tree to tree--moves slowly out from a sheltering trunk--sinks on one
knee--raises his gun--aims. "_Bang!_" from the gun,--"wah-a-ah-gr-r-r!"
from the bear. The bear whirls round and round, biting his wound; then
he charges straight for the man, his teeth champing, his jaws slavering.
The man throws away the gun and takes his spear in both hands. He steps
boldly out in the open and stands still, his left foot advanced, his
spear slanting upwards, braced for the shock. The bear comes galumphing
on, his hair on end, his sideways strut showing his anger and his
readiness for the battle.
When within a few feet of the man the bear stops short with a startling
"Woof!" and stands upright on his hind feet. The man knows this habit
of the hootz, and seizes the opportunity. He springs forward before the
bear is steadied on his two feet and thrusts mightily with his spear.
The bear strikes viciously at the man and howls hoarsely. A stream of
red gushes out from the wide wound. Now the bear attacks, his fangs
gleaming, his long claws standing stiffly out. He jumps and strikes and
slashes with his teeth at the man.
The man is alert--firm and sure on his feet--quick as lightning, yet
steady. He dodges and leaps about the bear, feinting and thrusting.
Again and again the spear goes home. The froth from the bear's jaws is
bloody now, while the man's face is covered with drops of sweat. The
breath of both comes in gasps. The air seems full of violent motion and
raucous sounds. At every fresh wound the bear howls--"wa-a-ah"--this
changes immediately to a vicious growl as he rears on his hind
feet again and rushes to the fray. The man begins to shout his
war-cry--"hoohooh--hoohooh"--as he jabs his terrible weapon into the
bear's breast.
The bear is visibly weakening. His eyes grow dim, his rushes and blows
have less steel and lightning in them. The man begins to taunt him,
"Oh, you big-chief hootz--I thought you brave man--strong man. You no
brave--no strong. You just like baby. Why you no stand up, fight like
man?"
At last the bear, sick and faint with loss of blood, but game to the
end, stands with paws outstretched, swaying like a drunken man. The
man comes close, and, bending back to gain force for his blow, thrusts
upward and forward with all his strength, striking just under the
bear's breast bone and buries the spear-head, splitting the heart
in two. Over on his back topples the great beast, his paws feebly
twitching, his last breath bringing with it a great rush of blood.
The man, as soon as he can recover breath, puts his foot on the bear's
neck, singing in quaint minor strain a brief song of triumph. Then he
hastens to prop the bear's mouth open with a stick, to let his spirit
go forth in peace, and he also places between the dying jaws a piece
of dried salmon, that the bear may not lack food when he goes to join
the _hoots-kwany_--the bear-people, in that spirit land of forests and
mountains to which all brown bears, good and bad, must go.
Sam Tahtain was a little man, in striking contrast with his giant
brother, Snook, but he entered into his recital with infinite energy,
dancing about the floor, striking and thrusting, acting the bear's
part and then the man's, shouting and growling out his words; and when
he had finished, his own face was bathed in perspiration. His acting
was an artless piece of art, very perfect in its way; and it certainly
thrilled the Indians who had drawn around in an eager circle as the
recitation proceeded, their fervent indrawn exclamations of wonder and
admiration supplying the most genuine applause.
But I must confess that the antics of the little man, and his evident
pride in his own performance, struck me as irresistibly funny; and I
could not help recalling a verse I had learned when a boy:
"Little man with the wild, wild eye,
Man with the long, long hair,
Why do you dance about the floor?
Why do you beat the air?
Why do you howl and mutter so?
Why do you shake your fist?"
Said the little man, in a deep, deep voice,
"I'm an el-o-cu-tion-ist!"
But the Indians saw nothing funny in Sam's oratory--it thrilled them
through and through. Even old Snook, the hero of the story, ceased his
carving, fixing his eyes intently on the speaker, and rewarding him
with a fervent "_Kluh-yukeh!_" To exactly translate that exclamation
will require a paraphrase--"My, but that was good!"
But Tilly thought only of the glory of her granduncle. Her eyes shone
with pride, and she whispered to me, "Isn't my gran'fader, Snook, just
the bravest man you ever heard of? Why, he isn't afraid of anything."
The other Indians also yielded Snook the palm for courage and strength.
They looked upon him as a sort of Indian superman, lauding him in their
speeches, and being careful not to offend him. He was the hero of the
Stickeens.
And, indeed, I was much of the same opinion. Certainly a man who would
stand up, single-handed, to a grizzly and kill him with a spear, must
have unqualified nerve and courage. Surely nothing on earth could
frighten a mighty bear-hunter like that.
Well, listen. A few days after this visit to Snook's house I was
sitting in my house, which was within the stockade of the old fort.
The posts of this stockade, some twelve feet high and firmly spiked
together, had been put in place about sixteen years before, when the
fort was first established. Although many of the posts were rotting,
the circle enclosing the parade ground, barracks, hospital and
officers' quarters was still unbroken. Our house was one of the old
officers' dwellings and not far from the gateway which led "up the
beach" towards the Indian village of temporary houses in which the
"foreign Indians"--those from distant tribes--encamped. On the other
side of the fort another gateway led "down the beach," through the town
with its stores and white man's houses, to the large community houses
of the Stickeens. To go from one Indian town to the other you had to
pass through the fort.
It was a lovely, sunny day in midsummer. Everything was peaceful about
the old fort. School was in session in the old hospital, our little
children were playing on the grass, and our old cow, "Spot," was
feeding in the gateway.
This cow was a little black and white Holstein which the ladies of
Pennsylvania had purchased for Mrs. Young's training-school, and to
supply our babies and the native babies with fresh milk. She was the
first cow which had been brought to Fort Wrangell, and was a great
curiosity and wonder to the Indians. The Thlingets had no name for
cattle, because these animals were not known in Alaska; so they adopted
the Chinook name--moosmoos--and, owing to the Thlingets' inability to
pronounce any consonant that brings the lips together, they called it
"wusoos."
Our little "wusoos" was gentle and tame as a kitten. Our children used
to hang onto her tail, and feed her bunches of grass and leaves of
cabbage. Once I came upon a group that made me laugh. "Spot" was lying
down and placidly chewing her cud; Abby, aged five, was seated between
the cow's horns; while Alaska (Lassie), who was three, with her little
dog, Jettie, in her arms, was sprawling on Spot's back.
This peaceful summer's morning the cow was cropping the grass by
the gate. Suddenly the silence was shattered by a strong Indian
voice, pitched high through fear, calling to me: "_Uh-eedydashee;
uh-eedydashee, uh-Ankow; uh-eedydashee!_" (Help me; help me, my chief;
help me!)
I ran quickly out of the house and through the gateway in the direction
of the cries, which were growing more agonizing. I thought somebody was
being murdered. I rushed past "Spot," who was calmly munching grass,
undisturbed by the hullabaloo. At first I could see nobody; then I
discovered the huge bulk of old Snook, the hootz-hunter, crouching
behind a stump. His face was as pale as its coating of smoke and grease
would permit, and he was shaking like a leaf.
"Why, Snook!" I cried in Thlinget, "what's the matter? Is anything
wrong in the Indian village?"
He pointed a trembling finger towards the cow and quavered, "Drive
that thing away!"
The thought of that famous old bear-hunter, scared to death at my
gentle old cow, was too much for me, and I burst into a roar of
laughter. When I had recovered my powers of speech and locomotion I
walked to "Spot" and put my arm over her neck.
"This is a _shawat wusoos_" (a woman cow), I explained. "She will not
hurt anybody. See how kind and gentle she is."
Snook was unconvinced. His eyes were fixed in fascinated terror upon
"Spot," and he dodged at every motion of her head.
"Eehya-a-ah!" he answered in contempt, "she knows white man; she
doesn't know Indian. See the sharp horns on her head!" and he refused
to come away from the shelter of the stump until I had driven
"Spot" away some distance; and even then he sidled past, eyeing her
apprehensively and then hurrying through the gateway and across the
parade ground with the air of one who has escaped deadly peril.
The memory of Snook and the cow has often braced me up when I was
tempted to retreat from the path of duty, because I did not know what
was in the gateway, or because of unfamiliar obstacles. It is the
unknown that terrifies us. If we march right up to the bugaboos that
stand across our way, we will find the terrible horned monster change
into something no more harmful than a gentle old cow.
VII
NINA AND THE BEARS
All these stories are true, in their essential points. In some of them,
however, I have to change or suppress the names of persons and towns,
because the characters introduced are still living, and might not like
publicity. That is the case in this story.
Ever since the great gold stampede of 1897 into the Klondike, it has
been my duty, as it certainly has been my pleasure, to follow the new
gold stampedes into different parts of Alaska, and be at the beginning
of most of the new gold camps and towns of the great Territory of the
Northwest. Of course I began preaching as soon as I arrived at one of
these camps, holding my first services on log piles, under the trees,
in tents or saloons or lodging houses--wherever I could gather together
a congregation.
Always, the next thing was to start a Sunday-school, if there were any
children in the camp, or at least a Bible class, if there were only
grown people. I always had hymn-books and a baby-organ along, and was
sure of finding people to play the organ and sing. The gold-seekers
are not all roughs and toughs, as some people think, but just such
people as may be seen in the States, and a large proportion of them are
Christians.
One of the greatest of these gold stampedes occurred in the heart of
Alaska--in the center of a great wilderness until then unexplored.
A rich vein of gold was struck deep down in the frozen ground. The
news spread, and soon thousands of eager gold-seekers from all parts
of Alaska, from the Pacific States, from Canada, and later from all
parts of the United States came over the mountains from the coast,
down the Yukon from Dawson City, up the Yukon from Nome and from other
directions; traveling by steamboat, poling boat and canoe on the
rivers, and with dog-sled, horse-sled and hand-sled in the winter over
the mountains, and with packs on their backs and guns in their hands in
the summer.
Of course I was with the crowd. I never liked to miss the fun of a
great scramble like that. When I got to the big new camp I set up my
tent and began to prepare a preaching-place and to advertise a meeting
for the next Sunday by putting up posters on stumps and trees. I also
called the children to come and be organized into a Sunday-school.
About twenty children came the first Sunday.
Among them was a pretty little Swedish girl, named Nina. She had blue
eyes, flaxen hair and rosy cheeks, and was about twelve years old.
She won my heart at once, and soon we were great chums. She was so
bright and pleasant and sweet, and such a fearless and intelligent
outdoor girl, that one could not help loving her. She was always at
Sunday-school and church, always knew her lessons, and sang so heartily
and tunefully that people turned their heads to see her, and her sunny
smile drew answering smiles even from care-worn faces.
I soon found that among Nina's accomplishments she was already a good
shot with both rifle and shotgun; and when the snow began to fall in
October I took her with me on a couple of rabbit-hunts, and her glee
at getting the biggest bag of snow-shoe rabbits was very enjoyable.
Rabbits formed our principal meat-supply that winter.
When the cold weather of November covered the rivers, creeks and lakes
with ice and carpeted the hills and valleys with snow, a big stampede
occurred away from the town of log houses into which the camp of tents
had grown. Almost every one who had a dog-team and sled packed up an
outfit of food, blankets, tent and sheet-iron stove, and "mushed" away
into the mountains, prospecting for gold. If no dogs were available,
two men, or sometimes a man and his wife, would harness themselves to
a sled with their outfit aboard, and, depending upon their guns for
their meat supply, would cheerily set forth into the trackless wild,
following the water-courses until they found a likely-looking creek,
when they would halt and build a snug log cabin, and spend the winter
prospecting. To those who had courage, some knowledge of woodcraft and
love of nature, this adventurous life was very enticing. Thousands of
men in Alaska, to this day, spend their summers in the towns, working
at their trades or professions, and then, on the approach of winter,
invest the money they have earned in an outfit of provisions, tools
and ammunition, and bury themselves in the wilderness again. It is a
great life; and I have often felt strongly tempted to leave everything
and join these brave spirits for a winter's stay in the McKinley range
of mountains.
One day, about the middle of November of that year, little Nina came
into our house and threw herself into our arms, crying as if her heart
would break.
"Why, Nina dear," asked my wife, "what is the matter? Is any one sick
or dead?"
"Oh, no," she sobbed, "but I can't come to Sunday-school any more. Papa
and Mamma and I are going away off into the mountains to-morrow, and
we'll never come back here again."
We petted and soothed her, the best comfort I could give her being the
thought of the great hunting adventures that were before her. So the
wilderness swallowed up my brave little friend, and for eight years I
had no word of her. By that time I was at another large gold camp, in a
distant part of the great Yukon Valley.
I was the only minister in a region larger than Pennsylvania. My parish
extended from two to five hundred miles in different directions from
the camp in which I wintered. That winter I traveled with my dogs
between two and three thousand miles, in preaching and exploring trips.
Magazines, papers and books sent me by churches, Sunday-schools, Boys'
Scouts, and women's missionary societies, I found three hundred miles
from my central reading room, in miners' and trappers' cabins and in
roadhouses to which I had sent them.
About the middle of the winter I was delighted to get a letter from
Nina. It was written from a point about two hundred and fifty miles
distant, in that great game-stocked region which lies west of the
Alaska Range, of which Mt. McKinley, "The Top of the Continent," is the
highest peak. It was a cheery, girlish letter--just such an one as I
might have expected from Nina--grown-up. It told me of her marriage,
two years before, to a young man whom I had known--one who had loved
her when she was a little girl, had followed her and her parents to the
western wilderness, waited patiently for her to grow up, and, now that
they were married, seemed to her all that was admirable and complete
in manhood. It was her one romance and was very sweet and perfect.
Nina and her husband were living in a large cabin on one of the trails
that led from the Interior to the Coast. Nina called it a roadhouse,
and, though low and dark, with only poles for floor, and pole-bunks
for beds, it was fitted for the accommodation of a dozen travelers.
Nina was queen of a wide realm. Her cabin was a hundred and twenty-five
miles from that of the nearest white woman. They were two hundred miles
from the nearest store. They were in the heart of the richest game
region of North America--the western foot-hills of the Alaska Range.
They were prospectors for gold in the summer; farmers, raising their
own potatoes and vegetables and wheat for their chickens; trappers
during the winter; hunters all the time; and hotel-keepers during the
six months when snow and frozen streams and lakes lured travelers along
the lonely trail.
There was in Nina's letter, however, no hint of loneliness; rather a
joyful tone of contentment, as one of God's favored creatures; and of
comradeship with the things about her--the mountains, the forests
and the myriads of animals, small and great. She invited me to come
and make them a long visit and have a big hunt. Her letter also spoke
of the one need in her life that I could supply--Bibles, books and
magazines.
Very few travelers came my way who had passed Nina's that winter, but
from most of them I heard of my little chum, and always in terms of
enthusiastic praise.
"I am a city man," said a young lawyer from Seattle, "and am in this
wild land just long enough to make my stake and get back to the rattle
of the street-cars. The 'call of the wild' has no allurement for me.
There is just one thing that could make me settle down in Alaska, and
that is to find such a mate as that little woman."
"Know her?" repeated a rugged, black-eyed man of thirty whom I had met
on the Chilcoot Pass in '97. "Who doesn't? Say; she's a great woman.
Why, I'd go out of my way a hundred miles, any time, just to see her
smile, and to taste her grouse-pie or roast sheep. Tell you what she
did this last trip: As I swung into the edge of their clearin' a pair
of sharp-tailed grouse flew up to the top of a dry spruce, a hundred
yards from the cabin. Nina was complainin' that she had no makin's of
grouse pie in the house, knowin' my likin' for the same. I told her
about the two I'd scared up. 'Lend me a shotgun,' I said, 'and I'll go
back and try for a shot at them.' We stepped to the door for a look.
There set the two grouse on the spruce, lookin' like robins agin the
sky. Nina took down a twenty-two rifle from the wall and put some
'extra-long' shells in the magazine. I thought she was goin' to give
the gun to me, and I planned to sneak back till I got under the birds
before riskin' a shot; but she stood in the doorway and swung the rifle
up quick and easy. Crack, crack! and dogged if them chickens didn't
come tumblin' right down. I never seen such shootin'. Then she slipped
on her snow-shoes and went and got the grouse and made me my pie. She's
sure a little bit of 'all right.'"
I asked him if he had seen the magazines and Bibles I had sent her.
With a sheepish grin he took out of his pocket a little red Testament,
and handed it to me. I saw his name on the fly-leaf with her initials
under it.
"First I've carried since I was a kid," he confessed. "And she made me
promise to _read_ it! A woman that can be a bright little Christian
in a place like that, and a dead game sport, too, can make me do most
anything. Joe [Nina's husband] is a lucky guy."
Naturally such reports as these made me all the more anxious to
see this queen of the wilderness again. The necessity of taking a
seven-hundred-mile trip to the Coast in March gave me the opportunity.
Oh, boys, you'll never know the real joy of living till you take a
winter trip with dog-sled in Alaska. The keen, fine air, lung-filling,
invigorating; your dogs yelping with eagerness, their feet twinkling,
the sled screaming its delight; frost-diamonds sparkling from every
branch, frost-symphonies played by the ice-harps under your feet; your
own struggle, achievement, triumph, against and over the cold, the
difficulties of the trail, the long miles.
"The morning breaks, the stars grow pale,
Your huskies leap, shrill shrieks the sled;
You follow free with flying tread;
A joy to live! What joy! to thread
The fluted ribbon of the trail."
It was near the sunset of a beautiful, bright day that I swung into
Joe's clearing. For three days I had been headed almost directly
towards Dinali--The Great One, and Dinah's Wife (Mt. McKinley and Mt.
Foraker). Higher and higher these majestic mountains heaved their
mighty shoulders. The country became more broken and rugged. Lesser
mountains raised their white heads all around me. Only a few inches of
snow covered the ground instead of the six to ten feet that prevailed
farther west. The character of the trees had changed--more birch,
cottonwood and other deciduous timber; less tamarack, hemlock and swamp
spruce.
Signs of abundant life were everywhere. Fox, wolf, lynx and wolverine
tracks criss-crossed the snow in all directions; great moose tracks
going in a straight line, and the imprint of thousands of caribou hoofs
crossing and obliterating each other, but keeping in the same general
direction showed the presence of abundance of big game; while grouse,
ptarmigan and rabbit tracks were so numerous that my dogs were kept
excited and on the "keen jump" every minute.
On the bank of a small river, in a clearing of a couple of acres cut
out of a forest of great fir and cedar trees, stood Joe's log-cabin
roadhouse. Enough of the big trees had been left standing to shade the
house. In front of it were a dozen cozy log dog-kennels, and behind it
was a garden enclosed in a picket and wire fence.
As soon as "Leader's" bells gave shrill notice of my arrival the door
flew open, a bright little figure in gingham and moccasins, with yellow
hair flying and blue eyes sparkling, rushed at me, and I received
the first good hug that I had experienced since leaving my wife and
daughters in the East a year before.
A cheery voice cried, "Oh, you dear old man, you. I've been watching
for you every day for two weeks. I was so afraid you weren't coming!"
Joe's welcome, though not so demonstrative, was none the less hearty.
It was worth dog-mushing two hundred and fifty miles to have such
a reception. As soon as I stepped into the house I was made keenly
aware that I was in the home of hunters and trappers. In all my
wide experience of wilderness homes I had never seen one like this.
The long, low cabin had two rooms. The smaller was kitchen and
dining-room, having a sheet-iron range and home-made tables, shelves
and chairs. The larger room had a good sized sheet-iron heating stove
in the center, and was almost filled with bunks in tiers of three each,
built in double rows the length of the room. A little chamber enclosed
with snowy caribou buck-skin, the skins sewn together most skillfully
with sinew thread, was Nina's bedroom. The poles which formed the
floors had been hewn and laid so carefully that they looked like
boards. The tables and shelves were of whipsawed lumber, every article
showing painstaking skill.
"Joe and I made the cabin and everything in and about it, all
ourselves," Nina boasted.
"What!" I exclaimed, "you two rolled up these heavy logs, without any
help?"
"Yes, indeed. We used block-and-tackle. It isn't so hard when you know
how; and it was great fun."
"But the lumber for the doors and tables and window-sash--it's so true
and smooth and beautiful; how did you get that?" I asked.
"Whipsawed and hand-planed it all," she replied. "You see, we came
here two years ago this month, just after we were married. The
Government was surveying this trail, and we thought we'd build this
roadhouse and pick up a few dollars taking care of travelers. But
chiefly we chose this place because it was so beautiful and such a game
country. Then it has never been prospected for gold.
"Joe and I each had a good dog-team and sled when we were married. We
loaded the sleds with tools, hardware, stoves and dishes, glass for
the windows, some flour, sugar, beans and a few other groceries, and
brought our traps and plenty of ammunition for our guns. It was hard
breaking trail through the deep snow on the east side of the Alaska
Range, but nice going on this side. We mushed the two hundred and fifty
miles from the coast in two weeks; and had some time for trapping
before warm weather."
"How do you get 'outside' in the summer time?" I inquired.