As daylight began to shine more clearly in the interior of the
barabbara, John, who was standing the last watch, suddenly reached out
an arm and wakened his companion. "Listen!" he whispered. "I hear
something outside."
As they all sat up on the blankets they were surprised to see their
prisoner also waken and lift himself half on his elbow. He, too, seemed
to be listening eagerly and to feel some sort of alarm.
"Some one is coming!" said Rob. Now, indeed, there was no doubt. They
heard shuffling foot-falls and many voices in some confused speech which
they could not understand.
"I'm afraid!" said Jesse. "They're not white people."
Rob raised a warning hand that they should all be silent. At last a loud
voice called out to them in broken English:
"White mans there! You come out! Me good mans! All good mans!"
The faces of all inside the hut were now very serious, for they did not
know what might be the nature of these visitors, and there was no window
or crack through which they could peer. Jimmy made no motion to go out
of the door, but, on the contrary, was trying to hide behind the pile of
fox-traps under the low eaves.
"One thing is certain," said Rob, with determination: "we're trapped in
here, and can't get out without their seeing us, whoever they are. So
come on and let's go out and face them. Are you ready now?"
The others, silent and anxious, crawled close behind him as he pushed
open the door and sprang out, rifle in hand.
They found themselves surrounded by nearly a score of natives--short,
squat fellows with wild, black hair, most of them in half-civilized
garments. They bore all sorts of weapons, some of them having rifles,
others short harpoons, and bows and arrows. A large, dark-faced native
seemed to be their leader, and seeing the boys now ready to defend
themselves, he shifted his gun to his left hand and held out his right
with a smile, continuing his broken English.
[Illustration: HE SHIFTED HIS GUN TO HIS LEFT HAND AND HELD OUT HIS
RIGHT WITH A SMILE]
"Good mans me," he said. "You good mans. Plenty fliend, all light, all
light, all light!"
He continued to repeat these last words as though they would serve for
the rest of the conversation. Rob, willing enough to accept his
assurance of friendship, shook him by the hand, all the time, however,
keeping his eyes open for the wild-looking group around him.
"Come dat ways, bidarka!" said the chief, pointing to the beach beyond
the sea-wall. "Hunt bad mans. You see-um bad mans? Him steal."
John touched Rob quietly on the arm and whispered to him: "He means
Jimmy," he said. "They are after him, and he knows it. That's why he
wouldn't come out."
"You see-um bad mans?" asked the chief, eagerly. "Him there?" He pointed
at the door of the barabbara, and would have stepped over to look in.
Rob moved in front of him.
"No!" he said. "All good mans here. What you want?"
"No want-um white mans," answered the chief. "Village over dar." He
pointed across the mountains.
Rob guessed that these natives had therefore followed around the
coast-line from their town, although he was not yet clear as to their
purpose in coming hither.
"You got-um bad mans here," said the chief, sternly, at last. "See-um
boat dar." He pointed to the bidarka at the edge of the lagoon.
"What you do with bad mans?" asked Rob.
"Plenty shoot-um!" answered the chief, sternly, slapping the stock of
his gun. "Him steal! Him steal dis! Steal-um _nogock_! All time my
peoples no get-um whale. Him steal-um _nogock_!"
Rob was puzzled.
"Now what in the world do you suppose he means?" asked he of John. "And
what is that thing he's got?"
The chief was holding up a strange-looking object in his hand--a short,
dark-colored, tapering stick, with hand-holes and finger-grips cut into
the lower end, and with a long groove running toward the small end,
which was finished with an ivory tip.
"I saw that thing in the boat," said John. "That must be what he means
by _nogock_. I don't see how they would kill a whale with it, though, or
anything else."
The chief evidently understood their ignorance. With a smile he fitted
to the groove of the short stick the shaft of a short harpoon, whose
head, about a foot and a half in length, they now discovered to be made
of thin, dark slate, ground sharp on each edge and at the point. When
the chief had fitted the butt of this dart against the ivory tip, he
grasped the lower end of the _nogock_ firmly in his hand, steadying the
shaft in the groove with one finger. He then drew this back, with his
arm at full length above his head, and made a motion as though to throw
the harpoon. In short, the boys now had an excellent chance to see one
of the oldest aboriginal inventions--the throwing-stick, used from
Australia to Siberia by various tribes in one form or another. As they
themselves had sometimes thrown a crab-apple from a stick in their
younger days in the States, they could readily see that the greater
length added to the arm gave greater leverage and power.
"I'll bet he could make that old thing whiz," muttered John. "Still, I
don't see how he could hurt a whale with it."
None of them knew at that time anything about the native Aleut method of
whale-killing. Neither did they know that the _nogock_, or whale-killing
weapon, is a sacred object in the native villages, where it is always
kept in the charge of the headman, or leader in the whale-hunts, who
wraps it up carefully and hides it from view. The Aleuts never allow
the women of their villages to look at the _nogock_, saying that it
brings bad luck for any one to look at it or touch it except the chief
himself. Therefore, had the boys known that their prisoner had stolen
this sacred object, as well as the bidarka and much of its cargo, they
would better have understood the nature of this pursuit and the
intentness of the Aleut chief to punish the offender, who had been
guilty of a crime held, in their eyes, to be as bad or worse than
murder.
Not, however, understanding all these things, and being very well
disposed toward their captive, who had been of such service to them, the
boys were not willing to turn him over at once to these people whom he
so evidently feared, and who with so little ado announced their
intention of killing him. For the time Rob could think of nothing better
than continuing the parley.
"You got-um bad mans!" asserted the chief again.
"One mans," admitted Rob. "Maybe so good mans; we don't know."
"Where you comes?" asked the chief, presently, looking about him. "This
my house here. White mans come here now?"
Rob did not think it best to admit that they were castaway and lost on
these distant shores, so he determined to put on a bold front.
"Heap hunt here," he said, pointing to the meat and the hides stretched
on the ground. "Kill three bear. Catch-um plenty fish. By-and-by
schooner come."
"When schooner come?" asked the chief, with a cunning gleam in his eye.
"Pretty soon, by-and-by," said Rob, sternly. "Plenty white mans come
pretty soon."
The chief was not to be balked of his purpose, and kept edging toward
the door of the barabbara. "Kill-um bad mans," he muttered. "Him steal."
Rob, seeing that he was bent on this, and unable to dissuade him from
his certainty that the fugitive was inside the hut, for the moment
scarcely knew what to do.
"No touch-um mans!" he finally commanded, sternly. "White mans come here
by-and-by--Uncle Sam white mans. Suppose bad mans steal; Uncle Sam
catch-um. You no touch-um bad mans!"
The chief hesitated, for he knew perfectly well that all the villages of
this island were under control of United States law, and although the
natives sometimes kept their own counsel and wreaked their own
punishment on those whom they held to be offenders, they were, if
detected, certain to be held to account by the United States government,
which holds control over all this country to the uttermost point of the
Aleutian Islands, although little enough law reaches enactment in these
far-off regions. As he hesitated the chief turned away from the door,
and the Aleuts now began to jabber among themselves. They pointed to the
meat, and made signs that they were hungry.
"_Da, karosha!_" assented Rob, who was beginning to learn Aleut from his
friend John.
He motioned them to help themselves. Without much more ado the natives
proceeded to take off pieces of the meat from the scaffold, and drawing
a little apart they built a fire. Rob observed that they used matches,
and so knew that they must be in touch with civilization at least once
in a while.
"It's all right, Jess," said he. "We're going to get out of here sure
before very long. These people can take us to the settlements any time
they feel like it. I only wish we could talk more of their language or
they more of ours."
The Aleuts for the time did not talk much of any language, for presently
their mouths were too full for speech. Each would stuff his mouth full
of meat, and then with his knife cut off a piece so close to his lips as
would seem to endanger his nose.
"We won't have much meat wasted if they stay around," remarked John,
ruefully. "For my part, I wish they'd go. It's trouble enough to take
care of one native, let alone more than a dozen."
The chief seemed to be actuated with some sense of fair-play, or else
wished to continue in the good graces of the whites. Some of the men
began to boil a kettle and to make tea. The chief picked up the bag of
tea and made a gesture of inquiry of Rob. "_Chi?_" he asked.
Rob shook his head, and made a motion signifying that they had but very
little. The chief poured out in his hands what must have represented to
him considerable value in tea.
"Now ask him for salt, John," said Rob.
This was too much for John's knowledge of the Aleut language. He got a
little red in the face as he admitted this.
"Here, you mans," he said. "You got-ums salt?"
The chief shook his head.
"Salt! Salt-ums! Heap salt!" went on John, frowning. He made a motion
as of sprinkling something on the meat, then touched his fingers to his
mouth, smacking his lips.
The chief grinned broadly. "_Da! Karosha!_" He jabbered something to one
of his men, and the latter went down the path toward the beach.
Evidently he had supplies there, for in a few moments he returned
carrying a dirty sack in his hand. The chief took this in his hand and
grinned, addressing John.
"Salt, salt-um, salt! All light, all light, all light!" he explained,
and divided generously with the boys, giving them something which was of
great value to them.
For a time attention seemed to be diverted from the purpose of these
strange visitors, the chief making no reference to the man for whom they
were searching, but seeming to be content to sit at the fire and eat.
What might have been the result was not determined, for all at once
something happened which set them all on a run for the beach.
A man appeared at the top of the sea-wall excitedly shouting, waving his
arms, and pointing toward the sea. The others answered with loud cries,
and in a moment the space immediately about the barabbara was entirely
deserted.