USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 20
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" Well, suppose I do go through the wild water down there, I've not been killed nor drowned up-to-
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date and I'll risk being carried down to the box canyon.
The thought of the box canyon was enough to cause a shudder to pass through one's anatomy, for a raft would probably emerge at the outlet, four miles below, merely as kindling wood.
" I know," continued Ben, "that a raft on water is just about as stubborn as a donkey on land, but I'll take this chance, because the rapids don't amount to much, anyway."
He pushed the five-log craft out on the water, and the swift current soon took him to where it was too deep for his pole to reach bottom. Ben was a happy-go-lucky fellow, without fear, and he was a skilled frontiersman, who could not be killed, or drowned under ordinary circumstances.
"By George! He is going through the rapids, as sure as fate !" exclaimed Will. " Let us take a cut-off for the bend of the river and have some fun at coaching him as he comes by."
We ran two hundred yards across a sharp point, and emerged on the bank just as Ben came rushing along. He was seated on the raft, holding on tightly while the angry waters dashed against his face. We intended to advise him not to hurry, to go a little slower, and had laughed at the absurdity of the advice as we had run along the trail, but Ben anticipated us, and with grinning countenance, yelled :
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" If you fellows have anything to say to me, go to the canyon, for I'll be down there in just about ten minutes ! "
We roared with laughter as he went bobbing through the rapids, and because he had half a mile after he was through, in which to reach the opposite shore, we gave little thought to the box canyon, below.
" See !" exclaimed Will, " he is not making head- way; in fact, I believe he is losing! There must be a strong current, down there, beating him back towards this side !"
We then realized that Ben's ride on the river had developed from a mere joke into serious danger, and we watched with bated breath his gallant strug- gle for life. We were powerless to assist him, and as he grew smaller and smaller in the distance, it appeared to us that he was already entering the dreaded box canyon-that terrible boiling, foaming, sinuous water serpent. It crawls undertowingly by, where precipitous walls hang 600 feet above.
The sun sank in the northwest and the curtain of twilight was lowered on that dreadful scene of man and raft flying into the mouth of that yawning vortex. We could do nothing, and as we turned towards camp it was with a feeling of certainty that no power of man could save the life of big, good- hearted Ben.
The night settled down apparently with deeper
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darkness than usual, and the lonely owl-hoots seemed announcements of death. Even Pete, our dog, looked sad, whined and cast longing glances down the river. There was Ben's sleeping-bag where he had spread it beneath a spruce in anticipation of a night's rest when he returned, and there was his gun hanging in a near-by tree. All seemed to add to our melancholy; but the saddest part of it was the fact that we had been powerless to lend assistance. After supper, we talked of the incident; and then tried to divert the subject to something else, but in vain. We retired, but could not sleep. Presently Will arose, rebuilt the fire and declared he should not sleep a wink that night. Then we sat there and talked for an hour about spending the morrow be- low the canyon seaching for the body of poor Ben. Shortly after midnight, as Will was putting the coffee-pot on the fire, an owl gave an extra hoot and the dog jumped up and gave a bark of recogni- tion. Then these words came from the dark recesses of the forest :
" That's right, Will, for I'm hungry."
It was Ben! Just before entering the canyon the raft had broken in pieces, and with one log he had been carried into an eddy which had hurled him over against the shore on our side.
CHAPTER XXVIII
We'll forget the cold December, when the north winds played their tune,
But of green vales we'll remember, when 'twas all day- light in June;
And we'll harken to the calling of the wild life and pursue Where are songs of waters falling and the broad leaves nod to you.
WHEN one departs from Alaska, there must al- ways be the feeling that one is leaving a wonder- land. The reader may think that too much emphasis is being placed on that statement, but those who are in close touch with Nature as there revealed realize the majestic scale of the panorama. To be able to see a mountain 150 miles away is wonderful; and so are the smoking volcanos and the glaciers. The sudden appearance and disappearance of mountains and islands is also wonderful.
Islands have been known to arise from the Pacific ocean as far back as when the Russians were explor- ing its waters, and some of them also have sunken. Castle Rock came up in 1779, and in 1903 Fire Island arose not far from it. In 1906 Perry, or McCulloch Island arose between them to a height of 395 feet, and while it was hot and steam was emitting from it, some men climbed to the top. That
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island, before it had cooled, sank with a loud explo- sion on September 1, 1907. Now there is only a sand-spit connecting Castle Rock and Fire Island.
These and many other facts go to prove it to be a wonderland. Even St. Patrick must have thought it worthy of notice, for he, with his magic staff, evi- dently struck Alaska with the same effect as when he blessed Ireland. There are no snakes in Alaska, and only a few tree frogs, to give one a creepy sug- gestion.
When we boarded the ship for the States it was raining that continuous downpour, which signifies to the prospector that it will continue until it snows. The fog clung dismally to the mountain-sides, when possibly at the same time the top peaks were pierc- ing through into sunshine.
The seagulls forlornly drooped their wings and all Nature seemed in gloom. It is remarkable how true are the old sayings regarding the weather. I will testify to the fact that the adage, " When rain begins before seven, it will quit before eleven," posi- tively came true in Alaska. It began before seven in August and quit before eleven in November. I should be too modest to make an official report of the rainfall to the weather bureau. A prospector, who, I admit, might have drunk rather freely of glacier water at some time or another, declared that it rained into a beer bottle until it was burst. He offered to show me the broken glass.
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Our ship rode at anchor at Katella. Gasoline launches invited passengers to land where there were mud-sidewalks in a newly-built town; also saloons and blear-eyed gamblers. Bruised combatants had filled the hospital there. They had been fighting over a railroad right of way that extended from the near-by coal fields to the copper in the interior.
It is probable that when a railroad is built, it will be to private properties, and the poor mine-owner, who happens to be a little to one side, will be left to die a natural death, while his property will be gathered in by a great smelter trust, that is trying apparently to bottle up Alaska.
As our ship left the main, the overhanging gloom, the dissipated and bruised faces all suggested a repetition of the dogma, " There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three." But with all this there is a call from out the wild, and a fas- cination that beckons. While weak ones fall, Alaska also builds character, self-reliance and manli- ness.
Our ship carried us out into a storm. I am sur- prised that I am not numbered with the drowned. A relative once prayed that I should have fair wind on my voyage to the north, when it meant adverse winds for all others coming on an opposite course. It is a wonder that he didn't get me into trouble.
We left the ocean and entered the calm inside
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passage near Alaska's collar button known as Cape Spencer, where in Icy Straits
" His lordly ships of ice Glisten in the sun; On each side, Like pinions wide Flashing crystal streamlets run."
It was there that the steamer Dora struck an ice- berg, and in order to be saved was run on a near-by beach, when the firemen were waist-deep in water. Dave Rhodes, a government packer from Copper River, when relating the incident, said :
" I'll just be dad-blamed if it didn't look mightily like wadin' ! "
When one goes to Alaska in summer, by way of the inside route, one feels secure from danger. If an accident should happen to the ship, it could be run easily on the near-by shore; or, if you were com- pelled to go ashore in a rowboat, you could paddle it with your hands; or, you might even ride a spar ; or, if you could kick a little bit, you could swim ashore, and the light would enable you to see just where to land. Yes, one feels secure in summer, but it is different in winter. Then the nights are long, stormy and black-dark would not be the proper term.
Probably you cannot see the shore on a stormy night, even if it be but a few hundred yards away,
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and you become restless. You wonder how that storm-beaten, wrinkled and fierce-visaged pilot, who walks the bridge, can know within twenty miles of his location, much less make the many intricate turns with that boat. You strain your eyes trying to look through that ink blackness, and occasionally you see the massive shape of a mountain, apparently right in front of your ship, and you hold your breath while that pilot steers the boat right into it-that is, he simply enters a crack, while you realize that the denser blackness is on both sides of the vessel, and it was only the shores that approached nearer to- gether.
The rain beats across the deck with the wind, and it is with difficulty that you stand there, but you are interested. You want to know just when to jump, for you are satisfied that the final climax of that voyage is near at hand. You know that rocks must be close to the surface, where no human eye can see them, and you feel that all of the passengers who are sleeping in their berths will be drowned like rats in a trap.
Occasionally the pilot blows the whistle, and the echo quickly returns from the mountain on the star- board side, and the pilot bears the boat off to the port side, just a little. He was feeling evidently with his ear! You become drenched to the skin while waiting for the wrecking that does not come, and you wish it would hurry along, as the strain is almost too much for your nerves. When you can
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withstand the severity of the storm no longer, you retire, with resolving to go down with the rest.
You are awakened from your sleep by the stop- ping of the engines and then the boat lies quietly for an hour or two. Just as you begin to continue your snoring, you are awakened by the starting of the engines. That unpretending pilot, that epitome of wisdom, who can work both solar and lunar observa- tions, calculate azimuths, find the arithmetical com- plement of logarithms, build false rudders on stormy seas and who can tie all kinds of complicated rope- knots, now impresses you that he has discovered a rift in a cloud which has disclosed to him a familiar mountain-top, a tree-top, or some other object that indicates another entrance to total dark- ness.
You are astonished at the ability of that death- facing, but duty-loving, pilot to follow the many in- tricate windings, and you wonder if salt water does not course through his veins. To follow those curves is as simple to him as it was to you, in your childhood days, to follow the path that led to school. It is as simple to him as for the frontiersman to read the approximate time of day or night by the clocks of heaven.
If I were on a winter voyage to or from Alaska, I should feel safer when a thousand miles from land, where pilots are unnecessary, and where progress is made by dead reckoning-but a dry death is gen- erally considered preferable. In summer time-ah !
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can one ever forget the tranquillity of a summer voyage through those inside passageways?
The weather was good to us, and the evenings were so calm and warm that when we passed the In- dian town of Metlakaptla, we were greeted by the Indian cornet band, assembled on the wharf. The music sounded beautifully, as it came to us over the quiet water and apparently from a wilderness sur- rounding that little village.
I have listened to a hundred trained human voices in a rendition of Mendelssohn's oratorio of " Eli- jah," and it was truly wonderful; but even that was far excelled, to my mind, by a thousand orally trained voices of the wilderness, singing without written notes. This was done by a flock of black- birds. When a boy, I used to secrete myself near them, to listen to their melodious song. One would start, then another would add his little voice, and another, and still more, until probably a thousand little voices were raised in glad song. Suddenly, and on one note, they would stop! It has always been a mystery to me how that great number of birds could train themselves to sing so long, and yet know on which precise note to make that sudden stop. Fright was not the cause, for they continued to repeat their song over and over again.
Their singing is no less wonderful than the black- bird aërial drill. To witness that, one must be within a few miles of the extensive swamps where
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they hatch their young. One must be a mile at least from the flock to obtain a proper view of the maneuvering. Few are ever so fortunate as to see this grand spectacle.
Of course, one could not see a single bird, for in drilling there may be many thousands. They will scatter so that they appear to fade away, then will form together in a large black ball; then that ball will contract and bulge out at the top and bottom until there are three great spheres. Often they will run up to a point forming a cone, then dissolve into a large circular ring and again form in mass and an inverted cone. Their many beautiful ribbonlike maneuverings are truly surprising, and one wonders how every single bird can know his exact place in assisting the forming with his little body of those gigantic aërial figures. Although we too are a part of Nature, human beings have not yet been capable of doing what can be done by those intelligent little blackbirds.
The reader may wish to know something more about that Indian town just mentioned. The mis- sionary is the only white man allowed there. The Indians have their own sawmill, their own electric light plant, and they build their own comfortable houses. Their children go to church and Sunday school. Those Indians make a living at fishing for the southern markets. Their cornet band is worthy of notice anywhere, and has given exhibitions in
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Seattle. I believe President Roosevelt once recom- mended justly, that they be allowed to acquire title to mining properties.
We were surprised at the development of the coast, bordering the inside passage. The thriving town of Ketchekan had been built, and smelters had been constructed for the reduction of ores discovered on the islands. Port Prince Rupert, near old Fort Simpson, has been chosen as the terminal of the Canadian Grand Trunk Pacific railroad-another steel band which is soon to reach across the con- tinent.
Just inside of the Alaska boundary line, near Hun- ter's Bay, are numerous copper discoveries. There is evidence of an old mine there that possibly had been worked a thousand years ago. Carved stones have been found, covered a foot deep with moss and dirt. While miners were working 250 feet below the surface, they broke into an old chamber which was 105 feet long, 77 feet high and 20 feet wide. It contained old timbers, that are now mostly rotten wood and mould. It is supposed that this chamber was entered by way of a side-tunnel. Very little evidence of that tunnel remains, however, as it has been filled with lime-stone leachings. On top of the mountain, 3300 feet above the sea, there was un- earthed a number of old brass coins, with square holes in the center, indicating that once they had been used as Chinese money.
Greenville Channel.
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That discovery is worthy of more than a passing notice, and those who devote their time to such things might do well to investigate it. Judge Mellen, a reliable Alaskan, is probably the best-posted man living in regard to that discovery. It is one of those things which occasionally remind us that Columbus was only an official discoverer of America.
Our voyage through British waters-Greenville Channel and many other passages-was pleasant, even in winter. We were finally awakened to a dreamy reality of the electric light of Seattle, twin- kling messages from civilization.
In Seattle, little dog Pete industriously attended to his own feeding, in a way. He would dart down alleys to a place opposite the back doors of kitchens and there he would roll over, stand on his hind feet, bark and perform all the tricks that he knew for the cooks' benefit. The result was a feed of the best that was available.
Mr. Beatie, Mr. Handrie and myself took Pete with us for a trip to Bremerton. The little steamer barely touched at Pleasant Beach, and Pete, thinking no doubt, that we were going ashore there, jumped onto the wharf. He had no more than done so, when the swift little steamer turned out into the stream and continued its journey. Pete looked per- fectly foolish, as he stood there on the wharf and watched us leave him.
We remained at Bremerton all that day, and on
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our return we stopped off at Pleasant Beach for the little dog. We searched everywhere, made inquiries, and even crossed the Island to Point Blakeley, but could not hear one word of him. No one seemed to have seen such a dog on that island.
About nine o'clock that night we hailed another boat and returned to Seattle. From the wharf we wound our way among moving trains, and crossed streets crowded with teams, street-cars and foot peo- ple, and about II o'clock we arrived at our hotel. There was Pete, awaiting our arrival, and he really seemed to say :
" It's a pity that you fellows can't go anywhere without getting lost !"
He had watched for that particular boat, on its return, and quietly stolen aboard and returned to the hotel at Seattle. A twelve-year-old boy would not have used better judgment, yet a few egotistical human beings contend that only man is capable of reason.
Pete was stolen from me at Seattle, and it was three months before I regained possession of him. He was found because he slipped away from his captors and returned to the hotel in search of his master. By the aid of a telegram, he was in my possession within two weeks, and with his head on my arm, I wiped tears from his eyes as he whined his glad recognition. At this writing, little dog
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Pete is on a California ranch, retired on a life pension.
We Alaskans were astonished at the growth and improvement which the commerce with our northern country had developed in Seattle. During the pre- vious ten years, the Seattle bank clearings had in- creased from $1,000,000 per month to that much per day, and the exports and imports of Puget Sound had tripled, and so had Seattle's population. Ac- cording to the Pacific Monthly, Seattle's commerce by water during 1908 amounted to $122,000,000, and was carried by 1850 vessels. Two railroads had gophered tunnels beneath the city, and one could dimly foresee the future possibilities of all the cities bordering that Sound, which is really one end of the inside passage that is 1200 miles long.
It is humiliating, after an Alaskan has risked his life a thousand times in the North, to come to civili- zation and be run over by an ice-wagon or a push- cart. While one of our number was dodging the street traffic, he proved himself to be a natural de- tective. He discovered a thief falling in love with his overcoat, so he stepped outside a West Seattle ferry building, leaving them alone together, and awaited the thief's departure. He stationed himself beside the door, intending to interfere with that elopement, by his detective abilities-and force, if necessary. These activities of his needed burnishing
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up a little, anyway. Just then a friend came along, and told such an interesting and laughable story that the would-be-detective forgot his duty and failed to observe the chief as he walked out within a few feet of him bearing the coat. A professional detec- tive might not have been able to have set a trap and then let the thief walk off with both trap and bait, but this amateur did. I was personally acquainted with this would-be-detective, because it was my over- coat.
CHAPTER XXIX
We have searched for Nature's treasure in the sharp peaks' upper air,
Where hearts beat to rapid measure, mid bleak glaciers and snow glare;
And although our footsteps quicken, to meet brothers in the vale,
We shall think of those, down-stricken, who now rest be- side the trail.
THE END OF THE TRAIL
I LEFT Seattle, wondering if my new overcoat could be taken as evidence of the "Seattle spirit," I had heard so much about. We passed through the city of Tacoma, where a smelter has an output of $1,000,000 per month. Alaska ore and concentrates shipped to this smelter amount to 7000 tons per month. Even fish are shipped down from Alaska to Tacoma and then to the Atlantic coast; which is a parallel to the proverb of " sending coals to New- castle."
We passed around one of the long fingers of Puget Sound, which here extends far inland, and where the city of Olympia is growing around the nail. We crossed the great Columbia River- " Where rolls the Oregon," wrote Bryant, and Ore- gon it should have been named. We entered Oregon,
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the State that is famous for its apples. I ate one, but it was a Ben Davis, and whenever I eat a Ben Davis apple I am reminded of the possibility of crossing a turnip with an osage orange.
We passed up the banks of the Willamette River, the stream that S. L. Simpson's poem said was " softly calling to the sea." It was there that we saw the beautiful Mongolian pheasants in fields that were inclosed by old-fashioned worm-rail fences, just about as straight as some city officials we have read about. We passed one of many old farm- houses with the old-fashioned porch in front, the moss on the roof, "the well with the old oaken bucket," the stable and the cow shed, the strawstacks and the pigpen. One could imagine himself inside of that house and partaking of one of those old American farmers' dinners that are too good for a king. There was the orchard, the brook, the ash trees; and it all went to explain why the children of the Willamette, like those of the Missouri and the Wabash, speak of home so lovingly.
Oregon! How much interesting history is asso- ciated with the name: the deeds of Marcus Whit- man, Joseph Lane and hundreds of others: of hard- ships and exposures, Indian battles and death. Those old pioneers came, struggled and conquered, and built up homes for their families, while they in turn have built up States.
We climbed steep grades and descended into Cali-
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fornia. As we dropped into a deep canyon, I en- deavored to admire Mount Shasta, but it had lost the prestige it had for me when a boy. Mount Mc- Kinley, Mount Logan and Mount St. Elias are each a mile higher. A perpendicular mile would require a much larger base and would be a much greater monument; so much so, that even Mount Sanford, only half a mile higher, would look twice as large. It is the last half-inch that is added to one's nose which makes it remarkable.
To the southwest, the distant mountains were rem- iniscent of boyhood days, of Russian and Eel Rivers, bucking mustangs and riettas; of babbling brooks, shady nooks and swimming holes. Lula McKnab, in her beautiful and realistic poem, " Mendocino," said :
" And as flows thy Russian River in the flood-time to the sea, So, O Mother Mendocino! turn thy children's hearts to thee."
Here was once the hunter's paradise. Grouse drummed him to sleep, gray squirrels awakened him to listen to the call of the mountain quail, and he could kill a deer before breakfast if he so desired. Here one could lie in the shade of the pine, listen to the sighing of the breeze through the boughs, and thus renew his life-lease.
In California's early days children played black- man with lassoes, and a boy's education was consid- ered incomplete until he had served a time as a vac-
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quero. When he was graduated at that, he was properly recognized in society. Then how proudly he would exhibit the large bells on his Spanish spurs that would properly lock the rowels; and tell of losing the hondas off his lariat when lassoing a black steer, which always roamed on the other side of the mountain.
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