ON ARCTIC FEATHERS
A tardy dawn had scarcely come creeping over the surface of the glacier
when they broke camp. Having breakfasted heartily on sourdough flapjacks,
warmed-over baked beans and coffee, they were ready for anything.
“We’ll sleep in a better bed to-night,” remarked Jennings as he rolled up
the canvas floor to their tent and threw it on his sled.
“Couldn’t be warmer,” said Curlie.
“No, but softer.”
“Cheer-o,” shouted Joe, “that sounds good to me.”
“Now,” said Jennings, producing from the depths of his pack two small
double pulleys and a coil of rope, “the next thing is to get over the
ridges. Have to use block and tackle.”
“That sounds all right,” smiled Curlie, “but how you going to hitch a
block to a smooth surface of ice?”
“Leave it to me,” laughed the miner. “Between four and five thousand of
us went over this glacier in ’98. Had mighty few dogs and pulled 1400
pounds of outfit apiece too. That was tough sledding. Didn’t make a
thousand feet progress in a day sometimes. Three of our crowd never did
get over; froze to death right here on the glacier. But I tell you,” he
exclaimed suddenly, “those were the days! Those were the men! It’s always
the bravest and the best that go first in a rush like that. The cheap,
the idle, the crooked ones come later to live off the gains of those who
dared much in the beginning.” Having ended this little oration, he got
down to business.
“You boys string the rope through those blocks. When you get that done,
throw me up one of the blocks.”
“Here,” he exclaimed, “better strap these on your shoes. They’ll help you
a lot.”
The things he threw at their feet were made of steel and leather. When
they were strapped upon the soles of one’s shoes they transformed their
plain, heavy felt-lined shoes into something resembling baseball shoes.
“Great stuff!” exclaimed Joe, driving the sharp steel barbs beneath the
balls of his feet into the ice. “Couldn’t slip in these if you tried to.”
A moment later they tossed one of the blocks into which the rope had been
threaded up to Jennings on the icy ridge above.
“All right,” he sang out a moment later. “Hitch the other block to the
sled and heave away.”
Much to the surprise of the boys, when they pulled at the rope, the
block, out of sight on the ridge above, held firm, and the sled climbed
slowly up the almost perpendicular bank. A moment later, they saw
Jennings drag the sled to a safe position on the icy bench.
“How does he do it?” whispered Joe.
“Got me,” Curlie whispered back. “He surely couldn’t hold it.”
“Say not! Took both of us to pull it up and we had the advantage of the
blocks.”
“All right,” came from above as a block glided back to them, “let’s have
the next one.”
When the three sleds were upon the bench and the dogs had been induced to
follow, the boys climbed up, eager to discover the miner’s secret.
“Oh!” exclaimed Joe. “Only a stake in the ice. Who could have left it?”
He was staring at a stout stake which stuck ten inches above the surface
of the ice.
“Nobody. I put it there,” Jennings smiled. Then, seeing their look of
incredulity, he went on, “You’ll remember I left the cabin last night
with a package under my arm. Also, you will remember that I melted a
bucket of snow water while supper was cooking. In the bundle there was
nothing but stout stakes; a dozen of them. You’ll find them up the
glacier, all frozen in. All I had to do was to chip a hole in the ice,
then thrust in a stake. After that I filled the hole full of snow, then
poured water over it. The snow and water froze together almost instantly
and here we have our stakes. We’ll have lunch on the other side of the
ridge and to-night we will sleep in a spruce forest. We shall then have
gained a full two days on our journey. With the trail in its present
condition we could not have made the journey over the roundabout valley
in less than four days and even then we would have worn down our dogs.”
When, a few hours later, all the miner’s prophecies had been fulfilled
and the boys were preparing the second night’s camp, they were
enthusiastic in their praise of their new-found friend.
“To-night,” smiled the miner, “we will sleep on a bed of Arctic
feathers.”
“Arctic feathers!” exclaimed Curlie in surprise. “What are they?”
“Wait and see.”
Jennings studied the shapely spruce trees which towered about them on
every side. Then he allowed his eyes to wander over the surface of the
earth’s two-foot-thick mantle of snow.
“That’s a good place,” he pointed at a smooth spot which was surrounded
by trees. “First we’ll tramp down the snow. No need of shoveling it
away.”
At once they set to work packing down a square of snow.
“Might as well start right,” said the miner. “We’re going into a land of
long nights. Fairly long now but they’ll get much longer. Get to be
twenty hours. If we start making camp right we’ll have all the comforts
of home.”
“There,” he said at last, “guess that’ll do. Now we’ll divide up the work
and make the jobs regular; each fellow do the same thing every night.
System, that’s what you need on the trail, as well as in business.”
Turning to Joe he said: “There’s a likely looking tree right there. Cut
it down.”
“It won’t burn; it’s green.”
“Who said it would?”
Joe grinned as he seized an axe to drive it into the thick bark of the
tree.
“There’s a dead tree for you, Curlie,” said the miner. “Get it down and
cut it into wood for the Yukon stove.”
Turning to the camp kit, he was soon at work straightening out the tent,
which had collected dampness from the previous night and was frozen stiff
in spots.
He spread it over their tent-site and set it up as best he could. Then,
crawling inside, he set up the sheet-iron stove and started a fire. As
the tent, warmed by the fire, began to soften, he gradually drew it into
its accustomed shape.
In the meantime each boy had felled his tree and had trimmed it up.
“Now, Joe,” said the veteran camper, “cut your tree into lengths to go
across each side of our tent and chop the first six inches of each end
half off as if you were building a log house.”
When this had been accomplished, he assisted Joe in placing the poles in
a square about the tent. He next drew the lower edges of the tent out
over the logs and packed snow over them to the depth of several inches.
After that he spread a square of canvas as a floor to the tent.
“There,” he sighed at last; “won’t any air get into our tent to-night.
Next thing is a lot of spruce boughs. Cut ’em right off and drag ’em
inside.”
When the tent was packed half full of boughs, he took out a large clasp
knife and began to clip off the small twigs on the branches. The boys
followed his example. In a few moments the shorn branches were all
outside the tent and the canvas floor was buried ten inches deep with
spruce needles and fine twigs.
“Now,” said the miner, “the two of you hold up the stove while I spread a
canvas over the whole of it and our camp is made.”
“Just like an old-fashioned feather bed!” exclaimed Joe, as he bounced
down upon the springy bed of twigs.
“That’s it,” smiled the miner. “Those are Arctic feathers. If we take
time to make a camp like this every night, we’ll get a lot of comfort out
of it and be all the better fitted for the trail. I’ll go out and set up
a shelter for the dogs while you boys get supper, then we’ll be through
for the night.”