The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
Читать онлайн книгу.
in it.”
“Come on, let’s go inside,” said Jesse. So they crawled into the ragged hole in the wall which they had left for a door. They found the interior spacious enough for their needs, and the roof in the centre was stronger than that of their old barabbara. They got some firewood together, and with Skookie’s help piled the floor under the eaves thick with sweet-smelling grasses from the flats near by. That night, when the Alaska sun gradually retired for its short rest, they sat around a brightly burning fire in the interior of their castle and ate the heartiest meal they had known for some time. It was then that Rob produced a surprise for the others.
“Now we have got some of our old dried bear meat,” said he. “I suppose it’s good, but it doesn’t look it now — and a little salt whale and plenty of fresh codfish and salmon; and Skookie has got some of those white mock radishes of his, of which we don’t know the name. But it seems to me that everything runs to meat. How would you like to have some onions?”
“Onions!” exclaimed Jesse; and “Onions!” repeated John after him. “Nothing would be better, but we haven’t got any.”
Rob produced from behind his back a small sack which they found contained a few of these precious bulbs, most valued of almost any vegetable in the far north.
“Where did you get those?” asked John. “They certainly didn’t grow here.”
“No,” said Rob; “I found this little sack hidden back under the klipsies in the far end of the old barabbara up there. I suppose some native hid it there when they came down in the bay after their whale. Anyhow, we have been on meat diet so long that I will take the liberty of using these, no matter whom they belong to. Of course we’re not living much on salt meat, but even if we don’t get scurvy we ought to have all the vegetables and green things we can get hold of. Now, onions mayn’t smell as nice as some things, but there’s no better medicine in this sort of life.”
“Leave them to me,” said John, who had grown to be quite a good cook, perhaps by reason of his natural inclination for good things to eat. “I’ll make a stew of them with some of that bear meat and some of Skookie’s bulbs here. I’ll bet we’ll have the finest meal to-night we have ever had on the island.” And so they all agreed. Late that night they rolled up in their bedding on the grass beds of their new house, and soon slept soundly within close reach of the waves of the sea, whose steady sound along the beach came to them far more plainly here than had been the case at the older barabbara.
After this the boys used this new house more than the older house, and little by little moved most of their belongings down there, although they still kept their flag-staff up on the upper beach in the hope that some passing vessel might come into their bay and see their signal.
XXVI
THE JOURNEY AND THE STORM
“Now I’ve got a notion,” said Rob, one morning not long after they had finished their new barabbara, “that if we were asked about this big island where we are living we couldn’t tell very much regarding it. We’ve only been over a little strip of country around here. I don’t suppose we’ve ever been more than five or six miles from camp yet, even when we climbed highest in the mountains beyond the creek. Yet we can see over thirty miles of country from here. I’d sort of like to have a trip up one of those other valleys.” He pointed a hand to the farther shore of the bay which lay before their gaze, level and calm as a mirror.
“That’s what I’ve thought more than once, too,” said Jesse. “Why not make an exploring expedition over there?”
“We couldn’t do it and get back in time for supper,” demurred John.
“No,” smiled Rob, “but we could have several suppers over there. Why not go across and camp out a night or two, and just rough it a little bit? You can see that there are pine woods on the mountains over there, and wherever there is pine it is always comfortable camping. We could take some grub along, of course, and our rifles.”
“How’d we sleep?” asked Jesse. “It has a way of raining in this country every once in awhile.”
“Well,” said Rob, “we could sit under a tree if we had to. I don’t suppose we could make a bark shelter, and we have nothing that would do for a tent; but we have our kamelinkas, and the blanket we made out of the sea-parrot breasts. We’d get along somehow. What do you say, Skookie?”
Skookie grinned, understanding what was on foot. “All light — all light!” he said.
“Agreed then, fellows,” said Rob. “And we’ll start this very morning, because the bay is perfectly calm and there seems no danger of rough weather. It’ll be cold up in the mountains, so we’ll take one blanket for each two of us, and those that don’t carry blankets will carry grub. We two will take our rifles, John, and Skookie the axe. We’ll get on famously, I am sure.”
The boys began to put out the different articles on the ground for packing. “Now we don’t want to make our packs too heavy,” said Rob. “The best way to pack is with a pair of overalls.”
“How do you mean?” asked John.
“Well, you put all your things down on a piece of canvas or something, and you lash it tight with a rope, making a bundle about twice as long as it is wide, so that it will lie lengthwise on your back. You put your cord around each end, and then around it all lengthwise. Now you take your pair of overalls and straddle the legs across the lengthwise rope until it comes to the cross rope around the lower end. Then you take the ends of the legs and spread them apart at the other cross rope, wide enough for your shoulders to go in, leaving enough of the legs for shoulder-straps. Then you tie the ends of the legs fast to the cross ropes with small cords. There you are with the best kind of pack straps, which don’t weigh anything and don’t cut your shoulders. The legs of the overalls are soft, you see. Big Mike showed me how to do this, back home. He used to pack two sacks of flour up the Chilkoot Pass on the snow.”
“Yes,” said Jesse, “I’ve heard about that way, and seen men pack that way, too. There’s only one thing that makes me against it now.”
“What’s that?” asked Rob, thoughtlessly.
“We haven’t got the overalls!”
Rob’s face fell as he rubbed his chin. “That’s so,” he admitted, “we haven’t! And our trousers are getting pretty badly worn and wouldn’t do for pack straps. I suppose we’ll have to cut strips of seal leather or take a piece off our bear hides. Well, we won’t make the packs heavy, anyhow, and we’ll take it slow and easy.”
Within an hour they had stowed their equipment in the dory and pushed off, all of them rowing and paddling. They thought they would soon be across the bay, whose opposite shore looked quite close; but they were somewhat startled to see how long it took them actually to make the distance, which must have been some six or eight miles. The bay, however, remained quiet and their progress was steady, although they were all very tired by the time they landed on the opposite beach, at the mouth of the valley which they purposed to explore.
“It seems wilder over here,” said John. “Look how rough the mountains seem and how thick the timber is on above there. And I don’t see any barabbara over here.”
“There’s something that looks like one, back from the beach a little way,” said Jesse, pointing out what seemed like a low heap of earth. They went over and found it to be, indeed, the ruins of an old barabbara, which looked as though it had not been occupied for a lifetime. The roof had fallen in and the walls were full of holes, so that it was quite unfit for occupancy. They left it and passed up the beach, where they saw the ruins of several other houses, no doubt occupied by natives very long ago. Beyond this a short distance, not far from a deep path which was worn in the tundra by the wild game, they saw a number of rude posts standing at different angles,