A PARSON AT THE WHEEL
Phil had been sitting alone in the pilot-house, where, in the chill
darkness, the weight of his responsibility seemed almost too great to
be borne. He had held out bravely until this moment, but now it seemed
as though a great black wall of difficulty was reared against him, and
that it was gradually enclosing him on all sides. The many channels
revealed by the waning light of that day must all be explored ere the
right one could be determined. Phil dared not consider how many days
might thus be spent, for he knew he had no days nor even hours to spare.
At any moment now the river might close, and once caught in the
relentless fetters of its ice the _Chimo_ must remain motionless until
crushed and swept away by the resistless fury of the spring floods. In
the meantime what would become of her little company, stranded there in
the open river, exposed to the full fury of arctic blasts, remote from
human habitation, and equally so from any visible supply of fuel? They
had not even the fur clothing without which none may spend a winter in
that region.
To be sure, as soon as the ice would bear them they might make their
way to some wretched native village, and there drag out a miserable
existence during the long winter months. Even in that sorry retreat
there could be no hope for Gerald Hamer, who must either be left behind
to perish, or taken with them to meet an equally certain fate from
exposure. As poor Phil reflected on these things he asked himself why
he had so obstinately forced the expedition farther and farther into
the wilderness, day after day, until he had at length brought it to
this danger point. Why had he not laid the boat up in the first winter
harbor that offered? He could remember that they had passed several
very good ones, some of which were in the vicinity of Eskimo villages.
Why? Because he had made up his mind to reach Anvik, and declared his
intention of doing so, and his Yankee grit was not of the kind to be
daunted by obstacles nor turned back by them from an uncompleted duty.
Why? Because he had promised Captain Hamer to carry him to Anvik. Phil
Ryder did not often make promises, being opposed to them on general
principles, but when he did make one he kept it. Why? Because while he
was thus thinking, that cheery voice came ringing out of the darkness,
bringing with it such a thrill of hope and relief that just to hear it
was worth all the toil and anxiety expended in reaching that point.
Serge was down in the galley cooking supper, and whistling a melancholy
little tune, that tried its best to sound cheerful as he did so. Poor
Isaac, the millwright, homesick, grief-stricken, and despairing, was
working by lantern-light on a rude coffin for his dead comrade. Mr.
Sims, morose and silent, was busy with his machinery, while Gerald
Hamer tossed wearily but weakly beneath the piled-up coverings of his
narrow bed.
All heard the first shout of that unknown voice, and each suspended
operations to listen. When it came again, and they heard Phil’s
answering hail, all rushed to the gangway on that side, that is, all
except the sick man, and there, holding flashing lanterns to guide
him, they excitedly awaited the approach of the unknown.
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE UNKNOWN]
While they peered vaguely into the gloom, listening for the slatting
of sails or the rattle of oars, he suddenly swept alongside, seated in
an Eskimo kyak or skin boat, very similar to the one in which Phil and
Serge had made their perilous voyage on Bering Sea a month before, only
much smaller.
They could see that he was a white man, wearing a thick, close-cut
brown beard; but otherwise he might easily have been mistaken for a
native, so completely was he enveloped in a kamleika. The hood of this
was drawn over his head, while its ample skirts were fastened to the
coaming of the hatch in which he sat, so as to prevent the entrance of
water.
“Well, if this isn’t a bit of good-fortune, then I don’t know what
good-fortune is!” he exclaimed, smiling up at the eager faces peering
at him from the steamer’s side. “May I come aboard?”
“May you come aboard?” cried Phil. “Well, sir, I rather think you may,
for even if you didn’t want to, I am afraid we should capture you and
drag you on board by force. Why, we couldn’t be more delighted to see
you if you were the President of the United States himself.”
“I doubt if you can be half as happy to see me as I am to meet with you
thus fortunately and unexpectedly,” laughed the stranger.
“In that case,” replied Phil, “you must be the very happiest person in
the world, for you have made me almost that.”
During this interchange of courtesies the stranger had been unlashing
his kamleika, and now, stepping lightly from his fragile craft, he
gained the deck, to which his kyak was also lifted.
“Ah! but this is cosey and comfortable,” he remarked, as he entered
the well-lighted mess-room, which opened from the galley and was
warmed by its glowing stove. Serge had just finished his preparations
for supper, and the well-laden mess-table did indeed present a sight
calculated to cheer the heart of a hungry man, especially one who had
been for hours battling with the ice of an Alaskan river.
“You gentlemen seem to be travelling and living like princes,”
continued the stranger; “but I must confess to considerable surprise at
finding you on the river so late in the season. You are bound down and
out, I presume?”
“No, sir,” answered Phil, “we are bound up the river, and hope to reach
Anvik before it closes.”
“Anvik!” cried the stranger. “Why, that is the place to which I also am
going.”
“Alone, at night, and in a bidarkie?” asked Phil, incredulously.
“Yes,” laughed the other, “though I was only trying to cross the
river to-night for fear it might close before morning, and leave me
stranded on the farther bank. It was a reckless thing to undertake,
I acknowledge, and but for your timely presence I might have come to
serious grief ere this. It had grown so dark before I sighted your
lights that I could no longer avoid the floating ice, and was in great
fear that my boat would be cut open. You may believe, then, that I was
glad to see them. Now, to find myself seated among those of my own
race, and at a civilized table after a rather trying experience of
Eskimo hospitality, caps the climax and renders my content complete.”
“Are you on a hunting or fishing trip, sir?” asked Phil, anxious to
establish the status of this new acquaintance.
“Neither, just now,” was the laconic answer.
“Trading, perhaps?”
“Not exactly.”
“Travelling for pleasure?”
“Yes, so far as it is a pleasure to do my work.”
“Prospecting?”
“For some things, though not for gold.”
“In government employ?”
“No.”
“Working for the company, perhaps?”
“If you mean for the fur-trading company, I am not.”
Phil was nonplussed, and knew not what to ask next. In fact, but for
the stranger’s affable manner and quizzical smile he would not have
pushed his inquiries so far as he had. Finally he said: “I need not
ask if you are a good boatman, for any one who can manage a bidarkie
as well as you do must be that. I do want to make one more inquiry,
though, and I hope you will excuse my inquisitiveness, but we are in
distress and greatly need assistance. Are you a Yukon pilot?”
“For that part of the river lying between here and Anvik I am,” replied
the stranger. “In fact, I know it so well that I would not hesitate to
run it in the dark. Furthermore, to satisfy your very proper curiosity
concerning an utter stranger, who has forced himself upon your
hospitality, I will say that I am a trader, a prospector, a fisherman,
a hunter, a boatman, a mechanic, a writer, a teacher, something each of
a lawyer, a physician, and a surgeon; and, above all, I am a preacher
of the Word of God, for I am a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and stationed at Anvik.”
“Oh, sir, are you, really?” cried Phil. “Then you are the very man I
have wanted most to meet. Had I not heard that you were at Anvik, and
believed you would help us, I don’t think I should have dared bring
the boat even as far as I have. I was trying to make up my mind what to
do next, and had almost decided not to attempt a further ascent of the
river, but to go into the best winter-quarters we could find to-morrow.
You see we are all mixed up as to the channels, and greatly afraid of
being caught by the ice.”
“As well you may be,” replied the missionary. “But, pardon my
curiosity, you speak of bringing the boat to this place as though you
were her captain. Is that the case?”
“No,” replied Phil, with a flush. “I am only her first mate, while
Serge here is second, and Mr. Sims is engineer. But I am acting as
captain during the illness of our real captain, Mr. Gerald Hamer, who
is down with the measles.”
“Indeed?” said the missionary, gravely. “I am very sorry to hear that,
for in this climate, especially, measles is a serious sickness and has
been a terrible scourge on the river. I have just been spending a few
days at one of the Shagelook villages installing a native teacher in
place of one who died of measles a few weeks ago. How long has your
captain been ill?”
“Since the day we entered the river.”
“And do you mean to say that you have navigated the steamer all this
distance without help?”
“Oh no, sir! I have had the help of Serge, who is a capital sailor
and can talk Russian besides, and of Mr. Sims, who is a first-class
engineer, and of Isaac, who is a millwright, but who makes one of the
best firemen I ever saw, and we had another millwright, only he died
last night, and a native pilot part of the way.”
“Well, you have certainly shown an immense amount of pluck and
perseverance,” exclaimed the missionary, “and I don’t think I know
another boy of your age who would have done as well, for you don’t
look as though you were out of your teens yet. Are you?”
“Almost,” answered Phil, again flushing. “That is, I shall be in two
years more.”
“And Serge?”
“He is almost as old as I am.”
“How about Isaac?”
“Oh, Isaac is most twenty.”
“Well, Mr. Sims,” said the missionary, turning to the engineer, “I
congratulate you on your crew.”
“Yes,” assented the man, gruffly, “they’re a pretty plucky lot of boys.
We’ve been mighty short-handed, though, since the cap’n took sick, and
Martin died, and my assistant was set ashore for mutiny, and I for one
am powerful glad to see another white man come on board, even if he is
a parson.”
Smiling at this equivocal compliment, the missionary asked if he
might visit the captain, and was conducted by Phil to the sick man’s
bedside. As they came away he said to the young mate: “Your captain is
dangerously ill, and the sooner you get him to Anvik, where there is
a doctor, the better. Therefore I would advise you to up anchor and
make the run to-night, especially as I fear the river may close before
morning.”