RACING A POLAR WINTER
The comparatively flat plateau country, dotted with sloughs, on which
the party had embarked after leaving the camp on the tundra, where they
had been forced to fight with fire to save their possessions, lasted but
a short while on the journey. Before evening the edge of the table-land
was neared and the scattering rivulets drained into a narrow and swift
stream, which Roger learned was the Anaktuvuk. Rivers, though
conservative in manner as always, was obviously delighted at the thought
that all the hard up-stream labor was at an end, with the expedition
well ahead of its time, and many important details, topographical and
geological, discovered.
It was a matter of absolute ease to float down the smoothly flowing
Anaktuvuk, and for the first two days the only disadvantage to life were
the clouds of mosquitoes. But the third day these pests disappeared in
time to allow the voyagers to pay due attention to a troubled piece of
water, as the stream shot down the northern slope of the Arctic Rockies
through gorges and canyons of no little height.
The pitch of the stream Roger saw to be very great, but his skill as a
canoeist was not heavily drawn upon, since the bed of the stream was
little impeded, save for a few boulders at scattered intervals. But
despite the smoothness of the stream, the banks overhung the river so
far as to cause a most unpleasant sensation of fear. It seemed to the
boy every minute as though the pendent masses of earth and rock would
fall and overwhelm them, and the boy could tell, from the anxious
glances cast overhead by Rivers, that the same thought was disturbing
the chief of the party.
About two o'clock in the afternoon of the third day they ran through a
long gorge of this undercut character, and one, moreover, from which
little trickling muddy streamlets showed that the frozen ground was
thawing under the hot August sun. Roger, as usual, was in the leading
boat with Rivers and Bulson, the Indian being in the stern. Suddenly the
boy heard a warning cry from the other boat, and looking overhead, saw
a mass of snow and earth detach itself from the top of the cliff four
hundred feet above them and thunder down directly for the boat.
Simultaneously the boy felt Harry reach forward for a long stroke and,
turning, saw Rivers dive from the boat. Bulson, who was also paddling,
put his superb muscle into his stroke, and though Roger felt like
following his chief's policy and taking to the water, he stuck to his
post and made his paddle bite hard on the water. The canoe sprang ahead
like a cannon ball, but a second later, with a dull roar the landslide
struck, just the edge of it catching the boat. Roger was conscious of a
grinding crash, and then a blank.
When he came to his senses a few minutes later he found himself
stretched upon the bank and Rivers bending over him. He lay still for a
moment and then became deathly sick, noting the looks of concern on the
faces of the party. In a few moments he felt better and tried to sit up,
but Bulson placed his large hand on the boy's shoulder and bade him be
still.
"Where's Harry?" was Roger's first question, his last impression before
he went under with the ruins of the canoe having been that of seeing a
piece of rock falling straight for his comrade's head.
"All right," answered the Indian composedly; "jump heap quick, though."
"You certainly did, Harry," said another of the members of the party. "I
could have sworn that the rock hit you."
"No hit at all," was the quiet reply.
"And Bulson?"
"Bulson liked it," broke in Magee; "sure the whole Rocky Mountains could
fall on him, an' he'd like it for a regular exercise before breakfast."
"I guess I'm all right, too," said Roger, and seeing his anxiety to sit
up, they let him rise. He patted himself all over and then laughed. "I
suppose I'd feel it if anything was broken," he said, "so it must be
O. K." He got on his feet.
"Did you get out of it all right, Mr. Rivers?" went on the boy, turning
to his chief. "I'm not sure, but I think I saw you dive."
"Yes," answered the geologist, "and it's lucky I did, for one of the
rocks struck the very spot where I was sitting. I thought it was coming,
and that's why I jumped. You're sure you feel all right?"
"Sure," said the boy. "I lost my wind, that's about all."
Rivers smiled. "You're lucky," he said, "in having been stooping over
when the slide struck, because if it had taken you in the ribs or chest
instead of the back, you'd have had some internal injury for sure. But
since it struck you in the back, and you don't feel any special pain,
your spine hasn't been hurt and nothing else can be, you must be all
right."
"I suppose the canoe is smashed!" the boy said questioningly.
"The boat's at the bottom of the river, with a few tons of earth and
rock and snow on top of it."
Roger's expression changed suddenly.
"But the maps, the plane table, all the work!" he exclaimed, "you don't
mean that everything is lost!"
"Do you suppose," answered the chief, "that I should be satisfied if
those were gone?"
"Then how were they saved? I don't understand," put in the boy,
mystified.
"I grabbed the oilskin bag with the maps when I went over the side,"
replied Rivers, "and Bulson hurled the plane table backwards over his
head, so that it fell in the water for the other boat to pick up. But
all the instruments are gone, of course, and a good many of our
specimens."
"It's a good thing," put in the topographer, "that I made a little
duplicate for my own collection."
"Yes," answered the chief, "it might be a whole lot worse than it is.
It's a mighty fortunate thing that no one was badly hurt."
"And I'm mighty glad," said Roger, "that my camera and all the negatives
were in the other canoe. But now that we've only got one boat, how shall
we get down the rest of the way?"
"In the boat. We shall have to throw everything away except what we
can't do without, and live on short rations. One of the guns is left,
and there are plenty of fish in the river, so we probably will get along
all right until we strike the Eskimo settlement on the delta of the
river."
"And if we don't strike it?" asked Roger.
"Well, if we don't, you'll be pretty hungry. But we'll strike it, all
right, you'll see."
So the party proceeded to lighten their only canoe. Everything which was
of weight and not absolutely essential was cached and a cairn built
over it, not with any intention of coming back, but so that it should be
available if any other traveler should ever pass that way. Since it was
so difficult to transport provisions and camp conveniences at such a
distance, it was felt that it would be sheer wickedness to let anything
be destroyed.
"But people might steal it!" exclaimed the boy.
"To take what you need isn't stealing in this country," answered the
geologist. "You are supposed to help yourself if you are in need, and
you are expected to give to the uttermost if you find any one else in
need. This part of the world is too far away from civilization for any
'dog eat dog' methods. Here, being uncivilized, men are more or less
charitably disposed toward each other."
"That's a cynical speech, Rivers," said the topographer.
"Cynical or not, it's true," the chief answered.
"Sure, it's true," commented Magee, who had been listening. "If I'm
hungry in a big modern city, and I open a man's door, walk to his
pantry, feed myself and a dozen hungry men; and what's more, walk away
with enough provisions for a month, where would I land?"
"In jail," said Roger.
"Sure, an' I would. But that's what you can do out here."
"Well," said the chief, "I wish I were sure of being able to do it at
Nigaluk."
Travel, however, was very different in the one over-loaded canoe, and
Rivers was not willing to allow any chances to be taken. The slightest
evidence of shoal, rapid, or boulders meant wading. For the next three
days, therefore, two men, each at one of the bows of the canoe, waded
down the stream, finding out, with their shins mainly, where were
boulders near enough to the surface of the water to strike the canoe.
On the second day of this sort of work, moreover, the temperature
dropped fifty-two degrees in about six hours, and from a hot sun and
humid air with a thermometer at eighty-eight degrees at noon, by dusk it
was only four degrees above freezing with a driving gale and a stinging
rain. While many camp conveniences had been left behind to lighten the
canoe, a strip of canvas had been retained, and this was propped up with
willow sticks in such wise as to keep some of the rain off.
But through the night the gale howled from the north, and the rain drove
in with the sharpness of a whip-lash, so that the first faint light of
dawn found every one ready for the start, as at least it was warmer
moving about than lying under that pitiless sky. The only gleam of
comfort was that it gave one day's respite from the eternal mosquitoes.
The second day the norther abated, and fair weather returned, bringing
with it, of course, the close personal attention of the mosquitoes of
the lower tundra, though these were rapidly thinning out.
A couple of days of smooth water enabled the use of paddles and fair
time was made, but after the junction with the Telugu River more shallow
rapids and boulders were encountered, leading to more days of wading,
continuing until they struck the main stream of the Colville, a river
with a big head of water. But these various difficulties had delayed
matters considerably, and not until August 10th did the divergence of
the channels of the river show that the delta of the Colville was
reached, where they hoped to find the Eskimo village of Nigaluk.
"What kind of a place is it?" asked Roger, as they encamped for the
night.
"It is the metropolis of the Arctic Ocean," said Rivers with a smile;
"the biggest city between Point Barrow and Hudson's Bay."
The boy was not taken in by the description, for he had a lively
remembrance of Alaskan centers of population, and knew that anything
more than four huts was considered as a post of no small importance,
while one hut, all by itself, was deemed worthy of a place on the map.
But though he did not expect a large place, he watched eagerly enough
the next day for this Arctic city, wondering what kind of houses would
be built to withstand the rigors of an Arctic winter.
But the solitary canoe went on and on, up this channel and down another,
and still no village was seen. All the next two days the party searched,
but to no purpose; apparently the Arctic metropolis was not there. The
matter was extremely serious, for the provisions were almost exhausted,
and on the evening of August 12th the wind switched again to the
northward, and the first of the winter's snows hurled itself at them.
"If this is the middle of August!" exclaimed Roger, shivering, "what
must it be like here in the middle of January?"
[Illustration: WINTER'S THREAT ALMOST FULFILLED.
The shores of the Arctic Ocean, where the tundra-covered coastal plain
extends unbroken for thousands of miles.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
"Nobody knows exactly," was the geologist's reply, "for no white man has
ever wintered here. We shall be the first unless we find Nigaluk in a
hurry. And I doubt if we can spare the time, so to-morrow we will have
to go down this channel to the ocean. I don't like this weather, for if
the winter sets in early we may be caught even yet."
But when, the next day, the party arrived at Harrison Bay, at the mouth
of the river, Roger's heart sank within him at the prospect. Cold,
bleak, and gray, the waters of the Arctic Ocean stretched before him, a
steady swell breaking on the tundra shores that line it without a break
for hundreds of miles. The wind, blowing from the north, was kicking up
a vicious, snappy sea, the tops of the waves showing their teeth, and
upon the horizon the white blink of the ice.
Bad weather, a choppy sea, an Arctic winter setting in, and nothing but
an overloaded Peterboro canoe to hold seven men, it was a bad outlook
for the party. It was over two hundred miles to Point Barrow and the
time of storms was at hand. Rivers called the men together.
"Boys," he said, "so far the trip has been very successful, but owing to
that pesky landslide on the Anaktuvuk, with the loss of a boat, it looks
as though we were going to have a tight run for home, and we shall have
to show a burst of speed. Now there are only three possible things to
do, and I'm going to put them before you and see what you think about
it, because whatever is done must be done without delay."
"And what are those three?" asked Gersup, as second in command of the
party.
"The first of these is to make a camp here, and to chase up and down the
various channels of this delta until we find Nigaluk. If we locate it,
we can get provisions and boats, or if the weather is bad, dogs and
sleds; and, by one means or the other, can get to Point Barrow, or even
down as far as Cape Smyth. The objection to that is that we have no
definite data as to where Nigaluk is. It may not be on this river at
all, but on some other stream flowing into the ocean near by, which has
been confused with the Colville."
"Not only that, Mr. Rivers," answered Gersup, "but the channels of this
delta may have changed and these Eskimo settlements are not very
permanent, in any event."
"That's true," rejoined the chief. "Well, it is obvious that the canoe
is not enough for us to get to Point Barrow, but it might serve to carry
provisions, so that if we could track along the shore, with, say, one
man in the boat to keep her out of the surf, it might be possible to get
there, though, with rounding the indentations of the land, it would be
over three hundred miles. What do you think, Harry?"
The Indian shook his head.
"No can do," he said, "wind drive boat on shore. Smash."
"The only thing that's left then," the chief of the party continued, "is
to pack the entire distance, depending for food on what we can catch or
shoot. I suppose we'd have to portage the canoe because there are
several small streams along the way. Of course, in a couple of weeks,
the frosts will set in, and the tundra won't be so bad to travel over.
But it's a long way."
"It's the longest way, but the surest," said Gersup; "as long as we
don't run short of provisions. How about it, George?"
"Not counting anything you bring in," replied the cook, "I can give you
rations for ten or twelve days. But there seem to be signs of caribou,
and though the geese and ducks are thinning out, they are probably good
for a couple of weeks yet, before all are gone. Then there's always
fish. If everything goes right, we ought to be able to make it."
"Very well then," decided Rivers, "this is what we will do. Unpack the
canoe, let Harry and Doughty take provisions for two days, and with the
canoe light, spend every minute of daylight searching for this place
Nigaluk, returning to camp by nightfall the day after to-morrow, if they
have not found it. In the meantime we will do some hunting and fishing,
and try to build up a store of provisions."
"But how shall we be sure of finding you again?" queried Roger. "If this
Nigaluk is so hard to find and the channels of this river are a regular
maze, we might lose the camp, and then we would be stranded without any
grub and without a gun, and you would be left without a boat."
"We'll keep a big smudge going, of course," said the chief; "I had
thought of that. Now you two had better turn in, and we'll unpack the
canoe and get it ready. I'll have you called early so that you can have
breakfast and start off even before it gets light, because for a few
miles, anyway, we know Nigaluk isn't there."
The next morning, before it was light, Harry and Roger were in the
canoe, and they started off on their hunt for Nigaluk, up this channel
and down the other. Harry was paddling for all he was worth, and the boy
found it hard labor to keep up, but at their noon stop nothing had been
found. As it was growing dusk, however, the Indian gave a grunt and
pointed ahead, and Roger, giving a shout of joy, saw before him the
outlines of a structure. But on arrival, they found nothing but an
Eskimo grave, erect on four driftwood spars. Near by a tiny channel
meandered through what appeared to be an island, and though it was now
almost dark, Harry turned into this, and in a few minutes there sprang
into view a group of not less than twenty huts.
But no dogs barked as they came near, no fires smoked, no boats lay on
the beach, and Harry, even before they landed, gave a disappointed
grunt.
"Heap gone," he said, then as his keen eye discerned through the shadows
evidences of recent occupation, he added, "not gone long!" He stooped
down as they landed, and picked up a little fish, only a few inches
long. "This caught to-day," he said.
Roger's heart gave a bound.
"Then they can't be far away," he answered.
"Not far. Find to-morrow," and the Indian went on to explain to the boy
the usually slow movements of the Eskimo, and their readiness to camp
every few miles. He pointed out also that the channel through which they
had come had an abandoned look, and that therefore the route to this
camp must have been in the other direction. Since winter was drawing on,
moreover, he argued that the natives would not be going up the river,
and therefore, if they followed the other channel and turned seaward the
next day, they might overtake the Eskimo.
This was a stern chase, and Harry routed the boy out when it was still
pitch dark, and they started slowly down the other channel, looking for
the first turn seaward. Just as the first faint gray showed in the sky,
the opening appeared and the canoe shot down it. Dawn is very gradual in
those latitudes, and steadily the light grew clear and the canoe began
going through the water like an express train. Confident in his own
idea, Harry turned neither to right nor left but made the light boat
fairly fly.
[Illustration: ESKIMO SAVIORS.
A group of the tribe that took the party in their umiaks, near the
prized canoe.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
[Illustration: POINTING AWAY FROM WINTER.
The Eskimo grave that led the party to the village, and thence to rescue
and safety.
_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]
By midday Roger was ravenous, but the Indian shook his head when a
moment's stop was suggested and an hour later, when the boy was ready to
drop, they turned into a large inlet and saw ahead of them a party of
Eskimo in their umiaks, eleven boats in all, each containing from three
to six persons. The umiaks, large skin-covered boats made for the Arctic
Ocean fishing, are extremely staunch and fairly swift, but as compared
to a light well-seasoned canoe in the hands of two experts, they were
little better than mud scows.
The sight of the umiaks and the knowledge that this might make or mar,
to a great extent, the resources of the party, put ginger into Roger,
and the way in which that little boat was urged over the water was
almost incredible. To the natives, who had never seen anything but craft
of their own making, and the heavy staunch boats of whaling steamers,
the speed was little short of magic. Harry and Roger overtook them as
though they had been standing still.
The party of Eskimo was on its way to Point Barrow, where most of the
natives expected to winter, and as they planned to trade, had an
interpreter with them. To him Roger explained their needs. But the
natives showed little desire to take the travelers in their boats over
the long sea trip, and the boy, knowing the urgency of the case, was at
his wits' end. Indeed the Eskimo were just about to paddle away to the
open sea, where the little canoe would scarcely dare to follow them,
when Harry said suddenly:
"Good. You offer give canoe."
"You mean in exchange for a passage to Point Barrow?" said Roger, seeing
the plan. "Good scheme, I'll try it."
He turned to the interpreter, and pointed out that if they would give
them provisions and take them to the cape, not only would they get
money, but that the great chief would give them the swift boat as a
token of kindness. But the boy hardly expected that the offer would
create the excitement that resulted.
The very thought that this magical, fast-speeding little boat might
become the property of the tribe excited the occupants of all the
umiaks. Boat races, it appeared, were the only sport in Arctic waters,
and if this tribe had such a boat as that they could be the champions
of the Arctic seas. There was no further hesitation, and with eagerness
the whole party hastened to where the camp had been pitched, the smoke
leading the way without much difficulty. On the way they learned that
Nigaluk was further west, on an arm of the delta which branched off
quite a distance higher up the river, and that the settlement they had
found was a comparatively new place, as yet uncharted.
Bad weather came, and several days were lost by storms, so that the
trip, even in the Eskimo umiaks and under the conditions the natives
knew so well how to overcome, was by no means easy, and Roger shivered
at the thought of the terrible experience he would have had to face, if
they had not overtaken the Eskimo boats. The canoe, which was being
towed behind the largest umiak, was almost a fetish for the natives, and
the way it rose to every wave, never shipping even a drop of water, to
them was a constant source of delight. They jabbered the whole trip
through of their sure success in the races of next season.
Camping along the shore was difficult, as no wood except a few
occasional sticks of driftwood was procurable, and the water, while
plentiful, was uniformly brackish. But trouble was not to let them go so
easily. A steady and heavy gale set in from the northeast and the
ice-pack began to drive.
Then the Eskimos gave a taste of their staying qualities. For fifty-four
consecutive hours their paddles never ceased a second, one man in each
boat eating and resting while the others paddled. The Survey men took
their turn at the labor, and trained to endurance as they were, they
competed well with the untiring swing of the Eskimo paddle, and gained
the admiration of the natives. For the last four hours it was a flight
for life that kept every nerve alert and tense, and the ice-pack was not
fifty yards from shore when the boats, paddling furiously, rounded Point
Barrow. Half of them ran into the little Eskimo village of Nuwuk, just
at the extremity of the point, but the others took the Survey party to
the main settlement, where a store, a mission church, and a post-office
bespeak the habits of the white man.
With steam up and all ready to start, lay with her anchor on a spring
the little revenue cutter, fearing the ice, now only stayed from further
advance by the projection of Point Barrow, the easterly bent of the
wind having so far left open water. The steamer's boat was waiting as
the umiaks ran in, for they had been sighted some hours before. The few
necessaries of the party, the maps and records were trans-shipped
without delay, the natives duly paid and rewarded, mail secured, and in
less than ten minutes from touching the shore the men were on board the
cutter.
As they went up the ladder and set foot on deck Rivers turned to Roger,
who had followed him, with the rest of the party.
"We're back, boys," he said, "and you've stuck right to the end. No man
could ask finer comrades on the trail," he put his hand on the boy's
shoulder; "men, every one of you, and the boy as good a helper as any
one could wish to have."
THE END
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THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. INDIANS
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LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., Boston
THE BOY CRAFTSMAN
Practical and Profitable Ideas for a Boy's Leisure Hours
By A. NEELY HALL
[Illustration]
Illustrated with over 400 diagrams and working drawings
8vo Price, net, $1.60 Postpaid, $1.82
Every real boy wishes to design and make things, but the questions of
materials and tools are often hard to get around. Nearly all books on
the subject call for a greater outlay of money than is within the means
of many boys, or their parents wish to expend in such ways. In this book
a number of chapters give suggestions for carrying on a small business
that will bring a boy in money with which to buy tools and materials
necessary for making apparatus and articles described in other chapters,
while the ideas are so practical that many an industrious boy can learn
what he is best fitted for in his life work. No work of its class is so
completely up-to-date or so worthy in point of thoroughness and
avoidance of danger. The drawings are profuse and excellent, and every
feature of the book is first-class. It tells how to make a boy's
workshop, how to handle tools, and what can be made with them; how to
start a printing shop and conduct an amateur newspaper, how to make
photographs, build a log cabin, a canvas canoe, a gymnasium, a miniature
theatre, and many other things dear to the soul of youth.
We cannot imagine a more delightful present for a boy
than this book.--_Churchman, N.Y._
Every boy should have this book. It's a practical
book--it gets right next to the boy's heart and stays
there. He will have it near him all the time, and on
every page there is a lesson or something that will
stand the boy in good need. Beyond a doubt in its line
this is one of the cleverest books on the
market.--_Providence News._
If a boy has any sort of a mechanical turn of mind, his
parents should see that he has this book.--_Boston
Journal._
This is a book that will do boys good.--_Buffalo
Express._
The boy who will not find this book a mine of joy and
profit must be queerly constituted.--_Pittsburgh
Gazette._
Will be a delight to the boy mechanic.--_Watchman,
Boston._
An admirable book to give a boy.--_Newark News._
This book is the best yet offered for its large number
of practical and profitable ideas.--_Milwaukee Free
Press._
Parents ought to know of this book.--_New York Globe._
For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
publishers.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors
present in the original print edition have been
corrected in this electronic version.
In Chapter I, "I broke for the the ravine" was changed
to "I broke for the ravine".
An illustration caption has been changed from "In the
Home of the Kodiac Bear" to "In the Home of the Kodiak
Bear".
In Chapter II, "through the standstone to some other
rock" was changed to "through the sandstone to some
other rock".
In the illustration captioned "A Tangle of Swamp", a
missing period was added after "U.S.G.S".
In Chapter III, "had been been a little over his knees"
was changed to "had been a little over his knees", and
"safely esconced among the branches" was changed to
"safely ensconced among the branches".
In Chapter V, a missing quotation mark was added before
"You bet!", and an extraneous quotation mark was
removed following "built up somewhere else in some
other way."
In Chapter VI, "lie of of the land" was changed to "lie
of the land".
In Chapter VIII, an extraneous quotation mark was
removed after "They tote every drop."
In the illustration captioned "Bridged by Double Tree",
"U.S.G.A." was changed to "U.S.G.S.".
In Chapter IX, a missing quotation mark was added after
"Mr. Masseth's."
In Chapter XI, "the sting of a black hornet?" was
changed to "the sting of a black hornet.".
In Chapter XVIII, a missing question mark was added
after "cows here to do all the work".
In addition, an advertisement for other books in the
U. S. Service Series has been moved from the front of
the book to the back.