USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 4
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A high clay bank opposite Copper Center had been prospected and found to be, from a monetary standpoint, defunct, bankrupt and busted. As guns and ammunition were plentiful and useless, those who were preparing to leave the country spent whole days in doing nothing but shooting the inoffensive bank, and some day a lead mine may be found there.
The wastefulness of shooting the ammunition away was a characteristic trait of those who had always lived in civilization. A frontiersman never would have done such a thing, but would have given it to those who intended to remain with the country,
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or have cached it in some dry place where at some time it might be of some use to others. This is only one instance. Another was the burning of a large outfit of provisions by some individuals who had be- come disgusted and were leaving. They had worked hard to pull it in there, and rather than leave it to be of some use to wandering wayfarers, they preferred to burn it. Alaska was better off when that sort of people departed.
A short distance from the din and rattle of the " shooters " and the chopping and falling of trees, could be heard the voice of an auctioneer saying, "Now, gentlemen, what am I offered for this arti- cle ?" Those who had come into the country with two and three years' outfits were selling them for a pittance, and that, too, before they had been there six months.
" I am a married man, and this is no place for me!" said one of the number. "My wife thinks I'm a peach, a blossom and a hero!"
Then he straightened up, tightened his belt a hole, stroked his unkempt beard, strutted up and down the trail with his hands on his hips and flirted his ragged coat-tails until he had lowered my estimation of his wife's opinion about ninety per cent.
" She thinks I am a loo-loo bird," he continued, " and I feel through my whole system that I ought to be at home doing something! You can't imagine how my wife loves me, my person and my ways !
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Don't talk to me of imaginary millions! I don't want riches, but am going home! Behold, to-day you see me and to-morrow I'll be gone, flown, va- mosed ! Ta, ta, adios!" and that ragged, bedraggled specimen of humanity disappeared down the trail, in a " dog trot." Surely his wife must have been a love bird of the rarest sort if, behind those whiskers, tangled like last year's nests, she could have recog- nized any sort of a bird, "loo-loo " or otherwise.
I consented to accompany Captain Abercrombie and Sam Lynch on an exploring trip into the Alas- kan Range, one hundred miles northward. As this entailed unknown dangers, I handed my watch to Mr. Archer, an obliging gentleman, to keep until my return to the coast. He went back with the soldiers part of the way, but was drowned in the Tonsina River. Afterwards my watch was found with some other trinkets in a sack which had been tied to the raft he had abandoned.
We crossed the Copper River by boat and by swimming our horses, on August 28, and camped over there. Mt. Drum looked to be no more than twelve miles away, and the sun's shining lingered as a tip of gold on its top-peak until long after it had been hidden to us. That always causes the surmise that a mountain is much higher than had been sus- pected.
We broke camp feeling that we were leaving a neighborhood of American Bedouins, ourselves the
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most nomadic of all. We spent the day in pulling horses from bog-holes by the tails of others, fighting mosquitoes and occasionally listening to the whirr of the spruce hen as she flitted from tree to tree. A spruce hen is so remarkably tame, that the Indians say they can, with long poles, place a looped cord over their heads. I do not doubt that statement. At night we camped at the upper edge of timber, where logs lay, here and there, and where luxuriant bunch- grass waved. Mt. Drum still appeared to be about twelve miles away. The next morning Sam Lynch decided that the mountain was farther away than it was when we left Copper Center.
Here we found a flock of ptarmigan, and as my Colt Frontier was the only kind of a gun that was with us, I enjoyed the sport of killing nine of them.
It may be well to say, right here, that disreputable characters have caused an erroneous opinion among many that a revolver or pistol is used only for kill- ing one's fellow-men. Many good citizens among the Pacific Coast mountains use nothing else to kill large game. I have used no other for twenty-five years, and during that time I have killed about all kinds of large game that inhabit the North Amer- ican continent. I will prefer a pistol to a revolver, when a special kind is made that will shoot a 40-40 cartridge and with eight or ten inches between sights. The prospector cannot afford to be handicapped with a rifle when scaling the precipices, neither can
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the stockman when riding the range; but all good citizens cast those weapons aside on their return to civilization.
We traveled for days along the bases of Mt. Drum and Mt. Sanford, above timber and through bunch-grass and blueberry bushes. The mosquitoes had caused us fully to realize the mistake that had been made when we were born; but they now left us, and the gnats took their places until our ears at- tained the thickness of ordinary boot-soles. Mt. Sanford is not a volcano, and to me it has not the appearance of ever having been one, yet the early writers of the Yukon reported that it smoked; and also a few prospectors believe that they have seen smoke being emitted from its summit. It is the prettiest mountain that the writer ever looked upon, and not only is its summit easy of access, but it com- mands one of the grandest views imaginable. As we descended near to the timber it was discovered that the winter winds have blown down this moun- tain at times with such terrific force that small spruce are to be seen with all their limbs on one side, point- ing toward the valley. Occasionally one may be found growing along the ground, with the limbs forming a hedge.
We succeeded in crossing the Sanford River just before its noonday flood at that point, and ascended the bank to look back on a raging torrent of water. This stream has its source in a glacier, and like all
Mt. Drum (Seen through telescope)
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glacial streams is subject to a daily flood during the warm days of summer. It was with difficulty that the last one of our horses crossed, so rapid was the rise. We camped on the bank for a noon-day lunch and had just unpacked when a six-foot Indian greeted us with a grunt.
Afterwards we learned to recognize this bushy- headed fellow as' Talsona Nickoli. At that time he could not talk a word of English, but with our mutual knowledge of Chinook we managed to hold a simple colloquy. He succeeded, by shutting his eyes and repeating, " Ha-lo," in making us under- stand that we were the first white men he had ever seen. He was clothed in the Indian garb of dressed skins, and wore nothing of white man's make, not even a hat. His hair was kept out of his eyes by a rawhide string tied around his head, and he repre- sented about as wild a human being as could be found in Uncle Sam's herd. He explained, by hold- ing up his fingers and pulling down one at a time and repeating " tobay," that he had killed five moun- tain sheep. He was very much afraid of our horses, and intently watched us pack them. As we departed, he, too, struck out for the mountains, whence he had come.
Another day's travel, and camp was made near a small lake where the Captain caught, with a fly hook, a large mess of grayling trout. Mention is made of this, because it has been said that Alaska trout
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will not take a fly. Near there we found a notice, which read :
"NOTICE: I take one mining claim and if it's good I take two.
" OLE OLESON, Minnesota."
'About 10 P. M. on the night of Aug. 27, I was strolling out alone, and while looking at the stars was meditating why Destiny had led us up there to the far northern world. Polaris, with its constella- tions, was nearly overhead and apparently in another heaven from that when seen from more southern latitudes. At that time, our moon was bestowing her refulgent reflections on old Spanish towers or probably enhancing the beauties of Vienna, but the eternal watch-towers of the high, rockribbed moun- tains, near by, were most impressive, and I thought of the words of Pope:
" He who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle, other suns, What varied beings people every star, May tell us why Heaven made us as we are."
Just then, of all times the most appropriate, we were treated to a most beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis. Those northern lights were not so far away as one might suppose, but right near
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camp, apparently only a few thousand feet from us. They hung in the heavens like hundreds of pale strings, quivering and dancing, all together, with harmonious movement. They changed color as often as they changed position. Now they were a deep red, now orange with a bluish tinge, waving and trembling, dancing and quivering in fantastic weirdness here, there and yonder; spreading out like a thin gauze and disappearing to reappear nearer in front, in solid phalanx, to continue again their beau- tiful oscillations.
Prospectors generally claim that those terrestrial and aërial magnetic affinities are visibly manifested more often in localities where great copper zones exist. While that is a very plausible conclusion, it is also probable that the altitude, and the sudden at- mospherical changes occurring at this time of year, assisted in producing this spectacular event.
No artificial fireworks could compare with this nocturnal display. It seemed to say :
" The great summer scene has been enacted now on the northern stage, and those who desire not to remain and witness the tragedies of winter's play, with its moonlit canyons, mountains of deceptive fire, and curtains of scintillating ice, had better hie them to the southland."
A streak of light shot across the horizon and vanished; then came solitude: the vast mysterious solitude of that unexplored region.
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" No hammers fell, no ponderous axes swung:
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung, Majestic silence."
With the feeling that we were so infinitesimal we were merely foreign germs or microbes, we wended our way amidst the collossal surroundings where silences are spawned. Our course from Mt. Sanford wound among what appeared to be old craters, the floors of which were about one hundred feet wide, composed of large broken rocks that evidently had been burned black when the once tropical climate had been changed by the heat escaping through these apertures. The sides, or rims, were about fifty feet deep, and many of those old hoppers were filled with water, forming small round lakes. We traveled slowly over broken rocks, and when down in the valley walked over moss-covered hummocks among which trees were rooted.
These numerous craters and the square miles of broken-up rock indicate to me that once this may have been the top of a mountain, which, after burn- ing out, had sunk. The sinking would certainly break up the surface in this manner.
We crossed the Copper above the Slahna junc- tion, where it was divided into several quicksandy streams. We camped in the midst of good horse feed, among patches of willow and scattering cot- tonwood trees. Cow tracks were so numerous that to have heard the bark of a dog, or the rattle of a bell and to have met a boy driving cattle would not
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have greatly surprised us. In fact, we expected to run up against a pair of bars or a fence, but we soon discovered so many bear tracks that we recovered from the delusive fancy, and realized that the cow tracks were made by moose and caribou, and that we were far from the haunts of the white man.
While the others were preparing supper, I rode a mile to the Slahna, crossed over where it was not quite swimmingly deep, and there found the old abandoned Indian village, the high grass and the cottonwood trees, just as Captain West had de- scribed them, at the very spot he had intended was to be our meeting place. Away down in San Fran- cisco, seated beside a table, he had pointed out this exact locality to me, and had even described the clear stream of water that emptied into the Slahna at this place and also a high gravel bank near by.
The next day, which was the last day of August, we crossed the Slahna, where I had forded it the evening before, and here met some prospectors who had been up the Slahna River, and now were return- ing to the coast. They corroborated the West story, in regard to the Suslota creek emptying into the Slahna instead of into the Copper River, as indi- cated on the maps. Just a month after this meet- ing, one of those men was drowned in the Copper River rapids. The Slahna is a deep, sluggish stream from Mentasta Lake down to within three miles of
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the Copper River, but at points is swift water and it was there I fought for my life on our return.
We were three days ascending the Slahna valley, along dry, birch-covered ridges, between hopper-like potholes, from one to two hundred feet deep, with quakin'asp, birch and spruce trees growing on their rims. Quakin'asp is a contraction in general use which is derived from the words quaking aspen, a species of the poplar. We continued to the source of this river, away up in the Alaskan Range. How it did rain there ! We made our beds in a low place, and before morning it was filled with water and we with rheumatism.
We returned across country for Lake Mentasta, and spent a day in penetrating a swamp and another in getting out of it. We frightened a moose so that it averaged 18 feet to a jump, for a few jumps, and then trotted out of the country. A small stream of the coldest water that I ever felt was the outlet of a beaver lake, which must have been on ice. We led our horses into that innocent-looking place and spent an hour in getting them out. It had a false bottom of some floating substance, and Sam Lynch stepped into it up to his neck. Immediately he introduced a new college yell into Alaska. After he was out on the bank, he continued to yell some ornamental additions. One horse turned the pack beneath him, and when the ropes were cut, he floun- dered out at the expense of our already limited sup-
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Fording a Dangerous Glacier Stream.
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plies. Every struggle he made resulted in a globule of flour floating off on the surface. We repacked our poor shivering horses, minus the sugar, coffee and dried potatoes.
We camped beside a sluggish stream. Near by was a round knoll, about one thousand feet high, and this I ascended to get a view of the surrounding country before dark. I swam a horse across the stream. I tied my ferry boat-the horse-to a tree, as it was too swampy for him to go to the foot of the hill. The sunset was so beautiful that I lingered on the summit, and when I descended an old well- beaten bear trail, the September night was as dark as black ink in a black bottle at midnight. We swam the river when it was too dark to see the opposite shore. The horse went shiveringly to his supper, and I, in like manner, stood by the fire and ate mine. The hooting of an owl has been heard in many places, but surely a hoot was never heard that sounded quite as lonely as did one from a near-by tree, away up there in that swampy forest of Alaska, in nearly 63 degrees north latitude.
The next day, while traveling through the forests, I discovered a growth of fungus, but could not de- cide if it were a mushroom or a toadstool, and the proverbial test of eating it and if I died it was a toadstool did not appeal to me. It is as difficult for me to determine the difference between a toadstool and a mushroom as it would be to decide if a mat-
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rimonial venture would be happiness; and I would rather be a live bachelor than a dead hero.
We traveled along the edge of Mentasta Lake, which is but three miles long, and crossed the outlet near some Indian wickiups. We picked wild berries and saw Indian graves where, from crudely made crosses, little flags, as love tokens, flirted with the breeze.
CHAPTER V
Prospectors occasionally eat beans, but their habitual diet is hope.
MENTASTA PASS is a low, timbered passageway. through the Alaskan Range. The divide is so flat that it surprises one to find the water running in an opposite direction to that pursued a short distance behind. We traveled several miles in this pass and camped near a pond of water, where we killed widgeon ducks, 'and where deep sloughs coursed through the timber.
A man from California overtook us there. He was on his way to the Yukon and among his pack- horses was one that I had brought up to Alaska. He camped with us, and something interesting, which relates to his trip, will be related further on.
We were a day here, felling trees side by side for bridges, and placing boughs, then moss and dirt, on them. Although these bridges were high above the water, our mustangs willingly crossed on them. At one place a large lake was formed by a beaver dam across a small creek. A pile of three-years-old brush had been placed near by, and more two-years- old brush was on top of this, then more that was evidently one year old, and on top of all was brush
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that had been freshly cut and was yet green. As this brush represented annual cuttings, and was close to the dam, it was for no other purpose apparently but to stop a leakage if one should occur.
We saw stumps of large trees which the beavers had cut down, but the whole of the trees had dis- appeared to the bottom of the lake. If I could talk the beaver language I would submit a standing offer to help them a month with an ax, if they would al- low me to see them move one of those large trees after they had cut it down. They evidently fall the trees true and as near where they want them as would the most experienced woodsman.
We left the ponds, sloughs and thickly-grown forest for birch-covered ridges, and at night camped on the Tanana slope, where were babbling brooks, tall grass and a few scattering spruce trees. We rested on September 12 to await the melting of about four inches of snow that had fallen the pre- vious night. We did more-we killed, butchered, cooked and ate a large, fat porcupine. Several times, since that incident, this individual's appetite has been in a craving mood, but not for porcu- pine.
From Porcupine Camp we traveled along the eastern slope of the range, in a southeasterly direc- tion, towards the point where a little puff of smoke, several miles away, indicated an Indian hunting camp.
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We arrived at this camp about noon. A little boy and girl came out from their hidden camp and astonished us by talking good English. They ex- plained that they had attended a Mission school on the Yukon, and half a moon after the boy had left with his uncle, to accompany him on this fall hunt, the twelve-years-old girl had run away and followed them. She had traveled through the forests, along mountain trails and across dangerous rivers, to this lonely spot, living on berries and roots while mak- ing the trip. She had made little rafts of dead sticks, bound together with willow withes, and on one of those she had crossed the great Tanana River. With her inborn instinct to follow the proper course, she had watched for the only smoke on the Tokio River, for she had good reasons to believe that it rose from the campfire of her rela- tives. This child of the wild had accomplished that which not one full-grown white person in a hundred could have done.
Those children asked if we had moose meat, and upon receiving a negative answer, they retired to the brush thicket; and presently a wrinkled, blear- eyed, dirty old squaw ventured forth and held out to us a flank of moose-meat in her filthy hands. The meat was loud of smell, and the old squaw was loud in its praise, repeating "Wal-lay," meaning good. While one does not always rely on the truth of an Indian, we took her word for that statement. We
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advised her to keep it for Winter, saying that we killed more birds than we could eat, and caught loads of salmon; besides, our horses were too weak to pack the meat, and-well, we were not hungry. We thanked her, apologized and lied.
Traveling over soft, deep moss for a few miles we camped on the bank of the clear stream of little Tokio. Indian Albert, who was hunting for the camp just passed, tracked us up and ate of our scanty supper. He had a long clip-blade hunting knife which he desired to trade for my revolvers. He volunteered to show me where the Tyena trail crossed to Tetling, on the Tanana. As I expected to explore those wilds at some future time I accom- panied him for a mile through timber and over moss- covered ground, where a white man could not have tracked an elephant, and finally we arrived at the place where the trail was pointed out.
When we were returning, circumstances placed him behind. After a few steps had been taken, in- stinctively I looked around quickly and discovered Mr. Indian in a crouching attitude, with his knife clutched to his breast, as if ready for a spring. The muzzle of my Frontier swiftly but silently invited him to travel in front, and he complied most will- ingly.
It was not desirable that I should take the life of even an Indian, although the circumstances justi- fied it. He had not been able to resist the tempta-
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tion to knock me out for the revolvers, and he should not have been given the chance, as I had recognized in him the pugnacious, Digger-like In- dian, a cowardly petty thief. He did not know but that all of us were armed, although he must have realized that the others would be told of the occur- rence, therefore after being so fairly caught he would be too cowardly to let his bushy head appear from behind a log or tree, as he would expect to get it cracked. I desired no trouble with Indians, and to have killed him might have caused his revenge on some innocent white man. As my companions were unarmed, and it would cause them only uneasiness, I did not tell them of the incident.
I was told, two years after this event, that AI- bert was considered a very bad Indian by all the Tananas and Ahtnas. Suslota John said that the Tananas had once banished him to Forty Mile for six moons, and the Ahtnas had banished him to the . coast for five moons, and he thought they would shoot him. He said Albert would steal from In- dians as well as from white men, and that he might cause trouble. He added that Albert once had shot a white prospector by the name of Robinson, on the Tanana.
We ascended a high peak for the purpose of searching for a pass through the mountains, and there we were charmed by an enchanting scene. The hazy blue of the east dimly screened the rolling hills
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of the Forty-Mile country and those of the Ketchem- stock. The high, majestic sentinels of the Copper River Valley,-Mount Sanford, Mount Wrangell and Mount Drum,-were to the southwest. From those watchtowers, a wintry vigil is kept forever on the valley below, with occasional threats of hell- tongued flames from the crater of Uniletta which exerts an influence for good over the superstitious children of the forest.
The Copper River valley was beautiful, with its silvery river-threads glistening in the sunlight where they wound through forests with shady dales and innumerable lakes. Away up on this mountain peak laughingly bloomed a little flower.
" And this same flower that blooms to-day, To-morrow will be dying."
The desired pass was discovered, and while de- scending we came out on a point where a yearling bear was seen, rolling, waltzing and tumbling on a grassy flat below. He was just about our desired size, and if secured, we should be relieved of all fear of starving before we arrived at Copper Cen- ter.
By working along the side of a rocky bluff, an at- tempt was made to creep up on him, but before half- way to the little fellow, I discovered that I had managed to approach to the largest black silver-tip grizzly imaginable. There he was, not more than
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eighty yards away, and acting as if he had discov- ered, by the expression of my countenance, that somebody had made a mistake. He appeared to possess an uncontrollable desire to test the texture of my clothing, or search me for valuables. When first he was seen, his head was about the size of a water-pail, but we had not gazed at each other a minute until it had increased to the size of a wash- tub. I concluded that if we must fight it out it was advisable to start the battle before he attained the size of an elephant or a two-story building.
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