The Young Alaskans Part 20

"That's right," said Rob. "I was just going to say the same thing. Back home we used to like salmon better than codfish, because the codfish was always salt. Salmon used to be forty cents a pound back in the States, but out here, where we can catch forty pounds in an hour, we don't like it as well as codfish. All right, Jess, I'm game to go down to the mouth of the creek where we left the dory, and go out in the bay for a try after cod. But how will you get down there with your foot all tied up?"

Jesse put his hand on Skookie's shoulder. "Oh, that will be easy," said he. "Skookie and I will go down the creek in the bidarka."

They agreed to this plan, and Jesse, hobbling out to the edge of the lagoon, picked up one of the bidarka's paddles--a narrow-bladed, pointed implement such as the Aleuts always use--rested the end of the paddle on the bottom on the other side of the bidarka, and, steadying himself by this means, slipped into place in the front hatch of the boat, just as one would step into a tottery birch-bark, although not even the latter can be more ticklish than one of these skin-covered native boats.

Skookie was less particular, but, with the confidence born of long experience, took a running jump as he pushed off the bidarka and scrambled into the rear hatch. An instant later his own paddle was in motion, and Jesse and he made good speed down the creek. All the boys had by this time learned something about the use of the bidarka, and could handle themselves fairly well without swinging the craft from side to side as they paddled. Jesse always thought that the paddles were too small, but the only answer Skookie made to this criticism was, "My peoples long time make paddles dis way."

The four met at the mouth of the creek, and soon they launched the faithful dory, in which they always kept their cod-lines on the hand-reels under the stern seat. Skookie took command of the expedition, for he seemed to know instinctively where the best fish could be found.

Under his instruction he and John paddled the boat out fifty fathoms or so from the extreme beach point, where he motioned John to take up his hand-line while he held the boat in place. "Plenty deep waters here," he said; "plenty dose codfish."

"Sure!" said John. "Here's right where Jimmy took us the first time."

The boys threw over their lines, letting the heavy leads of the big hooks sink into more than one hundred feet of water. They had not long to wait, for the codfish seemed to be extremely numerous hereabout. John gave a sudden jerk and began to pull in rapidly, hand over hand. After a time they could see the gleam of a ten-pound codfish coming up to the surface on the line, rolling and twisting lazily and making no great fight. With a whoop John threw him into the boat, where the fish seemed even too lazy to flap about very much. It was a fine, dark fish, and Skookie gave it his professional approval as he rapped it over the head.

Hardly had John gotten his fish into the boat before Jesse also began to pull in and added a second prize. Rob was fishing on the opposite side of the boat, and using a sort of squid with lead run around the hook, much like a bluefish squid. He was pulling the bait up and down with long jerks, as the native codfishers do, when all at once he felt something strike. "This fish seems mighty heavy," said he, "and it runs around different from a cod." None the less, he kept on pulling in line, and at length saw the gleam of a fish. "Humph!" said he, "no wonder it pulls hard! I've hooked it right square in the side. It pulls harder than a foul-hooked salmon, down that deep in the water. I wonder what it is?"

It was a flat, shiny fish, handsome enough to look at, but Skookie shook his head. "Him no good," said he, and at once threw it overboard.

"I think that is what the sailormen call a silver hake," said Rob; "but if Skookie doesn't approve of it, I guess we won't take any chances."

The fish kept on biting at Rob's peculiar lure and at the pieces of salmon which the other boys used as bait. In the course of an hour they had the bow end of the dory well piled up with codfish, and Rob declared that they had enough. They also had nearly a dozen gnarled, k.n.o.bby-looking fish, mostly all head, which Skookie insisted were better than codfish, to which they later all agreed. Sailors call these fish "sea-lawyers," because of their wide mouths, as they explain it. They rowed in to the beach near the mouth of the creek and dressed their fish on the sh.o.r.e not far from the salmon pool. After this they lay about in the sunshine of a beautiful day and idled away an hour or two more.

"I'll tell you what, fellows," said John, after a time, as he stopped throwing pebbles into the pool, "we ought to have some sort of a camp down here at the mouth of the creek, too. Look over there at that rock face on the other side of the creek; that would be a fine place to build another house. I think it would be fun."

"But look at us, all crippled up as we are," said Rob. "We never were in as bad shape to go to work."

"Oh, well," demurred Jesse, "we wouldn't have to do it all in one day. I think, too, it would be some fun to build a barabbara all of our own."

"I suppose we could float some logs down the creek," said Rob, "and maybe pick up some drift-wood on the beach and tow it around with the dory. And there's some drift right here at the mouth of our creek. We could build it over there just back of those scrubby trees, and with the cover of those and the tall gra.s.s no one could see it from the water unless he looked mighty close. And, as John says, it might save us a walk once in a while."

"If that wasn't a rock wall over there," said Jesse, "we could make a dugout; but there isn't any cave or opening in the rock there."

"No," said Rob, "and we can't build a bark house like a Chippewa, nor a mat house like a Siwash, nor a tepee like a Sioux. On the whole, I have noticed that every country knows how to build its own houses best. The natives here make barabbaras because they have material for that sort of house, and they seem to do pretty well, if they do smoke a little."

"Suppose we build a barabbara, then," suggested Jesse.

"Ask Skookie," suggested Rob.

But Skookie, although he knew perfectly well what they were talking about, did not grow very enthusiastic over the idea. He could see no use in doing any work which was not absolutely necessary. "S'pose got plenty barabbara now, all light," he said, pointing up the creek at their camp. The others, however, overruled him, and when he saw his companions at work he fell to as enthusiastically as any, and they found his suggestions of the greatest value.

At first they marked out a place about twelve feet square or so on the ground, and cleared it of gra.s.s, rocks, and pebbles. To this they dragged some of the drift logs which they found near by, and so began a rough sort of foundation. They had no nails which they could spare and not even a hammer, but the axe they found very useful in shaping the ends of the logs so that they would stay in place. They drove stakes to hold the corners together better and to keep the walls from falling down; and between the logs they put in c.h.i.n.king of moss, gra.s.s, and mud.

Even before the end of their first day they had quite a start on their new house, and were eager for the next day's work, sore and crippled as they were.

On the following day they made house-building their first order. By noon they had their side walls fairly well laid up with logs, which now gave them some trouble to hoist and to keep in place. They towed drift-wood now into the creek, having used up most of the material which lay close at hand.

The roof gave them the most trouble. They built their side walls about four feet high, but they did not know how to keep the roof from falling in. They did not wish to plant any poles in the centre of the barabbara, as that would take up too much room and would interfere with the fireplace. They had no means of joining or framing any timbers for the roof, and they did not know how to make an arch. At last Jesse hit upon an idea.

"I'll tell you," said he; "we'll get some long poles and rest them on the top of the walls and plant the ends in the dirt and weight them down with rocks there. Then the other ends will stick in over the walls toward the centre, and will do for rafters for us to put our roof on.

We'll leave a hole in the centre where the rafters don't meet. In that way we can have a roof without any posts in the middle of our house, so that the inside will all be clear room."

This crude idea of architecture appealed to the others and, indeed, proved rather effective, although it was different from the plan on which their old barabbara was built. They had some trouble in getting poles sufficiently long, but at last succeeded. On these they laid such flatter pieces as they could find in the drift-wood wreckage, piecing out the roof with poles and covering it all with gra.s.s and moss. Over this they put yet other timbers, and stones, and finished all with a heavy cover of dirt. This labor occupied them all that day and nearly three days more, as neither Rob nor Jesse was in very good condition to do much work. At last, however, they saw their new barabbara completed.

It could hardly be seen from the opposite side of the creek, and any one pa.s.sing the mouth of the creek on the bay would never have detected it at all.

Tired by their labors, they lay down on the gra.s.s in front and looked at their structure. "I'll tell you," said John, rubbing his dirty hands over his face to wipe the perspiration from his eyes; "we'll call this 'Cripples' Castle.' I don't think it's bad for the time we have put in, when there wasn't one of us feeling very well. But Rob's hand is pretty near well now, and Jesse's foot is getting better, and my nose is not going to come off, after all. We'll call it 'Cripples' Castle,' but hope that our luck will be better in it."

"Come on, let's go inside," said Jesse. So they crawled into the ragged hole in the wall which they had left for a door. They found the interior s.p.a.cious enough for their needs, and the roof in the centre was stronger than that of their old barabbara. They got some firewood together, and with Skookie's help piled the floor under the eaves thick with sweet-smelling gra.s.ses from the flats near by. That night, when the Alaska sun gradually retired for its short rest, they sat around a brightly burning fire in the interior of their castle and ate the heartiest meal they had known for some time. It was then that Rob produced a surprise for the others.

"Now we have got some of our old dried bear meat," said he. "I suppose it's good, but it doesn't look it now--and a little salt whale and plenty of fresh codfish and salmon; and Skookie has got some of those white mock radishes of his, of which we don't know the name. But it seems to me that everything runs to meat. How would you like to have some onions?"

"Onions!" exclaimed Jesse; and "Onions!" repeated John after him.

"Nothing would be better, but we haven't got any."

Rob produced from behind his back a small sack which they found contained a few of these precious bulbs, most valued of almost any vegetable in the far north.

"Where did you get those?" asked John. "They certainly didn't grow here."

"No," said Rob; "I found this little sack hidden back under the _klipsies_ in the far end of the old barabbara up there. I suppose some native hid it there when they came down in the bay after their whale.

Anyhow, we have been on meat diet so long that I will take the liberty of using these, no matter whom they belong to. Of course we're not living much on salt meat, but even if we don't get scurvy we ought to have all the vegetables and green things we can get hold of. Now, onions mayn't smell as nice as some things, but there's no better medicine in this sort of life."

"Leave them to me," said John, who had grown to be quite a good cook, perhaps by reason of his natural inclination for good things to eat.

"I'll make a stew of them with some of that bear meat and some of Skookie's bulbs here. I'll bet we'll have the finest meal to-night we have ever had on the island." And so they all agreed. Late that night they rolled up in their bedding on the gra.s.s beds of their new house, and soon slept soundly within close reach of the waves of the sea, whose steady sound along the beach came to them far more plainly here than had been the case at the older barabbara.

After this the boys used this new house more than the older house, and little by little moved most of their belongings down there, although they still kept their flag-staff up on the upper beach in the hope that some pa.s.sing vessel might come into their bay and see their signal.

XXVI

THE JOURNEY AND THE STORM

"Now I've got a notion," said Rob, one morning not long after they had finished their new barabbara, "that if we were asked about this big island where we are living we couldn't tell very much regarding it.

We've only been over a little strip of country around here. I don't suppose we've ever been more than five or six miles from camp yet, even when we climbed highest in the mountains beyond the creek. Yet we can see over thirty miles of country from here. I'd sort of like to have a trip up one of those other valleys." He pointed a hand to the farther sh.o.r.e of the bay which lay before their gaze, level and calm as a mirror.

"That's what I've thought more than once, too," said Jesse. "Why not make an exploring expedition over there?"

"We couldn't do it and get back in time for supper," demurred John.

"No," smiled Rob, "but we could have several suppers over there. Why not go across and camp out a night or two, and just rough it a little bit?

You can see that there are pine woods on the mountains over there, and wherever there is pine it is always comfortable camping. We could take some grub along, of course, and our rifles."

"How'd we sleep?" asked Jesse. "It has a way of raining in this country every once in awhile."

"Well," said Rob, "we could sit under a tree if we had to. I don't suppose we could make a bark shelter, and we have nothing that would do for a tent; but we have our _kamelinkas_, and the blanket we made out of the sea-parrot b.r.e.a.s.t.s. We'd get along somehow. What do you say, Skookie?"

Skookie grinned, understanding what was on foot. "All light--all light!"

he said.

"Agreed then, fellows," said Rob. "And we'll start this very morning, because the bay is perfectly calm and there seems no danger of rough weather. It'll be cold up in the mountains, so we'll take one blanket for each two of us, and those that don't carry blankets will carry grub.