HOW JALAP COOMBS MADE PORT
The things on which we are apt to set the highest value in this world
are those that we have lost, and even our friends are as a rule most
highly appreciated after they have been taken from us. Thus, in the
present instance, Phil and Serge had so sincerely mourned the loss of
their quaint but loyal comrade that his restoration to them alive and
well, “hearty _and_ hungry,” as he himself expressed it, filled them
with unbounded joy. They hung about him, and lovingly brushed the snow
from his fur clothing, and plied him with questions, and made so much
of him that he finally exclaimed:
“Avast, lads, and let up! Ye make me feel like I were reading my own
obituary in print, which my old friend Kite Roberson were the only
mortal man ever I knowed as had that onhappy pleasure. It happened when
he were lost at sea, with his ship and all hands, in latitood 24.06
nothe, and longitood 140.15 west, ’cording to the noosepapers; while,
’cording to Kite’s log, he were cutting in of a fin-back and having
the best of luck at that very place _and_ hour. Anyway, whether he
were drownded or no, he kim back in time to enjoy the mortification of
reading the notice of his own taking off, which he said it made him
feel ashamed to be alive, seeing as he were a so much better man after
he were dead. Them’s about the size of my feelings at the present hour
of observation. So ef you boys don’t let up I reckon I’ll have to
crawl back in the snow _and_ stay there.”
Even Nel-te showed delight at the return of his playmate by cuddling up
to him, and stroking his weather-beaten cheeks, and confiding to him
how very hungry he was.
“Me, too, Cap’n Kid!” exclaimed Jalap Coombs; “and I must say you’re
a mighty tempting mossel to a man as nigh starved as I be. Jest about
broiling age, plump _and_ tender. Cap’n Kid, look out, for I’m mighty
inclined to stow ye away.”
“Try this instead,” laughed Phil, holding out a chunk of frozen
pemmican that he had just chopped off. “We’re in the biggest kind of
luck to-day,” he continued. “I didn’t know there was a mouthful of
anything to eat on this sledge, and here I’ve just found about five
pounds of pemmican. It does seem to me the very best pemmican that ever
was put up, too, and I only wonder that we didn’t eat it long ago. I’m
going to get my aunt Ruth to make me a lot of it just as soon as ever I
get home.”
By this time the fire was blazing merrily, and the chynik was beginning
to sing. Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook had each received a portion of
the precious pemmican, swallowed it at a gulp, and were wagging their
bushy tails in anxious expectation of more, while the spirits of the
whole party were at the top-notch of contentment.
As they sat before the fire on a tree felled and stripped of its
branches for the purpose, and munched frozen pemmican, and took turns
in sipping strong unsweetened tea from the only cup now left to them,
Jalap Coombs described his thrilling experiences of the preceding night.
According to his story, one of his dogs gave out, and he stopped to
unharness it with the hope that it would still have strength to follow
the sledge. While he was thus engaged the storm broke, the blinding
rush of snow swept over the mountains, and as he looked up he found to
his dismay that the other sledge was already lost to view. He at once
started to overtake it, urging on the reluctant dogs by every means
in his power; but after a few minutes of struggle against the furious
gale, they lay down and refused to move. After cutting their traces
that they might follow him if they chose, the man set forth alone, with
bowed head and uncertain steps, on a hopeless quest for his comrades.
He did not find them, as we know, though once he heard a faint cry from
off to one side. Heading in that direction, the next thing he knew he
had plunged over the precipice, and found himself sliding, rolling, and
bounding downward with incredible velocity.
“The trip must have lasted an hour or more,” said Jalap Coombs,
soberly, in describing it, “and when I finally brung up all standing,
I couldn’t make out for quite a spell whether I were still on top of
the earth or had gone plumb through to the other side. I knowed every
rib and timber of my framing were broke, and every plank started; but
somehow I managed to keep my head above water, and struck out for
shore. I made port under a tree, and went to sleep. When I woke at the
end of the watch, I found all hatches closed and battened down. So I
were jest turning over again when I heerd a hail, and knowed I were
wanted on deck. And, boys, I’ve had happy moments in my life, but I
reckon the happiest of ’em all were when I broke out and seen you two,
with the kid, standing quiet _and_ respectful, and heerd ye saying,
‘Good morning, sir, and hoping you’ve passed a quiet night,’ like I
were a full-rigged cap’n.”
“As you certainly deserve to be, Mr. Coombs,” laughed Phil, “and as I
believe you will be before long, for I don’t think we can be very far
from salt water at this moment.”
“It’s been seeming to me that I could smell it!” exclaimed the
sailor-man, eagerly sniffing the air as he spoke. “And, ef you’re
agreeable, sir, I moves that we set sail for it at once. My hull’s
pretty well battered and stove in, but top works is solid, standing
and running rigging all right, and I reckon by steady pumping we can
navigate the old craft to port yet.”
“All aboard, then! Up anchor, and let’s be off!” shouted Phil, so
excited at the prospect of a speedy termination to their journey that
he could not bear a moment’s longer delay in attaining it. At present
he cared little that they had evidently wandered far from the Chilkat
trail, as was shown by the westward trend of the valley in which they
now found themselves. That it still descended sharply, and by following
it they must eventually reach the ocean, was enough.
So they set merrily and hopefully forth, and followed the windings of
the valley, keeping just beyond the forest edge. In summer-time they
would have found it filled with impassable obstacles――huge bowlders,
landslides, a net-work of logs and fallen trees, and a roaring torrent;
but now it was packed with snow to such an incredible depth that all
these things lay far beneath their feet, and the way was made easy.
By nightfall they had reached the mouth of the valley, and saw, opening
before them, one so much wider that it reminded them of the broad
expanse of the frozen Yukon. The course of this new valley was almost
north and south, and they felt certain that it must lead to the sea. In
spite of their anxiety to follow it, darkness compelled them to seek a
camping-place in the timber. That evening they ate all that remained of
their pemmican, excepting a small bit that was reserved for Nel-te’s
breakfast.
They made up, as far as possible, for their lack of food by building
the most gorgeous camp-fire of the entire journey. They felled several
green trees close together, and built it on them so that it should not
melt its way down out of sight through the deep snow. Then they felled
dead trees and cut them into logs. These, together with dead branches,
they piled up, until they had a structure forty feet long by ten feet
high. They set fire to it with the last match in their possession, and
as the flames gathered headway and roared and leaped to the very tops
of the surrounding trees, even Phil was obliged to acknowledge that at
last he was thoroughly and uncomfortably warm. The contrast between
that night and the previous one, passed in a snow burrow high up on the
mountains, amid the howlings of a furious gale, without food, fire, or
hope, was so wonderful that all declared they had lived months since
that dreadful time instead of only a few hours.
The following morning poor Jalap was so stiff and lame that his face
was contorted with pain when he attempted to rise.
“Never mind,” he cried, cheerily, as he noted Phil’s anxious
expression, “I’ll fetch it. Just give me a few minutes’ leeway.”
And, sure enough, in a few minutes he was on his feet rubbing his legs,
stretching his arms, and twisting his body “to limber up the j’ints.”
Although in a torment of pain, he soon declared himself ready for
the day’s tramp, and they set forth. Ere they had gone half a mile,
however, it was evident that he could walk no farther. The pain of the
effort was too great even for his sturdy determination, and when he
finally sank down with a groan, the boys helped him on the sledge, and
attached themselves to its pulling-bar with long thongs of rawhide.
The two stalwart young fellows, together with three dogs, made a strong
team, but the snow was so soft, and their load so heavy, that by noon
they had not made more than ten miles. They had, however, reached the
end of their second valley, and come upon a most extraordinary scene.
As far as the eye could reach on either side stretched a vast plain of
frozen whiteness. On its farther border, directly in front of them, but
some ten miles away, rose a chain of mountains bisected by a deep, wide
cut like a gateway.
“It must be an arm of the sea, frozen over and covered with snow,” said
Phil.
“But,” objected Serge, “on this coast no such body of salt water stays
frozen so late in the season; for we are well into April now, you know.”
“Then it is a great lake.”
“I never heard of any lake on this side of the mountains.”
“I don’t reckon it’s the sea; but salt water’s mighty nigh,” said Jalap
Coombs, sniffing the air as eagerly as a hound on the scent of game.
“Whatever it is,” said Phil, “we’ve got to cross it, and I am going to
head straight for that opening.”
So they again bent to their traces, and a few hours later had crossed
the great white plain, and were skirting the base of a mountain that
rose on their left. Its splintered crags showed the dull red of iron
rust wherever they were bare of snow, and only thin fringes of snow
were to be seen in its more sheltered gorges.
Suddenly Phil halted, his face paled, and his lips quivered with
emotion. “The sea!” he gasped. “Over there, Serge!”
Jalap Coombs caught the words and was on his feet in an instant, all
his pains forgotten in a desire to once more catch a glimpse of his
beloved salt water.
“Yes,” replied Serge, after a long look. “It certainly is a narrow
bay. How I wish we knew what one! But, Phil! what is that down there
near the foot of the cliffs? Is it――can it be――a house?”
“Where?” cried Phil. “Yes, I see! I do believe it is! Yes, it certainly
is a house.”