The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 35

Rivers smiled. "You're lucky," he said, "in having been stooping over when the slide struck, because if it had taken you in the ribs or chest instead of the back, you'd have had some internal injury for sure. But since it struck you in the back, and you don't feel any special pain, your spine hasn't been hurt and nothing else can be, you must be all right."

"I suppose the canoe is smashed!" the boy said questioningly.

"The boat's at the bottom of the river, with a few tons of earth and rock and snow on top of it."

Roger's expression changed suddenly.

"But the maps, the plane table, all the work!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean that everything is lost!"

"Do you suppose," answered the chief, "that I should be satisfied if those were gone?"

"Then how were they saved? I don't understand," put in the boy, mystified.

"I grabbed the oilskin bag with the maps when I went over the side,"

replied Rivers, "and Bulson hurled the plane table backwards over his head, so that it fell in the water for the other boat to pick up. But all the instruments are gone, of course, and a good many of our specimens."

"It's a good thing," put in the topographer, "that I made a little duplicate for my own collection."

"Yes," answered the chief, "it might be a whole lot worse than it is.

It's a mighty fortunate thing that no one was badly hurt."

"And I'm mighty glad," said Roger, "that my camera and all the negatives were in the other canoe. But now that we've only got one boat, how shall we get down the rest of the way?"

"In the boat. We shall have to throw everything away except what we can't do without, and live on short rations. One of the guns is left, and there are plenty of fish in the river, so we probably will get along all right until we strike the Eskimo settlement on the delta of the river."

"And if we don't strike it?" asked Roger.

"Well, if we don't, you'll be pretty hungry. But we'll strike it, all right, you'll see."

So the party proceeded to lighten their only canoe. Everything which was of weight and not absolutely essential was cached and a cairn built over it, not with any intention of coming back, but so that it should be available if any other traveler should ever pa.s.s that way. Since it was so difficult to transport provisions and camp conveniences at such a distance, it was felt that it would be sheer wickedness to let anything be destroyed.

"But people might steal it!" exclaimed the boy.

"To take what you need isn't stealing in this country," answered the geologist. "You are supposed to help yourself if you are in need, and you are expected to give to the uttermost if you find any one else in need. This part of the world is too far away from civilization for any 'dog eat dog' methods. Here, being uncivilized, men are more or less charitably disposed toward each other."

"That's a cynical speech, Rivers," said the topographer.

"Cynical or not, it's true," the chief answered.

"Sure, it's true," commented Magee, who had been listening. "If I'm hungry in a big modern city, and I open a man's door, walk to his pantry, feed myself and a dozen hungry men; and what's more, walk away with enough provisions for a month, where would I land?"

"In jail," said Roger.

"Sure, an' I would. But that's what you can do out here."

"Well," said the chief, "I wish I were sure of being able to do it at Nigaluk."

Travel, however, was very different in the one over-loaded canoe, and Rivers was not willing to allow any chances to be taken. The slightest evidence of shoal, rapid, or boulders meant wading. For the next three days, therefore, two men, each at one of the bows of the canoe, waded down the stream, finding out, with their shins mainly, where were boulders near enough to the surface of the water to strike the canoe.

On the second day of this sort of work, moreover, the temperature dropped fifty-two degrees in about six hours, and from a hot sun and humid air with a thermometer at eighty-eight degrees at noon, by dusk it was only four degrees above freezing with a driving gale and a stinging rain. While many camp conveniences had been left behind to lighten the canoe, a strip of canvas had been retained, and this was propped up with willow sticks in such wise as to keep some of the rain off.

But through the night the gale howled from the north, and the rain drove in with the sharpness of a whip-lash, so that the first faint light of dawn found every one ready for the start, as at least it was warmer moving about than lying under that pitiless sky. The only gleam of comfort was that it gave one day's respite from the eternal mosquitoes.

The second day the norther abated, and fair weather returned, bringing with it, of course, the close personal attention of the mosquitoes of the lower tundra, though these were rapidly thinning out.

A couple of days of smooth water enabled the use of paddles and fair time was made, but after the junction with the Telugu River more shallow rapids and boulders were encountered, leading to more days of wading, continuing until they struck the main stream of the Colville, a river with a big head of water. But these various difficulties had delayed matters considerably, and not until August 10th did the divergence of the channels of the river show that the delta of the Colville was reached, where they hoped to find the Eskimo village of Nigaluk.

"What kind of a place is it?" asked Roger, as they encamped for the night.

"It is the metropolis of the Arctic Ocean," said Rivers with a smile; "the biggest city between Point Barrow and Hudson's Bay."

The boy was not taken in by the description, for he had a lively remembrance of Alaskan centers of population, and knew that anything more than four huts was considered as a post of no small importance, while one hut, all by itself, was deemed worthy of a place on the map.

But though he did not expect a large place, he watched eagerly enough the next day for this Arctic city, wondering what kind of houses would be built to withstand the rigors of an Arctic winter.

But the solitary canoe went on and on, up this channel and down another, and still no village was seen. All the next two days the party searched, but to no purpose; apparently the Arctic metropolis was not there. The matter was extremely serious, for the provisions were almost exhausted, and on the evening of August 12th the wind switched again to the northward, and the first of the winter's snows hurled itself at them.

"If this is the middle of August!" exclaimed Roger, shivering, "what must it be like here in the middle of January?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINTER'S THREAT ALMOST FULFILLED.

The sh.o.r.es of the Arctic Ocean, where the tundra-covered coastal plain extends unbroken for thousands of miles.

_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]

"n.o.body knows exactly," was the geologist's reply, "for no white man has ever wintered here. We shall be the first unless we find Nigaluk in a hurry. And I doubt if we can spare the time, so to-morrow we will have to go down this channel to the ocean. I don't like this weather, for if the winter sets in early we may be caught even yet."

But when, the next day, the party arrived at Harrison Bay, at the mouth of the river, Roger's heart sank within him at the prospect. Cold, bleak, and gray, the waters of the Arctic Ocean stretched before him, a steady swell breaking on the tundra sh.o.r.es that line it without a break for hundreds of miles. The wind, blowing from the north, was kicking up a vicious, snappy sea, the tops of the waves showing their teeth, and upon the horizon the white blink of the ice.

Bad weather, a choppy sea, an Arctic winter setting in, and nothing but an overloaded Peterboro canoe to hold seven men, it was a bad outlook for the party. It was over two hundred miles to Point Barrow and the time of storms was at hand. Rivers called the men together.

"Boys," he said, "so far the trip has been very successful, but owing to that pesky landslide on the Anaktuvuk, with the loss of a boat, it looks as though we were going to have a tight run for home, and we shall have to show a burst of speed. Now there are only three possible things to do, and I'm going to put them before you and see what you think about it, because whatever is done must be done without delay."

"And what are those three?" asked Gersup, as second in command of the party.

"The first of these is to make a camp here, and to chase up and down the various channels of this delta until we find Nigaluk. If we locate it, we can get provisions and boats, or if the weather is bad, dogs and sleds; and, by one means or the other, can get to Point Barrow, or even down as far as Cape Smyth. The objection to that is that we have no definite data as to where Nigaluk is. It may not be on this river at all, but on some other stream flowing into the ocean near by, which has been confused with the Colville."

"Not only that, Mr. Rivers," answered Gersup, "but the channels of this delta may have changed and these Eskimo settlements are not very permanent, in any event."

"That's true," rejoined the chief. "Well, it is obvious that the canoe is not enough for us to get to Point Barrow, but it might serve to carry provisions, so that if we could track along the sh.o.r.e, with, say, one man in the boat to keep her out of the surf, it might be possible to get there, though, with rounding the indentations of the land, it would be over three hundred miles. What do you think, Harry?"

The Indian shook his head.

"No can do," he said, "wind drive boat on sh.o.r.e. Smash."

"The only thing that's left then," the chief of the party continued, "is to pack the entire distance, depending for food on what we can catch or shoot. I suppose we'd have to portage the canoe because there are several small streams along the way. Of course, in a couple of weeks, the frosts will set in, and the tundra won't be so bad to travel over.

But it's a long way."

"It's the longest way, but the surest," said Gersup; "as long as we don't run short of provisions. How about it, George?"