Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 117

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Of the motley assemblages which thronged the capacity of the steamer Mackenzie River our three young companions were usually the first to arise in the morning. Morning, however, had come by this time to be a relative term, for the steady progress into the northern latitudes had now brought them almost under the Midnight Sun, so that there was but a brief period of darkness at any hour of the night. On the morning of July 6th they stood conversing on the fore deck, looking down the vast river as it passed between its bold and broken shores.

“Well,” said Rob to the others, “here we are, not quite forty days out from our start, and we have come more than sixteen hundred miles already! We’re beginning to add now to our daily mileage, traveling this way day and night.”

“Well, even at this rate,” rejoined John, “I am not sure that I see how we will get out of this northern country inside of our three months’ schedule. If we don’t, we’ll have to pass the winter, won’t we?”

Jesse looked a little bit gloomy at this idea. To tell the truth, he, the youngest of the party, was at times just a little homesick. The country through which they passed seemed so stupendous, so awesome, as almost to oppress the spirits of those not used to it.

“Cheer up! Jess,” said Rob, clapping him on the shoulder. “There will be something happening now before long. We’re almost up to the Arctic Circle, and to-day, if I’m not mistaken, we run into the best scenery on the Mackenzie River, what they call the Ramparts. The captain was telling me about it yesterday.”

They did not, however, reach this portion of their voyage until very late in the evening, when they arrived at the head of that long and gentle bit of water called the Sans Sault Rapids. The river here was about a mile wide, but offered no bad chutes. The captain told them that it only took eight minutes to run through, but that the time coming up with the steamboat usually had averaged one and three-quarter hours.

The strange, luminous twilight of the sub-Artic day continued until midnight. It was, indeed, after eleven o’clock when the steamer struck that narrow shut-in of the Mackenzie River where the great flood, compressed between high and rocky shores, runs steadily and deep for a very considerable distance. Above the actual beginning of the narrower channel lay a great, deep pool, many hundreds of yards wide, while at the right hand of its lower extremity sprang up a bald white rock face of limestone.

So sharp was the bend of the great river here that at the turn it seemed as though the river itself had come to an end or had dropped out of sight. The walls on the left seemed perhaps a trifle higher, ranging in height from one hundred to a hundred and eighty feet, the crest in places broken into crenelated turrets.

“Well,” said Rob, “this is the celebrated run of the Ramparts. I must confess I am disappointed. I think the Yukon beats this in a great many places. They may tip this off as a big attraction for tourists, but it’s too far to come for the show, in my estimation.”

John, busy charting the channel on his map, nodded his head in affirmation. “How wide do you think it is here, Rob?” he asked, and Rob was obliged to ask some of the boat officials as to that. They told him that the river was from three hundred to five hundred yards wide at this place, and that there were two great bends in the six miles of the run between the shut-in walls.

“How far is it to the Arctic Circle, Uncle Dick?” demanded Jesse of their leader when finally he came on deck after finishing his work in his state-room.

The latter rubbed his chin for a time before he could reply. “Well,” said he, “I don’t know just where it is, but it’s somewhere on ahead of Fort Good Hope, and we’ll strike Fort Good Hope now just beyond the foot of the Ramparts. We’ll say that some time in the night we’ll pass the Circle.”

“Hurrah for that!” exclaimed Rob, and the other boys also became excited.

“What does the Circle look like?” asked Jesse, with much interest.

“Well,” replied his uncle, “I don’t think it looks like anything in particular. But I think we’ll feel the bump when we run over it in the night. I can assure you of that. Also I can assure you that, once you get above it, at the end of our northern journey, you’ll see a country different from any you have seen. You hardly realize, no doubt, the great extent of this tremendous run from the Rockies to the sea.”

Meantime the boat had been continuing its progress steadily. It required about forty-five minutes to complete the run of the bolder part of the shores known as the Ramparts. Once below, there was to be seen, even in the faint midnight light, the scattered buildings of that far-northern post known as Good Hope.

The boys, with all the rest of the passengers, went ashore here and prowled about the curious old place, examining with much interest the mission school, the church, and the garden. Rob was able to make a picture of the interior of the church, putting his camera on a pile of hymn-books and making a long-time exposure.

The post trader told him later something of the history of this curious building which for some time had stood here upon the utmost borders of civilization.

“You see all the decorations and frescoes of the church, just like those in a cathedral of the Old World,” said he. “It was all done by a young priest known as Brother Antel, now gone to his rest. The church was built thirty years ago by Bishop Clute, of Little Slave Lake, who brought up Brother Antel from that lower mission. The altar is considered an astonishing thing to be found here, almost directly under the Arctic Circle.”

They all stood with their hats off in this curious and interesting structure of the Far North, hardly being able to realize that they were now so far beyond the land where such things ordinarily are seen.

“The decorations are fine and the frescoes splendid,” said Jesse to John, as they passed outside the door, “but I don’t see why Father Antel has the angels playing on the mandolin. I didn’t know they had mandolins that long ago.”

“Never mind about that, Jesse,” said Rob, reprovingly. “You mustn’t make light of anything of the kind. You must remember that these Slavie Indians, who are the only people who come here for services, are most impressed by pictures which they can see and understand. I suppose it’s all right. At any rate, it’s an astonishing thing to find such a church away up here, even if it had angels listening to an H. B. phonograph.”

The boat remained at Good Hope all too short a time to suit them, because all our young travelers were anxious to go to the top of a certain hill, from which it was said they could have a view of the Midnight Sun, which had disappeared behind the ridge of the hills back of the fort itself. Indeed, one of the crew ascended this eminence, and claimed that he had made a photograph of the Midnight Sun. Certainly, all of the boys were able to testify that it was still light at four o’clock in the morning, for they had remained up that late, eagerly prowling around through the curious and interesting scenes of the far-northern trading-post.

So wearied were they by their long experience afoot on the previous day that on the morning of July 7th they slept a little later than usual, although their total hours of rest were no more than two or three. Uncle Dick was before them on the deck this time, and reproached them very much when they appeared.

“Well, young men,” said he, “did you feel any heavy jar, or hear a dull, sickening thud, some time about half an hour or an hour ago?”

“You don’t mean that we’ve passed the Circle, do you, Uncle Dick?” queried John.

“We certainly have. I don’t know just where it was. It’s seven-thirty o’clock now, and somewhere between here and Fort Good Hope we crossed the Arctic Circle!”

“I can’t believe it!” said Rob. “Why, look, the weather is perfectly fine, and there isn’t any ice to be seen. On the other hand, there are plenty of mosquitoes. What’s more, just back at Fort Good Hope we have seen that they can raise things in their gardens. I would never have believed these things about this northern country if I had not seen them myself.”

Through the soft, mild light of the sub-Arctic morning the great steamboat churned on her north-bound way. At ten o’clock they passed an Indian village which they were told was called Chicago — no doubt named by some of the Klondikers who were practically cast away here twenty years earlier. John put it down on his map under that name, as indeed it is charted in all the authentic maps of that upper region. They were told that a good number of Indians come here to make their winter hunt.

An uneventful day, during which the boat logged a great many miles in her steady progress, was passed, until at ten o’clock they tied up at the next to the last of the Hudson’s Bay posts on the Mackenzie River, known as Arctic Red River, located at sixty-seven degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.

“Oh, look, look, fellows!” exclaimed John, as they pulled into the landing here. “Now we’re beginning to get some real stuff! I feel as though we were pretty near to the end of the world. Look yonder!”

He pointed to where, along the beach at the foot of the bluff, there lay two encampments of natives.

“Look at the difference in the boats!” exclaimed John, running to the side of the boat. “There are whale-boats with sails, something like those we saw out on the Alaska coast. What are they, Uncle Dick?”

“Those are Eskimos, my young friend,” said their leader, “and what you see there are indeed whale-boats. The Huskies come up the river this far to trade with the other Indians, and with the white men at this post. This is about as far as they come. They get their boats in trade from the whale-ships somewhere along the Arctic. As John says, this is really a curious and interesting scene that you see.

“Over yonder, I think, are the Loucheux. I don’t think they are as strong and able a class of savages as the Huskies. At least, that’s what the traders tell me.”

“Well, they’ve got wall tents, anyway,” said Jesse, who was fixing his field-glasses on the encampments. “Where did they get them? From the traders, I suppose. My, but they look ragged and poor! I shouldn’t wonder if they were about starved.”

By this time the boat was coming to her landing, and the boys hurried ashore to see what they could find in this curious and interesting encampment.

There were two trading-posts at Arctic Red River — the Hudson’s Bay Company post, and that of an independent trading company, both on top of the high bluff and reached by a stairway which ran part way up the face.

Some of the tribesmen from the encampment now hurried down to meet the boat — tall and stalwart Eskimos in fur-trimmed costumes which the boys examined with the greatest of interest and excitement, feeling as they did that now indeed they were coming into the actual North of which they had read many years before.

“Uncle Dick is right,” said Rob. “These Eskimos are bigger and stronger than any of the Indians we have seen. I don’t think the women are so bad-looking, either, although the children look awfully dirty.”

“It’s like Alaska, isn’t it?” said John. “Look at the parkies they wear, even here in the summer-time. That’s just like the way Alaska Indians and white men dress in the winter-time.”

“Well,” said Jesse, “maybe that’s the only clothes they’ve got. I’ll warrant you they have on their best, because this is the great annual holiday for them, when the Company boat comes in.”

Rob looked at his watch. “Twelve o’clock!” said he. “I can’t tell whether the sun is up yet or not, because it is so cloudy. Anyhow, we can say that we are now under the Midnight Sun, can’t we? — because here we are right among the Eskimos.”

Uncle Dick joined them after a while, laughing. “Talk about traders!” said he. “No Jew and no Arab in the world would be safe here among these Huskies! They are the stiffest traders I ever saw in my life. You can’t get them to shade their prices the least bit on earth.

“These boats,” he continued, “are crammed full of white-fox skins and all sorts of stuff — beaver, marten, and mink — and some mighty good fur at that. But those people haven’t seen any white men’s goods for at least a year, and yet they act as if they hadn’t an intention in the world of parting with their furs. Look here,” he continued, holding out his hand.

The boys bent over curiously to see what he had.

“Stone things,” said John. “What are they?”

“What they call ‘labrets,’” said his uncle, taking up one of the little articles. “They make them out of stone, don’t you see? — with a groove in the middle. If you will look close at some of these Eskimo women, or even men, you will find that they have a hole through their lower lip, and some of them wear this little ‘labret.’ Here also are some made out of walrus ivory.”

“Well, now I know what it was I saw that tall Husky had in his face awhile ago,” said John. “Something was sticking through his lower lip, and I know now it was the glass stopper of a bottle of Worcester sauce.”

Uncle Dick laughed. “Correct!” said he. “I saw the same fellow, and, now that you mention it, I gave him three dollars for that glass stopper from the bottle! I don’t suppose any one will believe the story, but it’s true.

“If you get a chance to trade any of these Huskies out of one of their pipes, do it, boys,” said he, “especially if you can get one of the old bluestone pipe bowls. Pay as much as five dollars for it — which would be ten ‘skins’ up here. I don’t suppose you could find one for a hundred dollars anywhere in the museums of our country, for they are very rare. I have my eye on one, and I hope before we get out of this northern country to close a trade for it, but the old fellow is mighty stiff.”

“You say that five dollars is ten ‘skins’ up here, Uncle Dick,” commented Rob. “At Fort Smith and Fort Simpson a ‘skin’ was only thirty cents — three to the dollar.”

“That custom varies at the different posts,” was Uncle Dick’s reply. “Of course you understand that a ‘skin’ is not a skin at all, but simply a unit of value. Sometimes a trader will give an Indian a bowlful of bullets representing the total value in ‘skins’ of the fur which he has brought in. Each one of those bullets will be a ‘skin.’ The Indian doesn’t know anything about dollars or cents, and indeed very little of value at all. You have to show him everything in an objective way. So when the Indian wants to trade for white men’s goods, he asks for his particular bowl of bullets — which, child-like, he has left with the trader himself. The traders are, however, honest. They never cheat the Indian, in that way at least. So the trader hands down the bowl of bullets. The Indian sees what he wants on the shelves behind the counter, and the trader holds up as many fingers as the value is in ‘skins.’ The Indian picks out that many bullets from his bowl and hands them to the trader, and the trader hands him his goods.

“You can see, therefore, that the Indian’s bowlful of bullets in this country would not buy him as much fur as he would have gotten farther down the river. At the same time, this is farther north, and the freight charges are necessarily high. Perhaps there is just a little in the fact that competition of the independents is not as keen here as it is farther to the south!

“But whatever be the price of a ‘skin,’” Uncle Dick went on, somewhat ruefully, “these Huskies take it out of us cheechackos when we come in. We passed the last of the Slavies at Fort Good Hope. Now we are among the Loucheux. But these Huskies run over the Loucheux as if they were not there.”

There was plenty of time given to the passengers at this landing to visit the boats and encampments of the natives, so that our young investigators were able to obtain considerable information about the methods of the country.

They went aboard one whale-boat and discovered that its owner, a stalwart Husky, had brought in a hundred marten and a hundred mink, and half as many white-foxes and lynx. He explained that he was going to buy another whale-boat of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and that he had to pay yet seventy marten, besides all this other fur, in order to get his boat, which would be delivered to him next year. The boys figured that he was paying about twenty-five hundred dollars for an ordinary whale-boat, perhaps thirty years old, and, inquiring as to the cost of such a boat along the coast, found that it rarely was more than about three or four hundred dollars new!

“Well,” said Rob, “I can begin to see how there’s money in this fur business, after all. A sack of flour brings twenty-five dollars here. A cup of flour sells for one ‘skin,’ or fifty cents. These people, Huskies and all, know the value of matches, and they jolly well have to pay for them. I’ve been figuring, and I find out that the traders make about five thousand per cent. profit on the matches they sell in the northern country. Everything else is in proportion.”

Uncle Dick grinned at them as they bent over their books or notes. “Well,” he said, “you remind me of the methods of old Whiteman, a trader out in the western country where I used to live. People used to kick on what he charged for needles and thread, and he always pointed out to them that the freight in that western country was very heavy indeed. I suppose that’s the answer of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the high cost of living among the Eskimos.”

“How much farther north are we going, Uncle Dick?” asked Rob, suddenly. “I mean, how soon do we leave the steamboat?”

“Quicker than you will like,” said he. “This is the next to the last stop that we’ll make. On ahead eighty miles is good old Fort McPherson, on the Peel River, and that is as far as we go. From this time on you can make the memorandum on your photographs and your notes in your diary that you are working under the Midnight Sun and north of the Arctic Circle!”

“I didn’t think we would ever be here!” said John, drawing a long breath. “My, hasn’t it been easy, and hasn’t it been quick? I can hardly realize that we have got this far away from home in so little a while.”

“Yes,” said Rob, “when we were back there loafing around on the portages and in some of the more important stops I began to think we were going to be stranded up here in the winter-time. Well, maybe we’ll get through yet, Uncle Dick. What do you think?”

“Maybe so,” replied Uncle Dick. “And now, if you’ve got your pictures all fixed up, I think you’d better turn in. You’ve got to remember that you sleep by the clock up here, and not by the sun.”