SERGE RECOVERS A BIT OF LOST PROPERTY
On hearing the surprising and unexpected proposition made by the
leader of the fur-traders at the close of the last chapter, Phil and
Serge looked inquiringly at each other. Both of them were greatly
pleased with Gerald Hamer, who displayed the strength of character,
combined with an engaging frankness, that always appeals to manly lads,
especially when exhibited by one a little older than themselves.
“What do you say, Serge?”
“I’d love to do it.”
“So would I.”
“I don’t know what else we can do, anyway. I’m sure we don’t want to go
to China under the circumstances, and we haven’t any money to live on
here while waiting for some schooner to come along and take us away.”
“No,” said Phil; “and, as it is now well on into August, we might have
to wait all winter, which would be horrid.”
“It would be a splendid chance to see the country.”
“So it would, and that is just what I came North for; while, thus
far, I haven’t seen much except the waters surrounding it, and a few
islands. If it wasn’t for my father, I’d say ‘yes’ quick enough. But
what will he think?――in fact, what must he be thinking now? If I could
only get word to him, somehow, that I was all right, and that there
wasn’t the slightest cause for anxiety.”
“And if I could only send some comforting message to my poor dear
mother,” reflected Serge.
“There is a chance to do that,” said Gerald Hamer, “which I suppose I
ought to have mentioned in the first place. This steamer is obliged
to stop somewhere near the Pribyloff Islands on her return voyage,
to drop the native pilot who belongs there, and whom they are under
contract to return. You might send letters by him as far as that, and
run the chance of their being forwarded. I suppose you might make some
arrangement to go that far yourselves as well, though I am afraid
Captain Kuhn would charge a tidy sum for your passage. Still, if you
want to ask him, and he is well enough to see you, I will――”
“We don’t,” interrupted Phil, resolutely. “We haven’t any money with
which to pay for a passage to the Pribyloffs, and I, for one, wouldn’t
go near them again, even if I owned the steamer――in fact, I am tired
and sick of this miserable, cold, foggy Bering Sea, and long to get
away from it. It seems to me that a trip on dry land is the thing I
should most enjoy just at present. So, if――”
“Don’t conceive a false impression of what I am proposing,” laughed
Gerald Hamer. “Most of my coming journey is to be made on the waters
of the Yukon, and will be filled with hardships and trials. There will
be fine hunting of moose, deer, bear, and other such game, if you care
for that; but not much else in the way of recreation. Then, the last
part of the trip will be made in arctic weather, over snowy plains and
frozen lakes, up ice-bound rivers, and through mountain passes where
the drifts will be hundreds of feet deep.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Phil. “You did mention ‘snow-shoes and sledges.’
That settles it. I have always wanted to be an arctic explorer, and I’d
rather take a dog-sledge and snow-shoe journey than anything else in
the world. Besides, as it really seems to be the only way for us to get
to Sitka, it would be worse than foolish for us to throw away such a
good chance. I’ve done so many foolish things already on this journey
that I don’t mean to be guilty of another between here and Sitka. So,
Mr. Hamer, we not only accept your offer, but thank you heartily for
making it, and are ready to go with you this very minute. Aren’t we,
Serge?”
“It’s just as you say,” laughed Serge. “So long as I got you into this
scrape, I’m bound to see you through it, and stick by you till we get
to Sitka, if it takes the rest of my natural life.”
“You’re a trump, old man!” cried Phil, heartily, clapping his friend on
the shoulder as he spoke. “And our motto, like that of the fellow who
was bound across the plains to Pike’s Peak, shall be ‘Sitka, or bust!’
I’m awfully glad, though, that you feel as you do about having got me
into a scrape, for I had a sort of uneasy notion that it was I who had
brought you into one.”
While Phil and Serge were writing the letters to be sent back by
Nikrik, the _Norsk_ floated off the mud-bank, and proceeded to an
anchorage nearly three miles off St. Michaels, a nearer approach being
barred by shoal water.
St. Michaels is the most northerly of the Alaska Fur Company’s
trading-posts, and is also the most northerly settlement of white men
in Alaska. To be sure, there are two or three lonely whites in charge
of the Government Reindeer Station at Port Clarence, one hundred miles
farther north, while away up on the bleak shore of the Arctic Ocean,
at the extreme northern point of the American mainland, the Stars and
Stripes wave proudly above another brave little band, who maintain the
Government Relief Station of Point Barrow.
St. Michaels consists of the company’s store and warehouse, an old
loop-holed block-house, some twenty residences, a Greek church painted
red, a school-house, and the few scattered huts or tents of visiting
natives. It is located on the bluff, seaward point of a small barren
island situated eighty miles north of the great Yukon delta, and
affording the first bit of coast available for white occupation in all
that distance of limitless swamps and mud-flats. As it is the only
point at which sea-going vessels can approach anywhere near the coast,
it is the great transfer station for the entire Yukon River trade,
which, beyond here, is carried on by means of small stern-wheeled
steamboats of less than three feet draught. It was on the island of St.
Michaels, therefore, that Gerald Hamer proposed to land his cargo, set
up his steamboat, and prepare for his long trip into the distant and
almost unexplored interior.
As soon as the steamer _Norsk_ came to anchor, he borrowed our lads’
bidarkie, and, taking only Nikrik with him, went ashore to select a
landing-place and camp site. It was late in the afternoon when he
returned alone, wearied by his hard trip and angry at the reception
with which he had met, but more determined than ever to proceed with
his undertaking, in spite of all obstacles. The Alaska Company had for
so long monopolized the fur trade of the vast region drained by the
mighty Yukon and its tributaries that they were furious at the prospect
of a rival, and determined to prevent it from establishing itself, if
possible. Their annual supply-ship from San Francisco, bringing a large
stock of merchandise, several new clerks, and the news of the world,
including that of the formation of a rival company, had arrived and
departed shortly before the coming of the _Norsk_. Consequently, when
Gerald Hamer went ashore and introduced himself to the agent in charge,
he was very coldly received, and was forbidden to land his cargo within
the limits of the post.
Upon his return, which he was obliged to make alone, Nikrik having
disappeared among the huts of the visiting natives, the young
fur-trader called his men together and addressed them as follows:
“Lads, we’ve got a fight on our hands. The people on shore say that
we sha’n’t land. The whole settlement is a trading-post belonging to
the old company, who have fenced it in, as well as a long strip of the
best beach. The only other place where we could make a landing is on
a bit of beach just beyond their line, and I think they mean to fence
and claim that to-morrow. Now, I don’t intend to interfere with any
one’s established rights, nor am I inclined to yield my own. That strip
of unfenced beach is government land, to which our right is as good
as theirs. I propose, therefore, to steal a march on them by making a
landing to-night with a raft of lumber, staking out a claim, and having
our shanties up before morning. What do you say? Are you with me?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” came the hearty shout of the entire party, and then,
in individual voices: “That we are!” “Only you lead the way, and
we’ll follow close enough!” “We’ll euchre them yet!” “I’d like to see
them try to drive us off from Uncle Sam’s land!” and so on, until the
smiling leader raised his hand for silence.
“Thank you, men,” he said, simply. “I knew I could depend on you, and
now let us get to work.”
All night long, under the skilful direction of the leader, the labor
progressed steadily and cheerfully. Boats plied incessantly between
ship and shore, a huge raft of lumber was floated to the beach, and
when, some hours after sunrise, the sleepy inmates of Fort St.
Michaels issued from their houses, they stared with amazement at what,
but the evening before, had been a stretch of vacant land just beyond
their boundary. Now, a large portion of it, including the beach, was
staked out, a landing of log crib-work filled with rocks projected into
the water, two rough board shanties and a dozen tents had been erected,
camp-fires were blazing cheerily, and the sturdy colonists of this new
settlement were busily eating their well-earned breakfasts.
In all this work Phil and Serge had displayed such willingness and
activity as to draw forth the hearty approval of Gerald Hamer. Through
the night he seemed to be everywhere, and in all places at once,
always ready to lend a helping hand or speak a cheering word, and at
breakfast-time Phil confided to Serge that, under such leadership,
Sitka really seemed nearer at hand than it had since they started from
Victoria.
As it had been begun, so the work progressed with perfect method and
the utmost expedition. In ten days after the _Norsk’s_ arrival, her
entire cargo was on shore and under cover, the steamboat was ready to
be launched and receive her machinery, and it seemed certain that,
early in September, the Yukon party would be off. All this had been
accomplished in the face of heavy odds, and every impediment had been
thrown in the way of the new company by the old settlers. If Gerald
Hamer hired native laborers, threats and bribes were used to induce
these to desert him. Those who did work for him were paid in silver
coin, which was pronounced worthless at the company’s store, and
refused when offered in exchange for goods.
Native spies in the employ of the old company lurked about the camp
at all hours; tools were stolen, or rendered worthless, at every
opportunity, and boats were set adrift, or had holes bored in their
bottoms during the night.
At length Gerald Hamer asked Phil and Serge if they would get what
sleep they could in the daytime, and act as camp-guards at night. “I
feel that I can trust you two implicitly,” he said.
They willingly agreed to do this, and on that very night, while
they were patrolling opposite sides of the camp, Serge sprang upon
a skulking figure who, by a violent effort, wrenched himself free
and escaped, leaving only a broken watch-chain in the lad’s hand. To
his unbounded amazement, when he and Phil examined this trophy by
lantern-light, he found attached to it, as a charm, the identical bit
of carved ivory that he had given to his comrade in New London, and
which the latter had lost so long ago.
“The fur-seal’s tooth!” he cried, almost doubting the evidence of his
eyes.
“It certainly is!” exclaimed Phil, as he examined it curiously.
“There must be magic in it, or how could it possibly have come here?”
added Serge.
“Let me have that bit of chain and the rest of those charms, and I’ll
find out what magic there is about it,” said Phil, mysteriously.
Serge gave them to him, and on the following day Phil went, for the
first time, to the company’s store in the trading-post.
“Do you know to whom these belong?” he asked of the first man he met,
at the same time displaying the trophy captured the night before.
“Why, yes,” answered the man, examining them closely. “They belong to
that fellow over there.”
Turning in the direction indicated, Phil beheld the man who, he
believed, had injured him more than any one else in the world――Simon
Goldollar.