IN THE HEART OF BLIZZARDS
Joe estimated that they made their fifteen miles the first day. The
tundra was smooth, and had just snow enough for good traveling. The next,
the dogs, unused to their masters, balked, and they hardly did five, to
their great vexation. The day after was better, and with patience and
firmness they taught the animals that they must obey. Then some rough
traveling bothered them. Still they got on, and at the end of the first
week they had probably eighty miles to their credit. They were hopeful,
and planned to do more the next, but they made Sunday a day of rest.
It was a solemn thing, this cutting loose from friends and supplies and
braving the unknown interior, and it made them thoughtful of observances
that they had neglected in igloo and topek. Harry took from his inner
pocket the little Bible that he had carried all through the trip, and,
opening its pages, stained with Bering Sea water, at random, found the
book of Psalms. He read aloud to Joe, and the simple grandeur of thought
and eloquent beauty of phrase steadied and heartened them both. Then
they talked long of their home and friends, and, resting in the shelter
of their tent while the dogs lay content in the snow outside, felt that
the observance of the day had been worthy, and a wise thing. They made
it their custom thereafter. Yet in all this talk of home Harry never
mentioned Maisie to Joe. But that is not saying he did not think of her.
The fourth day of the next week carried them over a range of hills to a
second, higher table-land. They had been helped in their journey by a
river, on whose level, snow-covered ice they worked southward at a good
rate of speed. Its course seemed fairly direct, and they made in speed
what they lost by not going in a straight line. The four days must have
added nearly another fifty miles to their journey, and Joe was jubilant.
He began to predict that they would reach the Yukon in good season, and
get out by steamer from St. Michael that fall.
The very next morning they waked cold, in spite of their furs, and found
a gray and sunless dawn, across which a keen north wind sang. They
hitched up and pressed on, but the sky grew grayer, and soon the world
was a whirling mass of snow. They drifted before this wind for a mile or
two, the snow getting deeper, and their progress slower every moment.
Soon it was half knee deep, and the load began to be heavy for the dogs.
Now and then they looked up at the boys wistfully, as if wondering why
they did not seek shelter. For two hours they struggled on, not so much
because they wished to as that on the level plain there seemed to be no
cover.
By and by Harry began to wonder if he was dreaming. The snow under foot
seemed to be trodden and the walking easier. Then he began to have what
he thought were fleeting glimpses of shadowy forms that surrounded them,
yet never came near enough to be really seen. He spoke of this to Joe,
who had been plugging along in a sort of weary daze behind the sled while
Harry led the way for the dogs.
Joe waked up at this, and together they examined the ground. There
certainly were countless tracks of hoofs under foot, though the rapidly
falling snow blotted them out very soon.
“They are caribou tracks,” said Harry.
“But where are the caribou?” asked Joe.
“All about us,” replied Harry. “I keep thinking I see them, but the snow
is so thick and blinding that I can’t be sure. See!”
They had stopped during this consultation, and, looking directly back,
they could see dim antlered forms that divided as they approached, and
went to the left and right of them, passing on into the blur of snow.
An immense herd of caribou, perhaps miles long, was drifting before the
gale, and by some strange chance had inclosed them within itself. The
animals, stupid, and dazed by the snow, paid little attention to them,
but pressed aimlessly on, as if blown by the storm. It was a strange
experience, this being the centre of an invisible herd that made a path
for them in the wilderness of snow. It lasted for another hour, and
yet they had hardly a glimpse of the deer. It came to an end when they
reached a broad gully that marked the course of a stream. In the shelter
of the bank of this the snow had drifted deep, and here the tracks
swerved and left them in the snow.
“We’d better camp here,” said Joe. “We’ve had enough for one day, and
here is a good spot.”
The weary dogs dropped panting at the word, but Joe took a rifle from the
sled.
“It seems a shame,” he said, “after they’ve broken a path for us for
hours, but I want one of those caribou.”
He stepped back a few rods into the fog of the storm, and in a moment a
single shot sounded. After making the dogs fast, Harry went back to him.
A fine buck lay dead with a bullet through his heart.
“I could have had more,” said Joe, “but one is all we can carry with our
other luggage.”
As they stood, two gray, shaggy forms sprang out of the storm, and would
have fallen upon the dead caribou, but seeing the boys they hesitated
and drew back with red tongues hanging from between their gleaming white
teeth. A shot from the rifle laid one low, and the other vanished like
a flash. They were gray wolves, which always hang about the flank of
the caribou herds and fall upon the weak or wounded. Half frozen as the
boys were, they skinned and cut up the caribou the first thing. Then in
the shelter of the gulley they set up their tent, and with their meat
and sled-load inside it banked it deep in the drift. For the dogs they
dug a snow igloo and made them fast to the sled, with which they blocked
the entrance to it. Thus the dogs, well fed on deer meat, had shelter
sufficient for their needs in spite of the blizzard. They themselves were
snug in the little tent banked deep in the drift. There was no chance to
get wood for fuel, but here they learned the wisdom of Harluk, who had
insisted that they make a part of their load a seal poke of blubber and
a rude lamp. With this they toasted caribou steak, and it added to the
warmth of their den.
[Illustration: TOILING ON THROUGH THE DRIFTS]
The storm continued for a week, the third since their departure, and
when it broke and they struggled on through the deep drifts, they at
once realized that their progress must be slow indeed. Yet, after all,
they made about ten miles a day by patient toil, one going ahead and
breaking a road for the dogs, the other following the sled and helping it
along. They had ten days of beautiful weather, too, and at their end they
guessed that they had made, altogether, nearly two hundred miles south.
It was early October now, with the Arctic winter well upon them, yet they
did not suffer from the cold, so well had they learned Eskimo methods of
defense against it. To their great delight, about this time they began to
find timber. It was small, it is true, and consisted of scattered clumps
of little birches and alders, with here and there a pigmy fir. They
danced and shouted about this first fir till the dogs no doubt thought
them “molokully.” It seemed like an outpost of the home land of trees,
real trees! They had seen none for a year and a half, and were fairly
homesick for timber. They had wood now for their cooking, yet the timber
was a hindrance to them. The wind-swept and hardened snow gave way under
its protection to soft and fluffy drifts, which made the traveling far
more difficult. And about this time they caught another storm. A genuine
blizzard, this was, with some fall of snow, but mainly wind and cold.
They were obliged to camp, as before, nor did the gale let up for three
weeks. It was maddening, but there was no help for it. These terrific
Arctic gales sometimes last for literal months, and they were fortunate
to escape as they did.
They fed the dogs lightly during their enforced leisure, but even thus
their provisions began to run low, and they were anxious. It began to
look as if it would be months instead of weeks before they reached the
Yukon, yet they were not discouraged. It was better to steadily, though
slowly, progress toward home than to wait in inaction. When fair weather
came, Joe decided that they must hunt before going farther. This they did
for two days steadily, plunging round through the waist-deep snow, with
a fox, a white owl, and several ptarmigan as the result, just about what
they ate during that time. This was not worth while, and they struggled
south again, with the fast lowering sun as a guide. Another week passed
with slow progress, but the timber got thicker and ptarmigan became
plentiful. There was hardly need to shoot these. They were tame enough to
be knocked over with a stick.
It was weary work, and the last of their supplies was gone when they came
out on a low bluff, the bank of a considerable river. Below them, on the
river ice, was a winding mark through the snow. It might be a caribou
trail, and they plunged eagerly down to it.
There were the footprints of moccasins and marks of a sled!
Harry felt much as he thought Robinson Crusoe must have when he saw the
famous footprints in the sand. They had been so long without seeing human
beings that it seemed as if the country must be utterly uninhabited, but
this proved something different. They turned and followed this trail up
river. Then they rounded a bluff, saw smoke and heard the barking of many
dogs, and from a cluster of timber huts a group appeared, and a man came
to greet them.
“Nagouruk, nagouruk,” shouted Joe, and greeted him in Eskimo, to which
the other replied hesitatingly in a few words of the same language.
Others, men, women, and children, poured out of the village and received
the two adventurers hospitably.
“We’ll camp with these people for a while,” said Joe. “We must till we
can get provisions enough to move on.”
Harry assented. Indeed, both boys were heartily tired of their struggle
against the odds of snow and fast approaching darkness. They were
assigned an empty igloo, but preferred to build one of their own out
of wood, brush, and snow, which had the merit of being clean. Their
new-found friends were generous, had plentiful supplies of dried fish and
frozen meat, and the boys lingered with them at first to rest. Later, the
midwinter blizzards made it impossible for them to travel.
The inland Indians of northern Alaska are few, but scattered villages
of them may be found along the larger rivers. They are much like the
Eskimos in their habits and dress, but are taller and of stronger build.
Their dialect is different in many respects from that of their cousins of
the coast, yet they have many words in common, and meet in trade often
enough to be able to talk to one another. The boys learned that the
river on which they dwelt flowed into the sea to the westward, and were
convinced from their chart that they had reached the headwaters of the
Kowak, which empties into Kotzebue Sound. When they talked of going on,
the Indians told them it would be impossible. The snows, they said, were
very deep, which the boys knew to be true. The country to the south was
one of rugged mountains, which they would be unable to cross. Besides,
they argued, what was the need? As soon as any one could travel in the
spring, they themselves were going down river to meet the tribes of the
great sandspit at the meeting of rivers with the sea. Thither, they said,
came all the tribes of the coast to meet those of the rivers and exchange
goods. Sometimes, too, ships appeared, and they would perhaps find white
men there.
Thus, still baffled, the two waited doggedly for the spring, hopeful
still, not giving way to useless repinings, yet very weary of the bonds
of frost that held them fast. The Indians lived a simple life, not so
very different from that of their Eskimo friends. They kept their igloos
in severe weather. When it was mild, they trapped red and white foxes,
wolverines, and ermine, and kept a keen eye out for caribou, whose coming
meant a feast and many hides for traffic in the spring trading-meet, to
which they looked forward. The sun vanished and came again. The winter
solstice passed, and day by day he rode a little higher in the southern
sky. February came and March, with its wild gales, and the flying snow
that drifted back and forth across the country in clouds that obscured
the sun at noon, and sometimes wrapped the igloos deep beneath its
whelming white volumes, again drifted away from them and left them half
bare to the keen winds; then April with its mild air, a sun that left
them little night and settled the snow till it was as hard as a floor
where packed in solid drifts. The Indians prospered, and the boys shared
their prosperity. Early in April a great herd of caribou shambled by the
village, and the whole community turned out to slaughter them. Never
had they killed so many deer; indeed, far more were shot than could be
properly attended to, and many were left to the wolves. There was little
hunting to this. The stupid caribou, running hither and thither, were
shot down with repeating rifles, which are as plentiful among the wild
tribes of Alaska as among civilized hunters. Then the herd, so great that
the slaughter seemed in no wise to diminish it, passed on.
“Our white visitors,” said the head man of the village, “have brought
good fortune with them. There shall be a feast.”
“Look here,” said Harry to Joe privately, on hearing this; “you don’t
suppose this is any seal’s head business, this one, do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Joe, “this is to be a real banquet, I think.”
A real banquet it was, indeed. The largest igloo in the village was the
scene, everybody in the place was present, and the amount of deer meat
eaten was astonishing. Then there followed an entertainment in the nature
of private theatricals. Each hunter in turn gave a description of the
most exciting event in his life, suiting the action to the word, and
making of it an exceedingly interesting and dramatic recital. Humorous
scenes in every-day life, and amusing mishaps in hunting and fishing,
were also acted out in realistic fashion, and brought shouts of laughter
from all.
The crowning number in the entertainment, however, was a cake walk done
by the boys, who blackened their faces with soot and gave the burlesque
with much spirit. They were called upon to repeat this until they were
obliged to quit from sheer weariness, and then they laughed themselves
out of breath at the queer antics of their friends, who began immediately
to imitate this novel form of entertainment. It was the first really
hearty laugh they had had for a long time, and it did them both a world
of good.
Then came the start down river, and the bustle of preparation, together
with the homeward thought, put them in great spirits. Half a dozen
sleds, each with its team of dogs, were piled high with provisions,
caribou hides, fox, ermine, and wolverine pelts, and the whole community
started down the stream on the hard settled snow. The boys computed
that they had a journey of two hundred miles ahead of them, taking into
account the windings of the river, and that their destination was the
sandspit at Hotham Inlet. The Indians verified this on being shown the
chart, and seemed to have a good understanding of a map. They moved by
leisurely stages, stopping often for a day or two to rest or on account
of bad weather. Yet the weather in the main was delightful, varying
between the freezing-point and perhaps zero or a little below, with a
dry air and mainly a bright sun that made it a pleasure to be alive.
In traveling, the head man of the village led, over the hard crust, or
breaking a path through softer snow on rude snowshoes. His own team and
sled followed, then another team with a man or boy leading, and so on.
The women and children strung along between the teams where the snow was
soft, or on either side where it was hard. The dogs were intelligent and
well trained, and the work of guiding them thus in single file was not
difficult.
Early May found them a hundred miles toward their destination, and here,
in one day, many interesting things happened. They had found their two
slabs of whalebone, brought from the Arctic coast, of great value to them
in trade. They had split one of these into small strips and peddled them
out in barter to the men of the tribe, who coveted whalebone, and were
as eager as stage Yankees for a trade. They had bought with this, among
other things, two pair of rude snowshoes, and on the day I speak of,
while the tribe rested, they started down river on an exploring trip. It
was warm and bright, and thawed a little in the sun in sheltered nooks.
The Kowak in its middle course winds among cliffs, carving its way
through high bluffs on one side, leaving alluvial stretches of level
flats at the base of other heights opposite. From one of these sheer
bluffs, facing the south, wind and sun had taken the snow, and as they
approached they saw sticking from the dark soil of its surface white
objects like weather-worn logs of driftwood.
“Funny!” said Joe; “they look like bones, those logs. See, there are
some that look like the knuckle-bone of a ham, and there are others like
rib-bones.”
“Yes,” said Harry, taking up the simile, “and there are two that stick
out of the frozen mud like an elephant’s tusks, only they are curved too
much and about fifteen feet long. Let’s get nearer.”
As they approached, their interest gave way to wonder. The seeming bones
were bones in very truth, piled fantastically and protruding in strange
profusion. Harry climbed by knobs and steps of bone part way up the bluff
and shouted down to Joe.
“These are tusks, mastodon tusks, sticking right out of the bank, and
here is a bit of the skull sticking out with shreds of hide and hair on
it. There must be a whole one frozen into the bluff here.”
Joe climbed up and viewed the remains with him. It really seemed as if,
concealed in the frozen mud behind the great tusks, the whole creature
might be preserved, in cold storage as one might say, kept during the
long centuries, and exposed by the crumbling of the bluff during the rush
of the river torrent in spring. An astonishing number of bones were in
this place, all of the mastodon, and the only explanation seemed to be
that in the forgotten ages when the frozen zone was a warm one and the
mastodon roamed there in large numbers, this ground must have been a deep
bog, in which many of the creatures became mired and were in a great
measure preserved, as peat preserves things. The boys settled it in this
way to their own satisfaction, at least.
“Come on,” cried Joe, in exuberance of spirits, “let’s ride the
elephant.”
“Ride the mastodon, you mean,” replied Harry; and each scrambled for a
tusk. “Get up!” cried Harry, “cooning” along to the tip of his tusk. “Get
up old fellow and give us a ride. Great Scott, he’s moving!”
The tusks of the mastodon, moving together, dipped gently and easily
downward and both boys shot off them into space.
It was a matter of twenty feet to the soft snow, and they plunged into it
out of sight.
Behind them came the great tusks, hundreds of pounds of weathered ivory,
plunging through the snow nearer the base of the cliff. They missed the
two by a little, but they missed them. Harry felt himself smothered in
a whirl of snow, then falling again for a short distance, and finally
brought up on a soft turf, where he lay for a moment half dazed by the
thud with which he struck. Then he scrambled to his feet and looked
around. He was in a low-roofed, wide cavern, dusky with a greenish pale
twilight. Joe was sitting up on the ground by his side, rubbing his elbow
and leg alternately and looking foolish, as no doubt he felt.
“Where are we, anyway?” asked Joe, and the query was pertinent if the
answer which he got was not.
“Riding the elephant,” replied Harry, with a rueful grin.
Over their heads, ten feet away in the snow roof through which they had
come, were four holes which let in the nebulous twilight by which they
saw. They and the mastodon tusks had come that way. To get back was
another matter.
They looked about with much curiosity not untempered with dismay. They
were beneath the crust of an enormous drift that the winter storms had
whirled over the mastodon cliff. Under their feet was a mixture of mud
and bones from the cliff, carpeted with grass and moss. Around them grew
willows. The slender top branches of these had been caught by the first
damp snow of early autumn and bent beneath it till they twined, holding
the bulk of it up. This had frozen there and the succeeding snows had
piled above it, leaving the place free, an ideal natural cold frame for
the shrubs and grass of the bottom land. These appreciated the shelter,
and feeling the thrill of spring in their dark world, were already
putting forth young green leaves. Up and down stream the cavern extended
indefinitely. On one side it ended abruptly against the cliff, on the
other it tapered down to the river ice, already worn thin on its edge
and beginning to thaw.
For an hour they wandered back and forth in this strange cavern, their
eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. It was fortunate that this
had not happened a few weeks later. Then the freshening flood of the
river would no doubt have drowned them like rats in a hole. Now they
were free—to wait for the flood, unless they could get out. But both
boys were Yankees, and there is always a way out of a scrape, though it
sometimes takes a Yankee to find it. Joe suggested that they climb the
stubby willows and thence dig their way up, but his plan failed, for he
could not get footing enough to get through the snow. Instead, he fell
again to the bottom and rubbed his other leg. Harry suggested the plan
that ultimately succeeded. With his knife he cut stout willow stakes and
sharpened them at the end. Then walking toward the ice till they were
blocked by the low roof, they began to dig a tunnel slanting upward and
outward. It was a long dig through frozen crust and layers of damp snow,
but they finally emerged like ground squirrels in the spring, and found
the glare of the sun on the snow quite blinding.
That night in camp the head man of the tribe came to the boys to trade.
He wanted more whalebone, and he offered them things which they had not
seen before. These were rough ornaments of green jade, some mere bits of
stone, others rudely chipped into shapes. One of these was a rude image
of Buddha such as Harry had seen in Chinese collections. Harry marveled
at this greatly, but the Indian could give no explanation concerning it
except that his father had got it in trade from a coast native. By what
strange mutations this had come from its Oriental fatherland may never
be known, but the north has its routes of trade as have other regions.
Things go from hand to hand among the tribes, and this had probably
passed in centuries of time through Tartar tribes to the Chuckchis, over
to the Diomedes, down the coast to Hotham Inlet, and up the river to the
father of the head man. Now it was on its way back to the sea, and may
ultimately reach its fatherland by circumnavigating the globe. Who knows?
It was while examining these jade ornaments that Harry noted something
else that gave him a start of surprise. He thought at first it was a
yellow and dirty image of a seal carved from a walrus tooth, such as
he had bought at the Diomedes as a curio and lost in the sinking of the
Bowhead. He picked this up carelessly and was astonished at its weight.
He put the point of his knife to it and it left a clear, dull yellow
streak. Then he passed it to Joe without a word.
It was a two ounce nugget of pure gold, hammered or carved into that rude
semblance of a seal which is the delight of the Eskimo image maker. Joe’s
eyes snapped at sight of it and he bought it forthwith, though he had to
give a good deal of bone for it. The head man had seen his eyes snap when
Harry handed it to him, and made him pay accordingly.
The head man could not tell whence this little image of pure gold came
except that he had got it in trade from a man of the coast tribes who
came in to the sandspit to trade from along the coast to the south.
Like the jade Buddha, it might have passed from hand to hand for a long
distance.
As they continued their journey, another tribe joined them, coming down a
tributary of the Kowak; then others came, and soon the little expedition
was a large one, steadily and leisurely progressing down river. It was
toward the end of May. The days were long and warm; indeed, there was no
night, for though the sun set for a few hours each day, only a gentle
twilight marked his absence. The tributaries from the hills were running
free of ice and threatened to flood the surface of the river, which was
still solid. Signs of the spring break-up were numerous, and when the
little army reached a long winding canyon among abrupt hills, there was
much discussion whether they should continue on the ice or take to the
banks. The easy but unsafe route of the main river ice was decided upon,
and they entered between the hills and pressed on. They traveled rapidly
now, and there was much uneasiness among the Indians, who seemed to fear
something from behind. The ice was solid in the main, yet in spots it was
flooded, and the increase in volume and rush of the water beneath had
worn holes through it in other places. They pressed on with all the speed
they could command, watchful always of the menace from behind.
It was on the second day that it came. They were between perpendicular
bluffs, difficult if not impossible to climb, when a shout went up from
those in the rear. As if at a signal, every one stopped and listened.
Far behind them could be heard a dull sound, faint, yet ominous. Somehow
it reminded Harry of a still spring night when he had been boating late
on the Charles River, and had heard across the water the steady hum
of electric cars, speeding hither and thither in the city, a vibrant
undertone like the quivering of tense wires in a gale.
A shout went from one end of the long line of sledges to the other.
“Emik kile! Emik kile! Gur!” it said. “The water is coming! The water is
coming! Go!”
At the word dogs and men, women and children, sprang from listening
immobility into intense action. The dogs surged against their collars,
and the sleds bounded forward. The men, shouting, ran beside them, urging
them on with whip and voice. Mothers caught their smaller children to
their shoulders, the older ones scampered beside them, and all rushed
forward down the river, fleeing from that menacing hum, which was drowned
for the moment by their own uproar. On they went, splashing across the
flooded places, daring the thin edges of the water-holes, unmindful of
the danger under foot, thinking only of what was bearing down upon them,
still miles behind. As they plunged on, they scanned the rude cliffs
anxiously for a gully or a break that would give them passage to the
upland, but they found none. Little need to lash the dogs; their own
instinct told them the danger only too well. Their tawny sides panted,
and their tongues hung from their dripping jaws.
A half mile, and still no escape to the right or the left. The women and
children kept up with wonderful endurance, yet the pace was telling on
them, and the weaker already lagged behind.
They had ceased to shout and urge one another on now. The race for life
took all their breath. Out of the unknown distance behind them the low
vibrant hum had increased to a grinding roar, in which there were sounds
like cannon-shots,—the bursting of the ice under the pressure of the
oncoming flood. Just ahead of Harry a youngster stumbled, then sprang to
his feet, limping badly. The fall had wrenched his ankle, and he could
no longer run. Harry hesitated for a second. There was an indescribable
terror of that mighty uproar thrilling through him. What was the life
of a little Indian boy to him? But it was only for a second, this
hesitation. Then with a gasp of shame at the thought, he snatched the
youngster to his shoulder, and ran on, panting for breath, his nerves
quivering with the bodily fear which no man can avoid, yet strong in the
determination that his manhood should not fail in the crisis.
The roar of the flood suddenly grew louder yet, and he looked behind
as he fled. Round a bend in the river he caught a glimpse of what was
coming. The ice sprang into the air in great cakes, that were caught by
a white wall behind and crushed into whirling rubble. It did not seem to
come fast, this great white wall of ice and foam, yet it gained on them
rapidly. In this look behind he saw Joe. He was near the end of the line
of flight, helping along an Indian grandmother, who bore in her arms her
little granddaughter, while the mother with a babe stumbled along at her
side, her black eyes wide with terror. Their dogs with the loaded sled
had outrun them both in this wild race.
Cries of encouragement sounded ahead once more. Those in the front of
flight had seen a gully in the bluffs through which they might escape.
Harry saw them turn toward this, and he stumbled and gasped along under
his burden with renewed hope. Dogs and men foremost in the race leaped
into this gully and scrambled upward. He was near it now, running in a
sort of bad dream, with the tremendous crushing roar of the flood seeming
to whelm him in its waves of sound. Cannon boomed in this uproar, volleys
of musketry pulsed through it, and the steady hoof-beats of the white
horse cavalry of the flood rolled deafeningly on. Now he was at the bank,
and plunging up it, too weak to do anything more than drop with his
burden at the safety line. He was among the last to reach safety, but Joe
was behind him.
The Indian mother with her babe was at the edge of the ice. Twenty
feet behind them were Joe and the older woman and the child. Behind
them again, not a dozen rods away, rolled the great white wave in the
forefront of the flood. The river ice swelled to meet this wave. It
rounded up, bulged, burst, and was tossed in the air in huge cakes,
springing a dozen feet upward, engulfed in the white seething wall as
they came down. In front of this the grandmother fell, sending the girl
rolling ahead of her on the ice. Joe snatched up the child, turned as
if to help the woman, and then the ice lifted under him, sending him
spinning toward the bank. A moment and the ice burst beneath his feet. A
great cake rose and tossed him up, still clinging to the child, and then
he was half smothered, bruised, and soaked in a whirl of ice-cold water,
and sank and rose on the edge of the flood, washed into the eddy that
whirled in the gully, and still he clung half unconsciously to the child.
It was the little one’s father that pulled him out, with Harry a good
second, yet distanced by paternal love. The flood was roaring through the
canyon, breaking its fierce way to the sea, but the careless travelers
were safe from its tumult; all but the old grandmother, whose devotion
to the child had cost her her life. She had found the death that is so
common to the Eskimo and the other folk of the wild north,—to vanish into
the white arms of the flood, or go out to sea with the ice.
They traveled on by land, over melting snow, and across ravines in which
splashed torrents. The Kowak was open to the sea, and summer navigation
had begun.