CHAPTER XIX

RACING A POLAR WINTER

The comparatively flat plateau country, dotted with sloughs, on which the party had embarked after leaving the camp on the tundra, where they had been forced to fight with fire to save their possessions, lasted but a short while on the journey. Before evening the edge of the table-land was neared and the scattering rivulets drained into a narrow and swift stream, which Roger learned was the Anaktuvuk. Rivers, though conservative in manner as always, was obviously delighted at the thought that all the hard up-stream labor was at an end, with the expedition well ahead of its time, and many important details, topographical and geological, discovered.

It was a matter of absolute ease to float down the smoothly flowing Anaktuvuk, and for the first two days the only disadvantage to life were the clouds of mosquitoes. But the third day these pests disappeared in time to allow the voyagers to pay due attention to a troubled piece of water, as the stream shot down the northern slope of the Arctic Rockies through gorges and canyons of no little height.

The pitch of the stream Roger saw to be very great, but his skill as a canoeist was not heavily drawn upon, since the bed of the stream was little impeded, save for a few boulders at scattered intervals. But despite the smoothness of the stream, the banks overhung the river so far as to cause a most unpleasant sensation of fear. It seemed to the boy every minute as though the pendent masses of earth and rock would fall and overwhelm them, and the boy could tell, from the anxious glances cast overhead by Rivers, that the same thought was disturbing the chief of the party.

About two o'clock in the afternoon of the third day they ran through a long gorge of this undercut character, and one, moreover, from which little trickling muddy streamlets showed that the frozen ground was thawing under the hot August sun. Roger, as usual, was in the leading boat with Rivers and Bulson, the Indian being in the stern. Suddenly the boy heard a warning cry from the other boat, and looking overhead, saw a mass of snow and earth detach itself from the top of the cliff four hundred feet above them and thunder down directly for the boat.

Simultaneously the boy felt Harry reach forward for a long stroke and, turning, saw Rivers dive from the boat. Bulson, who was also paddling, put his superb muscle into his stroke, and though Roger felt like following his chief's policy and taking to the water, he stuck to his post and made his paddle bite hard on the water. The canoe sprang ahead like a cannon ball, but a second later, with a dull roar the landslide struck, just the edge of it catching the boat. Roger was conscious of a grinding crash, and then a blank.

When he came to his senses a few minutes later he found himself stretched upon the bank and Rivers bending over him. He lay still for a moment and then became deathly sick, noting the looks of concern on the faces of the party. In a few moments he felt better and tried to sit up, but Bulson placed his large hand on the boy's shoulder and bade him be still.

"Where's Harry?" was Roger's first question, his last impression before he went under with the ruins of the canoe having been that of seeing a piece of rock falling straight for his comrade's head.

"All right," answered the Indian composedly; "jump heap quick, though."

"You certainly did, Harry," said another of the members of the party. "I could have sworn that the rock hit you."

"No hit at all," was the quiet reply.

"And Bulson?"

"Bulson liked it," broke in Magee; "sure the whole Rocky Mountains could fall on him, an' he'd like it for a regular exercise before breakfast."

"I guess I'm all right, too," said Roger, and seeing his anxiety to sit up, they let him rise. He patted himself all over and then laughed. "I suppose I'd feel it if anything was broken," he said, "so it must be O. K." He got on his feet.

"Did you get out of it all right, Mr. Rivers?" went on the boy, turning to his chief. "I'm not sure, but I think I saw you dive."

"Yes," answered the geologist, "and it's lucky I did, for one of the rocks struck the very spot where I was sitting. I thought it was coming, and that's why I jumped. You're sure you feel all right?"

"Sure," said the boy. "I lost my wind, that's about all."

Rivers smiled. "You're lucky," he said, "in having been stooping over when the slide struck, because if it had taken you in the ribs or chest instead of the back, you'd have had some internal injury for sure. But since it struck you in the back, and you don't feel any special pain, your spine hasn't been hurt and nothing else can be, you must be all right."

"I suppose the canoe is smashed!" the boy said questioningly.

"The boat's at the bottom of the river, with a few tons of earth and rock and snow on top of it."

Roger's expression changed suddenly.

"But the maps, the plane table, all the work!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean that everything is lost!"

"Do you suppose," answered the chief, "that I should be satisfied if those were gone?"

"Then how were they saved? I don't understand," put in the boy, mystified.

"I grabbed the oilskin bag with the maps when I went over the side," replied Rivers, "and Bulson hurled the plane table backwards over his head, so that it fell in the water for the other boat to pick up. But all the instruments are gone, of course, and a good many of our specimens."

"It's a good thing," put in the topographer, "that I made a little duplicate for my own collection."

"Yes," answered the chief, "it might be a whole lot worse than it is. It's a mighty fortunate thing that no one was badly hurt."

"And I'm mighty glad," said Roger, "that my camera and all the negatives were in the other canoe. But now that we've only got one boat, how shall we get down the rest of the way?"

"In the boat. We shall have to throw everything away except what we can't do without, and live on short rations. One of the guns is left, and there are plenty of fish in the river, so we probably will get along all right until we strike the Eskimo settlement on the delta of the river."

"And if we don't strike it?" asked Roger.

"Well, if we don't, you'll be pretty hungry. But we'll strike it, all right, you'll see."

So the party proceeded to lighten their only canoe. Everything which was of weight and not absolutely essential was cached and a cairn built over it, not with any intention of coming back, but so that it should be available if any other traveler should ever pass that way. Since it was so difficult to transport provisions and camp conveniences at such a distance, it was felt that it would be sheer wickedness to let anything be destroyed.

"But people might steal it!" exclaimed the boy.

"To take what you need isn't stealing in this country," answered the geologist. "You are supposed to help yourself if you are in need, and you are expected to give to the uttermost if you find any one else in need. This part of the world is too far away from civilization for any 'dog eat dog' methods. Here, being uncivilized, men are more or less charitably disposed toward each other."

"That's a cynical speech, Rivers," said the topographer.

"Cynical or not, it's true," the chief answered.

"Sure, it's true," commented Magee, who had been listening. "If I'm hungry in a big modern city, and I open a man's door, walk to his pantry, feed myself and a dozen hungry men; and what's more, walk away with enough provisions for a month, where would I land?"

"In jail," said Roger.

"Sure, an' I would. But that's what you can do out here."

"Well," said the chief, "I wish I were sure of being able to do it at Nigaluk."

Travel, however, was very different in the one over-loaded canoe, and Rivers was not willing to allow any chances to be taken. The slightest evidence of shoal, rapid, or boulders meant wading. For the next three days, therefore, two men, each at one of the bows of the canoe, waded down the stream, finding out, with their shins mainly, where were boulders near enough to the surface of the water to strike the canoe.

On the second day of this sort of work, moreover, the temperature dropped fifty-two degrees in about six hours, and from a hot sun and humid air with a thermometer at eighty-eight degrees at noon, by dusk it was only four degrees above freezing with a driving gale and a stinging rain. While many camp conveniences had been left behind to lighten the canoe, a strip of canvas had been retained, and this was propped up with willow sticks in such wise as to keep some of the rain off.

But through the night the gale howled from the north, and the rain drove in with the sharpness of a whip-lash, so that the first faint light of dawn found every one ready for the start, as at least it was warmer moving about than lying under that pitiless sky. The only gleam of comfort was that it gave one day's respite from the eternal mosquitoes. The second day the norther abated, and fair weather returned, bringing with it, of course, the close personal attention of the mosquitoes of the lower tundra, though these were rapidly thinning out.

A couple of days of smooth water enabled the use of paddles and fair time was made, but after the junction with the Telugu River more shallow rapids and boulders were encountered, leading to more days of wading, continuing until they struck the main stream of the Colville, a river with a big head of water. But these various difficulties had delayed matters considerably, and not until August 10th did the divergence of the channels of the river show that the delta of the Colville was reached, where they hoped to find the Eskimo village of Nigaluk.

"What kind of a place is it?" asked Roger, as they encamped for the night.

"It is the metropolis of the Arctic Ocean," said Rivers with a smile; "the biggest city between Point Barrow and Hudson's Bay."

The boy was not taken in by the description, for he had a lively remembrance of Alaskan centers of population, and knew that anything more than four huts was considered as a post of no small importance, while one hut, all by itself, was deemed worthy of a place on the map. But though he did not expect a large place, he watched eagerly enough the next day for this Arctic city, wondering what kind of houses would be built to withstand the rigors of an Arctic winter.

But the solitary canoe went on and on, up this channel and down another, and still no village was seen. All the next two days the party searched, but to no purpose; apparently the Arctic metropolis was not there. The matter was extremely serious, for the provisions were almost exhausted, and on the evening of August 12th the wind switched again to the northward, and the first of the winter's snows hurled itself at them.

"If this is the middle of August!" exclaimed Roger, shivering, "what must it be like here in the middle of January?"

"Nobody knows exactly," was the geologist's reply, "for no white man has ever wintered here. We shall be the first unless we find Nigaluk in a hurry. And I doubt if we can spare the time, so to-morrow we will have to go down this channel to the ocean. I don't like this weather, for if the winter sets in early we may be caught even yet."

But when, the next day, the party arrived at Harrison Bay, at the mouth of the river, Roger's heart sank within him at the prospect. Cold, bleak, and gray, the waters of the Arctic Ocean stretched before him, a steady swell breaking on the tundra shores that line it without a break for hundreds of miles. The wind, blowing from the north, was kicking up a vicious, snappy sea, the tops of the waves showing their teeth, and upon the horizon the white blink of the ice.

Bad weather, a choppy sea, an Arctic winter setting in, and nothing but an overloaded Peterboro canoe to hold seven men, it was a bad outlook for the party. It was over two hundred miles to Point Barrow and the time of storms was at hand. Rivers called the men together.

"Boys," he said, "so far the trip has been very successful, but owing to that pesky landslide on the Anaktuvuk, with the loss of a boat, it looks as though we were going to have a tight run for home, and we shall have to show a burst of speed. Now there are only three possible things to do, and I'm going to put them before you and see what you think about it, because whatever is done must be done without delay."

"And what are those three?" asked Gersup, as second in command of the party.

"The first of these is to make a camp here, and to chase up and down the various channels of this delta until we find Nigaluk. If we locate it, we can get provisions and boats, or if the weather is bad, dogs and sleds; and, by one means or the other, can get to Point Barrow, or even down as far as Cape Smyth. The objection to that is that we have no definite data as to where Nigaluk is. It may not be on this river at all, but on some other stream flowing into the ocean near by, which has been confused with the Colville."

"Not only that, Mr. Rivers," answered Gersup, "but the channels of this delta may have changed and these Eskimo settlements are not very permanent, in any event."

"That's true," rejoined the chief. "Well, it is obvious that the canoe is not enough for us to get to Point Barrow, but it might serve to carry provisions, so that if we could track along the shore, with, say, one man in the boat to keep her out of the surf, it might be possible to get there, though, with rounding the indentations of the land, it would be over three hundred miles. What do you think, Harry?"

The Indian shook his head.

"No can do," he said, "wind drive boat on shore. Smash."

"The only thing that's left then," the chief of the party continued, "is to pack the entire distance, depending for food on what we can catch or shoot. I suppose we'd have to portage the canoe because there are several small streams along the way. Of course, in a couple of weeks, the frosts will set in, and the tundra won't be so bad to travel over. But it's a long way."

"It's the longest way, but the surest," said Gersup; "as long as we don't run short of provisions. How about it, George?"

"Not counting anything you bring in," replied the cook, "I can give you rations for ten or twelve days. But there seem to be signs of caribou, and though the geese and ducks are thinning out, they are probably good for a couple of weeks yet, before all are gone. Then there's always fish. If everything goes right, we ought to be able to make it."

"Very well then," decided Rivers, "this is what we will do. Unpack the canoe, let Harry and Doughty take provisions for two days, and with the canoe light, spend every minute of daylight searching for this place Nigaluk, returning to camp by nightfall the day after to-morrow, if they have not found it. In the meantime we will do some hunting and fishing, and try to build up a store of provisions."

"But how shall we be sure of finding you again?" queried Roger. "If this Nigaluk is so hard to find and the channels of this river are a regular maze, we might lose the camp, and then we would be stranded without any grub and without a gun, and you would be left without a boat."

"We'll keep a big smudge going, of course," said the chief; "I had thought of that. Now you two had better turn in, and we'll unpack the canoe and get it ready. I'll have you called early so that you can have breakfast and start off even before it gets light, because for a few miles, anyway, we know Nigaluk isn't there."

The next morning, before it was light, Harry and Roger were in the canoe, and they started off on their hunt for Nigaluk, up this channel and down the other. Harry was paddling for all he was worth, and the boy found it hard labor to keep up, but at their noon stop nothing had been found. As it was growing dusk, however, the Indian gave a grunt and pointed ahead, and Roger, giving a shout of joy, saw before him the outlines of a structure. But on arrival, they found nothing but an Eskimo grave, erect on four driftwood spars. Near by a tiny channel meandered through what appeared to be an island, and though it was now almost dark, Harry turned into this, and in a few minutes there sprang into view a group of not less than twenty huts.

But no dogs barked as they came near, no fires smoked, no boats lay on the beach, and Harry, even before they landed, gave a disappointed grunt.

"Heap gone," he said, then as his keen eye discerned through the shadows evidences of recent occupation, he added, "not gone long!" He stooped down as they landed, and picked up a little fish, only a few inches long. "This caught to-day," he said.

Roger's heart gave a bound.

"Then they can't be far away," he answered.

"Not far. Find to-morrow," and the Indian went on to explain to the boy the usually slow movements of the Eskimo, and their readiness to camp every few miles. He pointed out also that the channel through which they had come had an abandoned look, and that therefore the route to this camp must have been in the other direction. Since winter was drawing on, moreover, he argued that the natives would not be going up the river, and therefore, if they followed the other channel and turned seaward the next day, they might overtake the Eskimo.

This was a stern chase, and Harry routed the boy out when it was still pitch dark, and they started slowly down the other channel, looking for the first turn seaward. Just as the first faint gray showed in the sky, the opening appeared and the canoe shot down it. Dawn is very gradual in those latitudes, and steadily the light grew clear and the canoe began going through the water like an express train. Confident in his own idea, Harry turned neither to right nor left but made the light boat fairly fly.

By midday Roger was ravenous, but the Indian shook his head when a moment's stop was suggested and an hour later, when the boy was ready to drop, they turned into a large inlet and saw ahead of them a party of Eskimo in their umiaks, eleven boats in all, each containing from three to six persons. The umiaks, large skin-covered boats made for the Arctic Ocean fishing, are extremely staunch and fairly swift, but as compared to a light well-seasoned canoe in the hands of two experts, they were little better than mud scows.

The sight of the umiaks and the knowledge that this might make or mar, to a great extent, the resources of the party, put ginger into Roger, and the way in which that little boat was urged over the water was almost incredible. To the natives, who had never seen anything but craft of their own making, and the heavy staunch boats of whaling steamers, the speed was little short of magic. Harry and Roger overtook them as though they had been standing still.

The party of Eskimo was on its way to Point Barrow, where most of the natives expected to winter, and as they planned to trade, had an interpreter with them. To him Roger explained their needs. But the natives showed little desire to take the travelers in their boats over the long sea trip, and the boy, knowing the urgency of the case, was at his wits' end. Indeed the Eskimo were just about to paddle away to the open sea, where the little canoe would scarcely dare to follow them, when Harry said suddenly:

"Good. You offer give canoe."

"You mean in exchange for a passage to Point Barrow?" said Roger, seeing the plan. "Good scheme, I'll try it."

He turned to the interpreter, and pointed out that if they would give them provisions and take them to the cape, not only would they get money, but that the great chief would give them the swift boat as a token of kindness. But the boy hardly expected that the offer would create the excitement that resulted.

The very thought that this magical, fast-speeding little boat might become the property of the tribe excited the occupants of all the umiaks. Boat races, it appeared, were the only sport in Arctic waters, and if this tribe had such a boat as that they could be the champions of the Arctic seas. There was no further hesitation, and with eagerness the whole party hastened to where the camp had been pitched, the smoke leading the way without much difficulty. On the way they learned that Nigaluk was further west, on an arm of the delta which branched off quite a distance higher up the river, and that the settlement they had found was a comparatively new place, as yet uncharted.

Bad weather came, and several days were lost by storms, so that the trip, even in the Eskimo umiaks and under the conditions the natives knew so well how to overcome, was by no means easy, and Roger shivered at the thought of the terrible experience he would have had to face, if they had not overtaken the Eskimo boats. The canoe, which was being towed behind the largest umiak, was almost a fetish for the natives, and the way it rose to every wave, never shipping even a drop of water, to them was a constant source of delight. They jabbered the whole trip through of their sure success in the races of next season.

Camping along the shore was difficult, as no wood except a few occasional sticks of driftwood was procurable, and the water, while plentiful, was uniformly brackish. But trouble was not to let them go so easily. A steady and heavy gale set in from the northeast and the ice-pack began to drive.

Then the Eskimos gave a taste of their staying qualities. For fifty-four consecutive hours their paddles never ceased a second, one man in each boat eating and resting while the others paddled. The Survey men took their turn at the labor, and trained to endurance as they were, they competed well with the untiring swing of the Eskimo paddle, and gained the admiration of the natives. For the last four hours it was a flight for life that kept every nerve alert and tense, and the ice-pack was not fifty yards from shore when the boats, paddling furiously, rounded Point Barrow. Half of them ran into the little Eskimo village of Nuwuk, just at the extremity of the point, but the others took the Survey party to the main settlement, where a store, a mission church, and a post-office bespeak the habits of the white man.

With steam up and all ready to start, lay with her anchor on a spring the little revenue cutter, fearing the ice, now only stayed from further advance by the projection of Point Barrow, the easterly bent of the wind having so far left open water. The steamer's boat was waiting as the umiaks ran in, for they had been sighted some hours before. The few necessaries of the party, the maps and records were trans-shipped without delay, the natives duly paid and rewarded, mail secured, and in less than ten minutes from touching the shore the men were on board the cutter.

As they went up the ladder and set foot on deck Rivers turned to Roger, who had followed him, with the rest of the party.

"We're back, boys," he said, "and you've stuck right to the end. No man could ask finer comrades on the trail," he put his hand on the boy's shoulder; "men, every one of you, and the boy as good a helper as any one could wish to have."

THE END

BOOKS BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER

U. S. Service Series

Illustrations from Photographs taken for U. S. Government. Large 12mo. Cloth. Price $1.50 each.

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Through the experiences of a bright American boy, the author shows how the necessary information is gathered. The securing of this often involves hardship and peril, requiring journeys by dog-team in the frozen North and by launch in the alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, while the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal classes of the greater cities must take his life in his own hands.

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Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original print edition have been corrected in this electronic version.

In Chapter I, "I broke for the the ravine" was changed to "I broke for the ravine".

An illustration caption has been changed from "In the Home of the Kodiac Bear" to "In the Home of the Kodiak Bear".

In Chapter II, "through the standstone to some other rock" was changed to "through the sandstone to some other rock".

In the illustration captioned "A Tangle of Swamp", a missing period was added after "U.S.G.S".

In Chapter III, "had been been a little over his knees" was changed to "had been a little over his knees", and "safely esconced among the branches" was changed to "safely ensconced among the branches".

In Chapter V, a missing quotation mark was added before "You bet!", and an extraneous quotation mark was removed following "built up somewhere else in some other way."

In Chapter VI, "lie of of the land" was changed to "lie of the land".

In Chapter VIII, an extraneous quotation mark was removed after "They tote every drop."

In the illustration captioned "Bridged by Double Tree", "U.S.G.A." was changed to "U.S.G.S.".

In Chapter IX, a missing quotation mark was added after "Mr. Masseth's."

In Chapter XI, "the sting of a black hornet?" was changed to "the sting of a black hornet.".

In Chapter XVIII, a missing question mark was added after "cows here to do all the work".

In addition, an advertisement for other books in the U. S. Service Series has been moved from the front of the book to the back.