"Well," said Jesse, just before noon of the following day, as he stooped
to enter the door of the barabbara, "accidents never come singly." His
face was drawn with pain, as Rob, to whom he spoke, noticed.
"What's up, Jess?" asked Rob. "Has anything happened?"
"I struck my foot against an old nail or something of the sort,"
answered Jesse. "A piece of an old _klipsie_ was lying out in the grass,
and it has cut through my shoe and gone into my foot."
Rob sat up on the blanket where he had been nursing his own crippled
hand. "An old nail!" he said. "Lucky if it wasn't worse! No telling what
the point of it might do toward poisoning the wound. I'll tell you right
now that I don't want even any rusty nails around my feet, let alone the
irons of an old fox trap."
"I've heard of such things as lockjaw," said Jesse. "There was a boy in
our town had it, and he was just walking along and struck his foot
against an old nail in a shingle." His face seemed grave.
"Now, don't go to talking about that," said Rob. "When a fellow gets
scared of anything is when he catches it. They say that if a man goes to
Africa and expects to come down with a fever he always does, and if he
doesn't think anything about it he probably gets along all right. Now,
let's have a look at your foot. Take off your shoe; and put the kettle
on the fire, so that we can get some warm water. The first thing always
is to keep a cut clean; and I have read, too, that where there is any
rusty nail or toy pistol around the best thing is to keep a wound open."
"That doesn't seem to be the way you are treating your fingers," said
Jesse, looking at the cloth in which Rob still kept a big poultice of
black mud.
"Well, a poultice draws poison out of a wound, you see," said Rob, "and
mud is good for that. We had a pointer dog once, and he came home with
his face all swelled up, and my father said he had been bitten by a
snake. We didn't know what to do, but the dog did; he wouldn't let any
one touch him, but went off to a slough back of the house and lay down
in the mud, and he kept his head in the mud for two or three days. He
got well all right. Your foot cannot be any worse than if you had been
snake-bitten, surely, and you and I ought to have as much sense as the
dog. My hand does not hurt now, and I'll warrant Skookie and I will fix
up your foot in a jiffy."
He put his head out of the door and called for John and Skookie, both of
whom presently came, the latter soon returning with a double handful of
mud, for which Rob had asked. Meantime they had taken off Jesse's shoe
and stocking, cleaned the wound, and Rob had cut it open even a little
wider with his knife--at which Jesse made a wry face.
"I hate to do it, Jess," said Rob, "but that is what I read doctors do
in a case like this. Now for a good poultice. You will be all right in a
day or so."
In truth, they very probably did the very best that could be done in
such circumstances. There might have been serious trouble from a wound
from an old _klipsie_ barb. Surgeons have died from poison received from
knives used in post-mortem work. Lockjaw might very well follow upon a
wound from a piece of dirty iron of this kind; but, luckily, the germ of
that disease seemed not to exist in this case; at least the treatment
which Rob applied proved quite effective and no evil results followed.
Although Jesse limped for a time, in a few days he became quite well,
and the swelling in the foot amounted to very little.
"But now," said John one morning, as the three of them sat by the
fireside in the barabbara, "we are a fine-looking lot, aren't we? Just
look at us--every one of us has got something the matter with him!" They
all took a glance and broke out in a loud laugh together, in which
Skookie joined uproariously. As a matter of fact, each one of them was
wearing a bandage. Rob had his hand done up, Jesse's foot was encased in
a mud plaster, and John still wore his handkerchief tied over his nose,
whose tip he had nearly severed in his attempt at eating after the Aleut
fashion.
"Well," said Rob, "it's lucky that none of us is hurt bad enough to
cripple him seriously, anyway; although I guess Skookie will have to do
most of the work of getting wood and water for a day or so yet."
"There's no reason why I could not carry wood and water," said John. "My
nose is not in the road."
"I shouldn't say it was," said Jesse. "It never was long enough to get
in the road, John, and it seems as though you had tried your best to
shorten it as it was." They never tired of laughing at John for his
clumsiness in Aleut table manners.
"Now, see here, Jess," said John, "if you keep on making fun of my nose
I won't give you any more mud for your old foot. I'm the only one that
is not taking the mud cure excepting Skookie. I might just advise you
two that about all our salt whale meat is gone, and it is too late now
to get any more. It is about time we did some fishing, it seems to me."
"Well, I don't want to sit around this way all the time," said Jesse. "I
am for going out in the dory and trying for some fresh codfish. I'm
rather tired of salmon again."
"That's right," said Rob. "I was just going to say the same thing. Back
home we used to like salmon better than codfish, because the codfish was
always salt. Salmon used to be forty cents a pound back in the States,
but out here, where we can catch forty pounds in an hour, we don't like
it as well as codfish. All right, Jess, I'm game to go down to the mouth
of the creek where we left the dory, and go out in the bay for a try
after cod. But how will you get down there with your foot all tied up?"
Jesse put his hand on Skookie's shoulder. "Oh, that will be easy," said
he. "Skookie and I will go down the creek in the bidarka."
They agreed to this plan, and Jesse, hobbling out to the edge of the
lagoon, picked up one of the bidarka's paddles--a narrow-bladed, pointed
implement such as the Aleuts always use--rested the end of the paddle on
the bottom on the other side of the bidarka, and, steadying himself by
this means, slipped into place in the front hatch of the boat, just as
one would step into a tottery birch-bark, although not even the latter
can be more ticklish than one of these skin-covered native boats.
Skookie was less particular, but, with the confidence born of long
experience, took a running jump as he pushed off the bidarka and
scrambled into the rear hatch. An instant later his own paddle was in
motion, and Jesse and he made good speed down the creek. All the boys
had by this time learned something about the use of the bidarka, and
could handle themselves fairly well without swinging the craft from side
to side as they paddled. Jesse always thought that the paddles were too
small, but the only answer Skookie made to this criticism was, "My
peoples long time make paddles dis way."
The four met at the mouth of the creek, and soon they launched the
faithful dory, in which they always kept their cod-lines on the
hand-reels under the stern seat. Skookie took command of the expedition,
for he seemed to know instinctively where the best fish could be found.
Under his instruction he and John paddled the boat out fifty fathoms or
so from the extreme beach point, where he motioned John to take up his
hand-line while he held the boat in place. "Plenty deep waters here," he
said; "plenty dose codfish."
"Sure!" said John. "Here's right where Jimmy took us the first time."
The boys threw over their lines, letting the heavy leads of the big
hooks sink into more than one hundred feet of water. They had not long
to wait, for the codfish seemed to be extremely numerous hereabout. John
gave a sudden jerk and began to pull in rapidly, hand over hand. After a
time they could see the gleam of a ten-pound codfish coming up to the
surface on the line, rolling and twisting lazily and making no great
fight. With a whoop John threw him into the boat, where the fish seemed
even too lazy to flap about very much. It was a fine, dark fish, and
Skookie gave it his professional approval as he rapped it over the head.
Hardly had John gotten his fish into the boat before Jesse also began to
pull in and added a second prize. Rob was fishing on the opposite side
of the boat, and using a sort of squid with lead run around the hook,
much like a bluefish squid. He was pulling the bait up and down with
long jerks, as the native codfishers do, when all at once he felt
something strike. "This fish seems mighty heavy," said he, "and it runs
around different from a cod." None the less, he kept on pulling in line,
and at length saw the gleam of a fish. "Humph!" said he, "no wonder it
pulls hard! I've hooked it right square in the side. It pulls harder
than a foul-hooked salmon, down that deep in the water. I wonder what it
is?"
It was a flat, shiny fish, handsome enough to look at, but Skookie shook
his head. "Him no good," said he, and at once threw it overboard.
"I think that is what the sailormen call a silver hake," said Rob; "but
if Skookie doesn't approve of it, I guess we won't take any chances."
The fish kept on biting at Rob's peculiar lure and at the pieces of
salmon which the other boys used as bait. In the course of an hour they
had the bow end of the dory well piled up with codfish, and Rob
declared that they had enough. They also had nearly a dozen gnarled,
knobby-looking fish, mostly all head, which Skookie insisted were better
than codfish, to which they later all agreed. Sailors call these fish
"sea-lawyers," because of their wide mouths, as they explain it. They
rowed in to the beach near the mouth of the creek and dressed their fish
on the shore not far from the salmon pool. After this they lay about in
the sunshine of a beautiful day and idled away an hour or two more.
"I'll tell you what, fellows," said John, after a time, as he stopped
throwing pebbles into the pool, "we ought to have some sort of a camp
down here at the mouth of the creek, too. Look over there at that rock
face on the other side of the creek; that would be a fine place to build
another house. I think it would be fun."
"But look at us, all crippled up as we are," said Rob. "We never were in
as bad shape to go to work."
"Oh, well," demurred Jesse, "we wouldn't have to do it all in one day. I
think, too, it would be some fun to build a barabbara all of our own."
"I suppose we could float some logs down the creek," said Rob, "and
maybe pick up some drift-wood on the beach and tow it around with the
dory. And there's some drift right here at the mouth of our creek. We
could build it over there just back of those scrubby trees, and with the
cover of those and the tall grass no one could see it from the water
unless he looked mighty close. And, as John says, it might save us a
walk once in a while."
"If that wasn't a rock wall over there," said Jesse, "we could make a
dugout; but there isn't any cave or opening in the rock there."
"No," said Rob, "and we can't build a bark house like a Chippewa, nor a
mat house like a Siwash, nor a tepee like a Sioux. On the whole, I have
noticed that every country knows how to build its own houses best. The
natives here make barabbaras because they have material for that sort of
house, and they seem to do pretty well, if they do smoke a little."
"Suppose we build a barabbara, then," suggested Jesse.
"Ask Skookie," suggested Rob.
But Skookie, although he knew perfectly well what they were talking
about, did not grow very enthusiastic over the idea. He could see no use
in doing any work which was not absolutely necessary. "S'pose got plenty
barabbara now, all light," he said, pointing up the creek at their
camp. The others, however, overruled him, and when he saw his companions
at work he fell to as enthusiastically as any, and they found his
suggestions of the greatest value.
At first they marked out a place about twelve feet square or so on the
ground, and cleared it of grass, rocks, and pebbles. To this they
dragged some of the drift logs which they found near by, and so began a
rough sort of foundation. They had no nails which they could spare and
not even a hammer, but the axe they found very useful in shaping the
ends of the logs so that they would stay in place. They drove stakes to
hold the corners together better and to keep the walls from falling
down; and between the logs they put in chinking of moss, grass, and mud.
Even before the end of their first day they had quite a start on their
new house, and were eager for the next day's work, sore and crippled as
they were.
On the following day they made house-building their first order. By noon
they had their side walls fairly well laid up with logs, which now gave
them some trouble to hoist and to keep in place. They towed drift-wood
now into the creek, having used up most of the material which lay close
at hand.
The roof gave them the most trouble. They built their side walls about
four feet high, but they did not know how to keep the roof from falling
in. They did not wish to plant any poles in the centre of the barabbara,
as that would take up too much room and would interfere with the
fireplace. They had no means of joining or framing any timbers for the
roof, and they did not know how to make an arch. At last Jesse hit upon
an idea.
"I'll tell you," said he; "we'll get some long poles and rest them on
the top of the walls and plant the ends in the dirt and weight them down
with rocks there. Then the other ends will stick in over the walls
toward the centre, and will do for rafters for us to put our roof on.
We'll leave a hole in the centre where the rafters don't meet. In that
way we can have a roof without any posts in the middle of our house, so
that the inside will all be clear room."
This crude idea of architecture appealed to the others and, indeed,
proved rather effective, although it was different from the plan on
which their old barabbara was built. They had some trouble in getting
poles sufficiently long, but at last succeeded. On these they laid such
flatter pieces as they could find in the drift-wood wreckage, piecing
out the roof with poles and covering it all with grass and moss. Over
this they put yet other timbers, and stones, and finished all with a
heavy cover of dirt. This labor occupied them all that day and nearly
three days more, as neither Rob nor Jesse was in very good condition to
do much work. At last, however, they saw their new barabbara completed.
It could hardly be seen from the opposite side of the creek, and any one
passing the mouth of the creek on the bay would never have detected it
at all.
Tired by their labors, they lay down on the grass in front and looked at
their structure. "I'll tell you," said John, rubbing his dirty hands
over his face to wipe the perspiration from his eyes; "we'll call this
'Cripples' Castle.' I don't think it's bad for the time we have put in,
when there wasn't one of us feeling very well. But Rob's hand is pretty
near well now, and Jesse's foot is getting better, and my nose is not
going to come off, after all. We'll call it 'Cripples' Castle,' but hope
that our luck will be better in it."
"Come on, let's go inside," said Jesse. So they crawled into the ragged
hole in the wall which they had left for a door. They found the interior
spacious enough for their needs, and the roof in the centre was
stronger than that of their old barabbara. They got some firewood
together, and with Skookie's help piled the floor under the eaves thick
with sweet-smelling grasses from the flats near by. That night, when the
Alaska sun gradually retired for its short rest, they sat around a
brightly burning fire in the interior of their castle and ate the
heartiest meal they had known for some time. It was then that Rob
produced a surprise for the others.
"Now we have got some of our old dried bear meat," said he. "I suppose
it's good, but it doesn't look it now--and a little salt whale and
plenty of fresh codfish and salmon; and Skookie has got some of those
white mock radishes of his, of which we don't know the name. But it
seems to me that everything runs to meat. How would you like to have
some onions?"
"Onions!" exclaimed Jesse; and "Onions!" repeated John after him.
"Nothing would be better, but we haven't got any."
Rob produced from behind his back a small sack which they found
contained a few of these precious bulbs, most valued of almost any
vegetable in the far north.
"Where did you get those?" asked John. "They certainly didn't grow
here."
"No," said Rob; "I found this little sack hidden back under the
_klipsies_ in the far end of the old barabbara up there. I suppose some
native hid it there when they came down in the bay after their whale.
Anyhow, we have been on meat diet so long that I will take the liberty
of using these, no matter whom they belong to. Of course we're not
living much on salt meat, but even if we don't get scurvy we ought to
have all the vegetables and green things we can get hold of. Now, onions
mayn't smell as nice as some things, but there's no better medicine in
this sort of life."
"Leave them to me," said John, who had grown to be quite a good cook,
perhaps by reason of his natural inclination for good things to eat.
"I'll make a stew of them with some of that bear meat and some of
Skookie's bulbs here. I'll bet we'll have the finest meal to-night we
have ever had on the island." And so they all agreed. Late that night
they rolled up in their bedding on the grass beds of their new house,
and soon slept soundly within close reach of the waves of the sea, whose
steady sound along the beach came to them far more plainly here than had
been the case at the older barabbara.
After this the boys used this new house more than the older house, and
little by little moved most of their belongings down there, although
they still kept their flag-staff up on the upper beach in the hope that
some passing vessel might come into their bay and see their signal.