The next morning Jeff and Big Eagle started down river with their
prisoners. Jeff sat in the stem of the skin-boat, paddling and guiding,
and Staritsa was permitted to help the boat along with his rather
awkward paddling in the bow. Since the nobleman’s feet were securely
confined, he was not in the least inclined to rock the boat and escape
from his captor by swimming. Templeton, also comfortably but securely
confined, paddled in the bow of his own canoe—left by the natives the
previous day—and Big Eagle guided from the stern. The winter was
impending, so they did not loiter along the way. Traveling early and
late, they reached the mouth of the Iskut in a single day’s travel and
camped on its green bank for a short rest. For four days thereafter they
paddled and lined the boats up the wild waters of the Iskut, fetching up
at last at the fall fish camp of a small tribe of friendly Indians.
Five days’ delay would have brought them in too late for the success of
Jeff’s plan. The natives were even then breaking camp preparatory to
going into winter quarters beyond the mountains. At this point Jeff gave
the prisoners into the complete charge of Big Eagle, at once turning
back toward his cabin where Molly had been left alone. There was no need
to concern himself further about Templeton and Staritsa. He had left
them in safe hands, and Sitka would know them no more, at least until
spring.
They were to go with the tribe into winter quarters, and since the
ranges would soon be overspread with thirty feet of soft snow, they
could not readily retrace their steps until the late winter winds
crusted the drifts and reopened the passes. Big Eagle had plenty of men
to help guard them—natives who looked up to him as Chief—but the white
captives would require little guarding after the great cold closed down
in earnest. As Jeff had hinted, the white sea could maroon a man beyond
any hope of delivery. The natives were told to feed and care for them,
and when the day and night were again of equal length, to turn them
loose.
The winter was breaking swiftly now; and Jeff raced it back to Molly.
The four-day climb to the fish camp was retraced in one day with the
Iskut’s surging waters behind him; and traveling light, he made
phenomenal time up the Stikine toward home. Only the great river’s depth
and power kept it open now to the easy passage of his craft. The
shallow, glittering, woodland pools had died, their sweet vivacity
repressed by the dour frost; and the little rivulets flowed under gray
ice. Every night the Great Cold encroached further on to the land.
One bitter twilight he saw his familiar landing through the softly
falling snow. Paddling swiftly, the boat soon touched the shore. The
snow-laden branches of the underbrush lashed at him as he trotted up the
dear, familiar trail—as if they hated him and resented his safe arrival
and it had been the wood gods’ plan to snare him in some distant covert
and still with frost the red rivulets of his veins. The gleam from an
open doorway guided him home, as it would always lead him through the
forest and the night. And now he saw Molly standing waiting.
Winter had little terror for the two exiles in the rude cabin in the
Stikine. The fire was bright on the hearth, they had abundant food of a
rough, coarse, but healthful kind, and their companionship was known and
tried aforetime. On snowshoes or skis, fabricated rather clumsily by
their combined efforts, they tasted all the rough joys loved of old by a
hardy, Northern people; they hunted wild game, eating the meat and
sewing the skins into garments; they trapped the fur bearers; they
tracked the small, shy, forest people over the snow. When the blizzards
swept the land or when they were tired of forest adventure they had
pleasant, comfortable hours before their cheery hearth; and they knew
hushed nights of wonder and mystery.
The river became a hard road to walk on, and the late winter winds blew
off the snow and left it glare ice, on which a sled moved almost of
itself. The nights lengthened and the twilight lingered long under the
trees; but the tide slacked and changed, and they began to grow long
again. Neither of them dreamed that the weeks could fly so fast. It was
no wonder that the calculations Jeff made one clear morning of sunlit,
glittering snow was a revelation to them both.
He came to table for breakfast with something on his mind; Molly had
learned to interpret the sparkle in his black eyes and the grave, rather
boyish wonderment in plain sight about his lips. Presently he smiled at
her; and she walked about the table and stood at his chair. “Molly, have
you any idea what day this is?” he asked solemnly.
She puzzled a moment. “It must be late in January.”
“It is the sixth day of February, that’s what! I’ve just been counting
the notches on my calendar. Molly, what does that mean?”
“It means—you have won. It means Alaska is ours.”
“I think so, Molly. Unless some unforeseen thing has come up, the
Russian Company’s time limit in which to renew their charter has
expired, and the Russian minister is on his way to Washington,
authorized by the Czar to sell Alaska to us. I don’t doubt but that the
deal is practically settled by now.”
“It is a great victory!” she told him solemnly.
“Yes, I think it is,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Just the same,
Molly—there won’t be any firecrackers shot off, or flares lighted on
the streets of Washington. Alaska means very little to most of our
people. They think it is just an iceberg, and will probably call Seward
a fool for buying it. But we know, don’t we, Molly?”
“A territory equal in size to the original thirteen States! Surely they
won’t make light of that.”
“They won’t know any better; but they’ll find out in time. Molly,
posterity will be mighty glad we own Alaska. It is a new land for us to
tame. It is a frontier to go to—to try our thews on—when the rest of
the continent is fenced and under the plow! We are a pioneer nation,
Molly—as you once told me yourself. We can’t cage ourselves up in
cities if we are going to maintain the breed; we must have a mountain to
climb, a trail to follow, a new horizon to beckon us on. If the old,
daring, fighting, mastering strain is to survive, there must be
something to dare, a foe to fight, a new world to master! The restless
ones must have a far country, Molly—and Alaska is the answer.”
“I suppose it will be a long, long time before it comes into its own.”
“A century, perhaps. In the meantime Sitka will probably almost die
away, just as you prophesied not long ago. As you say, Americans are not
spoilers; and the great fur-bringing system that made Sitka will pass
away with the departing Muscovite. But Sitka will be born again, when
the home-makers come to stay.
“There’s one thing more, Molly, that I don’t believe Seward has given
much thought to: that Alaska can be America’s great playground. There
are thousands upon thousands of square miles of territory that will
never grow wheat and can never support a dense population. Here the
rivers will always swarm with trout, the waterfowl will fly in flocks to
blacken the sun over the marshes, and the moose and bear, caribou and
sheep will roam at will in the forests and the ranges. These things are
worth more than gold, Molly; never doubt that for a minute. We are
naturally an adventurous people, a race of hunters who perish if kept
too long indoors; and here we can find our recreation. Our great
leaders, tired and sick, can come here to forget their worries, to shoot
and fish and gather strength to come back and lead us again. I think
that in this we may find Alaska’s greatest value.”
It transpired that Molly made no immediate answer. These two had
reckoned without their host if they had dreamed that their Alaskan
affair had run its course. As Jeff’s earnest, ringing tone trailed off,
both quickened to a subdued sound just outside the cabin door. It was
not the way of wild beasts to come so close, even in this land where man
had not yet proved mastery. The pack had fed well and ranged far from
the pungent wood smoke; the dour old grizzly slept deeply in a distant
cavern. Jeff turned to get his rifle from its rack of caribou horn; but
he was to miss the feel of the trusted steel. The door suddenly opened.
A bearded soldier in the winter uniform of a sergeant of the Russian
army stood on the threshold. His squad with ready rifles behind him.
Karl’s wound smarted still, and even here his hate had found its way.