The Young Alaskans Part 13

The chief now pushed his way into the hut, and, much to the annoyance of the white occupants, he was followed by a dozen other natives, who came crowding in and filling the place with the rank smell of wet fur and feathers. They seated themselves around the edge of the barabbara, and one of them presently began to make a fire.

"Dis barabbara--_my_ peoples!" said the chief. "My families come here all light, all light, all light!"

"Just as I thought," said Rob, aside, to the others. "It is we who are the visitors, not they. John, you act as interpreter. Ask him how far it is to Kadiak."

The keen-witted chief caught the sound of the latter word.

"You come Kadiak?" he said. "Come dory? You no got-um schooner?"

"Schooner by-and-by," broke in Rob, hurriedly. "Our peoples come."

The chief sat thoughtful for a time, his cunning eyes looking from one to the other.

"What you give go Kadiak?" he asked, at length.

"Schooner come by-and-by," retorted Rob, coldly.

The chief chuckled to himself shrewdly.

"Where bad mans go?" he asked, after awhile.

Rob shrugged his shoulder and pointed toward the mountains, as though he did not know where the refugee might be.

After awhile the old native produced from under his coat three handsomely made _kamelinkas_, or rain-proof coats, made of membranes. He pointed to the clothing of the boys and made signs of rain.

"You like-um?" he asked. "Me like-um lifle."

Rob shook his head, but the old man persisted. Finally Rob was seized of a happy idea.

"S'pose you go Kadiak," he said. "You come back with schooner, maybe so we give one rifle, two rifle."

This had precisely the opposite effect from that intended. The chief guessed that, after all, the boys did not know when any boat would come for them. The cunning eyes of the native grew ugly now.

"_My_ barabbara!" he said. "You go. S'pose you no give lifle! Me take-um all light, all light, all light!"

"Hold on to your guns, boys!" called Rob, quickly. "Don't let them get hold of one of them."

Then he resumed with the chief. "Heap shoot!" said he, patting his rifle. "You no take-um. S'pose you get-um schooner, maybe so we give one rifle, two rifle; maybe so flour--sugar; maybe so hundred dollar. Our peoples plenty rich."

The chief seemed sulky and not disposed to argue, but the young boy at his side spoke to him rapidly for a time, and for some reason he seemed mollified. Rob pressed the advantage. Drawing a piece of worn paper from his inner coat-pocket, he made signs of writing with a stub of pencil which he found in another pocket.

"You see talk-talk paper?" he went on. "S'pose you take talk-talk paper by Kadiak, we give-um one rifle."

The chief grinned broadly and reached out his hand to take Rob's rifle from him, but the latter drew it back.

"No give-um rifle now," he insisted. "When bidarka go, you take-um talk-talk paper, we give-um rifle. No! No give-um rifle now. We keep-um boy here all right, all right, all right. No keep-um boy, no give-um rifle. No get-um schooner, no get-um boy."

This was not very good talking, but it was not bad reasoning for a boy; and, moreover, it seemed to go home. The old Aleut sat and thought for a while. Evidently he either was willing to exchange his son for so good a rifle, or else he felt sure that no harm would come to the boy. Turning to the latter, he talked with him for some moments earnestly, the boy answering without hesitation. At last the young Aleut arose, edged through the crowd, and sat down beside John, putting his hand on the arm of the latter as though to call him his friend.

Rob drew a sigh of relief. Although he no more than half understood what had gone on, he reasoned that the boy had agreed to remain with them until word was brought back from the settlement. How long that might be, or in what form help might come, he could only guess. Keeping his own counsel, and preserving as stern an expression as he could, Rob sat and looked at the Aleut chieftain steadily.

The situation was suddenly changed by a shout from the direction of the beach. Led by the chief, the natives all now hurried out of the barabbara. The young boy remained. In a few moments he crawled out and presently dragged in after him the wet bear-skins, making signs that they would be spoiled if left in the rain. Having done this, he motioned to the boys to put on the _kamelinkas_ which had been left in the hut by the chief and then to follow him.

Guessing that there might be events of interest on the beach, they adopted his suggestions and hastened out into the rain.

When they reached the top of the sea-wall the cause of the excitement was apparent. The natives were hurrying as fast as they could go in a body up the beach. Perhaps a half-mile from where they stood they could see a vast dark shape half awash in the heavy surf. Around it bobbed a few dark spots which they saw to be bidarkas. From these, and from the natives gathered at the edge of the water, there came, as the boys could see, one harpoon after another. It was plain that the whale, sickened by its wound and buffeted by the heavy weather, had been driven close in sh.o.r.e, and here had been attacked and finished at short range by the natives who had been watching for its appearance.

XIX

HOPE DEFERRED

Of course the boys could not help joining the hurrying throng which now was thickening about the stranded whale. John and Jesse were much excited, but Rob remained more sober and thoughtful, even as they finally stood on the beach where the Aleuts were working at the giant carca.s.s of the whale, which, pierced by a half-dozen lances and bristling with short harpoons, was now quite dead, and fastened to the sh.o.r.e by a score of strong hide lines.

"There's the whale all right," said he to his two friends. "It's a good thing for these people, I suppose; but it's a very bad thing for us."

Jesse looked at him in inquiry, and Rob went on:

"Don't you see that they'll camp here now for days, and maybe weeks?

They'll eat this thing as long as it is fit to eat, and probably a good deal longer; and meantime they are not going to take out any word from us to the settlements, if they really intend to go there at all."

"That's so," said John. But his hopeful temperament cast off troubles readily. "We can't do anything more than just wait, anyhow; and I suppose that our friend here"--he motioned to the Aleut boy--"will see that we get our share of the whale meat."

The boys now saw that whale-hunting among the Aleuts is a partnership affair, a whole village sharing equally in the spoils. Every man of the party now went to work. Some of them mounted the slippery back of the dead whale and hacked away at the hide, laying bare strips of the thick white blubber. Skilfully enough, for those possessing no better tools, they got off long strips of the blubber, which they carried high up the beach above the tide. Some of them carefully worked at the side of the whale where the deadly harpoon had done its work. Cutting down, they disclosed the broken head of slate buried deep in the body of the whale, the wound now surrounded by a wide region of inflamed and bloodshot flesh. This they carefully cut out for a distance of two or three feet on each side of the wound, and this seemed to be all the attention they paid to the preparation of the flesh for food. As the rain was now falling steadily they did not pause to build fires, but here and there a man could be seen eating raw whale meat, cutting off the strip close to his lips with his knife, in the curious fashion which always seems to the white race so repulsive.

The young Aleut looked among the pieces of flesh as they were carried high up the bank of sea-wall, and at last selected a few smaller portions which he carried with him when at last the boys turned back toward the barabbara. He also got a good-sized sack of salt and one or two battered cooking utensils. It was plain that whatever his relatives might wish to do, or whatever right they had to turn intruders out of their own barabbara, he himself intended to cast in his lot with the white boys.

The latter knew no alternative but to allow matters to stand as they did. The gloomy weather, however, oppressed their spirits. They had now been gone from civilization for a considerable time, and if truth be told they were becoming not a little uneasy about their situation. They had no means of telling how far the settlement might be, and they were indeed as completely lost as though they were a thousand miles from any white man's home. As a matter of fact, the part of the great island where they now were cast away had scarcely been visited by a white man, on an average, once in twenty years since the days of the Russian occupancy.

Most of that day they spent inside the barabbara waiting for the rain to cease; but as the clouds broke away in the afternoon they ventured out once more to see what was going on along the beach.

"Why, look there!" said Rob, pointing toward the mouth of the bay.

"They're leaving--half of them are gone already!"

Rough as the sea now was, and heavily loaded as were all the boats with the flesh of the whale, it was none the less obvious that members of the party were starting out for home, perhaps disposed to this by the discomfort of life in rough weather with no better shelter than they could find on this somewhat barren coast. These natives nearly always hunt in districts where they know there can be found a barabbara or so, and such huts are used as common property by all who find them, although the loose t.i.tle of ownership probably rests in the man or family who first erected them. When so large a party as that now present travelled together, it was certain that they could find no adequate shelter unless they constructed it for themselves; and the Aleut, after all, is not like the American Indian, who makes himself comfortable where night finds him, but is rather a village-dweller, who rarely wanders farther from home than a day's journey or so in his bidarka.

All this, of course, was more or less Greek to the boys who stood watching the thinning party, as one bidarka after another was skilfully run out through the surf and as skilfully put under way in the long swell of the sea. At last a well-known figure detached itself from a group where he had been talking and approached them. The Aleut chief addressed himself once more to Rob.

"My peoples go now," he said. "Me like-um lifle."

"When you go Kadiak?" asked Rob.

"Maybe seven week, four week, ten--nine week all light, all light, all light," said the chief, amiably. "You make-um talk-talk ting. Give me!

You give-um lifle now."

Rob turned to the other boys.