Boy Scouts on the Yukon Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  ON ALASKAN SOIL.

  The acquaintance between the Boy Scouts and Swiftwater Jim, which hadbegun with Rand's rescue of the old Klondiker, ripened before many days ofthe voyage had elapsed into something like warm friendship and the minerbecame a wellspring of joy to the young men in the wealth of adventurenarrative that fell from his lips and the quiet humor of his views oflife. His removal by Captain Huxley, to the saloon deck on which they wereberthed, gave them constant opportunity for meeting him, and as thenovelty of the scenery and surroundings gradually wore off, they turnedmore and more to his companionship and plied him incessantly withcross-examination as to the peculiarities of the new land which they wereabout to enter.

  At one time in command of a whaler in Bering Sea waters, his ship had beenone of six crushed in the ice of the Arctic sea, the crews of which hadbeen forced to winter at Point Barrow, the most northerly point of theUnited States, where the government had established a whaling reliefstation.

  The enormous burden thrown upon this relief station by the influx of sogreat a number of dependents coming from the whalers, who had no means ofgetting away, threatened starvation for all and only by the greatest goodfortune did word reach the government at Washington, which at once tooksteps for their relief. Lieut. Jarvis of the Revenue Marine Service, whowas in the east at the time on furlough, from his ship, a revenue cutterengaged in patroling Bering Sea to protect the seal fisheries, volunteeredto make the effort to relieve the starving men, although he was leavingthe bedside of a sick wife whom he might never see again. Bering Sea andthe Arctic are frozen over six months at a time, and the relief expeditionmust be made over the frozen tundra and uninhabited snow waste, eighteenhundred miles in extent, from the Seward Peninsula to the "top of thecontinent," as Swiftwater Jim termed it.

  The problem as to how to transport the food for these men over this greatexpanse of country, barren of trails and almost impassible in places, wassolved by Lieutenant Jarvis and his aides. By assembling from the variousreindeer stations which the government had established in the Far North, alarge herd of reindeer which they drove the entire distance to PointBarrow, they arrived just in time to relieve the hundreds of men who wereon the verge of starvation.

  "I tell ye," said Swiftwater Jim, in telling the story to the boys, "Ihave never seen anything on earth since that looked so good as them deer.There we was, a dirty, unsightly mob so near to death that we had lostabout all resemblance to humanity, and not a single human feelin' left foreach other. It was every man for himself and mighty little that he coulddo, then.

  "That feller Jarvis was the man for the job. That relief expedition wasreceived very much as I hear explorers are met by the savagest tribes ofAfrica, and if it hadn't been for the nerve of those three officers at thehead of it, they would have lost their lives and the provision they hadbrought would not have lasted three weeks. But those fellows took commandat once; headed off a mutiny, distributed the provisions daily and formonths ran that gang, made up of the off-scourings of the seas, by reg'lararmy discipline.

  "For the months before the ice broke up, and vessels could come after us,he governed with a mighty stiff hand, and every man who was fed bygovernment relief, and thay wan't nothin' else, was compelled to live upto regulations of cleanliness and daily exercise, which is the only thingthat will save a man's health in that deadly Arctic climate where the billo' fare is only about one line long, and a healthy body is the only thingthat will save a man's mind from that deadly depression that ends ininsanity. When the ships come finally, that mob of whaler men was cleanerand healthier than they ever were in their lives before and they had amighty lot of love and respect for Jarvis and the officers with him.

  "It was about the biggest sacrifice a man ever made, that voluntary tripof Jarvis, and I believe that Congress, after thinkin' a long time aboutit finally acknowledged it by votin' him some kind of a medal. As for me Ihain't been able to look a poor little reindeer in the face since."

  With his vessel a splintered derelict in the ice of the Arctic sea,Swiftwater had taken to mining and had covered a good part of Alaska inhis wanderings.

  Col. Snow had noticed with considerable interest the growing intimacybetween his young charges and the miner and had taken occasion himself tohave several talks with the ancient "sourdough" as Swiftwater insisted oncalling himself. The Colonel had found among the army officers returningto their posts in the North several old friends of his army days and hadtaken the opportunity to make some inquiries as to the miner withevidently satisfactory results. These army officers Col. Snow tookoccasion to introduce to the Boy Scouts and the element of courtesy thatis a strong feature of the West Pointers' character showed itself in theconsideration given the boys by these grizzled men, several of whom hadwon their spurs during Indian outbreaks in the West and later learned thestern demands of war in Cuba and the Philippines.

  Their journey was enlivened by many a good story of camp and field andincidentally the officers evinced a strong curiosity in the organizationof the Boy Scouts about which they asked many questions.

  The day the "Queen" arrived at Ketchikan, the first port in Alaska, Col.Snow, after starting the boys on a sightseeing trip through the town, putin some time in company with Swiftwater Jim in the office of the UnitedStates Commissioner, who is practically a local judge. When all hadreturned to the steamer that night, Col. Snow called the boys together inthe big saloon of the vessel for a talk.

  "You know," said the army officer, "that after I have seen you and themachinery disembarked in Skagway, I must leave you to carry out my missionto Controllers Bay and Valdez, and that I shall not be able to join you inthe Yukon Country until later in the summer. It has been my purpose, ofcourse, to place you in charge of a competent manager who will reallycommand the expedition the rest of the way until the machinery isinstalled on the timber land that I intend to exploit. Of course you willbe furnished with sufficient expert Indian labor to assist in navigatingthe streams over which this freight must be transported, for there are noroads, and water at this season of the year is the only transportationavailable. What do you think of Swiftwater Jim for commander-in-chief,guide, philosopher and friend to this expedition?"

  "B-b-bully," exclaimed Pepper, adopting the vernacular of anex-President.

  "The very man for the place if I understand what we are to do," commentedRand.

  "Faith, now we will see Alaska; and what we don't see, Swiftwater is theman to tell us about," cried the enthusiastic Gerald.

  "Well, if we can get him," said the cautious Don, "there's nobody we'dlike so well."

  "I might as well tell you that it's all arranged," said the Colonel. "Hewas the best man I could find for the work I want done, and I took thefirst opportunity to arrange with him; but at the same time I am glad thatyou are all so well satisfied.

  "I must have you understand that Swiftwater will be the leader of theparty and in all things you will be under his direction. I do not think itwill be necessary for me to tell you that the discipline will be perhaps alittle more strict than it has been in the ranks of the patrol at home,and while it will not be on an unrestricted army basis, there will be someresemblance and I shall trust to your experience as Scouts to induce inyou cheerful acquiescence."

  "It will be something like a campaign then," suggested Dick.

  "It will be a good deal like a campaign," smilingly replied the Colonel,"and while there will be much that is enjoyable and novel, there won't bemuch peaches and cream about it. Plunging into a wilderness as you must,you leave behind all the comforts and most of the sanitary safeguards ofcivilization, and it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of yourhealth that you adopt certain rules of diet and comfort."

  "Do we have to diet?" inquired Pepper, doubtfully, whose mind reverted tocertain milk and porridge days, imposed after an orgy of green fruit andits consequent painful disturbances.

  "I didn't use the word in the sense that you mean, Pepper," said Col.Snow. "There will be plenty to eat and I hope well prepared, but you mustgovern yourself as to how you deal with it. Food in most parts of Alaskais a costly proposition, but I guess we shall have enough to go roundunless the wild life increases your already healthy appetites."

  "I hae ma doots," said Don, falling into his Gaelic-accented English, ashe often did when he seemed to be wrestling with a problem, "if yonappetite of Pepper's can increase much wi'out straining the capacity."

  "Look after your own appetite," said Pepper, growing red, "I read once ina book that four thousand years of oatmeal porridge, three times a day,had wiped out every appetite and spoiled every stomach in Scotland."

  "There, there," admonished Jack, "that'll be about all of that. Youfellows are about even now. The smallest sort of an appetite may prove tobe an inconvenience before we get out of Alaska."

  "I want to say, Colonel," said Rand, rising and facing the army officer at"attention," "that I think I speak for the whole patrol when I promise intheir names the most earnest fidelity and strict attention to rules andregulations until our mission up here is finished."

  "Yes, yes," echoed the Scouts, springing to their feet and saluting theColonel, who also rose and returned it with a smile of acknowledgment. Atthe same moment Swiftwater Jim entered the saloon.

  "Young men, your commander," said Colonel Snow, waving a hand toward theminer. With one accord the patrol turned toward the grizzled Alaskan andsaluted. Jim turned red with pleasure and waved a knotted hand inrecognition.

  "Glad to see ye, boys, but salutin' won't be necessary ev'ry time we meet.I used ter be satisfied on shipboard if a man jumped about a foot highevery time I spoke real serious, but I guess we can get through this jobwithout much loud bossin'. I simply want ter sejest that I ain't very goodat argying, so I hope we shan't have much of that."

  One by one, the boys shook hands with the miner in token of fealty, andfrom that time until the steamer reached Skagway spent several hours a daywith him in what he called his "first class in gettin' on the job." Themost of this work included thorough instruction in the geography ofSoutheastern Alaska and Southern Yukon territory, the Colonel's land beinglocated in the Canadian dominions. Especially was their attention drawn tonumerous waterways as shown on the maps, which must form the highways forall transportation during the summer time, and knowledge of whoselocation, size and tributaries formed a man's best safeguard in thisalmost pathless wilderness.

  A visit was paid to the hold, this time with the captain's permission, toenable Swiftwater to estimate the amount of freight that was to be handledand the best way of distributing it among the transports. The boys wentwith him to learn something of their new duties in this connection.

  "I move," said Rand, "that that earnest young sleuth, Mr. Jack Blake, beappointed guide to this expedition to the dark and creepy hold. He knowswhere everything is, for he has fallen over it all, I hear."

  "He might meet Monkey Rae," said Dick with a mock shudder, "then think ofthe carnage."

  Dublin and the Raes, fearing Captain Huxley's possible report to theauthorities at Skagway, had "jumped the ship" as the commander of the"Queen" expressed it at Ketchikan, the first port of call in Alaska, andDick's fears were therefore groundless, but Jack, who had learned thelesson of taking a joke goodnaturedly grinned feebly, and readily divedinto the hatchway and down the ladder. The electric lights had been turnedon, and the hitherto Egyptian darkness of the hold had vanished. Theyreadily found their consignment, and the miner went over it carefully.

  "What ye got here?" he asked, kicking the heavy case before referred to,which the boys had brought along on their own initiative. "Pianny? Don'tbelieve we need any pianny, up Yukon way. There's plenty piannys inAlaska, now, but I remember the first one that was brought in. It's up inDawson yet. It was brought in on the first rush in '98. Cost four hundreddollars in the States and two thousand dollars to haul up from Skagway.The last time I heard it, it was being mauled by a feenominon, who had apatent pianny-playin' wooden arm on one side, and it sounded like a day'swork in a boiler factory at one end and a bad smash in a glass pantry atthe other. I heard some o' them educated Cheechakos talkin' about art, butI didn't care for it much."

  "It isn't a piano," said Gerald as the laugh subsided. "It's a littleenterprise of our own, and is to be put in storage in Skagway until we'rethrough with our work."

  "Wa'al," replied the guide, as he tested its weight, "we don't have tohandle it then, and that's something of a load off my mind."

  The next day when the boy Scouts awoke they found the vessel anchored inthe picturesque harbor of Skagway, the end of the "Inside Passage."