USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 10
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pleasant to consider, together with the fact that we were almost out of supplies.
Just before the autumn day had closed I stood in the pass, after a weary day's march, and looked across to a white mountain-side and probably to- wards the long-sought locality. It would be impos- sible to go down into the deep canyon and climb out of it, for the snow was too deep to admit of such an undertaking; and besides, one would have neces- sarily to tramp all night to keep warm. The water was frozen, so no gravel could be washed. While I stood there, with the snowflakes whipping my face, they seemed to say: "Your life is at stake for the greed of gold! Is it worth while?"
Somewhere over yonder, a mile or two away, and now covered from the sight of man, was the sought- for treasure of the wild, but the doors of Nature's vaults had been closed against me. My friends can testify that my credit always has been limited, and I know it always will be so, yet I confess that the real- ization I was weighing my life in the balance with the gold that is worshiped by fools, made my esti- mate of that filthy lucre gradually sink below par.
As I slowly and wearily wended my way back, by the light of the snow, I reflected that if Apollo had been a prospector instead of a sheep-herder, and his scene of activity had been Alaska, he would have sung, no doubt, of the beauties of nature, be -. cause he usually did, but that very often his refrain
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would have been varied by the favorite recitative of the country: " Please pass the beans."
I have always thought that the love of money was base, and a bar against a higher life, yet I doggedly resolved to return the next year and continue my search. If I had been allowed to leave the coast a month or even ten days earlier, I should have had my choice of locations on Miller Gulch and Slate Creek, which have, at this writing, produced about two tons of gold.
It is a consolation to know, however, that the locality was staked by more deserving men than some others who would have beaten Captain West and myself out of it, and who could not travel a straight trail unless there was an impassable barrier on either side.
The snow continued to fall, and the next day we prepared to leave. The air was calm and every- thing was purely white. That is when the ptarmigan come down off the mountain and say laughingly:
" I've come back !"
They descend singly and in flocks. A flutter and . a sail, a flip and a cackle, and there is a ptarmigan down, and laughing about it! You cannot see him because he is as white as the snow. If you had found him two or three weeks before, his color would have been brown, but the first snow has remained on the mountain where he has been, and now he is white. At this time of the year, on a few of them, may be
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noticed a dark-brown spot about the size of a silver dollar, but even that will be white in a few days.
On our return I went out to kill a few of them to eat. One came down, not twenty steps away, and thinking I saw the brown spot, I fired, only to knock the snow off a rock. The bird was two feet to one side and had no brown spot. He fluttered up and came down again. They have a red ring around the eyes, and looking for that I approached until it was visible, and then I killed the bird. The snow is not nearly so white in the spring, and after it has lain on the ground all winter those birds are seen much more easily. It is difficult to distinguish a white ptar- migan on an October snow, even at the distance of twenty steps.
They have fine feathers, a kind of hairy down, completely covering their feet, and their plumage changes color almost constantly. The small rock ptarmigan is very gentle, and often a hen will fight to protect her little chicks. They are frequently found, in summer, hovering over their broods in the rain. This presents a pretty picture. The chicks peep from their mother's feathers, while the hen is so gentle that you can almost stroke her back with your hand. My little dog Pete was trained to treat the hens and little chicks with respect.
We left that camp on September 28, and the distance to the coast, over the route we were com- pelled to travel, without a trail, was about three
1
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hundred miles. The white Coast Range, with its three divides to cross, looked very forbidding and hopeless to us, who were almost out of food, and with feet wrapped in sacks. We fed all of our flour to the horses to enable them to get down to the val- ley, where they could live. So long as they had suffi- cient strength to carry our blankets, we felt secure, for we were too weak to carry them ourselves. We managed to kill a spruce hen or a pheasant almost every day, but game was very scarce at that time along the river.
If the weather had been delightful when we came up, it was very different now, for the cold north winds blew down the Copper River valley and through the naked tree tops. With a suggestive whistle, and apparently irresistible force, but with futile effect, they hurled themselves against those great natural battlements, the Wrangell group. The atmosphere was so clear, it was reasonable to be- lieve that those mountains could be seen at a dis- tance of one hundred and fifty miles. Mt. Wrangell sent up a steady spiral of smoke and steam that drifted away as clouds towards the Pacific.
When we were sitting by our campfire, one even- ing, with nothing to eat, two Indians approached us and asked if we had "muck-muck " (food) ? Upon receiving a negative answer, they counted the number of nights that they should be away from their winter camp, and then " pot-latched " (gave)'
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us two dried salmon. These salmon are cured with- out salt, and white men can eat the half-rotten fish only when nearly starved; therefore, our condition may be inferred, from the fact that we ate and en- joyed those fish.
At one camp we supped on snowballs, and break- fasted on wind-pudding and ice-water. When we arrived at Copper Center, we had eaten but one pheasant during the previous thirty-six hours. We found Dick Wortham there, running a trading-post for Mr. Holman, for the purpose of securing furs from the Indians. He had laid in a supply of moose meat for the winter, and we sat down to the table and ordered the best he had. He placed a large pot of boiled meat before us and said :
" Boys, I put fourteen pounds of moose meat in that pot !"
We ate, and then rested, and began to eat again, and he exclaimed :
" Boys, I put fourteen pounds of moose meat in that pot !"
Before retiring, we attacked that pot again and succeeded in eating all that there was, so Dick set- tled back once more, and exclaimed :
" Boys, I put fourteen pounds of moose meat in that pot !"
He charged us nine dollars for that meat and other sundries, and we had to raise the price of our worthless placer locations a few thousands to pay
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the bill. I met Dick, nearly a year after that inci- dent, and in answer to my salutation he exclaimed:
" Honest to God, I put fourteen pounds of moose meat in that pot!"
A few Indians visited that post, from a near-by vil- lage, and among them was a little girl with the pretty name of Natalia. I inquired diligently why they had named the child "Natalia," but no one seemed to know; and it was a striking illustration of their unconscious absorption of influence from far-away Russian, for Natalia was the name of the mother of Peter the Great, Russia's most practical ruler.
From Copper Center it was a battle with the ele- ments. Our food was insufficient and we had no trail to follow. We met Mr. Holman and his assistants, who were burdened with the first mail from Valdez to the Yukon, and he richly deserves the credit of delivering it under the conditions that then existed.
Our warm and dry sleeping-bags enabled us to sleep comfortably beneath two feet of snow, on the Grayling Creek divide, while the cold north wind blew, and the poor horses pawed the grass on the steep hillsides. One horse refused to move the next morning. I mercifully sent a bullet to his brain, and he dropped beside our trail. We crossed and de- scended to the edge of timber and camped on frozen ground.
We camped the next night in a deep valley that was brimful of death-like stillness, and surrounded
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by gold and silver crimsoned peaks that had climbed heavenward to bask in the light of other planets. About one o'clock at night I was looking on one of the prettiest sights of a lifetime. We were in the shade of a deep canyon, but the full moon shone on the tops of the surrounding mountains, thousands of feet above us and miles away; and those refulgent rays lighted up the canyons and deep-cut gorges so plainly that we could see the great precipices and glaciers, away up where human feet never could tread. That color overspread everything with a rich golden glow, unimaginable to those who never have viewed a northern winter's moonlight. For one hour I had been absorbed in speechless wonder, when my companion called out :
" Say, you sleepy-head, wake up and look at the grandest scene that Nature ever painted! I have been staring at it for an hour!"
There! Both of us had been gazing on the scene and neither of us had said a word-and with empty stomachs, too! True, Alaska's hardships are se- vere, but she often repays one with that which " filthy lucre " cannot buy. Ambidextrous Alaska ! She affectionately strokes your brow with one hand and wrathfully cuffs you with the other! She woos you with a smile and drives you away with a frown.
We trudged wearily into U. S. Station No. 3, where we were fed. As the wind was blowing fiercely across Thompson Pass, we deferred the crossing until
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night. We then made the attempt, but the horse, " Dynamite Bob," lost his buck and life up there. Although on the summit, he refused to move farther, and so we left him and sought shelter in the lee of a large rock on the Coast side of the mountain. The next morning I returned far enough to see his feet sticking out of the drifting snow.
I will frankly admit now that I should rather part with my dollar watch than undergo the hardships of such another trip. The next morning we slowly de- scended into the timbered lowlands, out of the wind, and tried to realize that we had but twenty miles to trudge to the little town at the end of the land- locked bay. Ah, how much that destination meant to us. It meant bacon and good old beans, butter and bread and possibly beefsteak! Our ambitious spirits gradually left our ankles and began ascend- ing towards our knees, as we prefigured the luxury of reading letters from home while enjoying com- fortable shelter from the cold, bitter storms.
When we did weakly walk into Valdez, we were long-haired, long-whiskered, hatless, shoeless and horseless, and represented the remnant of the outfit that went exploring in the Alaskan Range, in the fall of 1899.
CHAPTER XIV
The boy described in this chapter was at the latter end of the firecracker stage of life, possibly twelve years old.
IN 1898 every locality north of the 45th parallel was referred to as "the Klondike," although the Klondike was only a small river in the Northwest Territory. If you were going north your friends would insist that your were going to the Klondike, anyway, and by referring to you as a Klondiker they would coerce you into submission.
In 1900, it was Nome, Nome; no place like Nome. There were enough persons going to Nome to stake off a territory as large as New England, and all ex- pected to secure desirable locations. If you suc- ceeded in convincing others that you were going north and not to Nome, you also succeeded in im- pressing them with the belief that you were an imbe- cile. Prospectors went in pairs, one to hold the sack while the other shoveled gold into it. Hardships, the work of pulling sleds, would be unknown; just landing on the beach and shoveling up the gold! Where there was one gold-saving machine sold in 1898, dozens of them were sold in 1900.
One man refused to buy a machine, and in that respect he was a solitaire; but he further distin-
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guished himself additionally by devising a scheme that would readily return him a fortune. He found that he could ship Nome sand down to Seattle as ballast; so he decided to do that, and wash it out in the winter at his leisure, or sell it.
Good-looking restaurant girls asked to be taken to Nome, and others volunteered the information that they could wait on tables, wash dishes, and almost anything else if only allowed to go to Nome. It is probable that a restaurant man could have secured a hundred women on those conditions.
A lone boy quietly boarded a ship and was living there so sumptuously that he was quite important. Why not? Was he not going to Nome to make his fortune? The steamer did not land at the Sitka wharf, but anchored out in the stream. The Cap- tain managed nevertheless to put that boy on land. Later he went on shore himself, and there met the penniless boy from Alameda. The little fellow asked him if he did not think it heartless and cruel to put a boy off on such an island without a penny in his pockets to get something to eat.
The humane Captain's feelings were touched, as well as his pocket, and he gave the boy a dollar, re- questing him to invest it in such a manner that he might, some day, hear what he had done with it. The boy solemnly promised and kept his word.
This is what he did with it: he gave half of the dollar to an Indian to row him out to the steamer
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just as it was leaving. There he succeeded in climb- ing up the stern of the vessel and hanging like a spider from his web to a chance rope that happened to be there, while the Indian and his canoe were left in the boiling wake. In accordance with the good luck that always attends such daring boys, a pas- senger happened to look over the stern of the steamer and, seeing the boy, pulled him up on deck. He remained unobserved until well out at sea, then he went around and humiliated the Captain-in fact, knocked him speechless by lifting his cap in salutation.
The Captain looked at the boy, then rubbed his eyes and looked at him again. He said to himself, " Is it possible ! Didn't I leave that boy at Sitka ? And gave him a dollar at the last minute? It's the same boy, same freckles, same sunburn, same cap and the same coat with the hole in the elbow!"
The boy continued to humiliate the Captain by strutting past him again and again. He seemed to enjoy the Captain's embarrassment. Finally the Captain could no longer resist, so he called to the boy and they held a private conversation. The Captain felt as though he were talking to the presi- dent of the company, but he wanted to know several things. A boy who could so quietly board his ship was evidently developing traits of character that would, if cultivated, land him in the penitentiary-
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or make a capitalist of him. The boy told of how he had left home, and how he had helped his mother wash the dishes the morning he stole away. He said :
" I told mother I was going to Nome, but she only laughed. She doesn't quite know me, yet. We haven't been acquainted long enough. I always mean what I say. I didn't have a cent of money- didn't have any when I landed at Sitka, for that mat- ter."
There again he was tantalizing the Captain.
" What are you going to do?" asked the Cap- tain.
" Go to Nome."
" But this boat doesn't go there."
"I will."
" I'll put you off at Valdez, and then what will you do ? "
" Go to Nome."
" Boats running westward from Valdez only go
to Dutch Harbor, so what will you do there ? " " Go to Nome."
" What shall I tell your mother when I return to California ? that you-
" Went to Nome."
" See here, what did you do with the dollar that I gave you? "
" I spent half of it."
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" How ?"
" I gave it to an Indian to bring me out to the ship."
" What! Persuaded the Captain to loan you money to get back on his boat? "
" Yes, and I'll go to Nome on the other half."
" And that is just what I'll tell your mother- that you went to Nome! Now go and see that you make yourself useful on board this ship."
It would be interesting to know what finally, did become of that Nome-bound boy.
I came up from Sitka that spring, on the steamer Bertha, on which was a small man who had a large contract on his hands. He was going north to bring out some full-grown Kadiak grizzlies, sound in both body and mind. He asked me what kind of bait to use for his traps, and I suggested Siwashes, as I had heard they were particularly fond of those Indians. Because that fellow bragged about not being seasick, we dubbed him " The Sailor," but he threw up his reputation and other things when we struck a storm.
We were towing a little schooner which was bound for Latua Bay. All night long we wallowed in the troughs of the sea, and daylight surprised us by showing us the schooner still hanging to our line. When we arrived opposite Latua, the wind was not right for the schooner to enter, so the crew decided to try and hold on to our boat until we arrived at
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Yakutat. Latua Bay is landlocked and is connected with the ocean by a very narrow strait through which the tide rushes with great velocity. It was discovered in 1786, by the French navigator, Pé- rouse, who lost several members of his crew while sounding the dangerous entrance.
The little boat followed at the end of a long line, while we were driven into mountains of water by a southern gale. At times, it was out of our sight while great waves rolled between, and at others it was on the crest of a ridge while we were on another, with that long line stretching across a watery can- yon between us. Suddenly the rope parted and we left the schooner, watching it become smaller in the distance. Soon it was lost to view and to this world. It was reported later that the body of one of the sailors had been found on a beach nearly op- posite where we had last seen them.
We were rocked up and down, to and fro, for fifty-two hours in a stormy sea. When our maternal ancestors rocked their babies in cradles until they were so sick that they vomited and too sick to cry, their care-takers wiped their little mouths, saying that it was a sign of healthy children and proceeded to sicken them some more. It is probable that a few of those who were most thoroughly rocked in child- hood grew up to be sailors, and at some period of their lives the others wanted to be.
We came by way of Yakutat, where was a mis-
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sion, a store and a postoffice. The Indians destroyed that mission so "there was not one log left upon another." The Indians came out to our vessel in canoes. They tied the first canoe to the steamer's ladder with a fishline, then others were tied to that one, and then to the others, until there was an acre of canoes jammed together, with Indians little and big, old and young, well dressed and otherwise, scrambling on board. They swarmed everywhere, even into our staterooms that were unlocked.
The best-looking squaws sold trinkets for the whole tribe. They would cooingly attempt to talk until we bought something, and then not notice us afterwards,-they were sophisticated to that extent. It reminded us of their civilized sisters at church fairs.
The whistle blew half an hour before leaving, and they immediately scrambled back into their canoes and raced to shore, while their dogs on land howled with pain or something.
When we landed at Valdez a man approached me and asked if I were a moose. I replied that I was a caribou. I told an acquaintance, who had win- tered there, of the circumstance, and solicited his aid in placing the interrogator where he could do no harm, but this friend informed me that in my absence the old-timers had organized a society called the Alaska Moose. Now, as I had joined the Sons of Rest at Juneau, the Never Sweats at Sitka, and
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the H. A. Society at Valdez, I felt that I had reached the limit of fraternal dignities.
I attended a church at Valdez, and listened to a moccasined musician pump modern music from a poor old asthmatic organ. He seemed to get more action out of his feet than with his hands, but as it was conceded that he was skilled in music we lis- tened with admiration. He went after the poor de- fenseless organ as if he were determined to cause an earthquake, and really I feared that he would succeed. That music wept, sighed and moaned, then it cursed, raved and roared, while I held on to my nerves with difficulty and groaned. The audience was happy, not because it was music, but because it was difficult to do that. When he stopped to rest, I imagined that I could hear that organ panting.
I had seen a young man in Sitka, a mere amateur in music, take a cat and, by holding its paws so that it was defenseless, lay it on a table; then seizing its ear in his mouth, and with his other hand twisting its tail, he had in such a manner ground out just as good music, according to my judgment, as this pro- fessional had hydraulicked through that organ.
If there is a nerve extending from the medulla oblongata to the cortex of my skull, or that convolu- tion of brain matter which indicates music, it must have been strained or bent at some time or other. I possess probably as much vocal music as a mud turtle, yet I enjoy emotional music, such as may be
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produced by a senorita playing on a guitar, if she be passably good-looking; or a solo in a mix-up with Annie Laurie; but I draw the line on those uncon- trollable medleys which pick you up with a sluice fork, break your neck with a Jiu-Jitsu twist, or jab you in the butt of the ear with a sudden stop, and then throw down the lines and allow the team to run over the bluff. If I were called in to tune a piano, I probably would use a stick of dynamite.
Like all frontier towns, many of the inhabitants of Valdez were known only by the " nick-names " which had become attached to them in some unknown manner. I was approached by a soldier who was enjoying a respite from Fort Liscum, and he in- quired for the "Poor Man." I informed him that he was addressing the object of his search, but he refused to accept my view of the case, and explained that the " Poor Man " was a fellow who had once given a dance to procure sufficient money to furnish his house. The scheme had paid so handsomely that he had continued the dances twice a week for the rest of the winter, earning thereby the title of the " Poor Man."
An important day's doings at Valdez might have been recorded thus: "' Oklahoma Bill ' told ' Shorty the Kid' that he had bought two dozen marten skins of 'Mckinley George ' for a dollar each, but when he had attempted to sell them to 'Cold and Greasy,' he had been informed that they were muskrat skins,
THE
·NIZINA.
-
ALANKA
PRAPECTOR
LAND
Valdes, as we left it.
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worth a nickel apiece; and that ' Dad,' ' Alkali Ike ' and ' Frenchy ' had also declared them to be musk- rat skins. 'Lucky Bill' had bought a bear skin from 'Bear Brown '; and ' Cockney Jim ' had baked pies that even 'Alganik Bill ' couldn't eat. 'Stag- hound Bill ' had sold his dog-team to 'Big Rosa'; and 'Slop Jake' was sent to the penitentiary for shooting at and missing a man. 'Scottie ' had abused ' Dynamite Dan' for going down the bay in 'Fer- tilizer Louis's ' sloop; and ' Bald-headed Chris ' had taken his squaw with him, because he had thought ' Red-headed Chris' was falling in love with her. ' Tenas Rosa ' had drawn a sketch of 'Buck Hoyt'; and 'Dog-faced Joe ' had called 'Windy Jim ' and ' Joe Joe' contemptible perplexities for making re- marks about 'Copper River Red's' long hair. ' Whiskey Jim ' had been blown up in a mine, and 'Slow Water Willie ' alias 'Swift Water Bill ' was expected back from Fairbanks." Those were famil- iar names in Valdez.
Charley and Jack, two young Copper River In- dians, had expressed a desire to come out to the coast and see the many astonishing sights that had been described to them by the white men. Older Indians cautioned them, fearing that the white sol- diers would kill them, but upon being assured that there was no danger, they made the venture. They never had seen a cow or a hog, a wagon or a house, or even a white squaw. They called the beef-cattle
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the "white man's caribou," and the mules, his "moose." Their first day's amusement was found in looking at those unfamiliar sights, and what a circus day it was to those children of the forest !
Charley retired to a bunk that had been assigned him when night came, as his tired brain needed rest; but Jack wandered to a social hall where a dance was being conducted. The wonderful sight of hand- somely dressed women, gracefully swinging in the waltz, or dancing a two-step to the strains of the white man's music, caused him to exclaim :
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