Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 16

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Rob awoke with a sudden jerk. A slight sound had disturbed him. He gazed steadily at the figure of the Aleut in the faint light of the embers. The latter was lying quite motionless, but something caused Rob to feel suspicious. He put out a hand and awakened his two companions, who sat up, rubbing their eyes sleepily.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jesse. “Where are we, and what sort of a place is this? My! I was dreaming, and I thought I was back home in bed.”

“John,” said Rob, “crawl over and look at that fellow’s fastenings. I thought I heard him move. Don’t be afraid. I’ll keep him covered with the rifle. Build up the fire a little.”

John complied, presently stooping down to examine the cord with which the Aleut had been confined. He gave an exclamation. “Why, he’s loose! He’s gnawed the hide clean in two with his teeth. He could have got away any time he liked.”

Rob admitted his fault. “The truth is,” said he, “I was very sleepy, and I must have dozed off. But now, what shall we do? Here we’ve got this man, and he evidently doesn’t intend to stay a minute longer than he can help. Whether he would hurt us or not is something we can’t tell; but we don’t dare take the chance.”

“It’ll be a great deal of trouble to watch him this way all the time,” suggested John.

“True, but we must watch him. On the other hand, what right have we to take him prisoner, since we don’t know that he ever meant any wrong? We’re not officers of the law, and this man has not committed any crime, so far as we know. The question is, what would he do to us if he got us before a law-court and accused us with making him a prisoner for no cause?”

The three sat in the dim light of the hut for a time and pondered over these matters. At length Rob spoke again with decision.

“It’s the greatest good for the greatest number,” said he. “It seems to me that the best thing we can do is to treat this man well, but not let him get away. He ought to do his share of the work, and he’s stronger than any of us. Then, if we should ever be rescued — ”

Jesse’s lips began to twitch. Evidently he was getting rather homesick. Rob noticed his face, and went on: “Of course we will get out of here before long, someway,” he said. “Meanwhile, we will have to make the best living here we can. If we ever get this man to a white settlement, where we can find out who and what he is, why, then, we can pay him for his time, if it should prove that he is only an innocent native hunting away from his village. On the other hand, if he turns out to be a criminal of any kind, then we’ve had a right to arrest him, and can’t get into any trouble over it.”

“It’s a pretty rough joke on him,” said John, “if he hasn’t done anything wrong. He acts as though he had been here before. For all we can tell, he may own this house that we’ve taken over for ourselves. The only thing sure is that he’s a better hand in camp than we are, the way things stand now. I’m for keeping him and letting him work. My folks’ll pay him whatever is right, if it comes to that; and you never saw an Aleut who wasn’t glad to get hold of a little money, I’ll warrant that.”

“Well,” said Rob, “we’ll let it stand that way. And now, as the night seems to be about half done, suppose you and Jess keep watch together and let me take a little nap. If one of you gets sleepy the other can waken him. I suppose there’s no use tying that man again, for he’s got teeth like a beaver.”

The Aleut made no further disturbance during the long hours of waiting, which seemed endless to the two young watchers. At last, however, the light grew stronger in the dark interior of the barabbara. John announced his entire willingness to eat breakfast, and, pushing open the door, motioned for the Aleut to go and get some wood. Without any resistance the man did as he was bid, shaking the remaining thong off his wrist with a grin. They finished their breakfast of bear meat and tea, the prisoner seeming immensely to enjoy the biscuits which the boys offered him as pay in return for his contribution of tea.

“Now, what’s on the programme for to-day?” asked John, finally. “It certainly looks as though we ought to take care of all that meat.”

“Yes,” assented Rob. “We’ll see if we can’t dry some of it, at least. Suppose you go on down the creek, John, and keep the crows and eagles away from the meat, while the rest of us bring the boat down the beach and into the mouth of the creek. That’ll give us plenty of boat room to bring up quite a cargo of meat to the camp here.”

“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.