JALAP AND THE DOGS SING A LULLABY
“Harpooned a moose!” cried Phil and Serge together; for they had by
this time discovered the nature of the sailor’s “big deer.” And “Where
did you get the harpoon?” asked the former.
“Found it leaning agin a tree while I were out after firewood,” replied
Jalap Coombs, at the same time producing and proudly exhibiting a heavy
A-yan spear, such as were formerly used by the natives of the Pelly
river valley. “It were a trifle rusty, and a trifle light in the butt,”
he added, “but it come in mighty handy when it were most needed, and
for an old whaler it aren’t a bad sort of a weepon. I’m free to say,
though, that I might have had hard luck in tackling the beast with it
ef he hadn’t been already wounded. I didn’t know it till after he were
dead; but when I come to cut him up, I saw where he’d been bleeding
pretty free, and then I found this bullet in his innards. Still, I
don’t reckin you’d have called him a mouse, nor yet a rat, if ye’d
seed him like I did under full sail, with his horns set wing and wing,
showing the spread of a fifty-ton schooner. Ef I hadn’t had the harpoon
I’d left him severely alone; but I allowed that a weepon as were good
enough for a whale would do for a deer, even ef he were bigger than the
run.”
“It’s a rifle-bullet, calibre forty-four,” said Phil, who was examining
the bit of lead that Jalap Coombs had taken from his “big deer.” “I
wonder if it can be possible that he is the same moose I wounded, and
without whose lead I should never have found Cree Jim’s cabin. It seems
incredible that he should have come right back to camp to be killed,
though I suppose it is possible. Certainly good fortune, or good luck,
or whatever else you choose to call it, does seem to be pretty steadily
on our side, and without the aid of the fur-seal’s tooth either,” he
added, with a sly glance at Serge.
The latter was already hard at work cooking a bountiful supply of the
meat so wonderfully provided for them, while Nel-te, who had been
left to his own devices for several minutes, had made his way to the
“doggies,” and was rolling over and over in the snow with Musky and
Luvtuk and big Amook. They were treating him exactly as they would
a frolicsome puppy, and their joyous barkings were mingled with his
shrill screams of delight in a happy chorus. The little chap could
hardly be persuaded to leave his new playmates long enough to eat
dinner, and returned to them the moment his appetite was satisfied.
As soon as the meal was finished Phil and Serge slipped away, taking
a sledge, to which was lashed a couple of axes, with them. They were
going back to bury the parents of the child, who was so happily
oblivious of the sad nature of their errand that he did not even take
note of their departure.
The lads had no idea of how they should accomplish their sorrowful
task. Even with proper tools they knew it would be impossible to dig
a grave in the frozen ground, and, as they had only axes with which
to work, this plan was dismissed without discussion. They talked of
building a tomb of logs, but decided that to make it proof against wild
beasts would take more time than they could afford. Serge suggested
a scaffold, on which the bodies might be placed, in Indian fashion,
while Phil thought that, by taking up the floor of the cabin, they
might find earth in which they could dig. He could not bear the thought
that one who had been brought up in the ways of civilization, and who
had moreover suffered as had poor Ellen McLeod, should have aught save
a Christian burial; and when he told Serge the sad story of her life as
he had learned it from the missionary at Anvik, the latter agreed with
him.
So they had not settled on any plan when they rounded the last bend of
the little stream and gained a point from which the cabin should have
been visible. Then they saw at a glance that the task they had been
dreading had been accomplished without their aid. There was no cabin;
but a cloud of smoke rising from its site, as from an altar, gave ample
evidence of its fate. A blazing log from the fire Phil left on its
hearth must have rolled out on the floor directly after his departure.
Now only a heap of ashes and glowing embers remained to mark the site
of Nel-te’s home.
“It is best so,” said Phil, as the two lads stood beside the
smouldering ruins of what had been a home and was now become a
sepulchre. “And oh, Serge! think of what might have been the child’s
fate if I had left him behind, as I at first intended. Poor little
chap! I realize now, as never before, how completely his past is wiped
out, and how entirely his future lies in our hands. It is a trust
that came without our seeking, but I accepted it; and now, beside his
mother’s ashes, I swear to be true to the promise I gave her.”
“Amen!” said Serge, softly, as though at the conclusion of a prayer,
and Phil knew that the little wilderness orphan had found another
friend who would be as loyal as himself.
They planted a rude wooden cross, the face of which was chipped to a
gleaming whiteness, close in front of the smouldering heap, and near
it Serge fastened a streamer of white cloth to the tip of a tall young
spruce. Cutting off the limbs as he descended, he left it a slender
pole, and thus provided the native symbol of a place of burial.
Having thus done all that was left them to do, the boys retraced their
way down the little stream and up the river, through the gathering
dusk, to the camp that to them was home.
As they approached it they were astonished to hear Jalap Coombs singing
in bellowing tones the rollicking old sea chanty of “Roll a Man Down!”
“A flying-fish-catcher from old Hong-Kong――
Yo ho! roll a man down――
A flying-fish-catcher comes bowling along;
Give us some time to roll a man down,
Roll a man up and roll a man down,
Give us some time to roll a man down.
From labbord to stabbord away we go――
Yo ho! roll a man down.”
[Illustration: “A FLYING-FISH-CATCHER FROM OLD HONG-KONG――YO HO! ROLL A
MAN DOWN!”]
Jalap’s voice was not musical, but it possessed a mighty volume, and
as the quaint sea chorus roared and echoed through the stately forest,
the very trees appeared to be listening in silent wonder to the
unaccustomed sounds. Even Musky, Luvtuk, big Amook, and the other dogs
seemed by their dismal howlings to be expressing either appreciation or
disapprobation of the sailor-man’s efforts.
The performers in this open-air concert were too deeply intent on
their own affairs to pay any heed to the approach of the returning
sledge party, who were thus enabled to come within full view of a most
extraordinary scene unnoticed. Just beyond the camp, in a semicircle,
facing the fire, a dozen dogs, resting on their haunches, lifted both
their voices and sharp-pointed noses to the sky. On the opposite side
of the fire sat Jalap Coombs, holding Nel-te in his arms, rocking him
to and fro in time to the chorus that he was pouring forth with the
full power of his lungs, and utterly oblivious to everything save his
own unusual occupation of putting a baby to sleep.
“Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!” roared Phil and Serge, unable to restrain
their mirth a moment longer. “Oh my! oh my! Oh, Mr. Coombs, you’ll be
the death of me yet! Whatever are you doing? Didn’t know you could
sing! What a capital nurse you make! What a soft voice for lullabies!
The dogs, too! Oh dear! I shall laugh at the thought of this if I live
to be a hundred! Don’t mind us, though. Keep right on. Please do!”
But the concert was ended. Jalap Coombs sprang to his feet with a
startled yell, and dropped the child, who screamed with the fright
of his sudden awakening. The dogs, whose harmonious howlings were so
abruptly interrupted, slunk away with tails between their legs, and hid
themselves in deepest shadows.
“There, there, little chap! Don’t be frightened,” cried Phil, darting
forward and picking up the child, though still shaking with laughter.
“It’s all right now. Brother Phil will protect you, and not let the big
man frighten you any more.”
“I frighten him indeed!” retorted Jalap Coombs, indignantly. “He was
sleeping quiet and peaceful as a seal pup; and I were jest humming a
bit of a ditty that useter be sung to me when I were a kid, so’s he’d
have something pleasant to dream about. Then you young swabs had to
come creeping up and yell like a couple of wild hoodoos, and set the
dogs to howling and scare the kid, to say nothing of me, which ef I
had ye aboard ship I’d masthead ye both till ye larnt manners. Oh, ye
may snicker! But I have my opinion all the same of any man as’ll
wake a sleeping child, specially when he’s wore out with crying, all on
account of being desarted. And I’m not the only one nuther. There was
old Kite Roberson useter clap a muzzle onto his wife’s canary whenever
she’d get the kids to sleep, for fear the critter’d bust into singing.
But it’s all right. You’ll know how it is yourselves some day.”
Phil, seeing that, for the first time since he had known him, the mate
was thoroughly indignant, set out to smooth his ruffled feelings.
“Why, Mr. Coombs,” he said, “we didn’t mean to startle you, but those
wretched dogs kept up such a howling that we couldn’t make ourselves
heard as we neared camp. I’m sure I don’t see how you could think we
were laughing at you. It was those absurd dogs, and you’d have laughed
yourself if you’d looked up and seen them. I’m sure it was awfully good
of you to take so much trouble over this little fellow, and put him
so nicely to sleep with your sing――I mean with your humming, though I
assure you we didn’t hear a hum.”
“Waal,” replied Jalap Coombs, somewhat mollified by Phil’s attitude, “I
warn’t humming very loud, not nigh so loud as I had been at fust. Ye
see, I were kinder tapering off so as to lay the kid down, and begin to
get supper ’gainst you kim back.”
“Yes, I see,” said Phil, almost choking with suppressed laughter. “But
how did it happen that you were compelled to act as nurse? The little
chap seemed happy enough when we went away.”
“So he were, till he found you was gone. Then he begun to pipe his eye
and set storm signals, and directly it come on to blow a hurricane with
heavy squalls. So I had to stand by. Fust off I thought the masts would
surely go; but I took a reef here and there, and kinder got things
snugged down, till after a while the sky broke, the sun kim out, and
fair weather sot in once more.”
“Well,” said Phil, admiringly, “you certainly acted with the judgment
of an A No. 1 seaman, and I don’t believe even your esteemed friend
Captain Robinson could have done better. We shall call on you whenever
our little pilot gets into troubled waters again, and feel that we are
placing him in the best possible hands.”
At which praise Jalap Coombs was greatly pleased, and said as how he’d
be proud at all times to stand by the kid. Thus on the same day that
little Nel-te McLeod lost his parents he found a brother and two stanch
friends.