THE TREACHEROUS SHAMAN OF KLUKWAN
So delighted were the Chilkat hunters to know that they were to have
the honor of conveying the fur-seal’s tooth back to their tribe that
they wished to start at once. The whites, however, refused to go
before morning, and so the Indians returned down the inlet to their
camp of the preceding night, where they would cache what seals they
had obtained in order to make room in the canoes for their unexpected
passengers. They agreed to be back by daylight.
After they were gone, and our travellers had disposed of their simple
but highly appreciated meal of goat meat and tea, they gathered about
the fire for the last of those “dream-bag talks,” as Phil called them,
that had formed so pleasant a feature of their long journey. Without
saying a word, but with a happy twinkle in his eyes, Jalap Coombs
produced a pipe and a small square of tobacco, which he began with
great care to cut into shavings.
“Where on earth did you get them?” asked Phil.
“Found the pipe in yonder rubbish,” replied the sailor-man; “and Cap’n
Kid give me the ’baccy just now.”
“Nel-te gave you the tobacco? Where did he get it?”
“Dunno. I were too glad to get it to ask questions.”
“Well,” said Phil, “the mysteries of this place are beyond finding
out.”
“This one isn’t,” laughed Serge, “though I suppose it would be if I
hadn’t happened to see one of the Indians slip that bit of tobacco into
Nel-te’s hand.”
“What could have been his object in giving such a thing as that to a
child?”
“Oh, the Chilkat children use it as well as their elders; and I suppose
he wanted to gain Nel-te’s good-will, seeing that he is the guardian of
the fur-seal’s tooth. I shouldn’t be surprised if he hoped in some way
to get it from the child before we reached the village.”
“Which suggests an idea,” said Phil, removing the trinket in question
from Nel-te’s neck and handing it to Serge. “It is hard to say just who
the tooth does belong to now, it has changed hands so frequently, but
it will be safer for the next day or two with you than anywhere else.
Besides, it is only fair that, as it came directly from the Chilkats to
you, or, rather, to your father, you should have the satisfaction of
restoring it to them.”
So Serge accepted from Phil the mysterious bit of ivory that he had
given the latter more than a year before in distant New London, and
hung it about his neck.
“Last night,” said Phil, after this transfer had taken place, “Mr.
Coombs and I only needed a pipeful of tobacco and a knowledge of how we
were to escape from here to make us perfectly happy. Now we have both.”
“The blamed pipe won’t draw,” growled Jalap Coombs.
“While I,” continued Phil, “am bothered. I know we must go with those
fellows, but I don’t trust them, and shall feel uneasy so long as we
are in their power.”
“Do you think,” asked Serge, “that these things go to prove that there
isn’t any such thing in this world as perfect happiness?”
“No,” answered Phil; “only that it is extremely rare. How is it with
you, old man? Does the approaching end of our journey promise you
perfect happiness?”
“No, indeed!” cried Serge, vehemently. “In spite of its hardships, I
have enjoyed it too much to be glad that it is nearly ended. But most
of all, Phil, is the fear that its end means a parting from you; for
I suppose you will go right on to San Francisco, while I must stay
behind.”
“I’m afraid so,” admitted Phil. “But, at any rate, old fellow, this
journey has given me one happiness that will last as long as I live,
for it has given me your friendship, and taught me to appreciate it at
its true worth.”
“Thank you, Phil,” replied Serge, simply. “I value those words from
you more than I should from any one else in the world. Now I want to
tell you what I have to thank the journey for besides a friendship.
I believe it has shown me what is to be my life-work. You know that
missionary at Anvik said he was more in need of teachers than anything
else. While I don’t know very much, I do know more than those Indian
and Eskimo boys, and I did enjoy teaching them. So, if I can get my
mother to consent, I am going back to Anvik as soon as I can, and offer
my services as a teacher.”
“It is perfectly splendid of you to think of it,” cried Phil, heartily;
“and all I can say is that the boys who get you for a teacher are to be
envied.”
So late did the lads sit up that night talking over their plans and
hopes that on the following morning the Indians had arrived and
were clamorous for them to start before they were fairly awake. By
sunrise they, together with the three dogs, were embarked in a great
long-beaked and marvellously carved Chilkat canoe, hewn from a single
cedar log and painted black. Two of the Indians occupied it with them;
while the others and the sledge went in a second but smaller canoe of
the same ungraceful design as the first.
As with sail set and before the brisk north breeze that ever sweeps
down the glacier, the canoes sped away among the ice floes and bergs of
the inlet, our boys cast many a lingering backward glance at the little
cabin that had proved such a haven to them, and at the stupendous
ice-wall gleaming in frozen splendor on their horizon. Under other
conditions they would gladly have stayed and explored its mysteries.
Now they rejoiced at leaving it.
So favoring were the winds that they left Glacier Bay, passed Icy
Strait, and headed northward as far as the mouth of Lynn Canal before
sunset of that day. During the second day they ran the whole fifty-mile
length of the canal, which is the grandest of Alaska’s rock-walled
fiords, entered Chilkat Inlet, passed the canneries at Pyramid Harbor
and Chilkat, which would not be opened until the beginning of the
salmon season in June, entered the river, and finally reached Klukwan,
the principal Chilkat village.
Here, as the smaller canoe had preceded them and announced their
coming, our travellers were welcomed by the entire population of the
village. These thronged the beach in a state of the wildest excitement,
for it was known to all that the long-lost fur-seal’s tooth was at
last come back to them. Even the village dogs were there, a legion of
snarling, flea-bitten curs. Ere the canoe touched the beach, Musky,
Luvtuk, and big Amook were among them, and a battle was in progress
that completely drowned the cries of the spectators with its uproar.
The fighting was continued, with only brief intervals, throughout the
night; but in the morning the three champions from the Yukon were
masters of the situation, and roamed the village with bushy tails
proudly curled over their backs and without interference. “For all the
world,” said Phil, “like the Three Musketeers.”
[Illustration: THEY WERE WELCOMED BY THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF KLUKWAN]
The guests of the village were escorted to the council-house, to which
were also taken their belongings. Here they were supplied with venison,
salmon, partridges, and dried berries; and here, after supper, they
received many visitors, all anxious for a sight of the magic tooth.
Most prominent of these were the head Shaman of the village, and the
principal woman of the tribe, whose name was so unpronounceable that
Phil called her “The Princess,” a title with which she seemed to be
well pleased.
[Illustration: A CHILKAT “PRINCESS”]
She was the widow of Kloh-kutz, most famous of Chilkat chiefs, and the
one who had presented the fur-seal’s tooth to Serge Belcofsky’s father.
On the occasion of this visit she wore a beautifully embroidered dress,
together with a Chilkat blanket of exquisite fineness thrown over
her shoulders like a shawl, and fastened at the throat with a stout
safety-pin. The Princess devoted herself to Serge, whom she evidently
considered the most important person in the party, and to little
Nel-te, who took to her at once. While she pronounced the fur-seal’s
tooth to be the same that had belonged to her husband, the Shaman shook
his head doubtfully. Then it was handed from one to another of a number
of lesser Shamans and chiefs for inspection. Suddenly one of these
dropped it to the floor, and, when search was made, it could not be
found.
Phil was furious at the impudence of this trick. Even Serge was
indignant; while Jalap Coombs said it was just what might be expected
from land-sharks and pirates.
The Shaman insisted that the tooth was not lost, but had disappeared
of its own accord. If it were not the same fur-seal’s tooth that
belonged to their tribe in former years, it would not be seen again.
If it were, it would appear within a few days attached to a hideously
carved representative of Hutle, the thunder-bird that stood in one of
Kloh-kutz’s houses, now used as a place for incantation.
“We don’t care anything about all that!” exclaimed Phil, when this was
translated to him. “Tell him he can do as he pleases with the tooth, so
long as he gives us the canoe we have bargained for.”
To this the Shaman replied that they should surely have a canoe as soon
as the tooth proved its genuineness by reappearing. In the meantime,
if they were in such a hurry to get away that they did not care to
wait, he had a very fine canoe that he would let them have at once in
exchange for their guns and their dogs.
“You may tell him that we will wait,” replied Phil, grimly, “but you
need not tell him what is equally true――that we shall only wait until
we find a chance to help ourselves to the best canoe in the village and
take French leave.”
So they waited, though very impatiently, in Klukwan for nearly a week,
during which time Phil had ample opportunities for studying Chilkat
architecture and totem poles. The houses of the village were all built
of heavy hewn planks set on end. They had bark or plank roofs, with a
square opening in each for the egress of smoke. Many of them had glass
windows and ordinary doors; but in others the doors were placed so high
from the ground as to be reached by ladders on both outside and inside.
The great totem poles that stood before every house were ten, twenty,
or thirty feet tall, and covered with heraldic carvings from bottom to
top.
During this time of waiting the Shaman made repeated offers to sell
the strangers a canoe, all of which were indignantly declined. That
they did not appropriate one to their own use was for the very simple
reason that all, except a few very small or leaky canoes, mysteriously
disappeared from the village that first night.
At length the tricky medicine-man was forced to yield to the threats of
the Princess, who had taken the part of our travellers from the first,
and to popular clamor. He therefore announced one evening that he had
been informed during a vision that the fur-seal’s tooth would reappear
among them on the morrow.
On the following morning Phil and his companions were aroused by a
tremendous shouting and firing of guns, all of which proclaimed that
the happy event had taken place.
“Now,” cried Phil, “perhaps we will get our canoe.”
But there were no canoes to be seen on the beach, and the Shaman coolly
informed them that, though the precious tooth had indeed come back to
dwell with the Chilkats, they would still be obliged to wait until some
of the canoes returned from the hunting expeditions on which they had
all been taken.
At this Phil fell into such a rage that, regardless of consequences, he
was on the point of giving the old fraud a most beautiful thrashing,
when his uplifted arm was startlingly arrested by the deep boom of a
heavy gun that seemed to come from the mouth of the river.