The Young Alaskans Part 10

XIV

THE SURPRISE

As daylight began to shine more clearly in the interior of the barabbara, John, who was standing the last watch, suddenly reached out an arm and wakened his companion. "Listen!" he whispered. "I hear something outside."

As they all sat up on the blankets they were surprised to see their prisoner also waken and lift himself half on his elbow. He, too, seemed to be listening eagerly and to feel some sort of alarm.

"Some one is coming!" said Rob. Now, indeed, there was no doubt. They heard shuffling foot-falls and many voices in some confused speech which they could not understand.

"I'm afraid!" said Jesse. "They're not white people."

Rob raised a warning hand that they should all be silent. At last a loud voice called out to them in broken English:

"White mans there! You come out! Me good mans! All good mans!"

The faces of all inside the hut were now very serious, for they did not know what might be the nature of these visitors, and there was no window or crack through which they could peer. Jimmy made no motion to go out of the door, but, on the contrary, was trying to hide behind the pile of fox-traps under the low eaves.

"One thing is certain," said Rob, with determination: "we're trapped in here, and can't get out without their seeing us, whoever they are. So come on and let's go out and face them. Are you ready now?"

The others, silent and anxious, crawled close behind him as he pushed open the door and sprang out, rifle in hand.

They found themselves surrounded by nearly a score of natives--short, squat fellows with wild, black hair, most of them in half-civilized garments. They bore all sorts of weapons, some of them having rifles, others short harpoons, and bows and arrows. A large, dark-faced native seemed to be their leader, and seeing the boys now ready to defend themselves, he shifted his gun to his left hand and held out his right with a smile, continuing his broken English.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE SHIFTED HIS GUN TO HIS LEFT HAND AND HELD OUT HIS RIGHT WITH A SMILE]

"Good mans me," he said. "You good mans. Plenty fliend, all light, all light, all light!"

He continued to repeat these last words as though they would serve for the rest of the conversation. Rob, willing enough to accept his a.s.surance of friendship, shook him by the hand, all the time, however, keeping his eyes open for the wild-looking group around him.

"Come dat ways, bidarka!" said the chief, pointing to the beach beyond the sea-wall. "Hunt bad mans. You see-um bad mans? Him steal."

John touched Rob quietly on the arm and whispered to him: "He means Jimmy," he said. "They are after him, and he knows it. That's why he wouldn't come out."

"You see-um bad mans?" asked the chief, eagerly. "Him there?" He pointed at the door of the barabbara, and would have stepped over to look in.

Rob moved in front of him.

"No!" he said. "All good mans here. What you want?"

"No want-um white mans," answered the chief. "Village over dar." He pointed across the mountains.

Rob guessed that these natives had therefore followed around the coast-line from their town, although he was not yet clear as to their purpose in coming hither.

"You got-um bad mans here," said the chief, sternly, at last. "See-um boat dar." He pointed to the bidarka at the edge of the lagoon.

"What you do with bad mans?" asked Rob.

"Plenty shoot-um!" answered the chief, sternly, slapping the stock of his gun. "Him steal! Him steal dis! Steal-um _nogock_! All time my peoples no get-um whale. Him steal-um _nogock_!"

Rob was puzzled.

"Now what in the world do you suppose he means?" asked he of John. "And what is that thing he's got?"

The chief was holding up a strange-looking object in his hand--a short, dark-colored, tapering stick, with hand-holes and finger-grips cut into the lower end, and with a long groove running toward the small end, which was finished with an ivory tip.

"I saw that thing in the boat," said John. "That must be what he means by _nogock_. I don't see how they would kill a whale with it, though, or anything else."

The chief evidently understood their ignorance. With a smile he fitted to the groove of the short stick the shaft of a short harpoon, whose head, about a foot and a half in length, they now discovered to be made of thin, dark slate, ground sharp on each edge and at the point. When the chief had fitted the b.u.t.t of this dart against the ivory tip, he grasped the lower end of the _nogock_ firmly in his hand, steadying the shaft in the groove with one finger. He then drew this back, with his arm at full length above his head, and made a motion as though to throw the harpoon. In short, the boys now had an excellent chance to see one of the oldest aboriginal inventions--the throwing-stick, used from Australia to Siberia by various tribes in one form or another. As they themselves had sometimes thrown a crab-apple from a stick in their younger days in the States, they could readily see that the greater length added to the arm gave greater leverage and power.

"I'll bet he could make that old thing whiz," muttered John. "Still, I don't see how he could hurt a whale with it."

None of them knew at that time anything about the native Aleut method of whale-killing. Neither did they know that the _nogock_, or whale-killing weapon, is a sacred object in the native villages, where it is always kept in the charge of the headman, or leader in the whale-hunts, who wraps it up carefully and hides it from view. The Aleuts never allow the women of their villages to look at the _nogock_, saying that it brings bad luck for any one to look at it or touch it except the chief himself. Therefore, had the boys known that their prisoner had stolen this sacred object, as well as the bidarka and much of its cargo, they would better have understood the nature of this pursuit and the intentness of the Aleut chief to punish the offender, who had been guilty of a crime held, in their eyes, to be as bad or worse than murder.

Not, however, understanding all these things, and being very well disposed toward their captive, who had been of such service to them, the boys were not willing to turn him over at once to these people whom he so evidently feared, and who with so little ado announced their intention of killing him. For the time Rob could think of nothing better than continuing the parley.

"You got-um bad mans!" a.s.serted the chief again.

"One mans," admitted Rob. "Maybe so good mans; we don't know."

"Where you comes?" asked the chief, presently, looking about him. "This my house here. White mans come here now?"

Rob did not think it best to admit that they were castaway and lost on these distant sh.o.r.es, so he determined to put on a bold front.

"Heap hunt here," he said, pointing to the meat and the hides stretched on the ground. "Kill three bear. Catch-um plenty fish. By-and-by schooner come."

"When schooner come?" asked the chief, with a cunning gleam in his eye.

"Pretty soon, by-and-by," said Rob, sternly. "Plenty white mans come pretty soon."

The chief was not to be balked of his purpose, and kept edging toward the door of the barabbara. "Kill-um bad mans," he muttered. "Him steal."

Rob, seeing that he was bent on this, and unable to dissuade him from his certainty that the fugitive was inside the hut, for the moment scarcely knew what to do.

"No touch-um mans!" he finally commanded, sternly. "White mans come here by-and-by--Uncle Sam white mans. Suppose bad mans steal; Uncle Sam catch-um. You no touch-um bad mans!"

The chief hesitated, for he knew perfectly well that all the villages of this island were under control of United States law, and although the natives sometimes kept their own counsel and wreaked their own punishment on those whom they held to be offenders, they were, if detected, certain to be held to account by the United States government, which holds control over all this country to the uttermost point of the Aleutian Islands, although little enough law reaches enactment in these far-off regions. As he hesitated the chief turned away from the door, and the Aleuts now began to jabber among themselves. They pointed to the meat, and made signs that they were hungry.

"_Da, karosha!_" a.s.sented Rob, who was beginning to learn Aleut from his friend John.

He motioned them to help themselves. Without much more ado the natives proceeded to take off pieces of the meat from the scaffold, and drawing a little apart they built a fire. Rob observed that they used matches, and so knew that they must be in touch with civilization at least once in a while.

"It's all right, Jess," said he. "We're going to get out of here sure before very long. These people can take us to the settlements any time they feel like it. I only wish we could talk more of their language or they more of ours."

The Aleuts for the time did not talk much of any language, for presently their mouths were too full for speech. Each would stuff his mouth full of meat, and then with his knife cut off a piece so close to his lips as would seem to endanger his nose.