USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 14
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We descended to the river between the lakes, and there came upon a camp of some prospectors. Among them was a " tenderfoot " who appeared to take everything good-naturedly, but acknowledged that he did not enjoy the exposures that the life en- tailed. At least I inferred as much when he an- nounced :
" Here I've been traveling all summer, with no roof over me except the canopy of heaven! It is
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with a smile in my eye that I confess I have used the soft side of a rock for a pillow while sleeping in these wilds !"
" Have you found any gold ? " I asked.
" What? me find gold? Why, these fellows say I couldn't save a color of gold from a pan of saw- dust ! All the gold I have found, you could put in your eye, and it wouldn't make you wink! I'm not out for gold, but for experience, and now I am over- loaded with that. No, sir, I haven't done a thing for myself or any one else, all summer. They did send me to search for the horses one morning, and the whole crowd spent the rest of the day looking for me. After that, they said they wanted me only for an ornament to the expedition. One calls me the mascot, and another the hoodoo. As soon as pos- sible, I am going to return to my people."
" I suppose the fatted calf will be slaughtered on that occasion ? "
" No, sir; a calf wouldn't do it justice. It will be an ox! "
The next night we camped by a beaver lake that had been formed by a dam across a ravine, which backed water up over several hundred acres. It had been recently constructed, as green willows were to be seen in it. There should be a fine imposed on any one who brings a beaver skin from Alaska. That would dispel the Indians' incentive for killing them. There are vast areas especially adapted for beaver
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pasturage, and good for nothing else, and if the beavers were protected for twenty years, the country would again be restocked with the fur that assisted Russia in clearing six millions of dollars.
Mr. Quigley accompanied us from Slate Creek as far as Indian Creek. It was on this creek that Quigley climbed a tree, and all the enticing looks of two full-grown grizzlies could not induce him to come down. In writing this manuscript, I carelessly left Quigley up there in the tree, but a friend, when reading it, advised me to get him down, even though it were necessary to shoot him out. As he seemed to be a pretty good sort of a fellow, I will elaborate the account and explain what really happened.
A dog came into camp and frightened the bears, and when they ran away, Quigley descended. He said that he had been busy repairing a pack-saddle, when, upon hearing a noise, he looked over his shoul- der and saw two bears within a few steps of him. He had a 45-70 rifle near, but as the tree was closer than the gun, he chose the tree. If he had had a Frontier revolver strapped to him, from his perch he could have killed the bears, but he was one of those who depend upon a rifle.
A prospector who depends on a rifle always is telling what he could have killed if only he had had his gun with him. He becomes weary of carrying a rifle everywhere he goes, and consequently about half the game he sees is when he is unarmed.
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There were signs that many Indians once had made this country their home. An old trail leads up the creek and over the rolling hills beyond. There can be seen old "high-signs," which may be found in all Indian countries. Old dead bushes bore knife marks that were made before we were born, and they suggested the query of: How many, old and young, with their joys and troubles, have trodden this deep-worn path? They may have had hopes, but it is doubtful if they extended beyond a pros- pective dance, " pot-latch," or a moose hunt; they had their jealousies, however-sickness and death.
The countless herds of wild animals contributed their numbers to aboriginal support until strong tribes inhabited these wilds. When the herds were nearly exterminated, they being the principal sup- port of the Indians, the red men, too, lay themselves down and died. A few caribou and moose survive the contest, but fewer Indians.
It rained so hard while we were at the head- waters of that creek, that after two days of prospect- ing, we returned to our camp, and found that Quig- ley had left for the Yukon. Montgomery and Mc- Kenney were there, having spent the summer on the Tanana and White Rivers, and they had eaten noth- ing but sheep meat for three weeks.
We were sitting by the campfire after supper, ex- changing summer experiences with our visitors, when the Colonel told a very remarkable story. Whenever
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the Colonel tells anything, however, it is remarkable. He told us of once having discovered a wonderful deposit of lead on the summit of the Olympics. He peeled a flake of it, which he rolled down hill until it gained momentum by its weight, and then he lost control of it. He said it rolled down the mountain, eating deeper and gaining weight and speed until it tore up trees and left a great canyon as its track.
There was silence in that camp for awhile, because no one felt competent to criticise the remarkable statement. Even Pete, our dog, had a doubtful ex- pression on his countenance, but it was undesirable to reprimand him in the Colonel's presence. Cau- tiously remonstrating to the Colonel the next day, I said :
" Colonel, those visitors are strangers to us, and, while no one can dispute that remarkable occurrence, because you say you were alone at the time, they may be inexperienced in prospecting, and entertain doubts about it."
"See here," he replied, "if you don't sit right down on strangers at the beginning, they will impose on you. All young upstarts who come along invari- ably attempt to tell bigger lies than any one else, un- less you knock them out at first, and then hold your club over them as long as they are in your camp. No, sir! I told that for self-protection, sir! It is a duty I owe to you and our camp, sir ! We can't afford to allow ourselves to be imposed on, sir ! "
Camping in Copper River Valley.
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Near the mouth of the Chistochina River an old Indian grave had washed away and the bones were scattered along the bank. I told Chistochina Char- ley about it, and this nineteen-year-old Indian re- plied :
" Yep, he bones of my grandmother. Long time grandmother catchem salmon from Copper River, now Copper River catchem grandmother."
We crossed the Gulkana River and camped where some Indians were, and they cautioned us to sleep away from near the firelight, as a white man, while traveling along the trail a few days before, had been shot by an unknown enemy. They suspected that three Tananas had done it, because they had heard night-calls a few nights before. When they crossed the river the next morning, they had discovered the moccasin tracks of three Indians. As we had seen the moccasin tracks of three Indians, several times during the summer, this verified my first conclusions in regard to them. I think they were searching for a white man who had tied Indian Albert up to a tree, and had whipped him for stealing. This white man, instead of going into the Shusitna country, as they had supposed, had gone down the river to Fairbanks, and at this writing is at Goldfield, Nevada.
We swam our horses across the Tazlina River. Here Charley Stobell, of Port Angeles, Washing- ton, was drowned in an attempt to cross on a mule.
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Man and beast drifted down and rolled over a large boulder. Charley never came to the surface.
A man's social, or monetary, standing in civiliza- tion exerts no influence whatever, when he goes on one of those Alaskan trips. Geologists, military cap- tains, postal inspectors and capitalists have discov- ered that they cannot depend on others who are oc- cupied in caring for themselves, and that they are compelled to do their share of the labor. They must make a choice of the tasks as they present them- selves in this way: Which do you prefer, horse- hunting, cooking or preparing camp? If you are a good woodsman, one who can not become lost, you are the one to go horse-hunting.
You travel until tired, then listen for the forty- second time for that horse-bell; then, sitting down on a log, you continue to listen, while a raven croaks at you as he passes up the river. You take out your knife and whittle, and wonder why you came to Alaska; then you cock up your left ear and listen some more.
A little bird about the size of a butcher-bird, one that prospectors call "Camp Robber," alights on the ground, impudently near, and squints one eye up at you, not asking your business but trying to dis- cover something he can steal. He will follow you to camp and steal everything there except the pack- saddles. A little spruce squirrel will descend from a tree near you, chatter " clinket " and then run up
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the tree a few feet, only to return nearer the next time. You admire his red coat, his bushy, grayish tail and his round, beady black eyes. He may run up on a limb and there warble a few notes of music. I was in Alaska three years before I discovered that those melodious notes were produced by a squirrel; I supposed that " clinket " was all of its vocabulary.
You kill a large mosquito that has been tapping a vein on the back of your hand, and that makes just one thousand and one of them that you have killed while sitting there. A large bumblebee comes buzzing around a lupine, and a big green-headed horsefly alights on a fern; then you get up and turn over a rotten chunk of wood and uncover a nest of very large black ants.
You move away about one hundred yards, stop to listen for the horse-bell, and start to go again, when a spruce hen flies out of a tree within a few feet of your head. It alights on another tree near by, then cranes its long neck at you, turns its little head to one side, and exhibits its speckled breast to advantage. The spruce hen is about the size of a leghorn chicken, with black specks on a grayish bosom, and is rather stylish, and inclined to put on airs.
You meander a quarter of a mile, and among some large trees you find wild red currants on bushes about three feet high. You eat a double handful of them, make a wry face, and decide them to be
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about as sour as whiz. Presently you conclude there was an agreeable whang to their taste, your mouth waters for more, and you eat another handful and make more wry faces; then eat some black currants which have a musky flavor, then some moss berries to take away their taste; and then finally some blue berries to take that taste of the moss berries from your mouth.
You hear the horse-bell, travel a quarter of a mile, hear it again, but not so loud; then travel an- other quarter of a mile and you don't hear it at all. You decide that you have gone in the wrong direc- tion, and after traveling an hour over a moss-covered country you come out on the bank of the river, feel- ing exhausted. You look in the dust of the trail there, and find a fresh bear track. Somehow, this discovery refreshes you wonderfully, and you im- mediately return to camp to impart the information that the horses have taken the back track; but there you find them, all saddled, for they had been lying down, not one hundred yards from where you had slept.
Mounting the horses and with pack-horses fol- lowing, the three of you travel along river bars to where a place is found that is sufficiently shallow to admit of fording. Men and horses safely cross through the swift water, with the exception of one horse that starts too low down; and one man rides down there to turn him back. He gets into deep
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water where the waves dash against the boulders, and when all are on the bank except this one man and horse, you see them strike a large boulder, roll over and disappear beneath the surface. Presently the horse is seen to gain the shore without his rider. The man's dog, that swam near them all the time, also reaches land and wistfully looks over the river's surface.
It requires an hour of time for you to go through the brush and fallen timber to the horse, and another hour is spent in looking along the bank for the lost one, but glacier streams never give up the dead. With the riderless horse you return to your com- panions and go a mile farther along, camping among a heavy growth of spruce, where there is good horse feed near by.
After partaking of your evening meal, and you and your remaining companion are silently gazing at the blazing campfire-for the sad incident of the day has cast a gloom over you-you express your sadness in words, whereupon your companion suggests a diversion of mind to something more pleasant. You reply that it is useless to try, as there is the rolled sleeping-bag on the other side of the fire; whereupon the drowned man's dog goes to it, looks inquisitively at you and then trots off down the trail towards the river.
You conclude to retire and crawl into your sleep- ing-bags, with both your hands beneath the boughs
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of the same tree. The dismal howl of a dog comes to your ears from away down on the river bot- tom. The embers of the fire die low, a lone owl hoots from the dark recesses of the forest, and the stars of the September night shoot their streams of light down between the trees. The dog returns and lies down beside his master's sleeping-bag. That is a sample of the life led by the Alaska frontiers- men in summer-time.
CHAPTER XX
The cord that ties the trail-boys, has lashed them heart to heart ;
No stage presents their joys, no actors play their part;
Their struggles are seldom known, because through wilds untrod,
Those daring spirits roam where there is naught but God.
I SHED the above after eating a breakfast of brain food and then being jostled over a very rough road. The reader is warned to prepare for any volcanic outburst of rhyme that may be exploded in future.
We rested a few days at Copper Center and then continued our trip to the Coast. A description of a trip down the Copper River that was taken by seven prospectors that September, 1901, may be in- teresting. They were Harry Thompson, Charles M. Sclosser, J. B. Morris, Al. Dowling, C. A. Punches, J. A. Jacobson and " Shorty " Fisher. The last named was assisted into the boat by the others, at Copper Center, and when Punches was asked the cause of " Shorty's " helplessness, he replied :
" He's been shot through the ham!"
It was supposed that the slight wound had been caused by a malicious Indian, and possibly one of the three before-mentioned. He had been walking
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along the trail at the time the shot was fired from ambush. "Shorty " was now constantly reminding the others of his presence by incessant groans.
The boat was cast off and, aided by six sturdy oarsmen, it flitted along on the swift current like a bird on the wing. It darted down rapids where the hidden boulders sent spray high in the air; and around curves, between high gravel banks and broad level flats. These flats were covered with cotton- wood, spruce and willow trees, with occasionally cleared spots where grass grew to prodigious height, and waved and bent in the soft breeze. Sometimes an Indian " set-down " was passed, where old dirty rags were waved at the passing white men. Little boys threw pebbles into the muddy Copper, and, with scowling faces, hurled a jargon of anathema, their natural heritage, after the white adventurers.
They passed through Wood Canyon, with its high moss-covered walls confining the deep whirlpools of the enraged Copper. Even the color of the water indicated anger, at its source. When they arrived at the rapids, all hands, even the dogs, Ginger and Joe, jumped ashore, for it was necessary to line the boat past two sections of the rapids. By good boat- manship they could cross and descend a slough that would avoid the lower rapids and the danger of be- ing hurled against and beneath the falling ice of Miles glacier. Before they had lined to that point, the boat was swept from their hands. It capsized
.
...
The Dangerous Ice-Field.
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and spilled in the turbulent water all they possessed, excepting the gold in their belts.
There they were, cold, wet and hungry, with the raging ice waters of the Copper in front, and the glacier below-tumbling blocks of ice as large as town squares into a two-hundred-acre sheet of deep water. They would sink out of sight, then rise to float off as icebergs. The men were compelled to sit around all night, without a fire, and listen to the booming of the falling ice, while the cold rain drenched them to the skin. Death? Yes, that was what it would have meant to most men, but they were inured to hardship and had been made re- sourceful by frontier experiences; they did not de- spair even in such a dangerous and desolate locality.
The next morning they managed to climb back on to the glacier. There they decided to cross the four miles of dangerous ice, and attempt to descend the left bank of the Copper, where possibly they might build a raft of driftlogs and willow-withes sufficiently strong to carry them across the river. Thence, by traveling down along the bank, they could go possibly to Alganik trading-post.
It was perilous to jump crevasses, or to walk be- tween the yawning ones, so the whole of that day was spent in crossing that dangerous ice-field. All the while it rained, and the booming of the breaking glacier, only a few hundred yards below them, was constantly heard. Occasionally, little Ginger, so
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named because of his color, would sit on the edge of a yawning crevasse and howl, then run up and down until he had found a narrow place where he could leap across.
They were safely over by night, and once more on the level bottom of the Copper, where they built a sickly fire from wet driftwood; but they had noth- ing with which to allay their pangs of hunger. They traveled another day, and "Shorty " grumblingly followed to another starvation camp. Here, however, they found " chauce," a wild parsnip root, that is the farinacious diet of the Indians. They managed to dig enough of that for a taste, but it was a poor quality of food.
Another day was spent in traveling to a place where further progress in that direction was im- possible, for the Copper ran to their side and against a mountain. They had found no material with which a raft could be made, and, discouraged and weary, they again assembled around a flickering campfire while the cold rain beat upon them.
Occasionally they slept, only to dream of food and the comforts of home, and then awaken to real- ize their bitter situation. This had a depressing effect, in spite of Jacobson's laughter, which was a well-meant, but weak effort.
They had passed a wrecked boat, about thirty miles back up the river, and it was suggested that if they could return, patch it up and again attempt
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the rapids, they would exhaust their only resource. It appeared to be impossible to recross the glacier without food, and the mention of such a hazardous undertaking brought renewed groans, imprecations and prayers from " Shorty." With one square meal, however, it might be possible, but that was impera- tively necessary. One of the men, rousing himself from deep thought, said:
" Boys, we must kill a dog, make a square meal out of him and then mush back! Of the two dogs, I guess the most appetizing would be little Ginger."
The affectionate spaniel, hearing his name spoken, approached the speaker, and his inquisitive look was construed to mean, "I'm ready!" So poor, faith- ful Ginger was soon killed, skinned and cooked.
After partaking of a square meal of roast dog, five of the party bade " Shorty " and Punches good- bye, and began the dangerous attempt of returning for the wrecked canoe. Punches was to care for " Shorty," while "Shorty " expressed a willingness to pray for the whole crowd. At the first declara- tion of this undertaking, Punches said:
" See here, 'Shorty,' if you must pray, please cut me out. Sabe? I must keep busy at digging roots for both of us, and it would be preferable for you to assist, defer praying, and thank God when you get out. Besides, it is very doubtful if you could obtain an audience with the Creator, anyway, with your admixture of profanity and supplication."
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But " Shorty " persisted in praying and groaning, while Punches dug roots and profanely qualified his expressions of disgust at "Shorty."
It was with a feeling of complete abandonment that "Shorty " and Punches watched the receding forms of their companions, when they left on their uncertain mission. Their success was possible but not probable, and if they secured the boat, it was a question whether some of them would not lose their lives on the glacier, or on their return. The miser- able days were anxiously passed by those two lonely, starving human beings, while they computed their slender chances of being rescued from that isolated locality. With no shelter or bedding, they sat around on rocks while it rained, rained, rained, and "Shorty " cried, grumbled and prayed.
The five sturdy adventurers recrossed the glacier, scaled the sides of precipices where the raging river crawled far below, and slept beneath spruce bushes during the nights. They found the boat, and with their knives cut away the damaged portion, then burned the nails from the useless boards and replaced the stern, making it much better and stronger than they had expected to do. They lined this empty boat safely through the rapids, and joyfully floated down towards the camp of Punches and " Shorty."
When they were seen, "Shorty " yelled that his prayers had saved them, and rushed for the boat, hugging the rescuers, one at a time. Then he and
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Punches declared each other to be insane, while Ja- cobson acknowledged that both were correct.
Reunited, they drifted down one of the many chan- nels of the Copper River delta, and past Alganik trading-post, where they found not a soul or a bite to eat. Here Jacobson examined several barrels that were empty, and one that he supposed was filled with water; but afterwards he was told that it was half-filled with salted salmon. Jacobson says that to this day, whenever he thinks about that incident, he goes and buys himself a mess of fish. In their attempt to reach Eyak, they drifted to sea, out around the cape, where their little craft was tossed and pitched by the ocean swells. Days passed, and it seemed that they would never arrive at Orca. A watery grave or starvation seemed inevitable. Again hunger suggested that they should eat Joe, their remaining dog, but one man pleaded that his life be spared for another day.
They were weakly pulling their oars near a wooded shore, when one of them announced that he espied an Indian in a canoe, not a mile away. They re- doubled their efforts, and with frantic yells succeeded in attracting his attention. He proved to be a white man by the name of Hansen.
The appearance of these hatless, shoeless and rag- ged skeletons readily explained to Mr. Hansen their starving condition. He piloted them for a short distance to his cabin, where they were fed and shel-
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tered until strong enough to proceed the short dis- tance to Orca. When they parted company they gave Hansen $150 in gold nuggets. They had fasted for ten and one-half days with $10,000 in their belts. Al. Dowling unfortunately lost $300 with his sleeping-bag in the rapids.
At the time of this writing, Joe Morris is in Cal- ifornia, "Shorty " Fisher in Chicago, and Thomp- son in South America, while the rest, even to dog Joe, are still adding to their Alaskan experiences. Such were the trials subsequently related by several members of that party of adventurers.
I am constrained to believe that the nearer the body is to death, the more the mind wanders in the mysterious beyond, and possibly associates itself with those who have before departed from this life in- carnate. The nightly recurrence of disagreeable dreams, when endeavoring to rest the tired body and weakened mind, are doleful reminiscences for those who are following the lonely and infelicitous life of daily trudging in rain and cold, when constantly exposed to danger.
I dream very seldom of the departed, when at rest in civilization, but when at the head-waters of the Shusitna River, I often have been annoyed with ghostly nocturnal companions. Others have com- plained of the same annoyance, and for an example, here is Bob Young's dream :
" I had been packing my outfit across a large gla-
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cier's moraine," he said, " and was nearly exhausted from walking so much on the solid ice. At night I spread my sleeping-bag among some rocks, and soon was asleep amid those weird and desolate sur- roundings.
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