LOST IN THE SNOW
With shouts of joy at the prospect of plenty of fresh meat, the Indians
leaped from the sleds, donned showshoes, and were soon at the side of
the dead moose. Mr. Baxter, Jerry and the colored man followed.
"Yo' suah am a good shot, Massa Fred," complimented Johnson. "I once
shot a wild turkey, an' goodness, I was so puffed up I hardly knowed
mahself."
"I guess it was more due to good luck than anything else that I hit
him," said Fred modestly.
"Well, it's just in time for dinner," remarked Mr. Baxter. "It will be a
welcome relief from the canned stuff."
"I'se gwine t' look out fo' suthin' t' shoot after dis," announced
Johnson. Absent-mindedly he had taken off his heavy mittens to feel of
the antlers of the moose, and without thinking what he was doing, he
took hold of his rifle barrel in his bare hand. The next instant he
uttered a howl of anguish.
"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Baxter quickly.
"Mah hand! It's froze fast t' mah gun! Ah cain't git it off!"
This was true. So intense was the cold that the moment the colored man
placed his warm and somewhat moist hand on the steel the flesh had
frozen fast. This is a common occurrence in the far north, and
travelers, knowing it, are careful never to grasp anything of metal in
their bare hands. But the colored man, though he had been warned against
this, had forgotten it.
"Quick! Put some snow on and then wrap his hand up in a blanket!" called
Mr. Baxter. "He'll lose a finger or two if we don't."
It was the work of but an instant for Fred to scoop up some snow in his
big mitten, place it over the negro's hand and part of the rifle barrel
and then throw a fur robe over his whole arm, thus shutting out the
terrible cold for a moment. The treatment was effective, the snow melted
the ice between Johnson's hand and the metal, and in a few seconds the
hand had thawed loose.
"It done feel jest laik a burn," remarked Johnson as he drew on his
mitten again.
"Yes, intense cold such as we are now in does feel for a moment almost
like heat to the naked flesh," said Mr. Baxter. "Let this be a lesson to
all of us. We must exercise the greatest care, or some of us will have
frost-bitten hands or feet, to say nothing of our noses."
By this time the Indians were skinning and cutting up the moose. It
would have been hard work in a region where everything froze solid
almost the minute life left it, but Holfax and his men built a big fire,
and in the warmth of that they worked. Every one had a good dinner, even
the dogs, who feasted to their hearts' content on moose meat. Some was
left to freeze, to be packed on the sleds for future use.
Once more they started the dogs northward, the day soon coming to a
close, as the short-lived sun went down, and the Northern Lights began
to play.
Their camp that night was not disturbed by any wolves, and they made an
early start the next day, coming a few miles nearer to the mountains
which they hoped held the store of buried gold.
As they approached a region where the going would be hard, for it was
mostly up hill, Mr. Baxter decided to make a camp where they could
remain a day or so to give the dogs a chance to rest. Some of the
animals had sore feet, where they had been cut by the sharp ice, and, as
the dogs were their only means of transportation, it was necessary to
take good care of them.
Accordingly they stopped that afternoon on the edge of a big wood which,
Holfax said, would take them two days to get through. It was a gloomy
forest, stretching for miles and miles throughout the heart of Alaska,
and beyond it lay the mountain range where Stults, the German hunter,
had been pursued by the fierce Indians, to escape from whom he had
hidden his gold.
The tent was put up for the adventurers, and the Indians made themselves
a shelter of the sleds, heaping snow up around them and spreading
blankets across the top. Then, with a good fire, there was more comfort
than at first would seem possible to get in a country where, at that
season, it was seldom warmer than ten or fifteen degrees below zero.
They slept better that night than they had any previous one since
starting on their land journey, for the terrible cold had somewhat
abated. The next day the sun shone brightly, and the two boys decided to
take a little trip for exercise, since sitting on a sled, weighted down
by fur robes, had made their muscles stiff.
They put on their snowshoes, and with their rifles started off. They
hoped they might see another moose, or a musk ox, or, at least, an
Arctic fox, at which to take a shot.
"Don't go too far," cautioned Mr. Baxter. "There's no telling when a
snowstorm may come up, and you can lose your way very easily up here."
They started off, and, as Holfax had said it was rather dangerous to go
into the forest because of the numbers of fierce wolves that might be
there, they moved southward across the plain over which they had just
come.
The sun shone brightly on the snow, which was unrelieved by a single
dark object. It was one vast extent of dazzling white.
At first it was beautiful, so still and quiet, and with the sun up there
was some relief from the piercing cold, that even seemed to strike
through their thick garments. But there was a danger they did not know
about.
"See tracks of anything?" asked Fred when they had gone some distance
and were out of sight of the camp, which was down in a sort of hollow.
"No. Do you?"
"Not a thing. Let's keep on a little farther."
They walked on for perhaps another mile, their snowshoes making travel
easy. But there was no sight of game. Not even a wolf showed itself.
"Guess we'd better go back," remarked Fred at length. "There doesn't
seem to be anything here. Say, my eyes smart something fierce. How about
yours?"
"Mine do, too. I wonder what it is?"
"I don't know. Say, the sun must be going down. It's getting dark. We
must have been out longer than we thought."
"That's so. Come on back. My, but it's getting dark suddenly."
"It certainly is. Why, Jerry, I can't seem to see anything! Where are
you?"
"Right here, but I can't see you. I wonder what the trouble is? Do you
think there's going to be a blizzard?"
Fred was waving his hand in front of his face. To his horror he could
not see it. Before his eyes was nothing but blackness. Then he uttered a
cry of fear.
"What is it?" asked Jerry. "What's the matter? I can't see you, Fred."
"Jerry!" cried the young treasure hunter. "We're blind!"
"Blind?"
"Yes, snow-blind. The sun shining on the snow has dazzled and blinded
us, and we're lost, a long way from the camp!"