The Young Alaskans Part 21

We two will take our rifles, John, and Skookie the axe. We'll get on famously, I am sure."

The boys began to put out the different articles on the ground for packing. "Now we don't want to make our packs too heavy," said Rob. "The best way to pack is with a pair of overalls."

"How do you mean?" asked John.

"Well, you put all your things down on a piece of canvas or something, and you lash it tight with a rope, making a bundle about twice as long as it is wide, so that it will lie lengthwise on your back. You put your cord around each end, and then around it all lengthwise. Now you take your pair of overalls and straddle the legs across the lengthwise rope until it comes to the cross rope around the lower end. Then you take the ends of the legs and spread them apart at the other cross rope, wide enough for your shoulders to go in, leaving enough of the legs for shoulder-straps. Then you tie the ends of the legs fast to the cross ropes with small cords. There you are with the best kind of pack straps, which don't weigh anything and don't cut your shoulders. The legs of the overalls are soft, you see. Big Mike showed me how to do this, back home. He used to pack two sacks of flour up the Chilkoot Pa.s.s on the snow."

"Yes," said Jesse, "I've heard about that way, and seen men pack that way, too. There's only one thing that makes me against it now."

"What's that?" asked Rob, thoughtlessly.

"We haven't got the overalls!"

Rob's face fell as he rubbed his chin. "That's so," he admitted, "we haven't! And our trousers are getting pretty badly worn and wouldn't do for pack straps. I suppose we'll have to cut strips of seal leather or take a piece off our bear hides. Well, we won't make the packs heavy, anyhow, and we'll take it slow and easy."

Within an hour they had stowed their equipment in the dory and pushed off, all of them rowing and paddling. They thought they would soon be across the bay, whose opposite sh.o.r.e looked quite close; but they were somewhat startled to see how long it took them actually to make the distance, which must have been some six or eight miles. The bay, however, remained quiet and their progress was steady, although they were all very tired by the time they landed on the opposite beach, at the mouth of the valley which they purposed to explore.

"It seems wilder over here," said John. "Look how rough the mountains seem and how thick the timber is on above there. And I don't see any barabbara over here."

"There's something that looks like one, back from the beach a little way," said Jesse, pointing out what seemed like a low heap of earth.

They went over and found it to be, indeed, the ruins of an old barabbara, which looked as though it had not been occupied for a lifetime. The roof had fallen in and the walls were full of holes, so that it was quite unfit for occupancy. They left it and pa.s.sed up the beach, where they saw the ruins of several other houses, no doubt occupied by natives very long ago. Beyond this a short distance, not far from a deep path which was worn in the tundra by the wild game, they saw a number of rude posts standing at different angles, loosely embedded in the soil, and in some instances fallen and rotting in the gra.s.s. Some of these had rude cross-arms at their tops, others two cross-arms, the lower one nailed up at a slant. The boys regarded these curiously, but Skookie seemed anxious to move on.

"Why, what's up, Skookie? What's the matter?" asked Rob. "What do these posts mean, that look like crosses?"

"Dead mans here--plenty, plenty dead mans, long time," said Skookie. "No mans live here now. I'm not like dis place."

"Why," said Rob, "they're graves, and these are crosses--I think that one with the double arms must be one of the old Russian crosses. Was there ever a village here, Skookie?"

The Aleut lad nodded his head. "Long times, my peoples live here some day. Russian mans come here, plenty big boats; plenty shoot my peoples.

Dose Russian mans make church here, show my peoples about church.

Bime-by Russian mans go way. Bime-by my peoples get sick, plenty sick; all die, all dead mans here. My peoples go way, never come back no more.

I'm not like dis place." He shuddered as he looked at the grave posts, and was eager to go on.

"That must have been seventy-five years ago," commented Rob. "Perhaps small-pox killed off the villagers who built this little town. See, the wind and the weather have polished these posts until they are white as silver. Well, I don't know but I'm ready to go on myself."

Shouldering the packs which they had put down when they paused for their investigation, they took their way on up the ancient trail made by the bears and possibly once beaten by human feet. Once they came upon the fresh trail of a giant bear which had pa.s.sed the night before, according to Skookie, but as the animal had swung off to the left and out of their course, they made no attempt to follow it; and if truth be told, they seemed now so far from home in this new part of the country, and were so depressed by the thought of the abandoned village, that something of their hunting ardor was cooled for the time. The walking across the mile of meadow-like tundra was hard enough, and they were glad when they reached the rockier bank of the stream which came down, broad and shallow in some places, narrow and tumbling in others. Here sometimes they waded in the water to escape the tangled thickets of alder interspersed with the p.r.i.c.kly "devil's club," peculiar to all Alaska--a fiendish sort of plant covered with small spines, which grows in all fantastic shapes, but which manages to slap one somewhere, no matter where one steps upon it, and whose little p.r.i.c.kly points detach themselves and remain in the flesh. Our young explorers, however, were used to Alaska wilderness travel, and they took all of this much as matter of course, pushing steadily on up the valley until they reached a fork, where to the right lay rather better going and larger trees.

They concluded to bear up the right-hand canon, and, pausing only for a bit to eat, about the middle of the afternoon, they had perhaps gone six or eight miles from the sea-sh.o.r.e when they concluded to camp for the night.

They were now at the foot of a dense mountain forest, where the shadows lay thick and cold, and there seemed something sinister in the silence all about them. None the less, they soon had a good camp-fire going, and with the axe they proceeded to make a sort of lean-to shelter out of pine boughs. Rob picked out a place near a big fallen log, drove in two crotches a little higher than his head, and placed across them a long pole; then from the log to this ridge-pole they laid others, and thatched it all with pine boughs until they had quite a respectable house. On the floor they spread out a deep bed of pine boughs, and so sat back under their shelter, with their fire roaring and crackling in front of them; and all agreed that they had a very comfortable camp.

Pretty well worn out by the hard work of the day, for their packs and rifles had grown unspeakably heavy, they ate their supper of dried meat and smoked salmon, and so curled up in their blankets, too tired to stay awake.

The next morning they were up, feeling much more courageous after their good rest.

"I think it might be a good plan," said Rob, "to leave one of the grub packs here; and if we camp farther on to-night, and decide to go yet deeper into the island, to leave a little grub at each camp, of course swung up so that nothing can get at it to eat it."

"How far do you want to go?" asked John, whose legs were rather short, and who was feeling a little stiff after his first day's travel.

"Well, I don't know," answered Rob, "but if you fellows agree, I'd be for going at least a day's march farther up this valley. It'll be colder, and it'll be harder climbing, but the footing will be better and we can take our time. I'd like to see if there isn't some sort of a pa.s.s up here, the other side of which leads down into the interior. I've always heard that the arms of the sea came pretty near cutting this island in two, along about the middle somewhere. We might have to take a look over on the other side of the island sometime, if we stayed here five or ten years, you know!"

The other boys looked sober at this sort of a jest, but pluckily agreed to go on for at least one more day. This they did not regret, for they found themselves now in a country savoring more of the mountains than of the sea. Snow lay just above them, but the tops of the mountains seemed fairly open. Their little valley had a steady ascent, although by this time its watercourse had dwindled to a stream over which they could step as they pleased. Along the stream there showed the inevitable trail of the giant Kadiak bears which for hundreds of years had made these paths over all the pa.s.ses down to the streams. Fresh bear signs the boys saw in abundance, but did not stop to hunt.

Once, as they crossed their stream, they pa.s.sed the mouth of a short, steep little ravine which opened down into the valley. Here Rob's eye detected something white. Stepping over in that direction, he called the others. "Look here, fellows, here's a great big bear skull all by itself!"

They stood about this object, which certainly was enough to puzzle them.

There it lay, entirely stripped of all flesh, and very white, although the bone was not badly bleached by the elements as yet. There was not the sign of any struggle anywhere about, nor was there the least particle of any other bones. They searched for the remainder of the skeleton of the animal, but found nothing of the sort anywhere about.

There lay the grinning skull, far up here in the mountains, with nothing to tell whence it came or how it happened to be there.

"My, wasn't it a _whale_!" exclaimed Jesse. "See, it's almost as long as my arm. I'll bet it's eighteen or twenty inches long, measured as it is.

But what could have killed it? Nothing could kill a bear except another bear; but that wouldn't account for the head being here all alone.

Skookie, what do you think about this?"

"My peoples, maybe so," said Skookie.

"Your peoples? Why, I thought you said no one lived over on this side.

And we've seen no signs of hunting here anywhere."

Skookie went on to explain. "S'pose my peoples hunt. Kill big bear. Some mans take hide, some mans take meat, some mans take head. Dis head not good for eat, but very much heavy. Some mans get tired, lay it down here; maybe so birds eat-um all up but bone."

"But how long ago did all this happen, Skookie?" asked John.

"I dinno."

"And where did the hunters come from?" asked Rob.

"I dinno. Maybe so Eagle Harbor, maybe so Old Harbor."

"Which way is Old Harbor, Skookie?" asked Rob, suddenly.

The lad pointed back across the mountains, beyond the bay, and beyond their camp on the farther side. "Plenty far," he said.

"Then which way is Eagle Harbor--I suppose you mean a native village."

"Eagle Harbor dis way." And Skookie pointed across the head of the pa.s.s toward which they were travelling up the valley.

"How far?" demanded Rob.

"I dinno," answered Skookie; "plenty miles, maybe so. My peoples live Old Harbor."

Rob studied for a moment. "I'll bet that if we kept on," said he, "until we came to the top of this divide, we'd find the head of a river running down the other way. Like as not it would go to some bay where Eagle Harbor village is. Well, that makes the island seem not quite so big.

Come on, let's go on up to the top of this pa.s.s, anyhow."

So they plodded on, but did not reach the summit that night, nor did they find any further solution to the riddle of the lost bear skull, which latter Rob left in the trail, intending to pick it up on their return, although Skookie seemed to be averse to this performance; owing, no doubt, to some of his native superst.i.tions. That night they camped high up in an air which was very cold, so that they shivered before morning, although their fire of little logs had not yet burned out.

By noon of the next day, two camps out from the sea, and at a distance of perhaps twenty-five miles or more, they reached what was plainly the divide between this valley and another leading off to the northwestward.

Here they paused. Before them stretched a wilderness of upstanding mountain peaks into which there wound the narrow end of a new valley, widening but slightly so far as their eyes could trace it.

"Eagle Harbor that way, Skookie?" asked Rob, leaning on his rifle and looking out over the wild sea which lay before him.