever she'd get the kids to sleep, for fear the critter'd bust inter singing. But it's all right. You will know how it is yourselves some day."

Phil, seeing that, for the first time since he had known him, the mate was thoroughly indignant, set out to smooth his ruffled feelings.

"Why, Mr. Coombs," he said, "we didn't mean to startle you, but those wretched dogs kept up such a howling that we couldn't make ourselves heard as we neared camp. I'm sure I don't see how you could think we were laughing at you. It was those absurd dogs, and you'd have laughed yourself if you'd looked up and seen them. I'm sure it was awfully good of you to take so much trouble over this little fellow, and put him so nicely to sleep with your sing-- I mean with your humming, though I a.s.sure you we didn't hear a hum."

"Waal," replied Jalap Coombs, greatly mollified by Phil's att.i.tude. "I warn't humming very loud, not nigh _so_ loud as I had been at fust. Ye see, I were kinder tapering off so as to lay the kid down, and begin to get supper 'gainst you kim back."

"Yes, I see," said Phil, almost choking with suppressed laughter. "But how did it happen that you were compelled to act as nurse? The little chap seemed happy enough when we went away."

"So he were, till he found you was gone. Then he begun to pipe his eye and set storm signals, and directly it come on to blow a hurricane with heavy squalls. So I had to stand by. Fust off I thought the masts would surely go; but I took a reef here and there, and kinder got things snugged down, till after a whilt the sky broke, the sun kim out, and fair weather sot in once more."

"Well," said Phil, admiringly, "you certainly acted with the judgment of an A No. 1 seaman, and I don't believe even your esteemed friend Captain Robinson could have done better. We shall call on you whenever our little pilot gets into troubled waters again, and feel that we are placing him in the best possible hands."

At which praise Jalap Coombs was greatly pleased, and said as how he'd be proud at all times to stand by the kid. Thus on the same day that little Nel-te McLeod lost his parents he found a brother and two stanch friends.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

UNCLE SAM AS A STAMP-MAKER.

BY FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON.

"Here, boys, is a piece of legislation which will add a new series of stamps to your collections," said Mr. Copeland, as he glanced up from his morning paper. "The bill transferring the printing of stamps to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has just become a law, and hereafter Uncle Sam will manufacture his own stamps, as well as his own paper money."

"Why, father, if they make them here, we can see just how it's done!"

exclaimed Donald, the eldest of the Copeland boys, who, with his brothers Jack and Ezra, was now experiencing the severest stage of the "stamp fever."

"Huh!" grunted the latter--nicknamed "The Parson," from his old-fashioned ways and a solemn a.s.sumption of wisdom. "Perhaps they'll not let you know anything at all about it. Bobby Simonds told me that the big company in New York that has always made 'em is awful particular about letting people see their machinery and things; and Bobby ought to know 'cause his uncle's an engraver there."

"Are they going to make all the stamps here in Washington?" broke in May, the baby of the family. "That'll be nice for you boys,'cause you can get 'em cheaper at the factory, can't you?"

"That's just like a girl," laughed Jack. "Anybody would think they were going to sell stamps by the yard."

"Well, my boy," said Mr. Copeland, "your sister is right, in a sense, as under this act the Post-office Department will buy its stamps wholesale from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, at a nominal price per thousand, without reference to their face value. I think you also are mistaken, Parson, as the public will doubtless be as free to inspect the manufacture of stamps as they now are to see the process of bank-note-making. When the stamp-printing plant is established, there should be a great deal in it to interest you youngsters. What do you say to a tour of investigation some Sat.u.r.day?"

Their father's suggestion delighted the children, who waited eagerly for the fulfilment of the promise.