Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 24

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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.”