The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 36

"Not counting anything you bring in," replied the cook, "I can give you rations for ten or twelve days. But there seem to be signs of caribou, and though the geese and ducks are thinning out, they are probably good for a couple of weeks yet, before all are gone. Then there's always fish. If everything goes right, we ought to be able to make it."

"Very well then," decided Rivers, "this is what we will do. Unpack the canoe, let Harry and Doughty take provisions for two days, and with the canoe light, spend every minute of daylight searching for this place Nigaluk, returning to camp by nightfall the day after to-morrow, if they have not found it. In the meantime we will do some hunting and fishing, and try to build up a store of provisions."

"But how shall we be sure of finding you again?" queried Roger. "If this Nigaluk is so hard to find and the channels of this river are a regular maze, we might lose the camp, and then we would be stranded without any grub and without a gun, and you would be left without a boat."

"We'll keep a big smudge going, of course," said the chief; "I had thought of that. Now you two had better turn in, and we'll unpack the canoe and get it ready. I'll have you called early so that you can have breakfast and start off even before it gets light, because for a few miles, anyway, we know Nigaluk isn't there."

The next morning, before it was light, Harry and Roger were in the canoe, and they started off on their hunt for Nigaluk, up this channel and down the other. Harry was paddling for all he was worth, and the boy found it hard labor to keep up, but at their noon stop nothing had been found. As it was growing dusk, however, the Indian gave a grunt and pointed ahead, and Roger, giving a shout of joy, saw before him the outlines of a structure. But on arrival, they found nothing but an Eskimo grave, erect on four driftwood spars. Near by a tiny channel meandered through what appeared to be an island, and though it was now almost dark, Harry turned into this, and in a few minutes there sprang into view a group of not less than twenty huts.

But no dogs barked as they came near, no fires smoked, no boats lay on the beach, and Harry, even before they landed, gave a disappointed grunt.

"Heap gone," he said, then as his keen eye discerned through the shadows evidences of recent occupation, he added, "not gone long!" He stooped down as they landed, and picked up a little fish, only a few inches long. "This caught to-day," he said.

Roger's heart gave a bound.

"Then they can't be far away," he answered.

"Not far. Find to-morrow," and the Indian went on to explain to the boy the usually slow movements of the Eskimo, and their readiness to camp every few miles. He pointed out also that the channel through which they had come had an abandoned look, and that therefore the route to this camp must have been in the other direction. Since winter was drawing on, moreover, he argued that the natives would not be going up the river, and therefore, if they followed the other channel and turned seaward the next day, they might overtake the Eskimo.

This was a stern chase, and Harry routed the boy out when it was still pitch dark, and they started slowly down the other channel, looking for the first turn seaward. Just as the first faint gray showed in the sky, the opening appeared and the canoe shot down it. Dawn is very gradual in those lat.i.tudes, and steadily the light grew clear and the canoe began going through the water like an express train. Confident in his own idea, Harry turned neither to right nor left but made the light boat fairly fly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESKIMO SAVIORS.

A group of the tribe that took the party in their umiaks, near the prized canoe.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: POINTING AWAY FROM WINTER.

The Eskimo grave that led the party to the village, and thence to rescue and safety.

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

By midday Roger was ravenous, but the Indian shook his head when a moment's stop was suggested and an hour later, when the boy was ready to drop, they turned into a large inlet and saw ahead of them a party of Eskimo in their umiaks, eleven boats in all, each containing from three to six persons. The umiaks, large skin-covered boats made for the Arctic Ocean fishing, are extremely staunch and fairly swift, but as compared to a light well-seasoned canoe in the hands of two experts, they were little better than mud scows.

The sight of the umiaks and the knowledge that this might make or mar, to a great extent, the resources of the party, put ginger into Roger, and the way in which that little boat was urged over the water was almost incredible. To the natives, who had never seen anything but craft of their own making, and the heavy staunch boats of whaling steamers, the speed was little short of magic. Harry and Roger overtook them as though they had been standing still.

The party of Eskimo was on its way to Point Barrow, where most of the natives expected to winter, and as they planned to trade, had an interpreter with them. To him Roger explained their needs. But the natives showed little desire to take the travelers in their boats over the long sea trip, and the boy, knowing the urgency of the case, was at his wits' end. Indeed the Eskimo were just about to paddle away to the open sea, where the little canoe would scarcely dare to follow them, when Harry said suddenly:

"Good. You offer give canoe."

"You mean in exchange for a pa.s.sage to Point Barrow?" said Roger, seeing the plan. "Good scheme, I'll try it."

He turned to the interpreter, and pointed out that if they would give them provisions and take them to the cape, not only would they get money, but that the great chief would give them the swift boat as a token of kindness. But the boy hardly expected that the offer would create the excitement that resulted.

The very thought that this magical, fast-speeding little boat might become the property of the tribe excited the occupants of all the umiaks. Boat races, it appeared, were the only sport in Arctic waters, and if this tribe had such a boat as that they could be the champions of the Arctic seas. There was no further hesitation, and with eagerness the whole party hastened to where the camp had been pitched, the smoke leading the way without much difficulty. On the way they learned that Nigaluk was further west, on an arm of the delta which branched off quite a distance higher up the river, and that the settlement they had found was a comparatively new place, as yet uncharted.

Bad weather came, and several days were lost by storms, so that the trip, even in the Eskimo umiaks and under the conditions the natives knew so well how to overcome, was by no means easy, and Roger shivered at the thought of the terrible experience he would have had to face, if they had not overtaken the Eskimo boats. The canoe, which was being towed behind the largest umiak, was almost a fetish for the natives, and the way it rose to every wave, never shipping even a drop of water, to them was a constant source of delight. They jabbered the whole trip through of their sure success in the races of next season.

Camping along the sh.o.r.e was difficult, as no wood except a few occasional sticks of driftwood was procurable, and the water, while plentiful, was uniformly brackish. But trouble was not to let them go so easily. A steady and heavy gale set in from the northeast and the ice-pack began to drive.

Then the Eskimos gave a taste of their staying qualities. For fifty-four consecutive hours their paddles never ceased a second, one man in each boat eating and resting while the others paddled. The Survey men took their turn at the labor, and trained to endurance as they were, they competed well with the untiring swing of the Eskimo paddle, and gained the admiration of the natives. For the last four hours it was a flight for life that kept every nerve alert and tense, and the ice-pack was not fifty yards from sh.o.r.e when the boats, paddling furiously, rounded Point Barrow. Half of them ran into the little Eskimo village of Nuwuk, just at the extremity of the point, but the others took the Survey party to the main settlement, where a store, a mission church, and a post-office bespeak the habits of the white man.

With steam up and all ready to start, lay with her anchor on a spring the little revenue cutter, fearing the ice, now only stayed from further advance by the projection of Point Barrow, the easterly bent of the wind having so far left open water. The steamer's boat was waiting as the umiaks ran in, for they had been sighted some hours before. The few necessaries of the party, the maps and records were trans-shipped without delay, the natives duly paid and rewarded, mail secured, and in less than ten minutes from touching the sh.o.r.e the men were on board the cutter.

As they went up the ladder and set foot on deck Rivers turned to Roger, who had followed him, with the rest of the party.

"We're back, boys," he said, "and you've stuck right to the end. No man could ask finer comrades on the trail," he put his hand on the boy's shoulder; "men, every one of you, and the boy as good a helper as any one could wish to have."

THE END