Chapter 7

Then he resumed with the chief. "Heap shoot!" said he, patting his rifle. "You no take-um. S'pose you get-um schooner, maybe so we give one rifle, two rifle; maybe so flour--sugar; maybe so hundred dollar. Our peoples plenty rich."

The chief seemed sulky and not disposed to argue, but the young boy at his side spoke to him rapidly for a time, and for some reason he seemed mollified. Rob pressed the advantage. Drawing a piece of worn paper from his inner coat-pocket, he made signs of writing with a stub of pencil which he found in another pocket.

"You see talk-talk paper?" he went on. "S'pose you take talk-talk paper by Kadiak, we give-um one rifle."

The chief grinned broadly and reached out his hand to take Rob's rifle from him, but the latter drew it back.

"No give-um rifle now," he insisted. "When bidarka go, you take-um talk-talk paper, we give-um rifle. No! No give-um rifle now. We keep-um boy here all right, all right, all right. No keep-um boy, no give-um rifle. No get-um schooner, no get-um boy."

This was not very good talking, but it was not bad reasoning for a boy; and, moreover, it seemed to go home. The old Aleut sat and thought for a while. Evidently he either was willing to exchange his son for so good a rifle, or else he felt sure that no harm would come to the boy. Turning to the latter, he talked with him for some moments earnestly, the boy answering without hesitation. At last the young Aleut arose, edged through the crowd, and sat down beside John, putting his hand on the arm of the latter as though to call him his friend.

Rob drew a sigh of relief. Although he no more than half understood what had gone on, he reasoned that the boy had agreed to remain with them until word was brought back from the settlement. How long that might be, or in what form help might come, he could only guess. Keeping his own counsel, and preserving as stern an expression as he could, Rob sat and looked at the Aleut chieftain steadily.

The situation was suddenly changed by a shout from the direction of the beach. Led by the chief, the natives all now hurried out of the barabbara. The young boy remained. In a few moments he crawled out and presently dragged in after him the wet bear-skins, making signs that they would be spoiled if left in the rain. Having done this, he motioned to the boys to put on the _kamelinkas_ which had been left in the hut by the chief and then to follow him.

Guessing that there might be events of interest on the beach, they adopted his suggestions and hastened out into the rain.

When they reached the top of the sea-wall the cause of the excitement was apparent. The natives were hurrying as fast as they could go in a body up the beach. Perhaps a half-mile from where they stood they could see a vast dark shape half awash in the heavy surf. Around it bobbed a few dark spots which they saw to be bidarkas. From these, and from the natives gathered at the edge of the water, there came, as the boys could see, one harpoon after another. It was plain that the whale, sickened by its wound and buffeted by the heavy weather, had been driven close in shore, and here had been attacked and finished at short range by the natives who had been watching for its appearance.

XIX

HOPE DEFERRED

Of course the boys could not help joining the hurrying throng which now was thickening about the stranded whale. John and Jesse were much excited, but Rob remained more sober and thoughtful, even as they finally stood on the beach where the Aleuts were working at the giant carcass of the whale, which, pierced by a half-dozen lances and bristling with short harpoons, was now quite dead, and fastened to the shore by a score of strong hide lines.

"There's the whale all right," said he to his two friends. "It's a good thing for these people, I suppose; but it's a very bad thing for us."

Jesse looked at him in inquiry, and Rob went on:

"Don't you see that they'll camp here now for days, and maybe weeks? They'll eat this thing as long as it is fit to eat, and probably a good deal longer; and meantime they are not going to take out any word from us to the settlements, if they really intend to go there at all."

"That's so," said John. But his hopeful temperament cast off troubles readily. "We can't do anything more than just wait, anyhow; and I suppose that our friend here"--he motioned to the Aleut boy--"will see that we get our share of the whale meat."

The boys now saw that whale-hunting among the Aleuts is a partnership affair, a whole village sharing equally in the spoils. Every man of the party now went to work. Some of them mounted the slippery back of the dead whale and hacked away at the hide, laying bare strips of the thick white blubber. Skilfully enough, for those possessing no better tools, they got off long strips of the blubber, which they carried high up the beach above the tide. Some of them carefully worked at the side of the whale where the deadly harpoon had done its work. Cutting down, they disclosed the broken head of slate buried deep in the body of the whale, the wound now surrounded by a wide region of inflamed and bloodshot flesh. This they carefully cut out for a distance of two or three feet on each side of the wound, and this seemed to be all the attention they paid to the preparation of the flesh for food. As the rain was now falling steadily they did not pause to build fires, but here and there a man could be seen eating raw whale meat, cutting off the strip close to his lips with his knife, in the curious fashion which always seems to the white race so repulsive.

The young Aleut looked among the pieces of flesh as they were carried high up the bank of sea-wall, and at last selected a few smaller portions which he carried with him when at last the boys turned back toward the barabbara. He also got a good-sized sack of salt and one or two battered cooking utensils. It was plain that whatever his relatives might wish to do, or whatever right they had to turn intruders out of their own barabbara, he himself intended to cast in his lot with the white boys.

The latter knew no alternative but to allow matters to stand as they did. The gloomy weather, however, oppressed their spirits. They had now been gone from civilization for a considerable time, and if truth be told they were becoming not a little uneasy about their situation. They had no means of telling how far the settlement might be, and they were indeed as completely lost as though they were a thousand miles from any white man's home. As a matter of fact, the part of the great island where they now were cast away had scarcely been visited by a white man, on an average, once in twenty years since the days of the Russian occupancy.

Most of that day they spent inside the barabbara waiting for the rain to cease; but as the clouds broke away in the afternoon they ventured out once more to see what was going on along the beach.

"Why, look there!" said Rob, pointing toward the mouth of the bay. "They're leaving--half of them are gone already!"

Rough as the sea now was, and heavily loaded as were all the boats with the flesh of the whale, it was none the less obvious that members of the party were starting out for home, perhaps disposed to this by the discomfort of life in rough weather with no better shelter than they could find on this somewhat barren coast. These natives nearly always hunt in districts where they know there can be found a barabbara or so, and such huts are used as common property by all who find them, although the loose title of ownership probably rests in the man or family who first erected them. When so large a party as that now present travelled together, it was certain that they could find no adequate shelter unless they constructed it for themselves; and the Aleut, after all, is not like the American Indian, who makes himself comfortable where night finds him, but is rather a village-dweller, who rarely wanders farther from home than a day's journey or so in his bidarka.

All this, of course, was more or less Greek to the boys who stood watching the thinning party, as one bidarka after another was skilfully run out through the surf and as skilfully put under way in the long swell of the sea. At last a well-known figure detached itself from a group where he had been talking and approached them. The Aleut chief addressed himself once more to Rob.

"My peoples go now," he said. "Me like-um lifle."

"When you go Kadiak?" asked Rob.

"Maybe seven week, four week, ten--nine week all light, all light, all light," said the chief, amiably. "You make-um talk-talk ting. Give me! You give-um lifle now."

Rob turned to the other boys.

"We'll hold a council," said he. "Now, what do you think is best to do?"

The others remained silent for a time.

"Well," said Jesse, at length, "I want to go home pretty bad. He can have my rifle if he wants it, if he'll take a letter out to John's Uncle Dick at Kadiak."

"I think it's best," said John. "We'll have two rifles left, and that will be all we really need. Let's go and write the note and take the chance of its ever getting out. Anyway, it is the best we can do."

They returned to the barabbara, where Rob wrote as plainly as he could, with deep marks of the pencil, as follows:

"_Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak_.

"DEAR SIR,--We are all right, but don't know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory. Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige

"Yours truly, ----."

"Do you think that'll do all right, boys?" he asked.

The others nodded assent, and so each signed his name. Folding up the paper and tying it in a piece of the membrane which he cut off a corner of his _kamelinka_, Rob finally gave the packet to the old chief.

"Plenty talk-talk thing," he said. "You bring peoples--get-um schooner--my peoples give-um flour, sugar, two rifle, hundred dollars."

Without further comment than a grunt the old chief stowed the packet in an inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse's rifle under his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to leave the coast.

The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.

Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.

"Well," he admitted, "I don't care! I _do_ want to go home!"

XX

THE SILVER-GRAY FOX

After the natives had departed, the young castaways, quite alone on their wild island, felt more lonesome and more uneasy than they had been before. The wilderness seemed to close in about them. None of them had any definite hope or plan for an early rescue or departure from the island, so for some two or three weeks they passed the time in a restless and discontented way, doing little to rival the exciting events which had taken place during the visit of the natives. It was now approaching the end of spring, and Rob, more thoughtful perhaps than any of the others, could not conceal from himself the anxiety which began to settle upon him.

In these circumstances Rob and his friends found the young Aleut, with his cheerful and care-free disposition and his apparent unconcern about the future, of much comfort as well as of great assistance in a practical way. They nicknamed the Aleut boy Skookie--a shortening of the Chinook word _skookum_, which means _strong_, or _good_, or _all right_. Their young companion, used as he was to life in the open, solved simply and easily all their little problems of camp-keeping. Under his guidance, they finished the work on the bear-skins, scraping them and rubbing them day after day, until at last they turned them into valuable rugs.

It was Skookie, also, who showed them where to get their salmon and codfish most easily. In short, he naturally dropped into the place of local guide. The native is from his youth trained to observation of natural objects, because his life depends upon such things. With the white man or white boy this is not the case. No matter how much instinct he may have for the life of the wilderness, with him adjustment to that life is a matter of study and effort, whereas with the native all these things are a matter of course. It may be supposed, therefore, that this young Aleut made the best of instructors for the young companions who found themselves castaway in this remote region.

Thus, none of the three white boys had noted more than carelessly the paths of wild animals which came down from the surrounding hills to the shores of the lagoon near which they were camped, although these paths could be seen with ease by any one whose attention was attracted to them. One day they were wandering along the upper end of the lagoon where the grass, matted with several seasons' growth and standing as tall as their shoulders, stood especially dense. They noticed that Skookie stooped now and then and parted the tangled grass with his hands. At last, like a young hound, he left their course and began to circle around, crossing farther on what they now discovered to be an easily distinguishable trail made by some sort of small animal.

"What is it? What's up, Skookie?" asked John, whose curiosity always was in evidence.

The Aleut boy did not at first reply, because he did not know how to do so. He made a sort of sign, by putting his two bent fingers, pricked up, along the side of his head like ears.

"Wolf!" said John.

"No," commented Rob. "I don't think there are any wolves on this island; at least, I never heard of any so far to the West. What is it, Skookie?"

The boy made the same sign, and then spread his hands apart as if to measure the length of some animal.

"Fox!" cried Jesse, with conviction; and Skookie, who understood English better than he spoke it, laughed in assent.

"Fokus," he said, repeating the word as nearly as he could. Now he traced out the path in the grass for them, and, beckoning them to follow, showed where it crossed the tundra and ran along the stream, headed back to the higher hills which seemed to be the resort of the wild animals, from which they came down to feed along the beach.

"It's as plain as the nose on a fellow's face," said John. "And some of these paths look as if they were a good many years old."

Indeed, they could trace them out, many of them, worn deep into the moss by the dainty feet of foxes which had travelled the same lines for many years. It was a curious thing, but all these wild animals, even the bears, seemed not to like the work of walking where the footing was soft, so they made paths of their own which they followed from one part of the country to another. On this great Alaskan island nearly every mountain pass had bear trails and fox paths leading down to the valleys along the streams or from one valley over into another. The foxes as well as the bears seemed to find a great deal of their food along the beaches.

As the young native ran along the fox trail the others had difficulty in keeping up with him.

"What's the matter with him? What's up, Rob?" panted John, who was a trifle fat for his years. "Why doesn't he keep in the plain trails?"

"Let him alone," said Rob. "He may have some idea of his own. See there, he is heading over toward the beach."

They followed him along the faint trail, dimly outlined at places in the moss, and soon they caught the idea which was in his mind. The path headed toward the beach and then zig-zagged, paralleling it as though some fox had come down and caught sight or scent of something interesting and then had investigated it cautiously. Others had trodden in his foot-prints, and so made this path, which at length straightened out and ran directly to the beach just opposite the place where the dead whale lay.

"Plenty--plenty!" said Skookie, pointing his short finger to the trail and then down to the beach where the carcass of the whale lay. Whether he meant plenty of fox or plenty of food for the foxes made little difference.

"They're feeding on the whale, now that the boats have gone," explained Rob. "That is plain. Skookie is just showing us the new trail they have made the last few nights."

Skookie turned back and began to follow the trail toward the mountain. Without comment the others followed him, and so they ran the faint path back until it climbed directly up the steep bluff, fifty feet in height, and struck a long, flat, higher level, where the foxes all seemed to have established an ancient highway. Several trails here crossed, although each held its own way and did not merge with the others; as though there were bands of foxes which came from one locality and did not mingle with the others.

"Now, what made him come up here?" asked John, whose shorter legs were beginning to tire of this long walk. "We're getting a good way from home."

"Just wait," advised Jesse. "We'll learn something yet, I shouldn't wonder. Skookie's after something; that's plain."

Indeed, the young Aleut, not much farther on, began now to stoop and examine the trail closely. At length he pointed his brown finger at a certain spot near the trail. The others bent over the place.

"Something's been here," said Jesse. The moss had been dug out and put back again.

Skookie smiled and walked on a little farther and showed them several other such places a few yards apart. He held up the fingers of one hand.

"Five _klipsie_," he said, and then swept an arm around toward the face of the mountains, remarking: "My peoples come here."

"Oh," said Rob; "he means that here is where his family come to set their _klipsie_ traps for foxes. I suppose these places are where the same _klipsies_ were set five different times. I have heard that when they catch a fox in one place they always take up their trap and move it on a little way so that the other foxes may not be frightened away by the smell of the dead fox or the trap."

"I wonder," said Jesse, "if any fox would have good fur this late in the spring."

"He might," said Rob, "if he had been living all the time up in the mountains near the snow; but as the natives trap a good deal along the beach, I suppose they took up their traps some time ago. They never like to take fur unless it is good, of course."

"Anyhow," said Jesse, "I shouldn't mind trying once for a fox. We might get a good one. I've heard they catch foxes sometimes--silver-grays or blacks, you know--that are worth three or four hundred dollars."

"Or even more," added Rob; "but that is when they're very prime, and when they bring the top of the market."

Skookie looked from one to the other, but finally made up his own mind. He led out on the way toward the barabbara, where very methodically he set to work carrying out his purpose. He rummaged among the _klipsie_ butts in the back part of the hut until he got one to suit him, and then without any hesitation led the way a few hundred yards distant from the hut where, parting the grass, he disclosed the cache or hiding-place where the owners of the _klipsies_ had secreted the traps; they, in their cunning, not wishing to leave the entire trap in the possession of any stranger who might come to the house.

Fumbling in this heap of narrow sticks, each of which was about as long as a boy's arm, Skookie at last picked out one which suited him. They discovered that the end of it was armed with four or five spikes apparently made of old nails hammered to a point and filed into a barb.

Skookie now took this arm of his _klipsie_ to where he had left the butt or hub of the trap, and he loosened up the heavy, braided cord of sinew which passed from end to end through the butt. He pushed the butt end of the arm in between these sinews so that pulling it sidewise twisted the sinews. Then he drove tight the wedges at each end of the hub, so straining the sinews tightly about the arm of the trap. Thus, as the boys readily saw, a great force was exerted when the arm of the trap was pulled back.

"That is what they call 'torsion,' I think," said Rob. "It is like a gate-spring which pushes hard when you twist it. Look at those sinews--thick as your thumb--and even one little sinew is strong enough to hang an ox!"

Skookie went on with his work until he thought the strain on the arm was sufficient. Then he pulled the arm back and caught it under a slight notch which was cut in the side of the hub, which itself was open on one side to allow the passage of the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from it--something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of the _klipsie_ resembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head back ready to strike a terrible blow.

"Natives get caught in these traps sometimes," said Rob; "so the old trappers tell me. Sometimes they get crippled for life. You see, these iron points here strike a man just about at the knee joint, and that's pretty bad when there is no doctor around."

Skookie, going ahead with his work, fumbled in his pocket and fished out a piece of hide cord, which he measured off to a certain length between his arms; then, picking up a bit of stick, he whittled out a pointed peg and attached one end of his cord to this, while he arranged the other so that it would control the trigger which held the arm in place on the farther side of the _klipsie_ bow. Now he stretched out his cord and pushed the peg into the earth as though it crossed a fox path, and made a motion of a fox walking along and touching his leg against the cord. To do this he took a long stick instead of using his own limb.

Whang! went the _klipsie_, the fanged arm whirling over so fast that the eye could hardly follow it, and burying its points in the ground. Skookie laughed and danced up and down, showing how it certainly would have killed a fox had the latter been there.

"Come on," said John; "let's go set it somewhere."

"All light!" said Skookie, who understood a great many words from their apparent connection. He took up his trap, with the hub under his arm, and headed off up the beach toward the spot where they had first seen the fox trail two or three hours before.