Kirk Munroe

“ THE FUR-SEAL’S TOOTH CREATES A SENSATION
One evening late in March the smoke of a lonely camp-fire curled above a fringe of stunted spruces forming the timber-line high up on the northern slope of the Alaskan coast range. Kotusk, the natives call these mountains. Far below lay the spotless sheet of Takh Lake, from which the Tahkeena winds for one hundred miles down its rugged valley to swell the Yukon flood. From the foot of the mountains the unbroken solitude of the vast northern wilderness swept away in ice-bound silence to the polar sea. ”

“ On the opposite side of the fire sat Jalap Coombs, holding Nel-te in his arms, rocking him to and fro in time to the chorus that he was pouring forth with the full power of his lungs, and utterly oblivious to everything save his own unusual occupation of putting a baby to sleep.
“Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!” roared Phil and Serge, unable to restrain their mirth a moment longer. “Oh my! oh my! Oh, Mr. Coombs, you’ll be the death of me yet! Whatever are you doing? Didn’t know you could sing! What a capital nurse you make! What a soft voice for lullabies! The dogs, too! ”

“ Above all, has he not proved his confidence in you by appointing you to a position of trust? Are such things as gratitude and loyalty unknown to you? You were proud to be called first mate yesterday, and now you shrink from performing the first and most evident duty of the office. You owe everything to Gerald Hamer, and yet you would intrust his fortunes to a man whom you know to be a drunkard whenever liquor is within his reach, and on whose movements the captain bade you keep a close watch. Shame on you, Phil Ryder! What would Serge say if you should do this cowardly thing? ”

“ Determined to get rid of her, and despairing of moving her by other means, Gerald Hamer suddenly snatched the child from her arms, ran to the open gangway, and dropped it gently into a bidarrah that still waited alongside. In an instant the mother had followed, and could be seen as the boat was shoved off hugging the infant to her bosom, at the same time darting furious glances after the departing steamer. A minute later, as though in compliance with her evident though unexpressed wish, the Chimo was run hard and fast aground on one of the innumerable bars that so jealously guard Yukon mouth. ”

“ They set fire to it with the last match in their possession, and as the flames gathered headway and roared and leaped to the very tops of the surrounding trees, even Phil was obliged to acknowledge that at last he was thoroughly and uncomfortably warm. The contrast between that night and the previous one, passed in a snow burrow high up on the mountains, amid the howlings of a furious gale, without food, fire, or hope, was so wonderful that all declared they had lived months since that dreadful time instead of only a few hours. ”

“ Then, with whoopings and cheers and frantic yelpings of dogs, the sledge brigade dashed on towards the welcoming lights.
“Hello the camp!” yelled Phil, as they approached the dark cluster of cabins.
“On deck!” roared Jalap Coombs, as though he were hailing a ship at sea.
“Hello yourself!” answered a gruff voice—the first hail in their own tongue that the boys had heard in many a week. “Who are you? Where do you come from? And what’s all this racket about?”
“White men,” replied Phil, “with dog-sledges, up from Yukon mouth.”
“Great Scott! You don’t say so! No wonder you’re noisy! Hi, boys! ”

“ Never had Phil been so impressed with the solemn beauty of the Episcopal service as when he listened to its grand utterances amid the surroundings of that wild Northern land. The low-hanging sun, the moan of the wintry wind through the sombre forest, the attentive groups of dark-skinned natives, the mighty river rolling its tawny flood at their feet, and the encircling solitudes, vast, silent, and mysterious, centring at that simple grave, combined to form a picture that none of its spectators will ever forget. ”

“ Then, without further remonstrance, the crippled sailor stepped to the sledge, slid feet first into the big bag, and lay there like an animated mummy, with the hood of his parka drawn close about his face. Its encircling fringe of long wolf-hair, added to his preternatural gravity of countenance, gave him such a comical expression that the boys could not help shouting with laughter as Kurilla cracked his great whip and the dogs sprang away with their new burden. ”

“ By noon human endurance could hold out no longer, and, ready to drop with cold, pain, and exhaustion, Phil led his train to camp in a belt of timber so thick that even that fierce wind could not penetrate it, though among the tree-tops it shrieked and howled with demoniac fury. ”

“ But the journey up the Tanana was by no means an unbroken record of swift movings from one comfortable camp to another, or of jokes and pleasantries. The days were now at their shortest, so that each could boast only about four hours of sunlight, and even that [118] was frequently obscured by fierce storms, when the howling winds cut like knives, and it required every ounce of Phil Ryder’s pluck as well as Serge Belcofsky’s dogged determination to keep the little party in motion. The feet of the poor dogs were often so pierced by ice slivers that their tracks were marked with blood. ”

“ There were no women nor children at Forty Mile, and there were very few amusements, but there is plenty of hard work in both summer, when the sun hardly sets at all, and in the winter, when he barely shows his face above the southern horizon. Besides the laborious task of moss-stripping, the miner must saw out by hand all lumber for sluices and rockers. He must build his own cabin and fashion its rude furniture, besides doing all of his own house-work and cooking. ”

“ As the ship sped swiftly past the overhanging ice-fields of Davidson Glacier, out of Chilkat Inlet into the broad, mountain-walled waters of Lynn Canal, and down that thoroughfare into Chatham Strait, Captain Matthews listened with absorbed interest to Phil’s account of the remarkable adventures that he and Serge had encountered from the time he had last seen them at the Pribyloff Islands down to the present moment. ”

“ With this the long whip-lash whistled through the frosty air and cracked with a resounding report that would have done credit to the most expert of Eskimo drivers, for our Phil was no longer a novice in its use, and with a yelp the dogs sprang forward.
Up, up, up they climbed, until, as Phil remarked, it didn’t seem as though the top of the world could be very far away. The sun rose and flooded the snowfields with such dazzling radiance that but for their protecting goggles our travellers must have been completely blinded by the glare. ”

“ So wolf fed wolf, while the night echoed with their hideous outcries, until finally the survivors, gorged with the flesh of their own kind, slunk away, and after some hours of bedlam quiet once more reigned in the forest.
So Phil’s scheme proved a success, and for the remainder of that night he and his companions slept in peace. At daylight they visited the scenes of wolfish feasting, and found everywhere plentiful evidence of what had taken place; but this time they gathered in neither rugs nor robes, for only blood-stains, bones, and tattered shreds of fur remained. ”

“ Removing only their heavy outer parkas, with their feet incased in soft arctic sleeping-socks, their heads protected by close-fitting fur caps, and sheltered from the cold by the triple thickness of their fur-lined sleeping-bags, Phil and Serge lay on their bear-skins, feet to the fire, and slept the untroubled sleep of tired and healthy youth. ”

“ But his pride was quickly humbled, for ere they had gone a mile the dogs discovered that they had no reason to fear his whip, and that his unintelligible commands might be treated with contemptuous indifference. Suddenly Musky, the leader, who had a grudge of long standing against Amook, one of the big steer-dogs, turned like a flash and darted furiously at his enemy. In an instant the whole team was rolling in a confused mass of yelping, snarling, snapping, and biting fur, with traces tangled in a thousand knots, sledge going to smash, and pandemonium reigning generally. ”

“ About noon they passed a forlorn native village of three or four snow-covered huts, the occupants of which gazed at the unaccustomed sight of white travellers in stolid amazement. They had gone nearly a mile beyond this sole evidence of human occupation to be found in many a weary league when Phil suddenly stopped.
“Look here!” he exclaimed, “what do you two say to going back, making a camp near that village, and having some sort of a Christmas, after all? It doesn’t seem right for white folks to let the day go by without celebrating it somehow.” ”

“ Besides these things, Phil purchased a number of Eskimo wolf-traps, the cruel ingenuity and extreme simplicity of which exceeded anything of the kind he had ever seen. They were merely bits of stiff whalebone about one foot long, with sharpened points, folded into the smallest possible compass, and confined in that position by a lashing of sinew. For use this harmless-looking affair is thrust into a piece of meat, which is frozen and thrown down on the snow. Mr. Wolf swallows meat, trap and all, with such relish that he at once searches for another bit just like it. ”

“ He sprang into the canoe, already occupied by his fellows, and shoved it off as Amook, barking furiously, gained the water’s edge. Lying a few feet away, and resting on their paddles, the Indians taunted him. Suddenly one of their number called attention to the curious white object dangling from the dog’s mouth. They gazed at it with ever-increasing excitement, and finally one of them began to load his gun with the intention of shooting the dog, and so securing the coveted trophy that so miraculously appeared hanging from his jaws. ”

“ There is nothing so mysterious that it cannot be explained, and nothing more foolish than to declare a thing impossible simply because we are too ignorant to understand it.
In the present case Serge and Jalap Coombs, and even Phil, who should have known better, were ready to believe that the fur-seal’s tooth had come to them through some supernatural agency, because, in their ignorance, they could not imagine how it could have come in any other way. We laugh at their simplicity because of our wisdom. We saw Mr. Platt Riley drop the tooth into one of their sleeping-bags at Forty Mile. ”

“ As for his vocabulary, it was enough to provoke laughter in the most sedate of sledge dogs, and created uproarious mirth among the human occupants of the Indian village. In spite of all difficulties, Phil persevered with unabated energy, until gradually his feet and the snow-shoes began to work together. He actually succeeded in cracking the snake-like whip so that the sound could be heard, and Kurilla’s fine team of bushy-tailed dogs began to prick up their sharp ears understandingly when he addressed them. ”

“ So the ice crashes its resistless way down the whole Yukon Valley to Bering Sea, two thousand miles distant, sweeping everything before it, mowing down vast areas of forest, submerging islands, tearing out banks, and leaving everywhere traces of its terrible progress in the shape of huge ice cakes, weighing many tons, stranded high above ordinary water-level. ”

“ At long intervals lonely groups of sod-covered huts gave sign that human beings dwelt even in those unlovely wastes, but save for fuel the young commander of the Chimo would not pause to make their acquaintance. From earliest dawn until dusk he forced the little craft at full speed against the swift current, often grounding on sand-bars in spite of the native pilot, whose only knowledge was of the best channel but not of its obstructions. ”

“ Sims, the engineer, who was well paid for his work, and who was supposed to have counted the cost of failure as well as of success. Yes, that was the thing to do: shift the responsibility to Mr. Sims, who was paid for assuming such duties.
But hold on, Phil Ryder! Have you not also been paid, at the very highest rate too, by the man who now lies so helpless before you, and whose fortunes are in your hands? Did he not rescue you from a certain death out there in those cold, cruel waters, when your bidarkie was on the point of foundering? ”

“ Nor are mosquitoes confined to the Yukon delta; but its entire valley is so infested with them that summer is a season to be dreaded by whites and natives alike. Even the wild animals of its forests [9] retreat to the snow-clad mountains, so that there is little or no game to be procured between spring and autumn. The only compensation of the season is that it brings the finest salmon of the world into the river in such vast shoals that every dweller within one hundred miles of its banks may from them lay in his year’s supply of food by the labor of a single month. ”

“ For the next half-hour every one labored as though his very life depended upon what he could accomplish during those last precious moments of fading twilight. Phil and Kurilla made their keen axes ring merrily in an attack on the pile of dry drift-wood. Chitsah felled a spruce-tree, from which he cut two logs, each six feet long, and armful after armful of small branches. Serge [86] erected a low but stout scaffold, on which the sledges were to be placed to keep them out of the way of the omnivorous dogs, who in the meantime were lying down in their harness where they had been halted. ”