Chapter 11

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, knobby-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 shore 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 grass 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 grass, 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 chinking of moss, grass, 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 grass 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 passing the mouth of the creek on the bay would never have detected it at all.

Tired by their labors, they lay down on the grass 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 spacious 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 grasses 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 grass 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 passing 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 shore 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 breasts. 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. 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 Pass 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 shore 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 passed 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 grass. 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 passed 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 prickly "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 prickly 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 cañon, 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-shore 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 pass 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 passes 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 passed 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 pass 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 pass, 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 superstitions. 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.

"I dinno," said Skookie.

"How far do you think it is?"

"I dinno."

The Aleut lad was truthful, for neither he nor any of his family had ever crossed the island here, and he knew nothing of what lay ahead. Plainly uneasy now, Skookie had had enough of travel away from camp. "Maybe go back now?" he asked Rob, inquiringly.