The Boy Scouts on the Yukon Part 7

Swift.w.a.ter grinned.

"It surely is, Pepper," he said, "and I guess we'll camp right now and do a little business with the inner man before we go any further. I'm apt to become int'rested at times, and forget all about that other feller."

At his orders the Indians constructed a small fireplace, and the voyagers were soon sitting about on the bank and boats enjoying with eight hour appet.i.tes, strong black tea, ship's biscuits and canned baked beans, to which they did full justice.

As soon as the meal was over, Swift.w.a.ter ordered all six Indians to harness themselves to a single boat, and placed Rand in it to handle the steering oar while he himself waded along with the Indians over the shallows to direct their movements, d.i.c.k accompanying him to point out the channel. The current was very sluggish, and rapid progress was made over the half mile that intervened before reaching deep water again. Arrived at the desired point the boat was tied to the bank and the remaining cargo quickly removed. Then with all hands aboard, and poles in hand the crew floated the scow back to their former landing place. Here two of the Indians were left to work with Gerald, Jack, Pepper and Don in replacing cargo on the empty boat while the other was towed up stream and unloaded.

The first trip had been so easy and successful that Swift.w.a.ter told Gerald to allow a load sufficient to give thirteen inches draught. The second boat returning was loaded to the same capacity, leaving still a small amount of cargo, requiring a third trip for one of the boats. On this last trip the boat also took in the boys, and as the Indians had by this time learned the channel the trip was made by poling without mishap.

By the middle of the afternoon the cargo had all been replaced on the two boats, and the miner announced that as they could not reach their destination before dark they would make camp and take the rest of the day to themselves. At this point the forest came down close to the water's edge, and the ground was high and dry, and Swift.w.a.ter told the boys to "camp out" if they so desired, and had double tarpaulins placed on the ground for them and "dog tents" erected for them near the Indians.

A roaring big fire was built, and one of the Indians told off to keep it up. The Scouts thought it was very soldierlike. They talked excitedly for a while, and being weary fell into an early deep sleep. Later there was a good deal of restlessness and turning and twisting. Then through the starlight, occasionally a mysterious figure could be dimly discerned stealing silently toward the boats. There was a quiet grin on the face of Swift.w.a.ter, who had bunked on one of the boats, when he arose at an early hour and found three rec.u.mbent figures sleeping peacefully on the comfortable mattresses in his own boats, and on going ash.o.r.e saw that the "dog tents" were empty.

"Not quite seasoned yet," he said to himself, as he quietly awakened the Indians.

CHAPTER VIII.

COLONEL SNOW'S RANCH.

At an early hour that morning the journey was resumed and their progress up stream continued uninterruptedly until about the middle of the forenoon, when Swift.w.a.ter stepped ash.o.r.e and began to search along the right bank for landmarks. Suddenly, he stepped out of the woods, and held up his hand and the Indians in the first boat began to turn the craft's head in toward the sh.o.r.e.

"Here we are," cried the miner, pointing to a large board nailed across two small trees, under which a "cairn" or pile of boulders had been erected. "This is one of the corners of the Colonel's property."

The boats were quickly fastened and the boys tumbled up the bank with some curiosity to investigate the site of what was for some weeks to be a home to them.

"The Colonel told me," said Rand "that he had bought from the Canadian Government about two thousand acres of the best virgin timber of the British Columbia section, and this must be some of it."

The site of their camp certainly bore out the owner's antic.i.p.ations of the value of his purchase. For miles in every direction stretched a solid substantial growth of timber--hemlock, spruce, fir, poplar and birch, towering to hundreds of feet into the air, and many bolls five and six feet through at the b.u.t.t. There was very little undergrowth and heavy turf extended in the long aisles of the forest in every direction.

Within a very short time the boats had been permanently fastened to the banks by heavy ropes and strong stakes cut in the small timber, and all hands began to unload the camp equipage. From the bottom of one end of the craft where the camp stuff and supplies had been piled, rough boards which Swift.w.a.ter referred to as "sawed stuff," and which had been carried as a sort of false bottom to the boats, were brought out and made into a sort of platform roughly nailed together and placed on a foundation of small boulders gathered from the bed of the creek which raised it a few inches from the ground. On this a heavy army tent, which had been brought from White Horse, was erected by the Scouts themselves and stoutly pegged and guyed in the most approved fashion. A series of flies divided the interior into rooms, and in these the camp bedsteads were placed. This was to be the permanent abiding place of the boys and the miner while the work of preparing the sawmill camp for the next winter's work was going on.

The Indians were each given a dog tent and two of the tarpaulins were turned over to them, and at some little distance away they soon rigged up something between a hut and a burrow of stones, sods, and brush, about ten feet square, the bottom of which they filled two feet deep with spruce and fir boughs. Over all they drew the tarpaulins and pegged them down. The boys watched curiously the gathering of the fir and spruce sprigs.

"Makes the finest spring bed in the world," said Jim. "I've slept on it hundreds of nights, and there's no mattress made that equals it. We'll make up some for ourselves within a few days."

Preparations for the night having been made, and a fireplace dug out of the bank of the creek near the water's edge, and walled up with stones to some distance above the bank so that a perceptible draft was obtained, one of the boys was directed to bring from the stores a bright new copper kettle with a porcelain lining and a tight cover. Three flat stones were placed together and formed a support for the pot.

"Pepper," said Swift.w.a.ter, "from this day to the time we go out, you are to be captain of the Kettle. You are to see that it is kept clean and filled with clear water from the creek at least once a day; that the water is boiled and that these water jugs are kept filled and corked. I want to ask the rest of you boys to drink, for a time at least, nothing but the water that our friend Pepper turns out; none from the creek. A man's health in a new country depends a good deal on how the water hits him, and until you are acclimated it is the safest thing." The Scouts readily promised to comply with the miner's request, and Pepper feeling that the health of the camp was somehow in his charge felt not a little elated. He issued orders at once for a supply of firewood, agreeing to carry the water himself, which he did, filling the kettle which held about ten gallons. He put on so many small airs while the boys were bringing in the firewood and arranging it beneath the kettle that they began to dub him "Health Officer," "Doctor," and poke fun at him in several ways. Finally d.i.c.k came up and inspected the whole arrangement as if he had never seen it before, and said:

"h.e.l.lo, Grandma, makin' apple-b.u.t.ter or quince preserves?"

Pepper turned red but went on poking the fire. A minute or two later Gerald strolled by with:

"Auntie, can't I have one of the doughnuts, now?"

Still Pepper struggled to preserve his temper and gave his whole dignified attention to his new duties until:

"Mamma, how long fo' dat hog and hominy fit to eat?" and Rand dodged a stick of firewood, as the infuriated Captain of the Kettle turned back to the simmering pot. He was undisturbed for nearly an hour when Don strolled up with an ostentatiously small armful of sticks and stayed only long enough to ask:

"Seems to me that I smell braw parritch; or is it kail-brose ye would be steaming there, gilly?"

Satisfied that a small conspiracy had been hatched against him the ruffled Pepper bided his time. Suddenly, Jack came hurriedly toward him holding his nose and pushing him away s.n.a.t.c.hed off the cover of the kettle and yelled dramatically:

"I told you so; I told you so; he can't even cook water; and now it's all burned black."

The shout of laughter that went up was the last straw for the enraged Pepper and jumping on his brother the two rolled over on the gra.s.s together in one of those friendly tussles that had been frequent incidents of their boyhood and that always served to bring Pepper's ruffled temper down to normal temperature. Thereafter Pepper insisted in supplying his own firewood and running the kettle without help, and resented any interference with his duties.

The days that followed were busy, but uneventful. Swift.w.a.ter kept the camp busy at something all the time and not many days pa.s.sed before the camp began to take on a look of permanency. He set up first what he called a saw-pit, two big "horses," each made by driving fir poles into the ground and crossing them and laying other sapling across these. The two horses were about seven feet high and twelve feet apart. From one to the other of these ran a sixteen foot plank. Spruce trees of medium size were then cut down, divided into sixteen foot lengths, and typo squared with an ax.

These timbers were then raised to the top of the horses, and, while one Indian mounted the log, the other stood underneath and with a long gang saw "ripped" the timber into deals or boards, thick plank or scantling as was needed for camp use. As this lumber began to pile up, he set the other Indians at work clearing a place among the heavier trees, but not far from the creek, for a sod house. It was to be some twenty feet square and was to house Colonel Snow's lumbering gangs when they came in the following winter.

"'Tenting on the old camp ground,' 's good enough, up here in the summer,"

he said to the boys, "but with the mercury loafing around sixty below zero, canvas is no sort of shelter. A log house is better but it is almost impossible to make the caulking of that weather-proof.

"Sod houses are the invention of the pioneer of the plains whose chief recreation was going twenty miles to look at a tree four inches through.

Of course if we had the time we could saw out lumber enough to make a 'camp' that would be weather proof, but the sod house is insured against fire, flood, lightning and wind and is as cosy as a cave; besides, it takes a shorter time to build," and with this the miner led the boys, with the exception of Gerald, who was to keep camp and oversee the four Indians left there, to the boats, one of which the other two Indians had unmoored, and when all were aboard, began to pole upstream.

About a half mile above the camp the woods receded from the creek and a broad stretch of elevated meadow intervened. Early as it was, the short gra.s.s was green and luxuriant, and what surprised the boys more than any thing else was the number, variety and size of the wild flowers.

All hands had been supplied with long handled spades with sharp edges, and as Swift.w.a.ter marked the turf out in strips five and ten feet long by two feet wide, the boys quickly cut it out, while the Indians with a hand barrow carried and loaded it onto the boat. It was cut to the bottoms of the gra.s.s roots and was found to be of unusual thickness and tenacity, the ten foot lengths folding up like matting without breaking.

The miner told the boys that its condition was due largely to the shortness of the seasons; for while the gra.s.s grew with remarkable rapidity, the underlying roots decayed much more slowly than in lower lat.i.tudes, and in time made the turf a tough ma.s.s of twisted roots that it was almost an impossibility to separate. Hence it was much better for their purpose.

They spent the greater part of the day at the work, having brought food and water with them, and when night came the boat was loaded as deeply as was safe for her draught. She dropped slowly down the stream directed by the Indians and was soon tied at her old moorings.

During the day, what Swift.w.a.ter called "the hold," had been excavated by the Indians to a depth of about eighteen inches over the entire site of the proposed house, and this had been filled in as solidly as possible with small boulders from the creek. The crevices between the stones had been filled with creek sand and the whole rammed hard. On this a solid platform of two-inch planks had been laid by the sawyers and at intervals of three feet long, thin stakes, sharpened at the top, had been driven deeply into the ground just at the ends of the excavation. Thus all had been prepared for the erection of the sod walls the next day.

Early the next morning Jack, who had determined to keep an eye on all the details of a sod house in case he should ever want to erect one himself, was wandering around the newly laid foundation, when suddenly there came to his ear a m.u.f.fled buzzing much like the drone of a distant gra.s.shopper.

"This sounds like real summer," said Jack to himself, instinctively looking around for the insect. As he approached one corner of the foundation, the sound increased in strength, and less resembled the gra.s.shopper than something like the shaking of a bag of marbles. One of the Indians was approaching the structure and as the sound caught his ear he broke into a run with a deep guttural exclamation, at the same time motioning to Jack to keep away from the foundation.

"Snake," he said. "Mooch bad. Killum."

He picked up a stake lying beside the platform and began to poke around beneath it. As he reached forward to push the stake underneath, something struck like a flash at the back of his hand, and at the same moment a large rattlesnake uncoiled and slid from underneath the boards out into the short gra.s.s. With a blow of the stake the Indian broke the snake's back and then began to suck the two punctures on his knuckle, at the same time keeping the hand tightly closed and the skin drawn tight.

For a moment Jack was horrified. Then the instincts of the Scouts and his quickly working brain ran rapidly over the instructions of "first aid."

With a shout that brought the other boys and Swift.w.a.ter on the run he drew from his pocket a small cord, doubled it into a slipnoose and placing it on the Indian's wrist drew it so tight as to cut off the circulation. At the same time he called to Rand to bring the medicine case. The miner, as soon as he comprehended what the trouble was, also disappeared in the direction of the tent. When Rand returned he had in his hand a solution of permanganate of potash and a vial of strong ammonia. With each of these he saturated the wound with some difficulty, however, as the aborigine insisted for a time in keeping his lips to the wound as his own theory of first aid. The hand and wrist had now swollen so much that the cord had practically disappeared in the flesh and the Indian was evidently suffering much pain. At this moment Swift.w.a.ter appeared with a small gallon demijohn, from which he poured for the Indian a large tin cup full of neat whisky. The red man swallowed it without a quiver and the miner poured out another of similar size which the Indian also drank.

"That'll fix him," said Jim, "but I'm very glad you thought of that cord Jack or we'd have been an Indian short. Those drugs you have will neutralize the poison and I don't know but they would have been sufficient, but I'm takin' no chances. This" (indicating the demijohn), "is the old reliable snakebite cure, discovered by Columbus when he discovered the rattlesnake over here and my mind naturally reverted to it at the first jump. The worst of it is that the Injun won't be of much use for a couple of days and I'm afraid all the other Siwashes will quit work and go to huntin' rattlesnakes."

The work of building the sod house began soon after the morning meal, and by night had made substantial progress. One of the side walls was built higher than the other, and a roof of rough boards was laid on top of thick planks which formed the top course of the walls. On this roof was laid a course of sod, the gra.s.s of which began in a few days to grow l.u.s.tily.

"'Taint everywhere," said Swift.w.a.ter, with a smile, "that a man can have his lawn on the roof of his house."

CHAPTER IX.