Chapter 2

"I see them! I see them!" called out Rob. "There are thousands and thousands of them. I've seen them before, and one of the sailors told me that there is always most of them where there are whales around. They seem to feed on the same sort of things in the water, someway."

"There are plenty of things you see up in this country," said Uncle Dick, as he turned away. "You may have thought Valdez was pretty much all of Alaska, but I'll show you it is just the beginning."

"Do they have shipwrecks up here, Uncle Dick?" asked John. "It looks to me pretty rocky along these shores."

"Don't talk about shipwrecks!" replied his uncle. "This coast is full of them. I can show you the skeletons of four ships within two hours' sail of Kadiak, and how many small boats go ashore, never to be heard of, no man can tell. There are big ships lost, too, up and down this coast. Last year the natives below Kadiak brought in casks and boxes and all kinds of things bearing the name of the steamer _Oregon_. She was wrecked far to the south of Valdez, but the Japan Current carried her wreckage a thousand miles to the north and west, and threw it on the coast of Kadiak and the smaller islands west of there. It made the natives rich, they found so much in the way of supplies."

"Are there any bears out there?" asked Jesse, wonderingly.

"Biggest in the world!" replied Uncle Dick. "You'd better keep away from them. We're sailing now just south of the great Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. There's bears over there, but mostly black ones. Plenty of moose and caribou in these mountains, and once in a while a grizzly, but the biggest grizzlies are the brown bears of Kadiak and the peninsula on beyond."

Rob was silent for a time, but at last remarked: "From what I hear of this Kadiak country, I believe we're going to like it. When'll we get there?"

Uncle Dick smiled. "Oh, sometime within a week," he answered. "Distances are long up here, and wind and tide have something to do with even a steamer's speed."

IV

LOST IN THE FOG

Sure enough, it took five days more of steady steaming before the _Nora_ approached the shores of far-off Kadiak Island. In the nighttime the boys heard the steamer's whistle going, and knew that Captain Zim was sounding the echoes to get his bearings in the thick weather then prevailing. Sea-captains on those shores, when the fog is thick, keep the whistle going, and when they hear the echoes from the rocks too plainly they make outward to the open sea.

The _Nora_ crawled down the coast of Afognak Island in the fog and the dark, but finally cast her anchor as near as could be told off the entrance to the narrow channel of Kadiak Harbor. Here she sounded her whistle for more than an hour at short intervals, waiting for a pilot to come out. At last, soon after those on board had finished breakfast, they heard the sound of oars out in the fog and a rough voice calling through a megaphone: "Steamer ahoy! What boat is that?"

"_Nora_, from Valdez," answered Captain Zim. "Are you the pilot?"

"Ay, ay!" came the voice through the fog.

"Come on board--this way!" called Captain Zim; and once more the hoarse whistle of the steamer boomed out into the fog.

Needless to say, the three boys now were on deck, and they leaned over the rail as there appeared at the foot of the rope-ladder a big dory with two native oarsmen, and a stout, grizzled man, whom the ship's company announced to be Pete Piamon, the pilot for that coast.

"How are you, Pete?" said Captain Zim. "Can we take her in? I'm late and in an awful hurry."

Pete grinned. "All the time you ban in awful hurry, Captain Zim. Dis fog awful tick. Yas, we shall take her in if you say so--and maybe so pile her up on de rock. You don' min' dat, eh?"

"Where's the revenue-cutter _Bennington_ lying, Pete?" asked Uncle Dick.

"Inside, beyond de town." Pete jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, captain," said Uncle Dick. "I'm in a big hurry to report to my commanding officer on the _Bennington_, for he's no doubt been lying here two or three days waiting for us. You keep Pete here, and let me and the boys take his dory and pull in--they'll take us through the tide-rips all right, if it gets bad. I won't ask you to put down one of the ship's boats."

Pete looked at Captain Zim, who answered: "Oh, all right, if you're in such a hurry; though you might wait and let us all go in together. How are you going to get all of your hand luggage and all four of you into that dory, though?"

"You couldn't spare us a ship's boat?"

"Sure I can," answered obliging Captain Zim. "I'll tell you--put the boys in the dory, and I'll send you and the luggage over in the long-boat."

"Get down there, boys," commented Uncle Dick, briefly, pointing to the rope-ladder. "Are you afraid to go down the ladder?"

Rob's answer was to make a spring for the top of the ladder, and down he went hand over hand, followed by the others, each of whom could climb like a squirrel. The two natives, grinning, reached up and steadied them as they reached the jumping dory. The boys insisted on having their blankets and rifles in the boat with them--a part of Alaska education which had been taught them by old prospectors.

Pete shouted something over the rail in the Aleut tongue. At once the two natives bent to their oars, and the dory slipped away into the fog. Uncle Dick, busy with hunting out his luggage for the long-boat, did not at first miss it from the foot of the ladder.

"Hello! Where did that dory go?" he asked, finally. In the confusion no one answered him. So at last he concluded his own work in loading the long-boat and went overside, ordering the boat's crew to give way together, strongly, in order to overtake the dory.

But when the long-boat, after feeling its way down the narrow channel, emerged from the fog and pulled up at Kadiak dock there was no dory there.

"Hello, there, Jimmy!" cried Uncle Dick to the manager of the warehouse at the dock. "Where's that boat?"

"What boat do you mean, sir?" answered the other.

"Why, Pete's dory. We just sent it in by two natives, with three boys I've got along--friends and relatives of mine."

"You're joking, sir. You can't have brought boys away up here. Besides, they haven't showed up here at the dock, nor any dory, either."

"They must have got into the other channel mouth in the fog and gone down Wood Island way," said Uncle Dick, at last, beginning to be troubled.

"Well, if an Aleut can do anything wrong, that's what he's going to do," answered the dock-master. "We'll have to send a boat over there after those people yet. By-the-way, Captain Barker, of the _Bennington_, is waiting for you. And he told me to tell you to come aboard in Pete's dory as soon as you struck the town."

"But the dory's gone," commented Uncle Dick. "I don't like the look of this."

Both men, with lips compressed, stood staring out into the heavy blanket of fog.

V

THE MISSING DORY

What happened was this: The two natives in the dory were unable to understand English, and of course the three boys knew nothing of the native language. Yet from the hasty instruction of the pilot, Pete, the natives had gathered that "the boss gentleman"--that is to say, Uncle Dick--wanted to go to the revenue-cutter _Bennington_. Accordingly they concluded that the boys also were bound directly for the cutter, and so instead of heading to the channel which led to the town, they proposed to take a cut-off behind Wood Island, best known to themselves. Thus they rowed on for more than half an hour before any of the boys suspected anything wrong. Rob made signs to them to stop rowing. All the boys looked about them in the fog. They were still in the roll of the open sea, and the dory pitched wildly on the long swell, but, listen intently as they might, they could hear no sound from any quarter.

"We ought to have stayed with Uncle Dick," suggested Jesse.

"That's right!" admitted Rob. "But the question is, what ought we to do now? They pointed out town that way from the _Nora_, and I know we're not going the right direction."

To all inquiries and commands the natives did nothing but shake their heads and smile pleasantly. At last they resumed their oars and began to row steadily on their course. The sea now came tumbling in astern in long black rolls, broken now and again by whitecaps. Like a cork the dory swung up and down on the long swells, and all the boys now grew serious, for they had never been in so wild a water as this in all their lives.

They progressed this way a little while, until Rob bethought himself of the plan employed by the captains when skirting the shore in fog. He put his hands to his mouth and gave a loud, drawn-out shout, and then listened for an echo. Sure enough it came, faint and far off, but unmistakable.

"We're running down the coast, or else the channel is wide here," said Rob, "because the echo is only on one side."

From time to time they renewed these tactics, and for mile after mile kept in touch of the shore, on which now and then they could hear the waves breaking wildly. At last Rob set his jaw tight in decision.

"I tell you what," said he; "we're going the wrong way. We ought to have been at the town long before this. I'm for going ashore and waiting till the fog lifts."

Both Jesse and John agreed to this, for now they were thoroughly alarmed. Rob made motions to the two native oarsmen that they should head the dory inshore. They, always disposed to be obedient to the white race, agreed and swung the dory shoreward. "_Karosha_," said the older of the two men; by which they later learned he meant to say, "All right."

The two natives were well used to making a landing through the surf. Arrived off shore, they waited till a big wave came directly at the stern, then with a shout gave way and rode in on its crest, jumping out into the water and pulling the dory high up on what proved to be a shingle beach backed by a high rock wall a hundred yards or so inland.

All the boys now scrambled out, glad enough to set foot on shore. But they found their surroundings cheerless rather. The soft blanket of the fog shut in, white and fleecy, all about them. Now and again they heard a wandering sea-bird call, but they could see neither the sea nor any part of the shore beyond the rock wall near at hand. They no longer heard the whistle of the _Nora_ lying at anchor at the mouth of the channel.

Both the natives now pulled out pipes and began to smoke silently. One produced from his pocket an object deeply wrapped in a bundle of rags and hide, which finally proved to be an old brass watch, which he consulted anxiously.

"Him sleep," he remarked, shaking the watch and putting it to his ear. By this Rob knew that he meant that the watch had stopped.

"I knew he could talk," said John. "Ask him where we can get something to eat. I'm getting awful hungry."

"You're always hungry, John," said Rob. "The most important thing for us is to find where we are. Here, you!" He addressed the natives. "You can talk English. Which way is town? How far? Why don't we get there at once?"

The wrinkled native smiled amiably again, and remarked "By-'n-by"; but that seemed to be the extent of his English, for after that he only shook his head and smiled.

"This is a fine thing, isn't it?" said Rob. "I wonder what your uncle Dick will think of us. Anyway, we've got our guns and blankets, and there's a box of crackers and some canned tomatoes under the boat seat."

At last the two natives began to jabber together excitedly. They turned and said something to the boys which the latter could not understand, and then, without further ado, made off inland and disappeared in the fog. Some moments elapsed before the boys understood what had happened, and indeed they had no means of knowing the truth, which was that the two natives, who were perfectly friendly, had started across to the Mission House of Wood Island, some two miles or more, in search of something to eat, and possibly in the wish of getting further instructions about these young men they found in their charge.

"Why don't they come back?" asked Jesse, in the course of half an hour or so, during which all were growing more anxious than they cared to admit.

"Who knows how long 'by-'n-by' may mean? I'd like to get out of here," added John.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Rob, after they had waited for perhaps another half-hour. "These men have left us, and now we'll leave them in turn. The sea is pretty rough, but this is a good boat and we can run her. We can go back that way, and get to the mouth of the channel, because I noticed which way the wind was blowing. Town must be off to the left, and we can keep track of the shore by the echo. I'm for pulling out right away."

"So am I," assented John. And Jesse, although he looked rather sober at the sight of the white-topped waves, agreed.

By great good-luck they were able to push the dory out with the receding crest of a big wave, and the first thing they knew they were pitching up and down in the white water. By hard pulling they got the boat offshore, and being there outside the more broken water made fairly good headway, although they found the boat heavy and hard to pull.

"We can't make it," said Rob, at last. "She's too big for us to pull against the wind, and that's the way we must go if we go toward town. I'm afraid we'll have to go ashore again."

"Look, look there!" cried John, suddenly.

They all stopped rowing for a moment and gazed ahead.

A towering ridge of white, foamy waves arose directly in front of them, higher than their heads had they stood upright in the boat. Swirling and breaking, it seemed to advance and march down upon them. The surface of the water was agitated as though some great creature were lashing it into foam. But soon they saw that this was something worse than any creature of the deep.

"It's the tide-rips!" cried Rob, anxiously. "The tide-bore is going out the channel--I've heard them tell of that before. Look out, now! Give way, and put her into it quartering, or it'll swamp us, sure!"

VI

ADRIFT ON THE OCEAN

A thousand angry, choppy waves pitched alongside the dory, as though reaching up and trying to come aboard. Time and again the boys thought all was lost. Instead of passing through the tide-rips, the dory seemed to be carried on with them as they shifted.

The tide, indeed, had now turned, and with its turn the fog began to lift. Getting some idea of what now was happening, Rob undertook to make back toward the shore, where they could hear the surf roaring heavily. Perhaps it was lucky they did not succeed in this attempt, for the boat would no doubt have been crushed like an eggshell on the rocks. Instead, they began to float down parallel with the coast, carried on the crest of the big tide-bore which every day passes down the east coast of Kadiak between the long, parallel islands which make an inland channel many miles in extent. As the boys called now they could hear an echo on each side of them, and indeed could see the loom of the rock-bound shore; but all about them hissed and danced these fighting waves, tossing the dory a dozen ways at once, and all the time there came astern the long roll of the mighty Pacific in its power, the Japan current and the coast tide in unison forcing a boiling current down the rocky channel. Escape was hopeless.

"Boys," said Rob, his face perhaps a trifle pale, "we can't get out of this. All we can do is to run."

The others looked at him silently.

"She's a splendid boat," went on Rob, trying to be cheerful. "She rides like a chip. I believe if we keep low down she'll be safe, for it doesn't seem to be getting any worse."

A powerful steamboat, if it were caught under precisely these conditions, could have done little more than drift down the channel. The boys resigned themselves to their fate. Now and again the fog shut down. Wild cries of sea-birds were about them. Now and then the leap of a great dolphin feeding in the tide splashed alongside, to startle them yet more. Each moment, as they knew, carried them farther and farther from their friends, and deeper and deeper into dangers whose nature they could only guess.

"I wish we'd never left Valdez," said Jesse, at last, his lip beginning to quiver.

"That's no way to talk," said Rob, sternly. "The right thing to do when you're in a scrape is to try to get out of it. This tide can't run clear round the world, because your uncle Dick said this island wasn't over one hundred and fifty miles long, and there must be any number of bays and coves. Pull some crackers out of that box and let's eat a bite."

"That's the talk," said John, more cheerfully. "We'll get ashore somewhere. It's no use to worry."

John was always disposed to be philosophical; but the great peculiarity about him was that he was continually hungry. He found the crackers now rather dry and hard to eat, so worried open a can of tomatoes with his hunting-knife, complaining all the time that they had no water to drink.

Their hasty meal seemed to do them good. Finding that their dory was still afloat, they began to lose their fears. Indeed, little by little, the height of the waves lessened. The tide was beginning to spread in the wider parts of the channel.

"Let's try the oars again," said Rob, at last.

To their delight they found that they could give the dory some headway. But in which direction should they row? Small wonder that in these crooked channels, with the wind shifting continually from the shore and the veil of fog alternately lifting and falling again, they took the wrong course.

They had now been afloat for some hours, although at that season of the year there is daylight for almost the entire twenty-four hours, so that they had no means of guessing at the time. They had passed entirely across the mouths of two or three of the great inland bays, which make into the east shore of Kadiak Island. At the time when they flattered themselves they were making their best headway back toward town, they were really going in the opposite direction, caught by the stiff tide which was running between Ugak Island and the east coast of Kadiak. In all, they remained in the dory perhaps ten or twelve hours, and in that time they perhaps skirted more than one hundred miles of shore-line, counting the indentations of the bays, although in direct distance they did not reach a total of more than fifty or sixty miles. At the head of one of these bays, had they but known it, there were salmon rivers where fishing-boats occasionally stopped; but all that they could do was to use the best of their wisdom and their strength, and they kept on, steadily pulling, believing that the tide had turned, whereas in truth they were going down the coast still with the tide and approaching the mouth of the vast crooked bay known as Kaludiak, half-way down the east coast of the great island. Thus they were leaving behind a possible place of rescue. Although their first fright had in time somewhat worn away, they were now tired, hungry, thirsty, and, in fact, almost upon the point of exhaustion.

All at once, at an hour which in the United States would probably have been taken to be just before sundown, but which really was nearly eleven o'clock at night, a change in the contour of the coast caused the wind to whip around once more. The fog, broken into thousands of white, ropy wreaths, was swept away upward. There stretched off to the right the entrance of a vast bay, with many arms, whose blue waters, far less turbulent than these of the open sea, led back deep into the heart of a noble mountain panorama of snow-covered peaks and flattened valleys.

"It's almost like Resurrection Bay, or Valdez Harbor," said Rob. "At any rate, I'm for going in here. There will be streams coming down out of the mountains, and we can stop somewhere and make camp."

VII

THE HUT ON THE BEACH

Rob pointed to a valley which made down to the bay some distance ahead.

"There must be a stream somewhere in there," said he. "Besides, it looks flat, as though there were a beach. We'd better pull over there."

So, weary as they were, they tugged on the oars until finally they drew opposite this narrow beach. A long roll from the sea came down the bay, but the surf did not break here so angrily, so that they made a landing with nothing more serious than a good wetting. They pulled the dory as far up the beach as they could, and made it fast by the painter to a big rock.

They now found themselves in a somewhat singular country. The beach, of rough shingle, rose at an angle of thirty degrees for perhaps a hundred feet, where it terminated in a long, low ridge which, like a wall, paralleled the salt water as far as they could see on either hand. Inside of this wall, which was not very many yards across the top, they beheld a flat valley lying between the ocean and the foot of the mountains, perhaps a quarter of a mile across. A part of this valley was occupied by a long lake or lagoon, into which the water from the mountains seemed to come, and which found its outlet through a creek, which made off to the sea, far to the right.

All this country is covered with the heavy moss, or tundra, peculiar to Alaska, which, when covered with a heavy growth of grass, as was the case here, affords rather difficult walking. But as the boys left the edge of the sea-wall Rob uttered an exclamation.

"Here's a path!" he cried. "It must go somewhere. There have been people here!"

"Look yonder!" said Jesse, pointing ahead. "There is the reason. There's a house over there!"

The three now stopped and looked ahead anxiously. There was, indeed, a low hut built of drift-wood and earth--such a dwelling as is used by the Aleuts in their native condition and is called by them a "barabbara."

"There's no smoke," said Rob. "Maybe it's deserted. We'd better be careful, though."

They had been told by Uncle Dick that there lived on the east coast of Kadiak Island a part of the Aleut tribes who still remained savage, and who never visited a white settlement unless obliged to do so. Many tales of theft and bloodshed came from these natives, who had always refused to come under the influence of the missions or schools, one or two of which are established near Kadiak. In short, as Rob especially very well knew, there was no wilder or more dangerous portion of Alaska than that in which they now found themselves. It was very well to be cautious when approaching the dwelling-place of any of these wild natives, who had reasons of their own for putting out of the way any stray white man who might come into the country.

Thirst, however, drove them on. They watched the low house for several minutes, and then cautiously advanced along the path. They found the place to be a typical native camp. Pieces of drift-wood lay about, mingled with skeletons of foxes, bones of salmon and codfish--all the uncleanliness of an Aleut dwelling. The only opening of the low, round hut itself was fastened by a square door about three feet across. No sound came from it.

"Who's afraid?" said Rob, at last, and boldly pushed open the door. He stooped and entered, and the others followed him.

They found themselves now in the interior of a low hovel, perhaps fifteen feet across, and rudely circular in form. A wall of roughly laid timbers extended all around, perhaps three feet from the ground, and from these eaves to a conical point there rose the rough beams of the roof, which was covered heavily with dirt, grass, and moss. A hole was left in the middle of the roof for the smoke to escape. In the centre lay the white ashes of many fires, on opposite sides of which stood two half-burned sticks which had supported kettles. The plan of the barabbara, in fact, is precisely similar to that of the tepee of the Plains Indians, except that it is not movable and is lower and even less roomy than a good tepee.