USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 11
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" Charley must see the spirit dance of the white men and white squaws!" So away he ran for the bunk-house, and rushing up to the bedside of his companion, he began spitting out mouthfuls of In- dian jargon, while he pulled and hauled at Charley. Being thus rudely awakened, and in his half-dazed condition, Charley readily partook of Jack's excite- ment. With one grand sweep, he threw his blan- ket covering across the room, and, dressed only in a very short shirt, made a wild break for the great " Council House." He had entirely forgotten his newly acquired clothing, and, in his excitement, he was not content to hesitate or merely thrust his bushy head through the doorway of the dance hall, but rushed right in, despite his nude condition, and sat down on a vacant seat. Possibly he might have been persuaded to retire unnoticed, if the musician had possessed sufficient control, but when he espied His
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Naked Highness-the Indian-the violinist lost a note, then two, then three, and finally dropped his fiddle and roared with laughter.
Charley became disgusted because of the attention paid to him, and retired to the bunk-house, where it was explained to him that while a certain degree of nudity was proper for ladies, it was customary for men to enter a ballroom with a full-dress suit and other articles of apparel which evidently he did not possess.
The musician attempted to continue the same piece of music but it was a failure. When he arrived at the note he had been playing when he had discovered the nude Indian, he broke down. He says that to this day he never has been able to get over that note.
A few days were spent waiting for orders, but the time passed in the expectant day-dreaming of those unexplored wilds; of the game, flowers and wild berries that abound. In August and September, one often finds acres of wild currants, blueberries and salmon berries. The salmon or molina berry is most plentiful near the coast, where it grows ex- tremely large. They are of two kinds-yellow and black. They grow also both the low and high-bush cranberry.
CHAPTER XV
I told an Indian boy that President Roosevelt was an expert hunter, and he replied: " Bring White Chief to Copper River and me show him how to snare rabbits."
I STARTED in 1900 with one companion on a trip for the U. S. Copper River Exploring Expedition, and we were joined along the route by Dave Rhodes, who is a noted Yellowstone Park guide, August Chisholm, from California, William Soule, from Boston, and Ed. Dickey, from Nevada.
Mr. Dickey had been a prospector in about all the mining districts of the west, and he had so ac- customed himself to adversity that he could fatten on it. He probably was the best-humored man in Alaska at that time. He led a foolish horse that, like some men, would get excited, and as he plunged in the mire Dickey would remonstrate, reason and plead with the animal to behave. Once the horse got the better of his instructor by dragging Dickey
through a stretch of muddy water, but he did not complain. He just stroked the horse's neck and said :
" Baldy, you will compel me to speak harshly to you, and possibly use profane language, if you don't reform your ways !"
In one place I was compelled to turn my horse
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loose, while we both plunged separately through the mire. After repeated plunges and rests, we reached solid footing. I remained near by to see if Dickey would not utter just one profane word to relieve his mind and my nerves; because his quiet behavior was exasperating. The circumstances justified profanity of the very best quality, and Dickey, it appeared to me, was neglecting his privilege. Millions of mos- quitoes, all day, had done what they could to bring out his latent resources, but in vain. This last swamp, mud-wax or tapioca pudding, would surely awaken him to his duty. He succeeded in stopping his charger at the very edge of the mire and remarked : " Baldy, I'm afraid you'll cause me to speak harshly to you !"
Dickey then cautiously approached until he was bogged down, and Baldy plunged over him; but as he did so, he knocked off Dickey's hat, and with his hind foot shoved it three feet beneath the surface. The horse plunged and rested, alternately, until he had gained terra firma. Dickey turned red in the face, while pulling one leg at a time from the mire. He crawled over to the place where he had seen his hat last, and running his arm down until he spat out dirty water, extracted the hat and stood up in a commanding attitude. Then I began to feel proud of him, for evidently he was going to say something, and I hoped it would do justice to him- self and the occasion. Very likely the air around
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would be of a bluish cast while Dickey made a record for himself. The swamp needed it, the horse needed it, and I, myself, needed a liberal amount, for not telling him to do some swearing before he entered the bottomless place. Now, it was going to come ! Dickey looked at nothing but shaky swamp for miles around him, and then burst forth :
" Say, I've a notion to take up a ranch, right here ! "
There I was-unarmed, but Dickey never will be forgiven for his calm behavior on that occasion. Alaska is a hard place on a man's religion, but surely it was unprepared to receive a man who couldn't swear at all. Mr. Dickey possessed other peculiar- ities, as the following incident goes to show :
An Irishman was left in charge of a station with instructions not to feed travelers or horses. Dickey rode up and applied for accommodations, because it was late at night and storming, and he could go no further. The Irishman said:
" Och, ye would be afther sthayin' all night, would ye? I've instruchtions to kape no wan, and so ye better be goin'."
Dickey hesitated.
" Ye can't be sthoppin' here, do ye understhand ! "
Dickey rode under the shed, and tied his horse there, out of the wind. The Irishman threw some hay to his own horse, but none to Dickey's, although that was not necessary, for Dickey did that himself.
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The Irishman remonstrated, but Dickey reasoned that the horse should eat something while he rested. Then Dickey followed the Irishman into the house and seated himself by the fire.
" There'll be none av the loikes av ye sthop- pin' here while I have suprame authority to prevint it! "
" That's all right," nonchalantly replied Dickey, " I'll warm myself by the fire a little, as it's very cold outside."
The Irishman sat down by the fire for twenty minutes, expecting Dickey to go, but he did not; then he went into the kitchen. Dickey heard dishes rattling in there, so he entered and discovered the Irishman quietly eating his supper.
Dickey bravely procured implements from the cupboard and deliberately sat down to eat. The Irishman was too astonished to talk, and after sup- per Dickey returned to enjoy his comfort by the fire. Presently, the Irishman came in and sat down for his evening smoke, but during the half-hour that passed he spoke not a word. Finally he walked back to his bed and retired for the night, still wondering when his strange visitor would depart.
Dickey coolly walked over to the bedside, re- marked that there appeared to be room enough for two, dropped off his trousers and crawled in beside his host. Again the Irishman lost his speech, caused by a swelling that extended over his entire body and
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paralyzed his vocal chords. When he recovered he said :
" By the howly Saint Patrick! Oi niver saw the loiks of ye! Mon, the bed is yours! The whole station and the harse belongs to ye! Take all av it, for I've nothin' to say; but sure now, if ye plase, just inform me whin me sarvices are not naded !"
My companion and I reluctantly parted company with the others at Copper Center, and when we ar- rived at the banks of the Tazlina River we found it a raging torrent. We rafted our outfit across, but the horses refused to enter the cold water, and I was compelled to ride one ahead while my companion drove the others in. It was a hard, long swim, and we drifted far down the stream, but finally gained the other shore.
We remained two days in camp at the mouth of the Gokona River, because of the excessive heat. When the weather is warm in Alaska, the humidity in the atmosphere is most enervating, yet one can have plenty of cold water to drink, and butter, if kept in the shade, retains its solidity. In that respect, it is different from the warm weather of the southern deserts, for there, the prospector carries butter in a bottle. The only relief for a thermometer's raging fever, down on the desert, is to apply wet cloths along its backbone. It was at the Gokona River camp that my companion was thrown beneath a vicious horse, by the breaking of a latigo. I held the horse by the
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bit while he kicked wickedly at his rider's head, barely missing it, and while the man's foot clung to the stirrup in such a manner that he was being dragged to the ground. I called to him to lie low, and he replied :
"O, I'll never let another good thing pass by me, as long as I live ! "
Again the horse's shoe barely missed his head, and he said:
" If I ever get out of this, won't I have a time? "
When he did get loose, he stood up and shouted :
" Gee whiz! You bet I'm going to have all the good things that come my way the rest of my life ! Golly, what a time I'm going to have !"
There were about forty Indians near there, who were engaged in drying salmon for winter use. Among them were the two Gulkana Indians who had divided their salmon with Date and myself the fall before. Now had come the time to pay that debt, so I measured each one of them twenty cups of flour. They were pleased and repeated " Chinan " (thanks) and said I was a " hiyu good man."
My companion delighted in deceiving the Indians by playing jokes on them. He performed the trick of carelessly lighting a match and placing it in his trousers pocket for a moment, then taking it out and lighting his pipe with it. One of my Indian friends wanted to try the same trick, but I cautioned him. Another Indian stepped up and did light a
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match, placing it in his pocket; whereupon he jumped high in the air and made a few remarks that seemed to amuse the others very much.
My companion allowed a large Indian to beat him at running and jumping, and then he ran a few steps and turned a handspring. The Indian had never seen that done before, but bravely took off his hat and attempted it. I was reading at the time, when my attention was attracted by a noise that sounded as if a log had fallen to the ground. Looking up, I saw the Indian lying flat on his back, with his mouth open.
It was demonstrated to the Indians that one could hold a coffee-pot filled with boiling water, on the flat of his hand. This can be done, if the pot be immediately released as soon as it stops boiling. As long as it boils, it takes cold air to the bottom. In consequence of one Indian attempting to perform that trick, there was some tall kicking, a scattering of boiling water, and also some very forcible re- marks. I really feared that companion was going to get us into trouble.
The Indians requested us to take an Indian boy along as far as the Chistochina River, and we did so. He amused himself by killing ducks and musk- rats in the small lakes that bordered the trail, and my dog Pete surprised him by bringing his game out of the water. Indian dogs or tame coyotes never do that.
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Instead of making the attempt to get back to the head of the Chistochina on the snow, I had remained and accepted a position from the government to continue exploring in the Alaskan Range. By so mismanaging, I arrived at the mouth of Slate Creek just as others had finished staking it out. After looking over the ground, I decided that above Miller Gulch, a tributary of Slate Creek, was where Captain West had made his discovery. That is the exact place I had been attempting to reach the year before.
We cached most of our provisions in trees, near L'ake Mancomen (beaver) and turned westward to explore for a pass from the north side of the Cop- per River valley to the Tanana. When in one high pass, we experienced an electric storm of an un- usual kind. We were in the midst of a summer cloud at an altitude of 5000 feet. The lightning did not strike, but seemed to break all around us. The thun- der did not clap, but ran around on a level, and broke, ripped and tore along the mountain-side, while electricity caused the manes of our horses to look frowzy and our finger-tips to ache. It would not have been surprising had our eyebrows been scorched. The storm appeared to be busily engaged in tearing up this vaporous coverlid, by shooting a few bolts lengthwise and then ripping them crosswise. I never shall forget that ripping, split- ting and breaking atmosphere. If Franklin had been in such a place, he would have been surprised at the
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short string needed for his kite. This phenomenal treat was only a few minutes in duration, but was worth the money.
Owing to the warm weather, and the consequent high water that boiled from beneath the Gokona glacier, we were unable to cross that river until July 21. On our side of the river was as luxuriant bunch-grass as could be found in any country, and as beautifully colored flowers as one could desire to look upon; while not two hundred yards from us was the glacier that extended for miles back among the mountains. We saw a bear eating willow buds on the moraine of that glacier.
We crossed the glacier stream, and ascended high rolling hills at the foot of the mountain range. From there, we looked down on the glacier and over the Copper River valley. It appeared to have been once an inland sea. The whole country around must have been uplifted and now streams were cross-cutting old channels where the rivers had been. Although we were fifteen miles away from timber and 1000 feet above it, we found a log of ebonized wood that had just been washed from a high gravelly bank. It had been burned brown by the smothered heat of time and had a charred surface on one side, with spruce bark on the other.
I cut that log in two pieces, with the intention of returning this same way and packing one of them out to the coast, but failed to come by that route.
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Probably that log will be found at some future time with its chips and the cutting, and great comment will then be made upon the edged tools that evidently were used at some prehistoric time. I fancy that the sensational article thus written would favorably compare with the average canards that occasionally appear in the modern Sunday papers.
The many extinct craters in Alaska are an evi- dence of the great volcanic activity which existed there in ancient times. The then warm climate was made possible by the thinness of the earth's crust, but the heat escaped through these craters; the crust thickened, and possibly the sudden cooling caused great precipitation; this failed to melt in summer, and consequently congealed into ice. So followed the glacier period. That was the time when Alaska really was the ice-bound region which popular repute sup- poses it to be at this day. Now, the climate again is becoming warmer from the same old cause-in- ternal heat. Springs that come from the ground in that part of Alaska do not freeze in winter. Rivers overflow and glaciers are rapidly receding, as the many old moraines indicate.
These great changes in the north are compara- tively of recent date, only a few thousand years ago, -yesterday, to a geologist; for the rocks are still black from the effects of volcanic fires, and here is the charred wood.
Many times has this old planet been darkened
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by volcanic ashes and smoke. In B. C. 45 the sun shone pale on southern Europe for a whole year. A. D. 536 little sunlight was seen for a whole year and two months (Georgius Dynast, p. 94).
In A. D. 567, " In the second year of the reign of Justinian II., there appeared a flame of fire in the heavens near the north pole, and remained there for a whole year; darkness was cast over the world from 3 o'clock till night, so that nothing could be seen; and something resembling dust and ashes fell down from the sky." (Abu'l Farag, p. 95.)
The history of Portugal claims that that country was without sunlight for two months in A. D. 934.
In A. D. 1547 the sun appeared in some parts of the planet for three days as if suffused with blood. On May 19, 1780, the settled portions of North America experienced darkness from 10:30 A. M. until midnight. The sea and the rivers were covered to the depth of four inches with a black, sooty scum. These conditions were surely caused, not by other planets, as we are too ready to assume, but by vol- canic convulsions of this old earth of ours. From the standpoint of a lay mind it appears to me that meteors might have the same origin; that is, they might be shooting from our great Polar volcanic guns, and according to the natural law that every- thing which goes up must come down, they return to earth. We are not rubbing noses with other planets, and attracting from them pieces of their
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wearing apparel; and if we were attracting meteors from other planets, the law of the Divine Purpose would be upset and we should be attracting the planets themselves. I do not know this, but I do know that scientists advance by way of a whole cata- logue of mistakes-at least, such is history !
Then, too, that other theory that appears to me to be an axiom, concerning the rotation of the earth. We are confronted by the fact that if water be poured on a grindstone, or a sphere, while that sphere is being turned eastward, the centrifugal force will cause the water to travel westward. It appears to me not only reasonable but an axiomatic fact that the same law must exist throughout all creation. If so, it is a reasonable answer for the question: Why are the fisheries washing away on the Atlantic coast and the ocean's waters receding on the Pacific coast?
Captain Foxen beached his boat on the coast of California in 1832, and it now is far inland and above sea level. It also looks probable that the great Salt Lake is a pool of the ocean water that was left in a basin, and that this through evaporation is be- coming more saline and will eventually disappear. If this theory should be true, then the rotation, with external attraction, does cause a circumvolution of the waters, and in a great cycle of time history will repeat itself regardless of local upheavals.
There are in California thousand of tons of sea- shells on the tops of high mountains, and in other
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places there are bones of animals, sixty feet beneath the surface. This supports the theory that old ocean has rolled between the dry-land periods, and that gigantic mammals performed on the stage prior to the last circumvolution of the waters.
That does not, however, in any way disprove the fact that the earth's crust contracts and wrinkles, depresses and upheaves; for our old balloon will continue to do that until she becomes so near a solid that she drops in line as a secondary planet, a moon for some other planet, or else she will drop into the sun to furnish light and warmth to heav- enly constellations. Neither does it conflict with the approaching theory that the earth possesses another rotation, which, in time, changes the locations of the poles.
If this theory of water movement be correct, then the complete circuit of the waters might cause a geological period, but the mind of man even then could not ascertain the chronology, as our history does not compose a unit, or one period. If this be true, the time will come when the Mississippi val- ley will be an inland sea, and Oceanica a vast con- tinent.
CHAPTER XVI
A porcupine is not so stupid as many will assume, but fairly bristles with pointed facts, sharp realities and pene- trating truths.
WOULD-BE prospectors have gone to Alaska with a book under one arm, and a package of geological phrases under the other, but they could not recognize a mine if they camped on it for a month. We fell into company with a doctor, who had worked him- self over into a prospector, and he could interest you for hours, talking about " petrified schist and mortified greenstone." He would sit around the campfire and make ridiculous anatomical diagnoses of all the mineral ledges within sight of the place. Although he was a voluble theorist he sadly needed experience.
He shot the first porcupine he encountered at a distance of forty yards, and after shooting it three times, he walked up until only a few feet away from it and, discovering its eyes to be open, blew off its head. When encountering the next one, he ven- tured much nearer, and the third one he knocked in the head with a club. He then discovered that they always had their eyes open-even when dead-and remarking something about the first one having im-
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posed a trick upon him, he proceeded to interest him- self in porcupines.
He said that they were not game enough to shoot, and finally insisted that such sluggish animals should not be harmed at all. He also discovered that one who killed a porcupine with the intention of getting a sirloin steak would be disappointed,-for they didn't have any sirloin to speak of. He picked up a half-grown one by the back of its neck and brought it into camp to make a pet of it. He did not know that the youthful porcupine could be so easily satis- fied, as they are naturally very tame. During the cool part of the night the porcupine crawled into bed beside his benefactor. The doctor slept in a nude condition, with the exception of bed-covering, for the purpose, as he expressed it, of " exuding corporeal effluvium."
During the restless sleep of the M. D. the poor porcupine was compelled evidently to act on the de- fensive to prevent his being crushed. I do not say that the doctor sat down on the porcupine, but one might infer he did, if one judged by the locality in which the quills were inserted. The way that M. D. danced around our campfire like a wild Indian and called for help, at the dead hour of midnight, was interesting and amusing. As he danced and pleaded I asked:
" Where did you see them do that?"
" See whom do what?"
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" The Indians."
" Why, confound your idiotic brain! Do you im- agine Indians shot all these arrows into me? I tell you, it was that infernal porcupine ! Do you under- stand? Now, go and get a small pair of forceps out of my clothes-bag and get to work!"
" But, doctor! You said you brought these along for the purpose of pulling teeth ! It would be un- professional to allow them to be used for any such base purposes ! "
" Get those forceps, I tell you!"
" Oh, well, I'll get them if you insist; but if you are patient and will wait, those quills will work out in front of themselves in a day or two. It is as- tonishing how they will travel through a patient per- son."
" Did you hear my commands ? "
" Certainly, doctor, but had you not better sit down while the search is being made?"
" Sit down! Me sit down in this condition! Say-"
Then because of the doctor's dangerous irresponsi- bility and his threatening attitude, the search was made. It was somewhat prolonged, because of the agitated earnestness with which the doctor expressed himself. He appeared to be deeply affected below the surface, for otherwise, the mosquitoes which cov- ered his naked body would have monopolized his attention.
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The forceps were found, but it was necessary to build a large fire to have sufficient light, and the doc- tor complained about that, too ; said I was too blamed particular. Whenever he was relieved of a quill and some accompanying blood, he would act fran- tic and ridiculous, and jump up in the air, in such a way, that if a flashlight picture of the scene were in- troduced in this narrative, it would ruin the pub- lishers. Several times during the night, after this accident happened, the doctor awakened me and asked if I were really laughing or only snoring.
From the high hills beyond the Gokona we could look down westward to where a stream of water came out from beneath a glacier, and parted half a mile below there, one branch going to the westward where it appeared to turn northward through the mountain range; while the other continued a south- erly course into a lake. From thence the outlet could be seen to continue towards Copper River. That silvery thread appeared to be at our feet, but was in reality three miles away. From information pre- viously given to us by the Indians, we knew it to be the source of the Gulkana River; but what was that other prong, and where was it leading? Was that glacier the source of two distinct rivers, the mother of twins ?
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