JALAP COOMBS’S PHILOSOPHY
The little _Philomel_ had a hard time getting to the Pribyloff Islands.
She was buffeted by head-winds and forced to sail nearly one hundred
miles out of her course by a gale. Then she became involved in such
mazes of fog and perplexity that ten full days elapsed before she
finally entered the region of screaming sea-fowl, and her people knew
that the seal islands were at hand. Soon afterwards a lifting fog
disclosed the low dark coast-line of St. Paul, which, forbidding as it
appeared, gladdened Mr. John Ryder’s eyes as though it had been the
fairest scene on earth. Was not his boy there? And would not a few more
hours see them reunited? He fondly hoped so, and in spite of his many
disappointments could not believe that another was in store for him.
No; Phil must be here, of course. It was not likely that he had been
offered a chance of getting away, and even if he had he was pretty
certain to have waited for the _Phoca’s_ promised return. So it was
with a heart full of joyful anticipations that Mr. John Ryder finally
landed at the village of St. Paul.
The usual crowd was collected on the beach to witness the arrival, and
stepping up to the nearest white man, who happened to be the government
inspector, Mr. Ryder handed him a note of introduction from Captain
Matthews, saying, at the same time: “These are my credentials, sir; and
my excuse for landing here, where I am well aware strangers are not
permitted save by authority, is, that I am in search of a lost boy, my
son, Philip Ryder by name. I must confess that I am disappointed at not
seeing him here, but you can doubtless tell me where to find him.”
A strange silence fell over the little group at these words, which most
of them understood; while the inspector turned pale, and the hand, that
he held out to Mr. Ryder, trembled.
“This is terrible, sir!” he said, “and I know not how to tell you――”
“What? Has anything happened to my boy? Is he ill? or――or――dead?”
The unhappy father almost choked as he pronounced the last words.
“I hope not, sir! We hope not!” repeated the inspector, in a voice
husky with emotion. “All we know is that he is lost, and has been for
two weeks past――in fact, both he and his companion disappeared just
as the revenue-cutter _Phoca_, on which they came to the island, left
it, and we have been unable to discover a trace of them since, though
parties have been out in every direction searching for some clew to the
mystery. But come up to my house, gentlemen, and you shall be given all
the particulars so far as they are known to us.”
At the word “lost,” Mr. Ryder, strong, self-contained man that he was,
had staggered as though struck a heavy blow, and Jalap Coombs, who
stood immediately behind him, grasped his arm.
[Illustration: JALAP AND PHIL’S FATHER HEAR BAD NEWS FROM THE BOYS]
“Don’t ye give up, sir!” he cried, though even his usually hearty tone
was a little shaky. “Your boy Phil ain’t the lad to get lost so as
he can’t find hisself, nor into a scrape that he won’t work his way
out of somehow, not ef I know him, and I think I do. He’s been lost
before _and_ found, same as he will be this time. Why, sir, it wouldn’t
surprise me one mite to see him turn up to-morrow bright _and_
smiling. As my old friend Kite Roberson uster say, ‘Them that’s lost
the oftenest larns best how to take care of theirselves.’”
During the utterance of these homely words of comfort the little party
had been walking up the ascent towards the inspector’s house, and now
within its friendly walls, that had so recently sheltered his boy, Mr.
Ryder learned all that was known concerning Phil and Serge. The former
had gone with a party of egg-hunters to Walrus Islet, and so was away
when the captain of the _Phoca_ was obliged to depart in search of a
poaching sealer of whose operations he had just learned.
“By-the-way, her name was the same as that of the schooner in which you
have just come! Could she have been the same?” asked the inspector.
At this the stricken father groaned aloud, while Jalap Coombs answered,
“I expect she is, sir, though it was all along of a mistake.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said their host, “only it does seem
rather hard. But, to return to my story, your son being away, his
friend set out to fetch him, and went over to Walrus with a native,
whose place Phil was to take for the return trip. They overtook the
egg-hunters just as they were landing, the native was left with them,
and the two lads started to return, in spite of the fact that, as
night, accompanied by a thick fog, was shutting down, the hunters tried
to dissuade them from the attempt.
“Your son shouted back: ‘It’ll be all right――we can’t miss it; and we
must take the chances anyway, for we’re bound to get to Sitka!’ That
was the last seen or heard of them.
“We did not feel any anxiety here until the egg-hunters returned the
following day, for we had not expected that the lads would get back
that night; but when the bidarrah came in without them we knew at once
that something serious must have happened. By questioning the hunters,
I learned that the wind had changed and blown fresh from the southward
soon after the boys left them; also that the tide was flooding, with
a strong current running north between Walrus and St. Paul. It seemed
most likely, therefore, that the lads had been carried so far to the
northward as to miss the island entirely, especially as the night was
of unusual darkness.
“As soon as I obtained these facts I prepared for sea the little
schooner that we use to maintain communication between here and St.
George, manned her with a crew of picked men, and sent her out with
orders to cruise back and forth to the northward of the islands for a
week, in the hope of picking them up. Upon his return the captain of
this vessel reported that he had been as far as one hundred miles to
the northward, keeping the sharpest kind of a lookout all the time, but
without avail.”
“So you do not think there is the slightest chance that we shall ever
see them again?” asked Mr. Ryder, in a voice that betrayed his own
hopelessness.
“I will not say so,” replied the inspector; “for, of course, there are
always chances, and while doubt exists there is also room for hope.”
“Of course there is, sir! a plenty of it and rightly, too!” broke in
Jalap Coombs, who had followed the inspector’s narrative with the
closest attention. “My friend, old Kite Roberson, uster say that Hope
was the thing of all in this world he had the greatest respec’ _and_
admiration for, ’cause ye couldn’t kill it, and every time it got a
knock-down it would pop up agin bright _and_ smiling in some onexpected
place. So I say, let’s tie to Hope, and not give up those boys yet
awhile. This gentleman has kindly give us the dark view of this case,
now ’spose we takes a squint at the bright side.”
“Is there a bright side?” asked Mr. Ryder.
“Wal, I should ruther say so! Not sunlight, maybe, but bright enough to
steer by. To begin with, a bidarkie is one of the best sea-boats there
is long’s ye keep her head to the sea or scudding, and especially if ye
have kamleikas aboard. Did the lads have kamleikas, do ye know, sir?”
“Yes,” replied the inspector; “Phil had his own, and Serge borrowed one
from the native who owned the bidarkie.”
“And how was they off for grub?”
“I don’t believe they had any, except a few eggs that Phil insisted on
taking as specimens for Miss Matthews.”
“Then they couldn’t have been better fixed!” cried the mate. “Eggs is
meat _and_ drink, both in one shell. Why, old Kite Roberson, who was
one of the likeliest navigators as ever trod a deck, uster consider
eggs the main part of a ship’s stores. He knowed every egg island in
three oceans, and uster visit ’em regular. Besides that, he carried
along sich a stock of fowls that, no matter what ship he sailed in, she
was allers called the ‘Hen-coop.’
“So what’s to hender two able young seamen, like Phil and Serge, with
a good sea-boat under their feet and a locker full of the best of
grub, from making a cruise to some one of the islands lying up here to
the nor’ard? Nothing at all, I say. It would be right in the line of
sich lads as they be, and I wouldn’t be one mite surprised ef they was
setting on some handy pint of rock this very minute, straining their
eyes watching for us, and wondering why we didn’t come along.”
“Are there islands to the north of this?” asked Mr. Ryder, with a show
of interest.
“To be sure. There’s St. Matthew, and St. Lawrence, and Nunivack, and
then up in the very middle of the strait, where the United States and
Russia is less’n forty mile apart, is the Stepping Stones, two little
islands with the line running between ’em, and so close together
that an able-bodied biscuit-tosser, standing on the American island,
could toss a biscuit over into Asia. To be sure, they’re nigh on to
a thousand miles from here, and there ain’t no show for the boys to
have fetched up there, nor yet on St. Lawrence, but it’s jest possible
they’ve brung up agin St. Matthew.”
“We’ll go there and see,” exclaimed Mr. Ryder, roused into a new
activity by the ray of hope thus skilfully brought to bear on the
situation by Jalap Coombs.
“Besides,” continued the mate, “the lads has a chance of being picked
up by every one of the vessels cruising in these waters, of which there
is a plenty――men-o’-war, whalers, revenoo-cutters, company ships, and
the like, to say nothing of seal-poachers and walrus-hunters.”
Thus it was decided that the _Philomel_ should continue her search to
the northward, and Mr. Ryder was in a feverish state of anxiety until
they were again off. Before starting, he promised the inspector that,
however their search might result, they would return to the Pribyloffs
and report.
Two weeks later they did so. They had been to St. Matthew, where
countless numbers of polar bears may be seen at all seasons, and
where an outlying cone of basalt rises sheer a thousand feet from the
sea, and like a huge chimney pours forth an unbroken column of black
smoke. They had visited the savage walrus-hunters of Nunivack, and
they had returned to the place from which they started without having
discovered a trace of or heard a word from the missing lads.
Now, with hope wellnigh extinguished in his bosom, though still
lingering as a faint spark, John Ryder came ashore to make his last
inquiry. If he heard nothing here, hope would indeed be dead. He
wondered slightly at the unusual throng gathered on the beach to
welcome them. Suddenly his despair, wonder, and all other feelings were
merged in an overwhelming joy; for, while they were still some distance
off, a clear, ringing voice shouted out:
“We have heard from them, and they are safe!”
“Didn’t I tell ye it would turn out same as old Kite Roberson allers
said?” remarked Jalap Coombs, in a tone of quiet exultation.