"There's another thing we ought to do," said John, "and that is to put up some kind of a signal in case a boat should come down into the bay here. Of course Uncle Dick will be looking for us, and there might be a boat in here almost any day."

"That's a capital idea!" exclaimed Rob. "Now, Jesse, if you'll get a long pole and tie this handkerchief to it, I'll meet you over at the dory with the other things which we'll need on our trip this morning."

Rob left the Aleut's gun on the deck of the bidarka, but carried along his hide fishing-line and both the bidarka paddles. His own rifle and that of Jesse he put in one end of the dory, opposite the seat where he intended the Aleut to sit. Telling Jesse to watch the latter, he once more ascended to the top of the sea-wall, and here erected his signal-flag, piling up a heap of stones at the foot of the staff. Long and anxiously he gazed out toward the mouth of the bay, but only the long green billows of the sea came rolling in, unbroken by any sail or cloud of smoke. Across the bay, a half-dozen miles or so, the great mountains stood grim and silent, the tops of many of them wreathed in fog. It was a wild and desolate scene, and one to try the courage of any young adventurer. But Rob, seeing how homesick Jesse was becoming, did his best to cheer him as he joined him at the dory.

"Plenty to do to-day!" he said. "And now for a good boat ride. It's lucky we've so good a sea-boat along as this dory—it's far safer than Jimmy's bidarka over there."

Rob seated himself at the stern and put Jesse in the bow. He motioned to the Aleut to take up the oars and row, and the latter, without objection, skilfully got the dory out through the surf, and at once proved himself master of the white man's oars as well as the native paddle. The wind was coming astern, and their run of something like a mile down to the mouth of the creek was made rapidly. Just around the point from the mouth of the stream Rob motioned to the Aleut to stop rowing.

"It looks deep here," said he to Jesse. "Maybe we could get a codfish. Here, Jimmy, take a try with your own fishing-line."

The Aleut grinned as Rob tossed him his rough-looking line of hide, and at once set to work. Nor did he prove inefficient, even with this rough tackle of hide and bone. He baited the crude hook with a piece of meat which he took from his pocket, and dropped it overboard in twenty fathoms of water. Motioning to Rob to keep the boat steady, he began to pull the line up and down in long, steady jerks. Before long he gave a short grunt and began to pull it in rapidly hand over hand. Rob and Jesse, gazing over the side, at length saw the gleam of a large fish deep down in the water. The Aleut, with another grunt, pulled the fish in, swung it over the sides, and threw it flopping at the bottom of the dory. It was a fine codfish weighing perhaps a dozen pounds.

"Well, I'll say one thing," said Jesse, finally, smiling: "since we have to make a living for ourselves, this is about as easy as any country we could have gotten into. Try it again, Jimmy."

Whether or not Jimmy understood any English they never knew, but at least he cast over his bone hook once more, and, continuing his operations as the dory slowly drifted, in less than half an hour he had eight fine fish aboard.

"That'll do, old man!" said Rob to him, and motioned to him now to row into the mouth the creek which was nearly opposite. They now could see John waiting for them on the shore. He had seen them fishing, and congratulated them on their fine catch, agreeing with Jesse that certainly they at least would not lack abundance to eat.

"I've heard you can make salt by boiling sea-water," said John, who, although a hearty eater, was sometimes rather particular about his food. "That is almost the only thing we need that we haven't got now. Our little sack won't last forever."

"Yes," said Rob, "it would be all the better for our bear meat in this moist climate. But we'll have to do the best we can by drying it with smoke."

They now pulled the dory into the mouth of the little creek, turning it at the face of the high rock wall, and noticing the thousands of salmon that swam round and round the deep pool just above the entrance of the stream. From this point up the crooked bends to the place where the dead bears lay was perhaps a quarter of a mile. But presently they all met there.

"There is pretty near a ton of meat," said Rob, looking down at the dead bears. "We ought to have skinned those young bears yesterday, but will do that now before they spoil. Then maybe we can make Jimmy understand what we want to do about saving the meat."

They all fell to work now, the boys at one of the cubs and the Aleut at the other. The latter, with a grin of triumph, held up his fresh hide entirely skinned out before the three boys together had finished theirs. In some way he seemed to understand what they wished to have done about the meat, perhaps himself being inclined to see that plenty of food was on hand, since his captors were not disposed to let him go away. The Aleuts, who never see any fresh beef, and who live in a country where not even caribou are often found, are very fond of bear meat, which the more civilized ones call "beef." The captive seemed to understand perfectly well how to take care of this "beef," and he took out the long tenderloins from the back of each cub and separated the hams. For the big bear he did not seem to care so much, and made signs to show that it was tough and hard to eat. Rob insisted, however, that he should take some of the choicer parts of the bear also, since it seemed a shame to let it waste. They loaded their dory down as heavily as they dared, and so, dragging on the painter and poling with the oars, at last they got their cargo up to camp, mooring the dory alongside the bidarka.

Without much more ado Jimmy began to search around in the grass and found some long poles, one end of which he rested on the roof of the barabbara, supporting the other on some crotches which he set up. Across these poles he laid smaller sticks and made a rough drying-rack. He showed the boys how to cut the meat into long, thin strips, and under this, after it was stretched on the rack, he built a small fire, so that the smoke would aid the sun in curing the meat—none too sure a process in a country where rain was apt to come at any hour. After this the Aleut turned toward the dory, and hauled out something which the boys had not noticed before. He busied himself at the edge of the lagoon.

"What's he doing, John?" asked Rob.

They all stepped up and watched him.

"Why, that's the intestines of the old bear," said Rob, at last. "I didn't see him throw them into the boat."

"I know what he's doing," said John. "He's going to clean 'em out. They make all sorts of things. For instance, that hood around the bidarka is made out of this sort of thing, I believe. And then they make other outfits—"

"Kamelinka!" said Jimmy, suddenly, holding up a part of the intestines and smiling. He motioned to his own sleeves.

"Da! Da!" exclaimed John, in Aleut language. "Yes, that's so! Sure!

"He means he is going to make one of their rain-coats out of it," he explained to the others. "A kamelinka is made out of these membranes, and they put it on like a coat, and no water can get through it. Didn't you ever see one? They tear if they're dry, but if you wet them they're tough, and no water will go through them. Mr. Jimmy puts on his kamelinka, and gets in the bidarka and ties the hood around his waist, and there he is, no matter how high the sea runs. No water gets into the boat, and when he comes home he is dry as when he started. Pretty good scheme, isn't it?"

They watched Jimmy for a time at his work before they finished stretching all the meat. Then they cleaned the codfish and put them inside the hut, so that the crows could not get them. Over the fresh meat on the scaffold they now spread some damp grass, because it was their intention to leave the place for a little while.

"We'll make a hunt this afternoon," said Rob, "and see whether we can find any gull eggs. First we want to see what our resources are, and after that we can help ourselves as need be."

Accordingly, after they had taken the cargo out of the dory, and thus completed their labors for the time, they all four embarked in the dory, pushed rapidly down the creek, and out into the open waters of the bay. Here, a half-mile ahead of them, below the mouth of the creek, they saw some rough pinnacles of rock, over which soared thousands of sea-birds. As they approached these rocks they found a narrow beach wide enough to hold the dory. It took them but a few moments' climb to gather all the eggs they wanted. These they were obliged to carry in their pockets or in the folds of their jackets. They trusted Jimmy to tell them which were fresh. Jimmy seemed always to know what ought to be done, and now without any advice he left the boys and proceeded to climb up to the steeper part of the rocks, where the nests of the gulls and sea-murres were so thick that he could scarcely avoid crushing the eggs as he walked. Evidently it was not eggs he sought. Agile as a cat, he climbed to the top of a sheer face of rock, and leaning over put his hand into a hole. A moment later the boys saw a dark body hurtle through the air and fall on the beach. It proved to be a stout, heavy, dark-colored bird with a strong, parrot-like beak and a crest of long yellow feathers on each side of the head.

"That's a sea-parrot," said Rob, picking it up. "Look out, Jesse, there comes another!"

Sure enough, one after another of the dead bodies of the sea-parrots fell on the narrow beach, until two or three dozen were lying there.

Jimmy ceased his labors, climbed down the rocks, and calmly began to skin off the breast plumage of the birds.

"What's he doing that for?" asked Jesse of Rob.

"They're not good to eat," said Rob, "that's one thing sure. I'll tell you what—I've seen some dark-colored feather coats and blankets at the trader's store down below Valdez. I'll warrant they were made out of the breasts of these very sea-parrots here."

Whatever were Jimmy's plans he could not or did not disclose them. After a time he threw his heap of parrot-skins into the front of the dory, and stood waiting at the side of the boat, as though ready to go home if the others wished it. They therefore embarked for return to their camp.



XIII

MAKING A LIVING

"If any of our people were along," said John, as they headed the dory back toward the mouth of the creek, "I would say we could have a pretty good time here."

"I don't doubt," answered Rob, "that we can get along all summer without trouble. I believe, too, that the natives come here so often we may be able to send out word even if we can't get out ourselves. We can't possibly be a hundred miles from Kadiak town, and although we might get there in our dory, the chances are so much against it that I think we would do better to stay right where we are for a time at least. As we were saying not long ago, this country furnishes a living without much trouble."

"And without much work," added John, "as long as we have Jimmy."

"He's stronger than we are," admitted Rob; "still, each of us must do his share of the work around camp, because that's the only right way to do. He's a good teacher, for we're in his country and will have to live in his way—What's on his mind now, do you suppose?" Rob continued, as Jimmy suddenly stopped rowing and began to look keenly off toward shore.

"I see him!" exclaimed Jesse, eagerly. "It's a seal! Look at him!"

About sixty yards away there was a round object with two shining spots on it standing just above the water—the head of a seal which was closely examining the strange object which approached it. All at once, as they looked at it, the seal suddenly sank out of sight. Without instruction the Aleut now bent to his oars as hard as he could, and hurried to the beach which lay not far beyond. Hurriedly pulling the dory up, he motioned to Rob to get out with his rifle.

"There he is again!" called John, pointing. "He's closer in now. Look, he isn't a hundred yards away! You try him, Rob; you're the best shot."

Crouching down, Rob hurried toward a big rock which lay at the water's edge. Here he rested his rifle and, taking quick aim, fired. The splash of the ball on top of the intervening wave showed that he had missed. Once more the seal sank, but in the course of a few minutes it appeared yet again, this time still closer in. Carefully Rob fired a second time, and this time they all heard distinctly the thud of the bullet, which proved that the shot had struck true. With a splash the seal disappeared, but giving a shout the Aleut pushed off the dory and called to them all to get in. In a few moments he brought them alongside the still struggling body of the seal, which appeared now above and now beneath the surface of the water. Hurriedly catching up his long spear, the native made a thrust at the seal and fastened it with the barb, and with many grunting chuckles drew it alongside. Soon, with a heave, he got it inboard—a small hair seal not much more than three feet in length.

"Karosha!" exclaimed the Aleut, with a grin.

"He means that it's good—that it's all right," explained John, who seemed to be the official interpreter.

"Well, I don't believe that I care to eat seal meat," said Rob; "but maybe Jimmy knows what he can do with the hide, or something else. We'll skin Mr. Seal and peg his hide out up at the camp. It's time now we got the bear hides stretched so that they can begin to dry."

Much elated with their successful day's work, the boys now assisted the native in stretching all the green hides, flesh side upward. The native showed them how to flesh and scrape the hides, and they spent an hour or so at this until each complained that his back was aching.

"Suppose we cross the creek and take a little climb up the mountain-side," suggested Rob. "We can get a good look out from there."

"All right," said John. "Of course we'll have to take our tillicum along. Mush on, Jimmy!"

The Aleut, although apparently a native of the country where the language of the dog-train was little known, nevertheless seemed to understand the Alaskan command to "March!" He stood ready, only looking to see which way they wished him to go. Rob set off in advance, and they all splashed through the waters of the shallows at the lower end of the lagoon.

"Here's where Jimmy has a good deal the best of us," said Rob, pointing to their wet feet. "Our shoes will be gone in a little while; but look at his seal boots with high tops. They keep his feet dry."

"They call them tabosas," said John. "The Eskimos use boots like that, but they call them mukluks. You see, I used to know a native from up-coast who was a waiter in a restaurant at Valdez. That's how I picked up my knowledge of the Aleut language—which, you see, is quite considerable," he concluded, swelling out his chest a trifle.

"I see now why he wanted that seal," commented Rob. "Every country has its own way of getting along, hasn't it? Now, I suppose Jimmy here is about as comfortable when he is at home as we are in our houses down in Valdez; and he certainly does know how to make his living off the country."

They now continued their slow climb up the steep mountain-side, which lay beyond the little creek. Here the deep moss or tundra extended quite to the top of the smallest peak, but although heavy snow-fields lay at the top, the spring sunshine had now melted the snow at the lower levels, so that continually they were walking in little pools of ice-water, none too pleasant to persons shod as they were.

Jesse, the youngest of the party, now and then stopped for a moment to catch his breath; and, in fact, he seemed none too happy with some of these hardships of their experience.

"Come on," said Rob; "we'll stop when we get to the thicket just up above there. Jimmy acts as though he was looking for something up there—I don't know what."

They toiled on upward, now and again turning to look at the great expanse of country which lay below them—the wide bay shining in the sunlight, the magnificent panorama of the mountains beyond, and the line of the deep sea beyond the entrance to the bay. They turned as they heard a sudden exclamation from Jimmy, who was prowling at the edge of the alder thicket where they had stopped for the moment. As he pointed down they saw the surface of the ground among the alders ripped up as though by a giant plough.

Jimmy held up three fingers and pointed below toward their camp, the smoke of whose fire they could dimly see. At first they could not understand him, until he made motions as if digging, and swung his head from side to side, grunting in such plain imitation of a bear that they could not mistake. Then they saw that this had probably been the feeding-ground of the three bears which they had killed. Apparently the bears had been living high up in the mountains for a long time, waiting for the salmon run to begin. The country was all torn up where they had dug for roots and bulbs.

"Well, now, what's Jimmy going to do this time?" asked Jesse, interested.

The Aleut, talking to himself in some unknown words, was down on his hands and knees, himself digging in the holes among the alders.

"Karosha!" said he, at length, holding up several long, white bulbs about as thick as his finger; and he made a motion as though to eat them.

"Ah, ha!" said Rob. "This is an Aleut potato-patch, it seems. All right, we'll just gather some of these and use them for vegetables. They'll help out the meat and fish, perhaps."

As Jimmy dug the bulbs they put them into the folds of their jackets and sweaters until they had a good supply. After this they made their way down the mountain, splashed through the creek again, and threw down their new discoveries beside the meat scaffold. Jimmy indulged in a broad smile.

"Plenty soup!" said he, suddenly.

"The beggar!" said Rob. "I shouldn't wonder if he understood English as well as we do!"

They could not, however, induce him to use any further words than this, which is common among the Aleuts as the meaning of "food" or "plenty to eat," they having got this word from their association with English-speaking persons. The Aleut language now is a mongrel, made up largely of Russian, with many native words and a few of English.

Jimmy proceeded to show that he meant to use in his "soup" some of these bulbs which they had brought down, for now he began to strip them down to the clean white inner portion and half filled their water-can with them, presently setting it on the fire to stew. The boys never knew the name of this bulb, but they found it not unpleasant to eat—rather sweetish and insipid without salt, however.

They were all very tired that night; but they felt it necessary to keep some watch upon their Aleut prisoner, obliging as he had proved himself throughout the day. Again Rob stood the first watch, until he grew so sleepy that he was obliged to waken the others. Thus the long and uncomfortable night wore away, the prisoner being the only one who slept undisturbed.



XIV

THE SURPRISE

As daylight began to shine more clearly in the interior of the barabbara, John, who was standing the last watch, suddenly reached out an arm and wakened his companion. "Listen!" he whispered. "I hear something outside."

As they all sat up on the blankets they were surprised to see their prisoner also waken and lift himself half on his elbow. He, too, seemed to be listening eagerly and to feel some sort of alarm.

"Some one is coming!" said Rob. Now, indeed, there was no doubt. They heard shuffling foot-falls and many voices in some confused speech which they could not understand.

"I'm afraid!" said Jesse. "They're not white people."

Rob raised a warning hand that they should all be silent. At last a loud voice called out to them in broken English:

"White mans there! You come out! Me good mans! All good mans!"

The faces of all inside the hut were now very serious, for they did not know what might be the nature of these visitors, and there was no window or crack through which they could peer. Jimmy made no motion to go out of the door, but, on the contrary, was trying to hide behind the pile of fox-traps under the low eaves.

"One thing is certain," said Rob, with determination: "we're trapped in here, and can't get out without their seeing us, whoever they are. So come on and let's go out and face them. Are you ready now?"

The others, silent and anxious, crawled close behind him as he pushed open the door and sprang out, rifle in hand.

They found themselves surrounded by nearly a score of natives—short, squat fellows with wild, black hair, most of them in half-civilized garments. They bore all sorts of weapons, some of them having rifles, others short harpoons, and bows and arrows. A large, dark-faced native seemed to be their leader, and seeing the boys now ready to defend themselves, he shifted his gun to his left hand and held out his right with a smile, continuing his broken English.



"Good mans me," he said. "You good mans. Plenty fliend, all light, all light, all light!"

He continued to repeat these last words as though they would serve for the rest of the conversation. Rob, willing enough to accept his assurance of friendship, shook him by the hand, all the time, however, keeping his eyes open for the wild-looking group around him.

"Come dat ways, bidarka!" said the chief, pointing to the beach beyond the sea-wall. "Hunt bad mans. You see-um bad mans? Him steal."

John touched Rob quietly on the arm and whispered to him: "He means Jimmy," he said. "They are after him, and he knows it. That's why he wouldn't come out."

"You see-um bad mans?" asked the chief, eagerly. "Him there?" He pointed at the door of the barabbara, and would have stepped over to look in. Rob moved in front of him.

"No!" he said. "All good mans here. What you want?"

"No want-um white mans," answered the chief. "Village over dar." He pointed across the mountains.

Rob guessed that these natives had therefore followed around the coast-line from their town, although he was not yet clear as to their purpose in coming hither.

"You got-um bad mans here," said the chief, sternly, at last. "See-um boat dar." He pointed to the bidarka at the edge of the lagoon.

"What you do with bad mans?" asked Rob.

"Plenty shoot-um!" answered the chief, sternly, slapping the stock of his gun. "Him steal! Him steal dis! Steal-um nogock! All time my peoples no get-um whale. Him steal-um nogock!"

Rob was puzzled.

"Now what in the world do you suppose he means?" asked he of John. "And what is that thing he's got?"

The chief was holding up a strange-looking object in his hand—a short, dark-colored, tapering stick, with hand-holes and finger-grips cut into the lower end, and with a long groove running toward the small end, which was finished with an ivory tip.

"I saw that thing in the boat," said John. "That must be what he means by nogock. I don't see how they would kill a whale with it, though, or anything else."

The chief evidently understood their ignorance. With a smile he fitted to the groove of the short stick the shaft of a short harpoon, whose head, about a foot and a half in length, they now discovered to be made of thin, dark slate, ground sharp on each edge and at the point. When the chief had fitted the butt of this dart against the ivory tip, he grasped the lower end of the nogock firmly in his hand, steadying the shaft in the groove with one finger. He then drew this back, with his arm at full length above his head, and made a motion as though to throw the harpoon. In short, the boys now had an excellent chance to see one of the oldest aboriginal inventions—the throwing-stick, used from Australia to Siberia by various tribes in one form or another. As they themselves had sometimes thrown a crab-apple from a stick in their younger days in the States, they could readily see that the greater length added to the arm gave greater leverage and power.

"I'll bet he could make that old thing whiz," muttered John. "Still, I don't see how he could hurt a whale with it."

None of them knew at that time anything about the native Aleut method of whale-killing. Neither did they know that the nogock, or whale-killing weapon, is a sacred object in the native villages, where it is always kept in the charge of the headman, or leader in the whale-hunts, who wraps it up carefully and hides it from view. The Aleuts never allow the women of their villages to look at the nogock, saying that it brings bad luck for any one to look at it or touch it except the chief himself. Therefore, had the boys known that their prisoner had stolen this sacred object, as well as the bidarka and much of its cargo, they would better have understood the nature of this pursuit and the intentness of the Aleut chief to punish the offender, who had been guilty of a crime held, in their eyes, to be as bad or worse than murder.

Not, however, understanding all these things, and being very well disposed toward their captive, who had been of such service to them, the boys were not willing to turn him over at once to these people whom he so evidently feared, and who with so little ado announced their intention of killing him. For the time Rob could think of nothing better than continuing the parley.

"You got-um bad mans!" asserted the chief again.

"One mans," admitted Rob. "Maybe so good mans; we don't know."

"Where you comes?" asked the chief, presently, looking about him. "This my house here. White mans come here now?"

Rob did not think it best to admit that they were castaway and lost on these distant shores, so he determined to put on a bold front.

"Heap hunt here," he said, pointing to the meat and the hides stretched on the ground. "Kill three bear. Catch-um plenty fish. By-and-by schooner come."

"When schooner come?" asked the chief, with a cunning gleam in his eye.

"Pretty soon, by-and-by," said Rob, sternly. "Plenty white mans come pretty soon."

The chief was not to be balked of his purpose, and kept edging toward the door of the barabbara. "Kill-um bad mans," he muttered. "Him steal."

Rob, seeing that he was bent on this, and unable to dissuade him from his certainty that the fugitive was inside the hut, for the moment scarcely knew what to do.

"No touch-um mans!" he finally commanded, sternly. "White mans come here by-and-by—Uncle Sam white mans. Suppose bad mans steal; Uncle Sam catch-um. You no touch-um bad mans!"

The chief hesitated, for he knew perfectly well that all the villages of this island were under control of United States law, and although the natives sometimes kept their own counsel and wreaked their own punishment on those whom they held to be offenders, they were, if detected, certain to be held to account by the United States government, which holds control over all this country to the uttermost point of the Aleutian Islands, although little enough law reaches enactment in these far-off regions. As he hesitated the chief turned away from the door, and the Aleuts now began to jabber among themselves. They pointed to the meat, and made signs that they were hungry.

"Da, karosha!" assented Rob, who was beginning to learn Aleut from his friend John.

He motioned them to help themselves. Without much more ado the natives proceeded to take off pieces of the meat from the scaffold, and drawing a little apart they built a fire. Rob observed that they used matches, and so knew that they must be in touch with civilization at least once in a while.

"It's all right, Jess," said he. "We're going to get out of here sure before very long. These people can take us to the settlements any time they feel like it. I only wish we could talk more of their language or they more of ours."

The Aleuts for the time did not talk much of any language, for presently their mouths were too full for speech. Each would stuff his mouth full of meat, and then with his knife cut off a piece so close to his lips as would seem to endanger his nose.

"We won't have much meat wasted if they stay around," remarked John, ruefully. "For my part, I wish they'd go. It's trouble enough to take care of one native, let alone more than a dozen."

The chief seemed to be actuated with some sense of fair-play, or else wished to continue in the good graces of the whites. Some of the men began to boil a kettle and to make tea. The chief picked up the bag of tea and made a gesture of inquiry of Rob. "Chi?" he asked.

Rob shook his head, and made a motion signifying that they had but very little. The chief poured out in his hands what must have represented to him considerable value in tea.

"Now ask him for salt, John," said Rob.

This was too much for John's knowledge of the Aleut language. He got a little red in the face as he admitted this.

"Here, you mans," he said. "You got-ums salt?"

The chief shook his head.

"Salt! Salt-ums! Heap salt!" went on John, frowning. He made a motion as of sprinkling something on the meat, then touched his fingers to his mouth, smacking his lips.

The chief grinned broadly. "Da! Karosha!" He jabbered something to one of his men, and the latter went down the path toward the beach. Evidently he had supplies there, for in a few moments he returned carrying a dirty sack in his hand. The chief took this in his hand and grinned, addressing John.

"Salt, salt-um, salt! All light, all light, all light!" he explained, and divided generously with the boys, giving them something which was of great value to them.

For a time attention seemed to be diverted from the purpose of these strange visitors, the chief making no reference to the man for whom they were searching, but seeming to be content to sit at the fire and eat. What might have been the result was not determined, for all at once something happened which set them all on a run for the beach.

A man appeared at the top of the sea-wall excitedly shouting, waving his arms, and pointing toward the sea. The others answered with loud cries, and in a moment the space immediately about the barabbara was entirely deserted.



XV

THE WHALE-HUNT

For a moment Rob, John, and Jesse stood looking after the natives as they hastened toward the beach. Their first thought was one of relief for the present at least; the prisoner in the hut remained unmolested. Then their curiosity as to the cause of all the excitement led them to forget everything else.

"Come on!" called Rob; and in an instant they were hurrying to join the scene of confusion which now was enacting on the beach.

As they reached the top of the sea-wall they saw for the first time the full party of natives, not more than half of whom had come over to the camp. More than thirty bidarkas lay pulled up along the beach, most of them two-hatch boats. To these boats the natives were now hastening; indeed, some of them had already launched their bidarkas and were paddling back and forth, as much at home on the water as on the land. With much shouting and gesticulation, one after another bidarka joined these, the hunter in each hurriedly casting off the lashings of his harpoon which lay along deck.

At first the boys could see no reason for all this hurry, but as they gazed out across the bay all at once there arose in plain sight of all a vast black bulk which at once they knew to be a whale. The white spray of its spouting was blown forty feet into the air as it moved slowly and majestically onward deeper into the bay. It was plain that the natives meant to attack this monster in their fleet of bidarkas.

The old Aleut chief saw the boys as they came up. He motioned hurriedly to Rob as he ran to his own bidarka, grinning as though he hardly expected Rob to accept the invitation to come and join the hunt. Not so, however; for Rob was so much excited that he did not stop to think of danger. As the chief thrust the long, narrow craft into the water, steadying it with his paddle, Rob sprang in behind the rear hatch. In an instant they were off!

Rob looked around to see Jesse and John both crowded together in the rear hatch of yet another bidarka, where they did what they could to help a swarthy boatman to propel their craft. Rob noticed now that each hunter had his paddles, his harpoon, and his arrows marked in a certain way with red-and-black paint, so that they could not be mistaken for the property of any one else. All the hunters made ready their gear for the chase as they paddled on, perfectly assured and apparently not in the least anxious about the result of the hunt.

The other boats held back until the chief had taken his place at the head of the procession. It now became plain that his was the task of using the mysterious nogock, over whose loss he had seemed so concerned. Even as his bidarka shot forward with its own momentum, he drew out from the forward hatch this sacred instrument and fitted to it the short harpoon. He made over the weapon some mysterious passes with one hand, and as he fitted the harpoon or heavy dart to the throwing-stick he blew three times on the point of it, passing his fingers along the edge. Finally he held the weapon up toward the sky and uttered some loud words in his strange tongue. Having completed these ceremonies, he placed the nogock and harpoon crosswise on the deck in front of him and bent again to his paddle. Rob himself, no bad canoeman, had meantime been paddling as though he quite understood what was expected of him.

The head bidarka now passed steadily and swiftly on toward the great bulk of the whale, which lay plainly visible not more than a quarter of a mile away. As the other boats came on in squadron close behind, Rob could hear a sort of low, rhythmic humming, as though all the natives were joining in an incantation. It was his privilege to see one of the native hunts for the whale in all its original features—something which few white men have ever seen. The strange excitement of the scene, so many savage hunters all bent upon one purpose, and evidently using every means to screw their courage to the sticking-point, did not lack its effect upon the young adventurers who found themselves, with so little preparation or intent, swept on in this wild scene.

Once in a while Rob cast his eye about to see how his friends were prospering. Jesse looked a little pale, yet both he and John were eager. Crowded as they were both in one hatch, they could not paddle to much effect, but the native in the bow managed to keep his place in the procession. The first thought of Rob was that it was absolute folly to think of killing so great a creature with the insignificant weapons which he now saw ready for use.

As the chief began to approach the great whale more closely, he slowed down the speed, creeping cautiously onward at times when his instinct told him his boat was least apt to be discovered by the whale. The latter seemed ignorant or careless of the approach. Now and again it blew a vast spout of water into the air, and sometimes it rolled and half lifted its vast bulk free of the water, until it seemed larger than a house. The humming chorus of the Aleuts continued, but fell to a lower note as the boats drew near.

For what seemed an interminable time the bidarka of the headman lay silent, trembling and heaving on the swell of the choppy sea, while the huntsman sat steadily and studied the giant quarry in front of him. Once or twice he gently turned the prow of the bidarka, using the least possible motion. Again, a few feet at a time, he would edge it on in, pausing and crawling forward, his hand motioning back to Rob to be quiet and steady.

Now the Aleut showed at his best. There was no fear or agitation in his conduct. Without hesitation he gazed intently at the dark, glistening bulk in front of him, apparently hunting for the exact spot which he wished to strike—a point about a third of the way back from the angle of the jaw. The whale itself seemed to be stupid, as though sleepy, although now and again it rolled slowly from side to side as though uneasy.

Like a cat the huntsman crept in and in toward his prey, scarce more than an inch at a time, till at last Rob saw the boat reach a point where the body of the whale seemed to tower above their heads.

Finally the hand of the chief was raised to signal Rob to stop paddling.

With his own paddle in his left hand clinched against the rim of the bidarka hatch, the chief with his right hand slowly and deliberately raised the nogock and its slate-tipped harpoon. His arm, extended at full length and quite rigid, passed now in a straight line above his head and slightly back of his shoulder. Rob, intent on all these matters, saw the native's thumb and fingers whiten in the intensity of their grip on the butt of the nogock; yet the middle finger lay light and gentle, just holding in place the slender shaft of the harpoon, whose slate head, blue and cold, extended down and in front of the throwing hand.

Still the chief poised and waited until the exact spot he wished to strike was exposed as the whale rolled slowly toward the right. Then suddenly, with a sighing hiss of his breath, the dark huntsman leaned swiftly forward. The motion of his hand was so swift the eye could scarcely follow it.

After that all that Rob could tell was that he was in the bidarka speeding swiftly away from a churning mass of white water, in the middle of which a vast black form was rolling. He heard a sort of hoarse roar or expiration of the breath of the stricken monster. Once he thought he caught sight of the slender shaft of the harpoon, which in truth was buried, head and all, eighteen inches or more deep in the side of the whale, the point passing entirely through the blubber and into the red meat of the body. Although Rob did not know it, the shaft did not long remain attached. The struggles of the whale broke off the slate-head at a point near to the shaft, where it was cunningly made thinner in order that it might break. A foot or fifteen inches of the slate-head remained buried deep in the body of the whale. The nogock had done its work!

A loud chant now broke from all the boatmen, who joined the head bidarka, all backing away from the struggling whale. To the surprise of Rob, no further effort was made to launch a harpoon, and he saw that the presence of these other boats was rather intended as a part of the ceremony than as an actual assistance in the hunt, the savage mind here, as elsewhere, taking delight in surrounding itself with certain mummeries.

As Rob gazed back of him to watch the struggle of the whale, he saw the sea gradually becoming quiet. The giant black form was gone, the whale having sounded, or dived far below the surface.

"Plenty sick now," said the chief, sententiously, motioning toward the spot where the whale had disappeared. Then all at once he gave a loud whoop and started paddling toward the shore, followed by the entire fleet of bidarkas, all the occupants of which were singing joyously. Rob could not in the least understand all this, for it seemed to him the hunt had met with failure; but there seemed to be some system about it, for nothing but satisfaction marked the faces of the hunters as they finally drew up their bidarkas again upon the beach.

"Maybe so two—tree day, him die now," said the chief, at last. Rob did not even then understand what he later found to be the truth: that what the Aleut really does with his slate harpoon-head is not to kill the whale with the wound, but to poison it. If the stone harpoon-head passes through the blubber and into the red meat the wound is sure to fester, and in the course of a few days to kill the whale, which then floats ashore somewhere and is discovered by the waiting hunters.

There continued some sort of system in this hunt, even though it was now arrested for the time. Men kept an eye out on the bay, where in a few moments the whale arose, spouting madly, and once more stirring the water into foam. Swimming on the surface, it then took a long, straight run apparently for the mouth of the bay. The chief gave some hurried command, and a dozen boats shot out, whether to head it or to watch it Rob could not tell, for presently the whale once more sounded, and when it next arose it was deeper into the bay. The situation now seemed to please the old hunter.

"Maybe so him stay here now," he said, briefly, though why he thought so Rob could not tell.

No one made any attempt to pursue the whale after that. The chief, carefully wiping off the sacred nogock, again wrapped it up in its coverings, made some mysterious passes over it, and restored it to its place in his bidarka, whence, as Rob now began to understand, the guilty Jimmy had some time since stolen it.

As the boys met on the beach it must be confessed they were not thinking of their prisoner or his fate. In their excitement they were chattering to one another about the hunt, which they all agreed was the wildest and most peculiar one they had ever seen or heard of.

"You had the best of it all, Rob," said John, enviously. "Our man wouldn't row up any closer. My, that old whale must have looked big from where you were!"

"Well, he did, a little bit," admitted Rob, who had lost his cap somewhere and was now bare-headed.

"That beats bear-hunting," said Jesse, "even although we haven't got our game yet."

"They say he'll come ashore maybe in two or three days," said Rob. "Meanwhile, I suppose these natives will hang around here and wait. If they do get him, it's very likely they'll squat down here to eat him up, and that would take all summer! I must confess I don't like the look of it very much."

"And there's Jimmy—" began John.

"That's so! We must go and see about him."

Quietly they edged their way out of the excited throng of natives and hurried across the sea-wall to the barabbara. Opening the door they peered cautiously in. No motion met their gaze, and although they called several times in a low tone there was no response. Passing into the barabbara they searched every corner of it. No doubt remained—their late prisoner was gone!



XVI

THE MISSING PRISONER

For a time the boys sat silent and moody in the barabbara. The situation, as it appeared to them, was not a pleasant one. On the one side were half a hundred natives, whose intentions they could only guess; upon the other, as they now suspected, there might be an active enemy whose whereabouts they could only surmise. At last Rob spoke.

"It looks this way to me," said he: "we three could not make any kind of defence against that band of natives, but perhaps they will not attack us. From what has happened, I do not think they will. Now, here is tea and salt which we got from them. That proves that they trade with the whites, which means that help may not be more than a hundred miles away at farthest. In the second place, these people think that we are here alone for only a short time and that our friends will soon be here. The thing for us to do is to keep them thinking that."

"They'll be over before long," said John, "to see what has become of Jimmy, here, the man they were after."

"I'm not so sure of that," rejoined Rob. "These natives forget any purpose very easily; and now, as we know, they are busy watching the whale. But suppose they do come. The barabbara is empty."

"They have not seen Jimmy at all as yet," said John. "But suppose the bidarka is gone—he very probably took that with him."

"Let's go see," suggested Jesse, and accordingly they hurried to the side of the lagoon. Sure enough, only the dory remained. The bidarka had disappeared from its resting-place.

"Now," reasoned Rob, "he would be afraid to go out of the creek into the open bay, for then they would see him sure. There is every chance that he left the bidarka somewhere in the creek. We'll hunt for it, then. I'll go across in the shallow water, and we'll search both sides of the bank. One thing sure is that Jimmy went in a hurry, because he left his gun behind. He can't have had anything along more than his bow and arrows. We'll know when we find the bidarka."

So saying, they separated, and began to scour both sides of the creek, without success, however, until they nearly reached the mouth. Here, hidden in the tall grass on the farther side of the creek and close to the high rock wall near the mouth of the stream, Rob stumbled across the missing boat. With a shout he called to the others to halt, and presently, pushing the bidarka out into the creek, he paddled across to them. They all joined now in examining the contents of the boat.

"It's just as I said," commented Rob. "He left in a hurry, and badly scared. He could just as well have taken one of our guns as not, but we know he did not do that, and even left his own. Here's his spear and his paddles. His blankets are back at the hut. So far as I can see, he took only his fishing-line and his bow and arrows."

"Yes, but he may come back again," suggested Jesse.

"I hardly think so," reasoned Rob. "At any rate, he'll not come back so long as these people hang around, because he knows they're after him. Besides, the fact that he didn't steal anything from us shows that he is getting scared about stealing. I'm not so uneasy about him as I am about these other fellows over on the beach."

None too happy, the boys now proceeded to paddle the bidarka up the creek to its old resting-place in the lagoon, after which they busied themselves rather half-heartedly about camp work, a part of which was further fleshing of the bear hides. As they were engaged at this they heard a faint rustling in the dry grass near at hand. Startled, they looked around, and saw something staring at them from the cover. John reached for his rifle.

"Don't shoot!" called Rob. "It's a boy! I see his face plainly now."



XVII

THE ALEUT BOY

They advanced toward the intruder, who stood up, grinning and showing a set of very white teeth. He was an Aleut boy about twelve years of age, short and squat, with stringy, dark hair. He was clad in a smock, or jacket, of sea-parrot feathers, which came down to his seal-skin boots. In one hand he held a short spear, in the other several thongs to which were attached bits of ivory. He seemed not in the least alarmed, but, on the contrary, much disposed to be friendly.

"Karosha!" called out John to him. "All right, all right, all right!"

John seemed to pick up easily the expressions which the Aleuts used and understood.

Hesitatingly, but still smiling, the boy joined them, and walked with them over toward the bear hides, where he stood looking down. At last, as they resumed their work at the hides, he himself squatted down, and taking out his own knife—a mere bit of steel bound around at the end with rags and hide for a handle—he also began to scrape away. So much greater was his skill than theirs that at last he smiled at their awkwardness. For the time he made no attempt at any kind of speech, and answered no questions in regard to his people. At last, as Jesse departed to the top of the sea-wall to learn what was going on along the beach, he began to jabber and attempt to make some signs. John guessed that he meant to say that in a couple of days the whale would come ashore; that then his people would build fires and eat.

"Maybe he'd like to eat a little himself," concluded John. "Suppose we try him on some bear meat."

Their offer seemed very acceptable to the Aleut boy, who in a very matter-of-fact way began to hunt around in the grass for fuel and to prepare to make a fire, which latter he did with skilful use of one of the few matches which he kept dry in a membrane pouch in an inner pocket.

"He's camped out before," said Rob. "It looks as though he had adopted us. Maybe he likes the look of our meat-rack better than he does the prospect of waiting over there for the whale to come ashore."

The young Aleut put his pieces of bear meat on sticks, which he stuck up near the fire; and while they were broiling he himself ran over toward the beach, presently reappearing with some dark-looking stuff in his hands, which he offered his friends, making signs that it was good to eat.

"Smoked breast of wild goose," commented John, smacking his lips. "It's good, too. I wouldn't mind having some more of that."

Whether or not the boy understood it was impossible to say; but all at once he began to flop his arms up and down, quacking and honking in imitation of wild fowl. He pointed to a spot far up at the head of the lagoon, and then, picking up his bunch of thongs and ivory balls, whirled them around his head.

Rob's eyes kindled.

"We can't afford to use rifle ammunition to shoot birds, but if we can get this boy to go along on a goose-hunt we may have a new sort of fun, and maybe get some game."

The young Aleut showed no disposition to return to his own people, and when at length, after they had all eaten heartily, the three friends turned toward the door of the barabbara, he followed them as though he had been invited.

"What are we going to do with this boy?" asked Jesse. "He acts as if he belonged here."

"Maybe he does," said John. "I saw him talking to the old chief, and maybe he's his son. I have more than half a guess that the old man does own this house, anyhow."

As the sun began to sink toward the horizon a wind arose and dark clouds overspread the sky.

"I don't blame the boy for wanting to stay here where he will be dry. If I'm not mistaken, we are going to have rain and plenty of it. Meantime, we might as well turn in and go to sleep," added Rob.

He motioned the young Aleut to the blankets which Jimmy had abandoned, and the latter, without ado, curled himself up on them. The others, tired enough, followed his example, and for that night at least they did not trouble themselves to keep any watch. Perhaps they had never had greater cause for vigilance, but their anxiety was lost in the bodily weariness which came over them after so many stirring incidents.



XVIII

UNWELCOME VISITORS

After the edge of their weariness had worn off with their first heavy slumbers, the mental anxiety of the young adventurers began to return, and they slept so uneasily that when morning came they all awoke with a start at the sounds they heard outside the barabbara.

Rain and heavy wind had begun some time in the night; but now they heard something else—the swishing of feet in the wet grass and the sound of low voices.

The young Aleut was awake also, but he smiled as he sat up on the blankets.

"I don't think we need be alarmed," said Rob, in a low tone to his friends. "If these people had meant us any harm we'd have been foolish to go out in their boats with them and leave our guns. Now we're here safe with all our guns and other stuff, and here's this boy with us, too. If they had not felt friendly toward us they would never have let him stay here all night. Too bad we can't understand their talk, and just have to guess at things; but that's the way I guess it."

A moment later there came the sound of a loud voice at the door. It opened, and the swarthy face of the Aleut chief peered in. He jabbered in his native language to the boy, who replied briefly and composedly. The chief now pushed his way into the hut, and, much to the annoyance of the white occupants, he was followed by a dozen other natives, who came crowding in and filling the place with the rank smell of wet fur and feathers. They seated themselves around the edge of the barabbara, and one of them presently began to make a fire.

"Dis barabbara—my peoples!" said the chief. "My families come here all light, all light, all light!"

"Just as I thought," said Rob, aside, to the others. "It is we who are the visitors, not they. John, you act as interpreter. Ask him how far it is to Kadiak."

The keen-witted chief caught the sound of the latter word.

"You come Kadiak?" he said. "Come dory? You no got-um schooner?"

"Schooner by-and-by," broke in Rob, hurriedly. "Our peoples come."

The chief sat thoughtful for a time, his cunning eyes looking from one to the other.

"What you give go Kadiak?" he asked, at length.

"Schooner come by-and-by," retorted Rob, coldly.

The chief chuckled to himself shrewdly.

"Where bad mans go?" he asked, after awhile.

Rob shrugged his shoulder and pointed toward the mountains, as though he did not know where the refugee might be.

After awhile the old native produced from under his coat three handsomely made kamelinkas, or rain-proof coats, made of membranes. He pointed to the clothing of the boys and made signs of rain.

"You like-um?" he asked. "Me like-um lifle."

Rob shook his head, but the old man persisted. Finally Rob was seized of a happy idea.

"S'pose you go Kadiak," he said. "You come back with schooner, maybe so we give one rifle, two rifle."

This had precisely the opposite effect from that intended. The chief guessed that, after all, the boys did not know when any boat would come for them. The cunning eyes of the native grew ugly now.

"My barabbara!" he said. "You go. S'pose you no give lifle! Me take-um all light, all light, all light!"

"Hold on to your guns, boys!" called Rob, quickly. "Don't let them get hold of one of them."

Then he resumed with the chief. "Heap shoot!" said he, patting his rifle. "You no take-um. S'pose you get-um schooner, maybe so we give one rifle, two rifle; maybe so flour—sugar; maybe so hundred dollar. Our peoples plenty rich."

The chief seemed sulky and not disposed to argue, but the young boy at his side spoke to him rapidly for a time, and for some reason he seemed mollified. Rob pressed the advantage. Drawing a piece of worn paper from his inner coat-pocket, he made signs of writing with a stub of pencil which he found in another pocket.

"You see talk-talk paper?" he went on. "S'pose you take talk-talk paper by Kadiak, we give-um one rifle."

The chief grinned broadly and reached out his hand to take Rob's rifle from him, but the latter drew it back.

"No give-um rifle now," he insisted. "When bidarka go, you take-um talk-talk paper, we give-um rifle. No! No give-um rifle now. We keep-um boy here all right, all right, all right. No keep-um boy, no give-um rifle. No get-um schooner, no get-um boy."

This was not very good talking, but it was not bad reasoning for a boy; and, moreover, it seemed to go home. The old Aleut sat and thought for a while. Evidently he either was willing to exchange his son for so good a rifle, or else he felt sure that no harm would come to the boy. Turning to the latter, he talked with him for some moments earnestly, the boy answering without hesitation. At last the young Aleut arose, edged through the crowd, and sat down beside John, putting his hand on the arm of the latter as though to call him his friend.

Rob drew a sigh of relief. Although he no more than half understood what had gone on, he reasoned that the boy had agreed to remain with them until word was brought back from the settlement. How long that might be, or in what form help might come, he could only guess. Keeping his own counsel, and preserving as stern an expression as he could, Rob sat and looked at the Aleut chieftain steadily.

The situation was suddenly changed by a shout from the direction of the beach. Led by the chief, the natives all now hurried out of the barabbara. The young boy remained. In a few moments he crawled out and presently dragged in after him the wet bear-skins, making signs that they would be spoiled if left in the rain. Having done this, he motioned to the boys to put on the kamelinkas which had been left in the hut by the chief and then to follow him.

Guessing that there might be events of interest on the beach, they adopted his suggestions and hastened out into the rain.

When they reached the top of the sea-wall the cause of the excitement was apparent. The natives were hurrying as fast as they could go in a body up the beach. Perhaps a half-mile from where they stood they could see a vast dark shape half awash in the heavy surf. Around it bobbed a few dark spots which they saw to be bidarkas. From these, and from the natives gathered at the edge of the water, there came, as the boys could see, one harpoon after another. It was plain that the whale, sickened by its wound and buffeted by the heavy weather, had been driven close in shore, and here had been attacked and finished at short range by the natives who had been watching for its appearance.



XIX

HOPE DEFERRED

Of course the boys could not help joining the hurrying throng which now was thickening about the stranded whale. John and Jesse were much excited, but Rob remained more sober and thoughtful, even as they finally stood on the beach where the Aleuts were working at the giant carcass of the whale, which, pierced by a half-dozen lances and bristling with short harpoons, was now quite dead, and fastened to the shore by a score of strong hide lines.

"There's the whale all right," said he to his two friends. "It's a good thing for these people, I suppose; but it's a very bad thing for us."

Jesse looked at him in inquiry, and Rob went on:

"Don't you see that they'll camp here now for days, and maybe weeks? They'll eat this thing as long as it is fit to eat, and probably a good deal longer; and meantime they are not going to take out any word from us to the settlements, if they really intend to go there at all."

"That's so," said John. But his hopeful temperament cast off troubles readily. "We can't do anything more than just wait, anyhow; and I suppose that our friend here"—he motioned to the Aleut boy—"will see that we get our share of the whale meat."

The boys now saw that whale-hunting among the Aleuts is a partnership affair, a whole village sharing equally in the spoils. Every man of the party now went to work. Some of them mounted the slippery back of the dead whale and hacked away at the hide, laying bare strips of the thick white blubber. Skilfully enough, for those possessing no better tools, they got off long strips of the blubber, which they carried high up the beach above the tide. Some of them carefully worked at the side of the whale where the deadly harpoon had done its work. Cutting down, they disclosed the broken head of slate buried deep in the body of the whale, the wound now surrounded by a wide region of inflamed and bloodshot flesh. This they carefully cut out for a distance of two or three feet on each side of the wound, and this seemed to be all the attention they paid to the preparation of the flesh for food. As the rain was now falling steadily they did not pause to build fires, but here and there a man could be seen eating raw whale meat, cutting off the strip close to his lips with his knife, in the curious fashion which always seems to the white race so repulsive.

The young Aleut looked among the pieces of flesh as they were carried high up the bank of sea-wall, and at last selected a few smaller portions which he carried with him when at last the boys turned back toward the barabbara. He also got a good-sized sack of salt and one or two battered cooking utensils. It was plain that whatever his relatives might wish to do, or whatever right they had to turn intruders out of their own barabbara, he himself intended to cast in his lot with the white boys.

The latter knew no alternative but to allow matters to stand as they did. The gloomy weather, however, oppressed their spirits. They had now been gone from civilization for a considerable time, and if truth be told they were becoming not a little uneasy about their situation. They had no means of telling how far the settlement might be, and they were indeed as completely lost as though they were a thousand miles from any white man's home. As a matter of fact, the part of the great island where they now were cast away had scarcely been visited by a white man, on an average, once in twenty years since the days of the Russian occupancy.

Most of that day they spent inside the barabbara waiting for the rain to cease; but as the clouds broke away in the afternoon they ventured out once more to see what was going on along the beach.

"Why, look there!" said Rob, pointing toward the mouth of the bay. "They're leaving—half of them are gone already!"

Rough as the sea now was, and heavily loaded as were all the boats with the flesh of the whale, it was none the less obvious that members of the party were starting out for home, perhaps disposed to this by the discomfort of life in rough weather with no better shelter than they could find on this somewhat barren coast. These natives nearly always hunt in districts where they know there can be found a barabbara or so, and such huts are used as common property by all who find them, although the loose title of ownership probably rests in the man or family who first erected them. When so large a party as that now present travelled together, it was certain that they could find no adequate shelter unless they constructed it for themselves; and the Aleut, after all, is not like the American Indian, who makes himself comfortable where night finds him, but is rather a village-dweller, who rarely wanders farther from home than a day's journey or so in his bidarka.

All this, of course, was more or less Greek to the boys who stood watching the thinning party, as one bidarka after another was skilfully run out through the surf and as skilfully put under way in the long swell of the sea. At last a well-known figure detached itself from a group where he had been talking and approached them. The Aleut chief addressed himself once more to Rob.

"My peoples go now," he said. "Me like-um lifle."

"When you go Kadiak?" asked Rob.

"Maybe seven week, four week, ten—nine week all light, all light, all light," said the chief, amiably. "You make-um talk-talk ting. Give me! You give-um lifle now."

Rob turned to the other boys.

"We'll hold a council," said he. "Now, what do you think is best to do?"

The others remained silent for a time.

"Well," said Jesse, at length, "I want to go home pretty bad. He can have my rifle if he wants it, if he'll take a letter out to John's Uncle Dick at Kadiak."

"I think it's best," said John. "We'll have two rifles left, and that will be all we really need. Let's go and write the note and take the chance of its ever getting out. Anyway, it is the best we can do."

They returned to the barabbara, where Rob wrote as plainly as he could, with deep marks of the pencil, as follows:

"Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak.

"DEAR SIR,—We are all right, but don't know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory. Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige

"Yours truly, ——."

"Do you think that'll do all right, boys?" he asked.

The others nodded assent, and so each signed his name. Folding up the paper and tying it in a piece of the membrane which he cut off a corner of his kamelinka, Rob finally gave the packet to the old chief.

"Plenty talk-talk thing," he said. "You bring peoples—get-um schooner—my peoples give-um flour, sugar, two rifle, hundred dollars."

Without further comment than a grunt the old chief stowed the packet in an inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse's rifle under his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to leave the coast.

The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.

Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.

"Well," he admitted, "I don't care! I do want to go home!"



XX

THE SILVER-GRAY FOX

After the natives had departed, the young castaways, quite alone on their wild island, felt more lonesome and more uneasy than they had been before. The wilderness seemed to close in about them. None of them had any definite hope or plan for an early rescue or departure from the island, so for some two or three weeks they passed the time in a restless and discontented way, doing little to rival the exciting events which had taken place during the visit of the natives. It was now approaching the end of spring, and Rob, more thoughtful perhaps than any of the others, could not conceal from himself the anxiety which began to settle upon him.

In these circumstances Rob and his friends found the young Aleut, with his cheerful and care-free disposition and his apparent unconcern about the future, of much comfort as well as of great assistance in a practical way. They nicknamed the Aleut boy Skookie—a shortening of the Chinook word skookum, which means strong, or good, or all right. Their young companion, used as he was to life in the open, solved simply and easily all their little problems of camp-keeping. Under his guidance, they finished the work on the bear-skins, scraping them and rubbing them day after day, until at last they turned them into valuable rugs.

It was Skookie, also, who showed them where to get their salmon and codfish most easily. In short, he naturally dropped into the place of local guide. The native is from his youth trained to observation of natural objects, because his life depends upon such things. With the white man or white boy this is not the case. No matter how much instinct he may have for the life of the wilderness, with him adjustment to that life is a matter of study and effort, whereas with the native all these things are a matter of course. It may be supposed, therefore, that this young Aleut made the best of instructors for the young companions who found themselves castaway in this remote region.

Thus, none of the three white boys had noted more than carelessly the paths of wild animals which came down from the surrounding hills to the shores of the lagoon near which they were camped, although these paths could be seen with ease by any one whose attention was attracted to them. One day they were wandering along the upper end of the lagoon where the grass, matted with several seasons' growth and standing as tall as their shoulders, stood especially dense. They noticed that Skookie stooped now and then and parted the tangled grass with his hands. At last, like a young hound, he left their course and began to circle around, crossing farther on what they now discovered to be an easily distinguishable trail made by some sort of small animal.

"What is it? What's up, Skookie?" asked John, whose curiosity always was in evidence.

The Aleut boy did not at first reply, because he did not know how to do so. He made a sort of sign, by putting his two bent fingers, pricked up, along the side of his head like ears.

"Wolf!" said John.

"No," commented Rob. "I don't think there are any wolves on this island; at least, I never heard of any so far to the West. What is it, Skookie?"

The boy made the same sign, and then spread his hands apart as if to measure the length of some animal.

"Fox!" cried Jesse, with conviction; and Skookie, who understood English better than he spoke it, laughed in assent.

"Fokus," he said, repeating the word as nearly as he could. Now he traced out the path in the grass for them, and, beckoning them to follow, showed where it crossed the tundra and ran along the stream, headed back to the higher hills which seemed to be the resort of the wild animals, from which they came down to feed along the beach.

"It's as plain as the nose on a fellow's face," said John. "And some of these paths look as if they were a good many years old."

Indeed, they could trace them out, many of them, worn deep into the moss by the dainty feet of foxes which had travelled the same lines for many years. It was a curious thing, but all these wild animals, even the bears, seemed not to like the work of walking where the footing was soft, so they made paths of their own which they followed from one part of the country to another. On this great Alaskan island nearly every mountain pass had bear trails and fox paths leading down to the valleys along the streams or from one valley over into another. The foxes as well as the bears seemed to find a great deal of their food along the beaches.

As the young native ran along the fox trail the others had difficulty in keeping up with him.

"What's the matter with him? What's up, Rob?" panted John, who was a trifle fat for his years. "Why doesn't he keep in the plain trails?"

"Let him alone," said Rob. "He may have some idea of his own. See there, he is heading over toward the beach."

They followed him along the faint trail, dimly outlined at places in the moss, and soon they caught the idea which was in his mind. The path headed toward the beach and then zig-zagged, paralleling it as though some fox had come down and caught sight or scent of something interesting and then had investigated it cautiously. Others had trodden in his foot-prints, and so made this path, which at length straightened out and ran directly to the beach just opposite the place where the dead whale lay.

"Plenty—plenty!" said Skookie, pointing his short finger to the trail and then down to the beach where the carcass of the whale lay. Whether he meant plenty of fox or plenty of food for the foxes made little difference.

"They're feeding on the whale, now that the boats have gone," explained Rob. "That is plain. Skookie is just showing us the new trail they have made the last few nights."

Skookie turned back and began to follow the trail toward the mountain. Without comment the others followed him, and so they ran the faint path back until it climbed directly up the steep bluff, fifty feet in height, and struck a long, flat, higher level, where the foxes all seemed to have established an ancient highway. Several trails here crossed, although each held its own way and did not merge with the others; as though there were bands of foxes which came from one locality and did not mingle with the others.

"Now, what made him come up here?" asked John, whose shorter legs were beginning to tire of this long walk. "We're getting a good way from home."

"Just wait," advised Jesse. "We'll learn something yet, I shouldn't wonder. Skookie's after something; that's plain."

Indeed, the young Aleut, not much farther on, began now to stoop and examine the trail closely. At length he pointed his brown finger at a certain spot near the trail. The others bent over the place.

"Something's been here," said Jesse. The moss had been dug out and put back again.

Skookie smiled and walked on a little farther and showed them several other such places a few yards apart. He held up the fingers of one hand.

"Five klipsie," he said, and then swept an arm around toward the face of the mountains, remarking: "My peoples come here."

"Oh," said Rob; "he means that here is where his family come to set their klipsie traps for foxes. I suppose these places are where the same klipsies were set five different times. I have heard that when they catch a fox in one place they always take up their trap and move it on a little way so that the other foxes may not be frightened away by the smell of the dead fox or the trap."

"I wonder," said Jesse, "if any fox would have good fur this late in the spring."

"He might," said Rob, "if he had been living all the time up in the mountains near the snow; but as the natives trap a good deal along the beach, I suppose they took up their traps some time ago. They never like to take fur unless it is good, of course."

"Anyhow," said Jesse, "I shouldn't mind trying once for a fox. We might get a good one. I've heard they catch foxes sometimes—silver-grays or blacks, you know—that are worth three or four hundred dollars."

"Or even more," added Rob; "but that is when they're very prime, and when they bring the top of the market."

Skookie looked from one to the other, but finally made up his own mind. He led out on the way toward the barabbara, where very methodically he set to work carrying out his purpose. He rummaged among the klipsie butts in the back part of the hut until he got one to suit him, and then without any hesitation led the way a few hundred yards distant from the hut where, parting the grass, he disclosed the cache or hiding-place where the owners of the klipsies had secreted the traps; they, in their cunning, not wishing to leave the entire trap in the possession of any stranger who might come to the house.

Fumbling in this heap of narrow sticks, each of which was about as long as a boy's arm, Skookie at last picked out one which suited him. They discovered that the end of it was armed with four or five spikes apparently made of old nails hammered to a point and filed into a barb.

Skookie now took this arm of his klipsie to where he had left the butt or hub of the trap, and he loosened up the heavy, braided cord of sinew which passed from end to end through the butt. He pushed the butt end of the arm in between these sinews so that pulling it sidewise twisted the sinews. Then he drove tight the wedges at each end of the hub, so straining the sinews tightly about the arm of the trap. Thus, as the boys readily saw, a great force was exerted when the arm of the trap was pulled back.

"That is what they call 'torsion,' I think," said Rob. "It is like a gate-spring which pushes hard when you twist it. Look at those sinews—thick as your thumb—and even one little sinew is strong enough to hang an ox!"

Skookie went on with his work until he thought the strain on the arm was sufficient. Then he pulled the arm back and caught it under a slight notch which was cut in the side of the hub, which itself was open on one side to allow the passage of the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from it—something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of the klipsie resembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head back ready to strike a terrible blow.

"Natives get caught in these traps sometimes," said Rob; "so the old trappers tell me. Sometimes they get crippled for life. You see, these iron points here strike a man just about at the knee joint, and that's pretty bad when there is no doctor around."

Skookie, going ahead with his work, fumbled in his pocket and fished out a piece of hide cord, which he measured off to a certain length between his arms; then, picking up a bit of stick, he whittled out a pointed peg and attached one end of his cord to this, while he arranged the other so that it would control the trigger which held the arm in place on the farther side of the klipsie bow. Now he stretched out his cord and pushed the peg into the earth as though it crossed a fox path, and made a motion of a fox walking along and touching his leg against the cord. To do this he took a long stick instead of using his own limb.

Whang! went the klipsie, the fanged arm whirling over so fast that the eye could hardly follow it, and burying its points in the ground. Skookie laughed and danced up and down, showing how it certainly would have killed a fox had the latter been there.

"Come on," said John; "let's go set it somewhere."

"All light!" said Skookie, who understood a great many words from their apparent connection. He took up his trap, with the hub under his arm, and headed off up the beach toward the spot where they had first seen the fox trail two or three hours before.

Following along the faint trail for some distance, but taking care not to step in it, he at length struck it where it passed through the tall grass. Here he squatted down and made some sort of strange passes over his trap, mumbling certain words in a strange tongue. Like all of his people, Skookie was superstitious. What he wanted to do now was to wish his trap good-luck. Having attended to this part of his ceremony, he drew his knife and began to detach a square of the thick, matted moss, making a cavity about arm's distance at one side of the path. In this hole he buried the hub of the klipsie and covered it carefully with moss, so that nothing was left to show. The arm, which lay back still farther in the grass, he covered up lightly so that it also would be concealed from view. Then, carefully, he stretched his trigger string across the path, mixing it up with some of the dried spears of grass so that it lay a foot or less above the level of the path, or at just about the height at which the fore-legs or breast of the fox would strike it as the animal came walking down the trail. Having bent the grass above his klipsie, and arranged everything so that the place showed no signs of what had been going on, Skookie at last smiled, stood back, and looked cheerfully at his work; then he cast a glance toward the skies, and made a sign with his fingers held downward as though to indicate falling rain.

"Bime-by water!" he said.

"He means that he wants it to rain," said Rob, "so that the scent will all be washed off from the trap and from the ground around it."

"Well," said John, "if the water is about the way it averages, he won't have to wait longer than to-night for his rain." Which, indeed, was the case, for in the night, while they were all safely in the barabbara around the fire, the rain came as usual, sufficient to blot out all trace of their late work on the fox trails.

The following morning the boys at once began to wonder what luck had met their trapping operations. It did not appear to them likely that they would catch anything the first night; but Skookie, it seemed, was of a different opinion. After breakfast he led the way to the place where the trap lay, and without hesitation walked into the tall grass, stooped down, and at once held up to view a long, dark animal at sight of which the boys uttered a joint whoop of joy!

"We got him!" said John. "We certainly did get a fox, and the very first night, too."

"Yes," agreed Rob, "we did more than that: we got a silver-gray fox, and a mighty good one at that. Was there ever such luck, I do wonder!"

Skookie took it all as a matter of course, but the others were much excited over this discovery. They put the silky, handsome animal upon the ground and began to smooth out its fur. The fangs of the klipsie had struck it in the back of the neck and killed it instantly, so that the coat remained quite smooth and undisturbed by any struggles. It was long and silky—dark, with white-tipped tail, and gray extremities on all the hairs of the back.

"This skin ought to be worth anyhow one hundred dollars," said Rob, critically. "At least that would be my guess at it. The natives don't often get that much, but sometimes a trader will buy a skin for fifty dollars and sell it for five or six hundred. That all depends on the sort of market he finds."

"Anyhow," said Jesse, "it proves that Skookie can trap foxes all right."

The young Aleut was not disturbed by this praise, and proceeded to further prove his ability as a trapper. Having again set his klipsie at a point a few yards farther down the trail, he took up the dead fox and led the way back to the barabbara, where he undertook to carry the carcass in for his skinning operations.

At this Rob demurred, for he had already seen proof of the custom of the native trappers, who nearly always skin out their game at the fireside of the barabbara, and who are very careless where they leave the carcasses.

"No, you don't!" said Rob. "We've just cleaned out that house, and we don't want it mussed up again so soon. Let's go over to the beach and skin our fox."

Skookie, always docile and willing to obey, once more led the way, carrying the fox under his arm. At last he seated himself on the ground, sharpened his knife-blade on a stone, and began to skin out the fox, much as an old trapper would. He made a cut from one hind leg to the other, cut off the tail bone, pulled the tail off clean by the use of two sticks clamped against the bone, and proceeded to remove the skin from the body without splitting it along the belly—"casing" it, as trappers call it. So carefully did he do his work that he did not make the slightest cut around the eyes or ears or nostrils, and even brought off the whiskers of the muzzle without disfiguring the skin in the least.

Next he found a spreader, or tapering board, under the eaves of the barabbara, and over this he stretched his fox-skin, inside out, setting it away in the back part of the barabbara, where it would slowly dry without being exposed to the fire.

"Well, he certainly is a trapper, all right," said John, admiringly. "Now I believe we could do that sort of thing ourselves. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't get a lot of foxes here, and maybe make some money out of the skins some day."

Rob shook his head. "I don't think so," said he. "Even this skin, although it is not yet rusty from the sunlight, is not perfectly prime, as you can see by looking at the inside of the skin. A really prime skin is white and clear, and you can see that this one is just a little blue along the back. That isn't a good sign to me."

Rob's guess as to the fur soon proved to be correct. For four more nights they watched their klipsie trap without success. On the fifth morning they found another dead fox in the trap, with the barbs through his back. This, however, was only a "cross" fox, and his fur proved so worn and rusty that Skookie scornfully refused to take off the hide. That ended their fox-trapping, for Rob refused to allow any more foxes to be killed. Skookie, apparently willing to go on with his work, or to stop as they preferred, smilingly took up his klipsie, after he had sprung the trap, detached the arm, and restored the separated parts to their original hiding-places.

"Plenty times my peoples come here," he said, smiling.

"That means," said Jesse, "that some time or other, if we have luck, we may be discovered here by his people, even if our own people never find us."

"Yes," Rob added, "but I only hope that may be before winter comes and leaves us unable to get out."



XXI

AN ALEUT GOOSE-HUNT

Although utterly remote from the ordinary haunts of man, our young hunters found their new environment one free from monotony, after all. The sea was never twice the same, and even the weather was capricious enough to afford variety. As spring wore on the region seemed to teem with wild life, whether on the earth, in the water, or the air. The gulls, crows, ravens, and eagles were continually passing, with clouds of shags or cormorants, which nested on the rocks a mile or so down the bay, together with numbers of oyster-birds, whale-birds, and other strange fowl of the outlying coast.

Each night and morning also there passed up the lagoon a stream of honking and chattering wild-fowl, the largest of which and most valuable, though least attainable, were the great Canada geese, which frequented this part of the island in large numbers.

"If only we could get hold of some of those fellows," said John, longingly, one morning, as they saw an especially fine flock pass slowly up toward the head of the lagoon. "I'll warrant they'd be good to eat. See, some of them can hardly fly yet, they're so young."

"Yes," said Jesse, "if we had only thought of it last week, they probably would not have been able to fly at all—flappers, they call those young birds. Then we might possibly have killed some of them in the grass at the head of the lagoon."

"We could kill all we wanted now with the rifles," commented Rob; "but, as I said awhile ago, I don't think we ought to use rifle ammunition for killing birds. No one can tell how much we may need our cartridges later on. No, I don't think we will get any geese unless we can catch them with our hands. I haven't much faith in those throwing-cords that Skookie was showing us."

John turned to his friend Skookie. "S'pose you catch-um geese, Skookie?" he asked.

The Aleut boy surprised them very much by his sudden use of English.

"Sure!" he said. He had perhaps learned this word from associating with whites somewhere down the coast.

His prompt reply made them all laugh, but none the less it was of yet greater interest than this.

"How do you mean, Skookie?" asked Rob. "How can you catch a goose when you have no gun? You can't get close enough."

It was always a problem how much English the Aleut understood or did not understand. Now he made his answer by diving into the back of the barabbara and coming out with the curious bunch of thongs which the boys had noticed him carrying when they first encountered him on the beach—a dozen thongs attached to a common centre, each being a couple of yards in length, and each bearing at its extremity a perforated ivory ball perhaps of an ounce or so in weight.

"Well, that don't look very much like a goose-hunt to me," said John; "but it seems to me I've read about the Eskimos using something of this sort. Maybe it'll work on geese, though it looks like a mighty funny kind of shot-gun to me."

"It's an old weapon of wild people," said Rob. "I've read about that sort of thing. They use it in South America for catching animals, and there they call it the bolas, or balls. I think they use stones down there, and of course they are a great deal heavier than these little ivory weights."

He motioned to Skookie to show how he proposed to use this curious device. The Aleut, understanding perfectly what was required, again caught the thongs by their central ring and deftly began to whirl them about his head. Aiming at a post which stood up in the grass near the barabbara, he finally cast loose his whirling thongs, which promptly wrapped tightly around the post as they flew. The young brown hunter grinned at this, and all the boys were surprised at the force with which the thongs clung about the object of the aim.

"Jinks!" said John. "I shouldn't wonder if they'd kill a bird, if they hit it, or anyhow tie it up. The question is, how can you get close enough to the geese to catch them with this sort of arrangement. A goose is about the wildest thing in the world. I don't suppose Skookie could hit anything very far."

"I don't know," mused Rob. "But why not let him try? If the birds are done nesting, and the young ones are flying, they would make a mighty good addition to our table if we could get some of them."

Another flock of geese passed by. Rob pointed from the thong-cords toward the geese.

"S'pose you catch-um?" he asked of Skookie.

The boy smiled, and without a word picked up his thongs and led the way along the shore of the lagoon. The others followed, seeing that he proposed to capture some wild-fowl in the native way, as he had once before intimated might be done.

He was no bad hunter, this young savage. After locating a big flock of geese which were sunning themselves on the mud flats close to the grass, he led his companions far back from the water, making a wide detour. At length he began to approach the fowl from a point where they would be concealed by the heavy grass. It seemed an age to the white boys, but Skookie was in no hurry. Like a cat he crawled and crawled, a few inches at a time, until finally he reached a point where they could hear the contented croaking and jabbering of the geese as they rested, entirely unsuspicious of any danger. It must be remembered that in this part of the world the wild-fowl are seldom if ever disturbed, and hence are far less suspicious than when they are near to civilization. If these honkers suspected anything at all now, they did no more than occasionally lift their heads and crane their long necks around. They could see nothing, because their pursuers were all crouched low beneath the tops of the grasses.

The Aleut boy kept on his stealthy approach—little by little—until finally he was within thirty or forty yards of the edge of the water, along which the great wild-fowl were scattered. Rob nudged him to get up and throw, but Skookie knew his own business better. Without uttering a sound he crawled forward rapidly a few paces, on his hands and knees, then sprang to his feet and ran rapidly through the grass toward the edge of the water, uttering the while wild whoops as he began to swing the thongs about his head.

"Look out!" cried John. "They'll all get away! Why don't he throw?"

But Skookie did not undertake to throw so long as the geese were on the ground. He knew that the young geese were weak and not used to flight, and that even at its best a wild goose is slow and heavy to take wing.



All these geese, some scores of young and old, intermingled, now began to scream, squawk, and honk, and clumsily to take wing as best they could. Thus they rose in a confused brown mass, almost in the face of the young hunter, who advanced rapidly, whirling the weighted cords about his head. At precisely the right instant, and not upset by the sudden clamor of the rising fowl, the Aleut boy straightened his arm in front of him and launched his missile with precision into the very middle of the flapping mass of flying fowl.