INTO THE WILDERNESS.
Skookum Joe, equipped with a dog tent and some provisions, had been left
on the point of the junction of the Lewes River and Gold Creek, to await
the arrival of the down-river steamer of the Yukon and White Pass Railroad
Company to arrive that day, and he waved them a friendly farewell as the
Indians slowly poled their boats out into the stream. The current of Gold
Creek was by no means as swift as that of the Lewes, and, while Swiftwater
Jim took command of one boat, Rand was made captain of the other. Both
boats had been built with narrow walking boards along the sides after the
manner of the celebrated pole boats that plied on the Mississippi and its
tributaries in the upstream journies in Lincoln's time. One of the boys
was told off to work with the three Indians in each boat for short
stretches at a time, thus placing two men on each side with poles about
twelve feet long, while the commander of each boat with a long oar gave an
occasional impulse to the direction in the way of steering, although
little of this was necessary. Two of the pole men would start at the bow
of the boat, placing their poles on the bottom of the creek and walk the
full length of the "running board." As they reached the stern, two others
would start at the bow and walk down the boat while their predecessors
returned to the bow.
The Indians seemed to be able to continue this performance without
intermission, and feel no fatigue from it, but the Scout who was detailed
to aid the Indians soon found himself suffering from a peculiar aching in
the side and back, that Swiftwater described as the "Siwash Curve," due
entirely to the fact that the white man in poling up a river would exert
himself in a way that the average Indian considered unprofessional, and
would try to hold back, thus adding to the "white man's burden." He
insisted that the white man usually got over this after the first day's
work, and tried to make it pleasant for the Siwash ever after. He limited
the trick of each boy at the pole for the first day to one hour, and he
himself and Rand took their own turns at the poles to relieve the aching
and untried muscles of the younger Scouts. Soon after leaving the sandy
banks and tundra of the lower stream, the creek began to wind its way
through dense forests of spruce, poplar and oak with the ghostly bark of
the birch lighting up the dim that marks the tangled wildwood of more
southern climates, showing how little the sunlight of these northern
climes penetrated the overshadowing canopy.
"Fine woods for huntin'," remarked Swiftwater to Jack, as they poled
slowly up stream, "also for travelin' in winter. Bresh won't grow very far
in from the streams this far north. Great country for garden stuff
howsomever."
"Do you mean to say that vegetables will grow this far north?" inquired
the interested reporter.
"Finest garden sass in the world in some sections. Why, there's a valley
between the Yukon and the Tanana, three hundred miles north of here, that
can grow anything but bananas and cocoanuts. I'm told they grow bigger
potatoes and cabbages, and carrots and other plain, ordinary cooking
vegetables up there within a couple of hundred miles of the Arctic Circle
than they do down in Oregon, where every man's truck patch looks like the
floral hall at the county fair when I was a boy."
"How can anything ripen in the short summers up here?" asked Don.
"All vegetation has got to have light, and the more it has the harder it
will grow. Sun up here is on the job all the time. Reminds me of the year
that I started out to be star performer with old John Robinson's circus
back in Injianny. Got up at three a. m. to help feed the animals and
hosses, and assist the chef in the cook tent; waited on table for the
canvas men and other nobility from six to nine a. m., 'doubled in brass'
as the sayin' goes, with the band, by carryin' the front end of the bass
drum in the gra-a-nd street parade, wore a toga as a Roman senator in the
great entree, handled jugglin' and other apparatus durin' two
performances, and at midnight helped to take down the big top. The other
three hours I had to myself. I don't mean to say that the sun up here in
the summer time performs all those gymnastics, but he works the same
number of hours and everything up here that wants to live must keep right
up with him. Ground is frozen twenty feet deep, and thaws out about
eighteen inches in the summer time. That furnishes moisture. Consequently,
grass and vegetable are on the jump all the time, working twenty hours a
day, and they manage to mature. Oats and other grains that have to grow
long stalks, I understand, however, never top out."
The work of poling the boats up stream was varied at times by what
Swiftwater described as "canal work." At stretch where the banks of the
stream were reasonably high and precipitous, and the water of considerable
depth close to the shore, the three Indians in each boat fastened
themselves tandem to a long cable stretched from the bow of the boat to
the shore, and towed the craft for miles at a time, while one of the boys
with the long steering oar kept the bow away from the shore and headed up
stream. This method was considerable relief from the steady poling which
told perceptibly upon the back and shoulders of the novice, and it formed
a method of rest for the Indians. The progress was about three miles per
hour, and the boys alternately spent considerable time ashore, walking
along the banks and occasionally relieving one or two of the Indians in
the harness. The miner on the occasion of these tows spent most of his
time ashore, directing the Indians and making frequent excursions into the
neighboring forest with one or the other of the young Scouts, examining
the timber and pointing out the peculiarities of the different trees. He
carried with him a repeating shotgun, and was constantly on the lookout
for game, both birds and mammals.
"Might run across a caribou," said he, "but I scarcely think so this time
of year. Besides, up here he doesn't take to heavy timber like this same
as he does in Maine and the Kanuck provinces. He runs in droves of
hundreds and thousands up this way, and seems to like the scrub timber."
A short time before noon they came to a sharp bend in the creek where the
nature of the bank hid the current ahead from the boys in the two boats.
Suddenly the Indians towing the leading craft stopped, and as three held
it against the current, the leader of the team beckoned to Swiftwater, who
had fallen behind.
"Carry," he said, briefly, to the latter as he came up, and pointed to the
stream ahead.
"He means a portage," said the miner to Jack, who was walking with him, as
they topped the rise, they went forward to inspect the creek. Directly in
front of them where the stream had made a turn, the heavy timber of the
forest had retreated back from the water for several hundred yards and the
elevated shore sank to almost the level of the water, and became half
swamp and half meadow, covered with tufts of grass, and nearer the woods
with a stunted growth of brush and small dwarf birches. Gold Creek itself
spread out to nearly twice its former width, with innumerable little
sandbars and a few boulders protruding from the bottom. Even Jack's
unpractised eye could see that the current had no depth of any moment.
"Stake out," said Swiftwater to the Indians. "We'll have to portage." The
Indians at once drove the steel anchorage stakes which they carried into
the soil and drew the bow of the boats up against the bank and took
similar precautions with the stern of each. The Scouts had all joined Jack
and Swiftwater at the top of the bank, where the commander of the
expedition pointed out that the widening of the Gold had so reduced the
depth of the channel that it would be impossible to take the fully loaded
boats over the route. As a result most of the cargo if not all of it would
have to be unloaded, and perhaps "toted" around the shallow to the deep
water of the channel.
"A good deal of work, isn't it?" inquired Dick.
"There's no freighting de luxe up in this country that I ever found,"
replied the miner. "We shall be lucky if we can get along without a
'carry.' First thing we've got to know is how much water we're drawing on
each boat fore and aft. Gerald, you're nominated boat measurer, and you
can take Pepper with you. You will find two or three lumber gauges in the
dunnage in the rear boat. Each of you take one, and let me know at once
what each boat is drawing. Rand, you and Dick are leadsmen of this voyage,
and you will each take a pair of knee boots and a lumber gauge and follow
the channel of the Creek from shore to shore and give me the greatest
depth of water you can find in a continuous channel up to where the creek
narrows again and the water will naturally deepen. If you will wait a few
minutes we will give you the data to work on. Jack, you and I will take up
a job of stevedorin' and get our longshoremen to work. You take three of
these Injuns and get to work unloading this first boat, and I'll take the
others and rustle cargo on the other. Most o' these pieces can be jacked
up the gangplanks, but where they're too heavy in either boat we'll call
all hands and get 'em ashore."
By this time, Gerald and Pepper were armed with two slim painted
woodstaffs, not unlike the wands of the Boy Scouts, but marked with
figures, and having at one end a movable arm about two inches long that
could be screwed fast at any point. These they fastened at the extreme end
of each gauge, and hooked them under the bottoms of the boats and marking
the top of the water were able to tell just what each boat was drawing.
They found, however, that the boats did not trim exactly even, and that at
one point or another, bow or stern, the draught was more or less by
perhaps an inch. The general average was about twenty-six inches in one
boat and twenty-eight inches in the other.
"These here ocean greyhoun's had a displacement, as they say in ocean
goin' craft, of six inches before they were loaded," said Swiftwater,
"when I had 'em measured in White Horse, and if the channel anywhere above
here peters out to that it's a case of carrying all this stuff around this
meadow land. If we can get even two inches above that the job'll be
easier." With the above figures in mind, Rand and Dick plunged into the
shallows of the broad channel. Working from rock to sandbar, and bar to
boulder, they followed the deepest pools in a tortuous path that
corkscrewed nearly from one shore to another, and in an hour's time were
able to report to Swiftwater that they could find passageway sufficiently
wide for the boats with a minimum depth of fourteen inches.
When they made their report to Swiftwater, a look of intense satisfaction
crossed his face, and he remarked:
"Wa-al, I guess that cuts out one big engineerin' problem that might o'
kept us here a week. Hustle that freight off; smallest pieces first." The
channel figures were reported to Gerald and Pepper, and they were
instructed to measure frequently the draught of the boats as the stuff was
moved ashore, and to report to the miner when the draught was reduced to
eleven inches.
"Better be on the safe side," he remarked. "Poor place to move freight if
we should get stuck out there through any mistake of our survey men."
So fast had the Indians worked while the leadsmen were in the channel that
it required but a few minutes more to reduce the draught of the batteaus
to the scale.
"S-s-say," said Pepper with an anxious look, "isn't it a long time since
breakfast? I can hardly remember it."
Swiftwater grinned.
"It surely is, Pepper," he said, "and I guess we'll camp right now and do
a little business with the inner man before we go any further. I'm apt to
become int'rested at times, and forget all about that other feller."
At his orders the Indians constructed a small fireplace, and the voyagers
were soon sitting about on the bank and boats enjoying with eight hour
appetites, strong black tea, ship's biscuits and canned baked beans, to
which they did full justice.
As soon as the meal was over, Swiftwater ordered all six Indians to
harness themselves to a single boat, and placed Rand in it to handle the
steering oar while he himself waded along with the Indians over the
shallows to direct their movements, Dick accompanying him to point out the
channel. The current was very sluggish, and rapid progress was made over
the half mile that intervened before reaching deep water again. Arrived at
the desired point the boat was tied to the bank and the remaining cargo
quickly removed. Then with all hands aboard, and poles in hand the crew
floated the scow back to their former landing place. Here two of the
Indians were left to work with Gerald, Jack, Pepper and Don in replacing
cargo on the empty boat while the other was towed up stream and unloaded.
The first trip had been so easy and successful that Swiftwater told Gerald
to allow a load sufficient to give thirteen inches draught. The second
boat returning was loaded to the same capacity, leaving still a small
amount of cargo, requiring a third trip for one of the boats. On this last
trip the boat also took in the boys, and as the Indians had by this time
learned the channel the trip was made by poling without mishap.
By the middle of the afternoon the cargo had all been replaced on the two
boats, and the miner announced that as they could not reach their
destination before dark they would make camp and take the rest of the day
to themselves. At this point the forest came down close to the water's
edge, and the ground was high and dry, and Swiftwater told the boys to
"camp out" if they so desired, and had double tarpaulins placed on the
ground for them and "dog tents" erected for them near the Indians.
A roaring big fire was built, and one of the Indians told off to keep it
up. The Scouts thought it was very soldierlike. They talked excitedly for
a while, and being weary fell into an early deep sleep. Later there was a
good deal of restlessness and turning and twisting. Then through the
starlight, occasionally a mysterious figure could be dimly discerned
stealing silently toward the boats. There was a quiet grin on the face of
Swiftwater, who had bunked on one of the boats, when he arose at an early
hour and found three recumbent figures sleeping peacefully on the
comfortable mattresses in his own boats, and on going ashore saw that the
"dog tents" were empty.
"Not quite seasoned yet," he said to himself, as he quietly awakened the
Indians.