CHAPTER XV

FACING DEATH IN A CANOE

Early next morning, the first boat, having been stripped of everything movable, was made ready, and Harry got in the stern. He had taken off the more cumbersome of his clothing and had bidden Roger do the same, so they started off with only enough on for comfort, but wearing their shoes, for the return journey would have to be overland through the forest.

"This heap bad," said Harry as they started out, "but I in plenty worse. Keep eyes open much."

"Right you are, Harry," sung out Roger cheerily, and a moment later the canoe shot into the mouth of the canyon, the other members of the party watching them with some anxiety, as, aside from the question of danger, the loss of one of the boats would mean a great deal of extra work on the trip. As the canoe entered the canyon Roger could feel the whole frame of his companion quiver with the intensity of attention, and he heeded every move of the canoe so closely that he felt as though he knew before every movement of the stern paddle just in what direction it would be, and of what weight.

The boy had learned well the lesson of following orders, and his confidence in his companion was so absolute that he was untroubled in mind, which went far to make him alert and able. Suddenly, the boat gave a little jump and the current leaped to double its speed, and for two hundred feet they rushed down a smooth plane of dark water with a seethe of foam awaiting them at the bottom. Just as they reached it, Harry shouted:

"Now!" and bore outward with all his strength.

"Sure!" came Roger's ready answer, as he followed the action almost simultaneously, but his confidence received a sudden check when they plunged into blinding foam which drove across the boat so that the Indian could hardly discern the lad kneeling in the bow. Angry little cross-waves leaped at them, naked scarps of rocks thrust bared fangs at them, but threading, this way and that, a channel of almost unbelievable intricacy and appalling narrowness, the little boat went through.

At the base of the second of these, in a moment of comparatively still water, the Indian called:

"Plenty heap good paddle," he said, "but too much beefsteak. More easy stroke." He broke off suddenly, "Ah!"

The warning was needed, for the vicious spite of this rapid began at its very mouth, and once the boy heard Harry grunt as he put his whole strength into a double stroke which, Roger could have sworn, made the frame of the canoe bend and wriggle like a snake. There followed then a greater rapidity of current again, and the walls of the gorge closed in until it seemed to the boy that if they got any nearer the boat would be shooting through a tunnel, and the prospect of a subterranean tunnel was not pleasant.

Just at the narrowest part, when it was difficult sometimes to avoid the paddles striking the rock on the side, the torrent boiling through and both men backing water, the canyon took a sharp turn to the right. Harry threw her head round, but not far enough, for there, not fifteen feet away from the angle of the bend, a black rock rose sheer from the water, with a spur sticking out, exactly like the spur of a fighting cock. The boat could not clear, and though Roger got the bow by, the current crushed the side of the canoe against the rock, and with a cry the Indian leaped for the spur.

"Jump!" he yelled to Roger.

But Harry's leap from the stern of the boat, just as she crashed, threw the canoe off sufficiently to prevent its entire demolition, so, though the frail craft grazed the sharp edge of the rock with the speed of an express train, crushing in its upper part, it was still seaworthy. Roger noted that the Indian had not reached a footing on the spur, but was hanging by a hand-hold to a ledge which it would be almost impossible to climb.

The thought passed through Roger's mind that Rivers would blame himself for having let him go, in the event of anything happening, but there was little time for speculation. From the bow he could see the dangers that were before him, but not being in the stern, the canoe was hard to paddle, and almost as in a desperate nightmare, he paddled and swerved and dodged rocks that sprang at him out of the water as though they were alive. Though his heart was in his mouth, and he expected every moment to be his last, the training of the past year stood him in good stead, and his eye never wavered nor did his hand become unsteady until, five minutes later, he reached in safety the gravel flat below the last rapid.

There he held the boat to regain his breath, and found time to wonder whether Harry had managed to climb on the spur, and if he had, how the party would be able to release him. But scarcely had this question formulated itself in his mind than, close by the canoe, two hands thrust themselves out of the water, followed by a shock of coarse black hair, and with one side of his head bleeding profusely from a scalp wound he had received on his way down the rapid, the Indian made his way to the boat. Roger helped him in over the stern and they paddled to the shore.

"Heap fine," he commented, "thought you gone sure, that time."

"You were politer than I was," replied the boy, laughing with a catch in his voice, "I was too busy even to think of you till I got down here." He went on laughing, but harshly and with a curious clang in the tones.

The Indian looked up sharply.

"Stop," he said, "you no laugh."

Roger, brought to a pause by the abrupt command, found he was choking over his laugh, and that his nerves were badly shaken. He felt a wild desire to laugh and cry alternately, but he gulped down a few times, straightened up and looked Harry squarely in the eye.

"I'm all right now," he said.

The Indian looked back over the rapid down which they had just come, and shook his head.

"Well, we got through any way," commented Roger.

"Yes," answered Harry slowly, "but we heap near not get through."

"Oh, well," replied the boy with all the recklessness of youth concerning a danger which is past and over, "a miss is as good as a mile, any way."

"So," replied the Indian, "but when it is my scalp," pointing to his head, "I like mile, every time."

This drawing attention to the cut on Harry's head, Roger looked at it, and found that although it had bled freely, it was but a superficial cut, and would afford no trouble, at least until they got back to the camp, where the chief would see that it was attended to. But they were a long way from the camp, as the two speedily found when they started on their homeward journey.

The trip down the rapids, Roger found, had taken a little less than fifty minutes, and he thought that perhaps it might take a couple of hours for them to make their way home. But even Harry underestimated the distance that they had come, and the way back, climbing over fallen trees, scrambling through thickets, stopped by underbrush, scratched by thorns, and caught in brambles, was a fearful task, and it was eleven o'clock at night before they got into camp, having taken fourteen hours to come back the twelve miles they had done in the canoe in fifty minutes.

They found the camp waiting for them, and Rivers growing very anxious at their non-return. He realized, of course, that the rapid might have proved far longer than had been expected, and that the two would have some difficulty getting back, but there was a fear of possibly worse consequences. The cut on Harry's head revealed that everything had not gone well, and the Indian, nothing loath, told in his short and jerky way the story of the perilous passage, giving the boy due credit for bringing the boat through the last few hundred yards of the rapids, and averring that he was all that could be desired as a comrade.

Roger's exhaustion from the long tramp back to camp was such that the chief of the party gave orders that he was not to be awakened early, and it was eight o'clock before the boy rolled over and sleepily opened his eyes to find the camp work well advanced and breakfast over. He jumped up hurriedly, looking for the various members of the party, but found only Harry and the cook there.

"Why, where's the crowd?" he asked.

"Waal, son," said the cook, "Mr. Rivers he reckoned that a good sleep wouldn't do any harm, seeing the job you tackled yesterday, and you won't have much to do to-day. The rest of them have started packing the grub over the carry to where you left the first boat. They're loaded down good and proper, for I don't believe one of 'em has less than eighty pounds, and Bulson's got one hundred and ten, all right."

"There's a lot of stuff here yet," commented Roger, looking around, "and that's no small walk. How many trips do you suppose it will take to get it all down there?"

"Just one trip more, to-morrow. You see on to-morrow's trip Harry and you and I will have a load, and three extra men can tote a lot."

"But why were we let out of it to-day?" queried the boy.

"We take other boat down," put in the Indian, who had been listening, "this time we do it heap easy. No get knocked on the head."

"I hope not, for your sake," said Roger, who, though no coward, had been secretly hoping that some one else would look after the other boat. "But it's quite a trick to have to tackle again."

"No," replied Harry, with a quick negative shake of the head. "Heap easy now. I draw map every rock, know when stop canoe."

"Yes," said the cook thoughtfully, "it isn't much of a job to run a rapid when you know what's ahead of you; the trouble is generally that some fool rock shows up when you least expect it."

"That's true," said the boy thoughtfully, "even the rock we nearly went to smash on,--the one you jumped, you know,--we could have dodged that if we had known that it was there and had hugged the right-hand shore."

"No strike rock this time. You no want try jump?"

"Not on your life, Harry," laughed Roger. "I'm not aching for excitement as much as that. Going through that rapid again will give me enough to think of for one day, at least."

In the meanwhile, the boat having been got ready, the two shoved out into the stream and headed for the rapid. As the other men had suggested, the passage lost some of its terrors when it was known what lay beyond, but Roger found that his companion possessed a memory for every little turn of the river which was to him incredible. He felt that he would have to go through it a dozen times before he could begin to act as a pilot through, but Harry had the whole stretch of boiling water as clearly in his mind as though an immense chart were stretched out before him.

The second rapid with its smother of foam, moreover, looked almost as bad to the boy on the second trial as it had on the first, and his heart beat more rapidly as the boat shot into the narrow gorge, in the midst of which, a little lower down, the sharp and jagged spur lay awaiting the unready traveler. But the Indian was on the alert, and just at the right moment he drove the canoe over beside the bank, so close that Roger feared a slight eddy might crush in the eggshell sides of the canoe. But even with every inch gained at the turn, the old black spur suddenly appeared around the bend, grim and perilous athwart their path. Then Harry put his muscle into the paddle, Roger following suit, and they flew across the river with such speed that the current driving them on the rock had little chance to catch the boat, and they shaved the danger with about two feet to spare. The rapid beyond, which Roger had run himself, was none too easy, and as the boy noted its difficulty, he felt a thrill of pride that he had managed to take the first boat through that alone.

"Heap bad rapid," said Harry, when the second boat had been drawn up beside the first, and he had examined both the canoes carefully to see how much damage they had sustained on the trip.

"Have you ever run any that were worse than this?" queried Roger.

"No. Plenty longer, rougher, but rock in middle much bad."

Questioning his companion Roger heard many stories of difficult and dangerous canoe trips, told with the unimpassioned utterance of the Indian, and in his broken English, and he was able to see that the canyon through which they had passed was almost as bad as any of them. They did not have to wait long for the arrival of the party from the upper camp, for the latter had cut the trail the preceding day, while Harry and Roger were taking the first boat down and returning, so that when they started the next morning before breakfast, it was fairly good going. Shortly before noon, the canoeists, waiting beside the boats, heard shouts to which they responded, and a few minutes later the packing party came crashing through the trees to the riverside.

Harry, without waiting for any conversation with the other members of the party, busied himself in getting together dinner, knowing that the fellows, who had toted heavy packs over the carry, would be sufficiently hungry and tired. The meal being over, the whole party, including Harry and Roger, started back for the camp, and the boy was surprised to find how short and easy it seemed after the difficulty he had experienced the day before in forcing his way through the bush, where a trail had not been cut. They reached the camp at the upper end of the canyon, where the cook had been left, late in the afternoon and made all ready for the start the following morning.

The next day the entire remainder of the supplies and equipment of the camp were made up into packs and the party started over the portage to where the boats had been left lower down on the river. Roger, being accommodated with a pack weighing about ninety pounds, felt as though he were back in the Minnesota swamps, with the tump strap over his forehead. His familiarity with packing, and his ability to take the trip without feeling any physical inconvenience, was a source of gratification, as Roger's pride was keen not to be thought in any sense a less able member of the party than the oldest and most seasoned hand. The journey down to the lower end of the canyon did not seem so long, and, as on the previous day, the party reached the lower camp about noon. In the afternoon Gersup and Bulson, taking Roger with them, took advantage of the half day to make a survey before descending into the beaches of the lower Cantwell River.

As it was expected that the going would be easy for a while lower in the stream, Rivers readily acceded to Roger's petition that he should take his rifle along. There had been such a lot of caribou about, that the boy felt he ought at least to get one.

"We haven't space for the head as a trophy, of course, you know," he said, "and I don't approve of shooting for sport, but caribou is good eating, and it is always wise to conserve supplies."

"I've never had a chance at any big game, before, Mr. Rivers," joyfully said the boy.

"All right, then," said the chief, smiling, "I guess you won't reduce the visible supply of caribou in Alaska enough to hurt."

Immediately after dinner the three started, and Roger's luck was with him, for as they rounded the corner of a mountain slope, Gersup halted, and pointed with his finger to four specks about three miles away. Raising his field glasses, he said:

"There you are, Doughty; there are your caribou. You've worked pretty hard and ought to have some fun out of it. We can get along all right, and you go after them. You can't very well get lost, but don't try to track them after dark."

Roger nodded, and skirting the slope until he was hidden from the animals' view, he started on a run for a couple of miles, until he thought it would be necessary to exert more prudence. A long and weary progress through the rough country, with the endeavor not so much as to crack a twig or rustle a leaf, brought the lad at last to the little valley where he had seen the caribou, and there the shelter stopped, except for sundry large boulders, which did not afford a complete cover. Roger had worked round, of course, so that he was coming up wind. He had come within about half a mile of them, when he found cover absolutely gone, so lying prone on his face, and just wriggling forward by movements of his knees a foot or so at a time, he spent at least an hour advancing a quarter of a mile on the objects of his quest.

Suddenly, when he was about four hundred yards away, though he was not conscious of having made a sound, and though he had not been able to discern any change in the direction of the wind, the nearest of the four stopped feeding and threw up his head. The boy had been careful, throughout his crawl, to change the sight on his rifle to the distance he estimated he was from the game, and so, when the caribou stopped, he was ready. He waited a moment, hoping that the animal, seeing and hearing nothing, would resume feeding, but instead, the alarm seemed to communicate itself to the others, and they appeared to prepare for flight.

Like a flash the thought shot through Roger's mind that if they once started to run he would not be able to stalk them again that night, and determining to risk a long shot, rather than none at all, he laid his rifle across a boulder which he had been using as a cover, and taking a careful aim, fired. The distance seemed to him tremendous, and as the rifle cracked the four leaped into full career, but the one at which the boy had fired gave a jump, which, to his excited idea, seemed to show that he had been hit. Away started Roger at full tilt after them, but they were speedily out of sight. Tearing along at topmost speed over the uneven ground, Roger's breath began to give out and little black spots danced before his eyes, but when he reached the trail of the fleeing caribou and found a spot of blood in the tracks of one of them, he would not have changed places with the Director of the Survey. On he went, following this track, and noting that the leaps were growing shorter and shorter, but his endurance was beginning to give out, when he saw before him, not more than half a mile away, a solitary caribou. Knowing that those which had not been hit were probably four or five miles distant at this time, and that they would not stop under fifteen miles or so, the boy knew that this was his victim and he redoubled his energies.

The sight of the pursuer seemed to revive the flagging energies of the deer, and for half an hour he increased the distance. Then Roger saw that he was gaining, although the dusk was coming on fast. Fearing to lose his game, he decided for another long shot, and was again successful, for at the crack of the rifle the caribou fell, staggered to his feet, gave a few convulsive leaps, and fell again, and when, ten minutes later, the boy stood beside the object of his quest, a magnificent Barren Ground Caribou, the animal was dead. Roger knew that it was no use trying to skin the caribou, and greatly though he desired its head, he had been told that the party could not bother with it, so cutting off as much of the meat as he could carry, he started for the camp, which he reached four or five hours later, and displayed his evidence, and told his hunting story with infinite zest and relish.

A couple of days later, while the men were enjoying an after-dinner smoke, Roger noticed Rivers stooping by the edge of one of the river bars, flicking water out of a gold pan in regular cadenced jerks. Seeing the boy, he beckoned to him, and carefully pointing to two or three tiny particles of metal that lay on the rock beside him, he held out his hand to the boy.

"Gold!" he said.

"You have found a gold mine?" Roger inquired excitedly.

The geologist smiled at the boy's sudden conclusion that unimagined wealth lay exposed before them.

"Gold does not come in quarries like building stone," he said with a laugh. "Did you think it came in great masses of rock?"

"No," answered Roger, "but I thought it came in veins through the rocks."

"So it does, but you can find it in sand. What is sand?"

The boy thought a moment. "Why," he said, at length, "sand is rocks ground small by the action of wind and water."

"Very well," said his chief. "Now if some of the rocks ground small contained a vein of gold, what would happen to it?"

"The gold would be turned into sand, too," answered the boy.

"Only in part," said the older man. "The gold is hard and heavy, and when it is eroded from the rocks it comes in flakes rather than small particles. Then, you see, when sand is washed this way," illustrating by a cradling motion, "the gold sinks to the bottom as the sand is washed away from it, and you can take out the pieces of gold with comparative ease."

"Then it ought to be very easy to get gold!" exclaimed the boy with visions of Arabian Nights wealth floating before his eyes.

"Don't you believe it. There is gold on this river bar, as I have shown you, and, indeed, gold has been reported by the Survey on nearly all the bars of the Tanana River and its tributaries; but the geological history of the region is far from perfectly known yet, and the tracing to their original sources the debris of the Cantwell and Tanana Rivers is an excessively complicated subject. Of course, if you found the original vein of gold from which these flakes came, it would pay big, but near its source it may be in sufficient quantity to pay well, even in placer form."

"But if you can wash it right out of the sand," objected Roger, his imagination fired by the sight of the particles of metal, "why not get it that way?"

"Nothing easier," replied the geologist. "Thousands of people might come up here and wash the sands of this and other rivers, the White River in particular, but it doesn't follow that they would get enough to pay them for their trouble. Just think what it would cost to get up here! I suppose from the 'colors' in this sand, each one of us could wash from six to ten dollars' worth of gold a day through the summer, but what use would that be? It wouldn't pay the expenses of the trip; still hundreds have made small fortunes by such methods."

"Then prospecting for gold's not so easy after all?"

"It's one of the hardest lives I know," was the reply, "and the most dissatisfying. If you happen to strike a 'pay-streak,' as it is called, it may be very profitable."

"But if you strike the original vein?" asked Roger. "Isn't it pretty good then?"

"Only under certain conditions," answered the older man. "You can't crush the quartz rock except with heavy machinery, and you can easily see that it's no light job getting huge crushers up here. And that's not all: after you have spent thousands of dollars in buying the machinery and more thousands in moving it to this forsaken spot, you then have to spend tens of thousands building up a water power development, or else face the still more difficult problem of transporting coal to run your engines. Then high wages are a big factor, too!"

"Then, if it's so hard to get at, what drew the crowds at the time of the Yukon and Nome 'strikes?'" asked Roger.

"The desire to get rich quick," was the reply. "It is safe to say that not more than ten per cent. of the thousands of people who came to Alaska in the gold rush succeeded. Alaska is no Eldorado to pick up wealth idly, though the gold industry, properly capitalized, is important and worth $20,000,000 annually to the country."

"But surely some one made money in the Klondike and Nome fields?"

"There was a lot of gold near the surface, and the first-comers got that without much trouble, as well as getting the richest claims. There is plenty more there, but it is in frozen gravels and hard to get out. Prospecting for gold is the best thing I know to keep away from, unless you are willing to live in solitude and disappointment all your life, living on the bare hope that some time you may be lucky enough to strike a rich 'pocket.'"