THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE NORTH; or, THE BLUE PEARL, by Samuel Scoville, Jr.
from St. Nicholas Magazine, 1919-1920
(from St. Nicholas Magazine, November 1919, pp. 2-10)
"'Just behind him come, pad, pad, pad, great brown beast'"
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CHAPTER I THE ARGONAUTS
"Fifty thousand dollars!" said big Jim Donegan.
"Not for one pearl!" exclaimed Will Bright.
"For a blue pearl," corrected the lumber-king. "Bring me one as big as the pink pearl you found last summer, and I 'll pay that for it cash down. But what 's the use of talkin'," he went on morosely; "there ain't such a thing. Nobody ever saw a big blue pearl."
"I have," quietly asserted a slim, swarthy boy who during the whole evening had never been more than a foot away from Will.
Big Jim opened his mouth to roar as he usually did whenever any one differed with him, and then shut it again. He had found that it did not pay to contradict Joe Couteau, that boy with the blood of a long line of sure, silent Indian chiefs in his veins.
It was some two years after Will and Joe had come back from their great adventure already chronicled in "Boy Scouts in the Wilderness." Without food, fire, or clothing they had spent thirty days in the forest; fought for their lives with savage beasts and still more savage men; found a great pink peal; broken up a band of moonshiners; and last and best of all had won for their Boy Scout troop a cabin and ten acres of timber-land from Mr. Donegan. Since that time old Jim Donegan, the lumber-king of America, had become a firm friend of the Boy Scouts of Cornwall. Especially did he admire Will and Joe, who had proved to him that he was wrong in his estimate of the Boy Scouts, and from whom he had bought the pink pearl--at a price. To-night the whole troop was being entertained on his estate, and the old man had offered to show the boys his collection of precious stones, which, except for making money early and often, was his only hobby.
After dinner he had taken them into the library. There, upon touching a spring in the wall, a large bookcase filled with books swung forward, showing the side of a great vault of chrome-steel. Unlocking a whole nest of combination-locks one after another, an enormous door opened silently, and the troop entered a solid steel room. The long cabinet of satin-wood drawers lined with black velvet held the famous collection of the lumber-king. For an hour or more he showed the delighted boys his treasures. As drawer after drawer was opened, the little room seemed filled with the shimmer and sheen of a perfect rainbow of colors. There were the red blink and flare of rubies, with their sullen depths of blood and fire, from Brazil and India and the far-away Caucasus, which, carat for carat, out-priced the best diamonds of Kimberley. Some of them were large enough to have names and stories. Three of them had been part of the loot of pirate ships, and they gleamed vengefully from the black velvet, as if all the blood
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and pain and sin of those cruel crews had been crystallized in their blood-red depths. Another drawer was full of the cool, deep, unfathomable green of emeralds, with a flash in their depths such as one sees in a great wave as it breaks in the sun. Some had been dug by short-lived serfs in the Ural Mountains centuries ago. Others had been part of the treasure which Cortez and Pizarro brought back from the hoards of Montezuma and theIncas. Then there was the cold star-shine of great diamonds, water-white, like fire and ice, while one yellow diamond shone like golden Jupiter in a midnight sky. Rarest of them all was "Hellheart," smoky black, with a red heart of flame. The tradition was that it had belonged to Blackbeard, the pirate. It was cut in the shape of a great heart by some unknown lapidary. Mr. Donegan told the boys that no diamond-cutter of to-day could cut the wonderful-faceted heart which smoldered before them. There were ice-blue sapphires; opals, a tortured blaze of prismatic colors and delicate translunary tints; apple-green jade; turquoises like robins' eggs; soft, lustrous moonstones, chrysoprase, jacinths, sea-blue aquamarines; masses of lapislazuli and malachite; strange, shifting cat's-eyes; pale yellow topazes; white sapphires, which glowed instead of glittering; fiery, scarlet carbuncles; cymophane, with its wire-like line of silver--few of the kings of earth had a collection which could equal the one belonging to Jim Donegan, who had begun life as a lumber-jack.
At last the old man drew out one drawer larger than all the others, filled with a shimmering, multicolored mass of pearls, his favorite stone. They glowed as if holding some hidden, soft light within, and were graded and shaded with all the art that the trained eye and skill of the old collector could command. Not one of them there but was worth a small fortune. Some of them were round, gleaming pearls from far-away shark-haunted seas. Others were the larger, irregular treasures torn from the four-hundred-odd kinds of fresh-water mussels that are found in all of our rivers, brooks, and lakes. The colors were as different as the shapes. White, black, brown, amber, yellow, and green were all there. By itself glowed the lustrous pink pearl that Will had found, that Scar Dawson had stolen, and that Joe had rescued. Yet among all that rainbow, there was no shade of blue.
"You fellows stay a bit," Mr. Donegan said gruffly to Will and Joe. "I 'll send you home in my car later on." When the last guest was gone, Jim turned to the Indian boy. "Tell me all about that blue pearl," he demanded.
Joe looked at him silently for a moment.
"Once when I very little," he said at last, [in?] the halting, clipped English which no amount of schooling ever changed, "I went with my uncle to Goreloi. That mean Island of the Bear," he explained. "He was big medicine man and he want to be bigger, so he go to get blue pearl. That very good medicine," the boy explained.
"You bet it 's good medicine," muttered the old collector. "But what did he want to take a kid like you along for, anyway?"
"Because," answered Joe, "he afraid to trust any man with secret. Man might kill him when he asleep and take pearl," he went on simply. "He take me because I young and his own blood and he need some one to watch while he hunted."
"Watch for what?" interrupted Mr. Donegan again.
Joe paused [a?] moment.
"That place not have its name for nothing," he at last responded. "It guarded."
"If it were any one else," broke in Will, "I 'd think this was all a fairy-story."
"I myself see," returned Joe, gravely.
"Go on, go on," urged the lumber-king.
Joe thought for a moment.
"We come to little blue river," he continued at last. "It run out of great dark cave in mountain. I sit in canoe with paddle ready to push off, while chief hunt, hunt, hunt for pearl. At night we camp in little cave and roll big stone in front of entrance. One day, two day, three day he hunt. Then on last day he open big mussel and pull out blue, shiny stone and call very loud. I call, too, very loud, 'cause just behind him come, pad, pad, pad, great brown beast. It look like bear, but bigger, fiercer than any bear any one ever saw except in a bad dream. Chief reach canoe just in time. I push off, and we hardly get away. Then chief show me pearl. It was bright blue and big as pigeon-egg. Then we paddle a day and a night and get back to tribe."
Old Jim Donegan had leaned forward so as not to miss a syllable of the boy's story. When Joe had finished, the old man looked at him for a long time without speaking.
"I have n't wife nor chick nor child," he said at last, slowly. "My collection takes the place of them all. No collection on earth has a pearl like the one you saw. I 've got to have one from that same river of yours--somehow."
Joe shook his head.
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"No one knows the way to Goreloi," he said, "except great chief. He may be dead. When I left tribe, he had gone away on far journey south. Maybe he never come back."
The old man paced up and down the room and made Joe describe the pearl over and over again.
"Boys," he said at last, "I want you fellows to go to Goreloi, wherever it is, and bring me back a blue pearl. I 'll finance the trip and buy any pearl you find. If you have any luck, you 'll have more money in three months than most men get in ten years. School stops next week. You might just as well make money this vacation instead of spending it."
The boys looked at each other.
"I 'll bet," went on the old man, "that you fellows find vacations here kind o' dull after killing bears and carcajous and rattlesnakes and hunting pearls and fighting moonshiners two years ago. Here 's a chance to travel and have adventures! Why, boys," he went on earnestly, "when you get as old as I am, you 'll know that the adventurous life is the best life. The boy who is always looking for adventures, who is always ready for quests, who learns to
"'Then we paddled a day and a night'"
face dangers and overcome difficulties--that 's the kind of a boy who amounts to something when he gets to be a man. It 's the strenuous life that counts. We were n't put into this world to play safe, but to seek and fight and find and wander, and to never, never quit!"
The old lumber-king stopped and looked at them sadly.
"If I were ten years younger, or if I could only depend on my legs, I 'd go with you myself," he said at last, "and we 'd have a great old time together, too! Nowadays, though, my adventuring has to be done for me, and I 'm appointing you fellows my proxies. Pick out two more chaps to go with you that you can depend on. Four is the right number for a hard trip. I 'll grub-stake you, and if there is such a thing as a big, blue pearl, you fellfows will find it. What do you say?"
Will looked at Joe.
"Listens kind o' good to me, old scout!" he exclaimed.
Joe shook his head, doubtfully.
"Long, hard trip," he said briefly. "My uncle say danger, sorrow, death always price of blue pearl."
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The lumber-king look[ed] disgusted.
"You 'd better get Joe some nice thick wool wocks," he remarked to Will, sarcastically; "his feet ain't any too warm!"
"You 've got another guess coming," returned Will, indignantly. "Joe always talks safe and acts dangerous. If you had been with him in the tight places where I have, you would n't speak that way."
"There! there!" soothed the lumber-king. "I take it all back. Any kid that helped break-up Scar Dawson's gang and went through what he did with you certainly has n't got anything the matter with his circulation," and he patted Joe's unresponsive back apologetically. "You boys think it over, and come to-morrow night and let me know what you decide."
All the way home the boys discussed it--at least, Will talked and Joe grunted. They separated without coming to any decision. The next day at school they thought far more of blue pearls and bears and Indians than they did of algebra and history and English. Just before the day's session was over, Mr. Sanford, the young principal, read to their class a translation from the Greek of the story of the Golden Fleece. One paragraph especially fascinated Will and Joe:
"And they rowed over the wine-dark sea, heroes all, beyond the sunset, where were gold and pearls and mysterious enchanted islands and strange peoples. For some, death awaited, for others, riches, for all, a fame which still rings across the vanished years."
As he finished, Will turned to find Joe watching him closely. Will raised his eyebrows questioningly. Joe gave a little nod. The Quest of the Blue Pearl had begun.
That night a strange thing happened. They had gone to Mr. Donegan's house to tell him of their decision. The lumber-king was delighted, and just as he was promising that he would persuade Will's parents to let him go, his English butler came to him, much disturbed.
"There 's a hindividual at the door who hinsists upon seeing you, sir," he announced.
"Did n't you tell him I was busy, James?" snapped the old man, irritably.
"Hindeed I did, sir," returned the perturbed James. "Hall he said was that he was going to get busy 'imself."
"He did, eh!" exclaimed Mr. Donegan. "Well, you show him in, and I 'll attend to his business mighty quick."
A moment later the door opened, and in slipped a dlittle, wiry gray-bearded man whose sharp, black, unflinching eyes gleamed about.
"Hello, Jim!" he said. "Howdy, Will," he went on, turning to the boys.
"Well, if it ain't old Jud Adams!" shouted the lumber-king, seizing one of his hands while Will grabbed the other. "Why did n't you send your name in," went on Mr. Donegan, shaking the old man affectionately.
"I did," said Jud, rescuing himself with some difficulty from the over-enthusiastic greetings of his friends. "I told that chap with a shiny shirt on that I was Jud Adams. He kept a-sayin' 'You ain't no judge; come some other time.' But I said to him, 'Now is the time.'"
Old Jud had spent the best part of his life in the open. It was he who had given Will his first lessons in woodcraft. He had prospected and trapped and hunted all over the North American continent. In his youth he had spent a year with the Eskimos. Later he had been in the Klondike rush, and was one of the first to go over fatal "Dead Horse Pass"; and he had dug for gold from the Mexican border up to beyond Circle City.
"Jim," said Jud, finally, "I hear that you 're going to grub-stake a party to do some prospectin' up north."
"How did you hear that?" said Big Jim, in astonishment.
"Never mind," said Jud; "nobody can't do any treasure-huntin' in this village without me hearin' about it. If there 's any prospectin' party goin' out from Cornwall, I 'm goin' to be in it. I 've been all over the Northwest from the Aleutian Islands clear up above the arctic circle. I know the people, white, red, and yellow. I 've trapped and hunted and dug for gold and starved and fought and tramped over that whole blame country. There ain't much out there that flies or creeps or runs or swims that I have n't seen. One of these kids I taught all he knows, which ain't much," went on Jud, without giving Mr. Donegan a chance to speak. "Here I am right in the prime o' life, pinin' away for somethin' to do, and I tell you, Jim Donegan, you 'll make a bad mistake if you send out any party that does n't have me along."
"Prime o' life!" scoffed Big Jim. "Why, Jud, you 're sixty-five if you 're a day!"
"I ain't! I ain't!" shrieked the other. "But what if I be? It ain't a man's years that count. It 's what he can do. There ain't anything that these kids can do that I can't do better. Only last year I killed an old Silver-Top just before he killed me."
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An "Old Silver-Top"
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"Well," said the lumber-king at last, "it 's up to these boys. If they want you, I sure do."
"You bet we want you, Jud," said Will, while Joe nodded approvingly, and Jud became thereupon a partner in the venture.
A long discussion of ways and means followed, in which Jud's experience was a great help. As for guns, the boys decided to take the new light, high-powered American army rifles which, using soft-nosed bullets, would stop any living thing. For himself, Jud still clung to an old Sharpe 44 rifle that, with certain modern improvements, he had used for over forty years.
So far as Joe could indicate on the map, the island where his tribe lived, as well as that mysterious "Island of the Bear," were both parts of that fringe of islands which guard the shores of upper Alaska.
The expedition once decided upon, Mr. Donegan organized the details with the decision and despatch which had made him a multi-millionaire. First he obtained the consent of Mr. and Mrs. Bright that Will might go--no small undertaking.
"If he succeeds, I 'll back him for the rest of my life--and afterwards," he assured them.
"That 's a good deal for Big Jim Donegan to say," Mr. Bright remarked privately to his wife. "I guess, Mother, we 'll have to let the boy go. Life is just one chance after another, anyway. He 's as liable to die plowin' as pearlin'," went on Mr. Bright, who was something of a philosopher.
No such formality was necessary with old Hen Coutearu, the charcoal-burner, Joe's uncle.
"I go back to see my people," Joe announced.
"Yes?" said the old man. "Well, go ahead. You ain't no use in the charcoal business, but I 'll be glad to see you back again."
The same night that he secured the consent of the Brights, Mr. Donegan wired to Port Townsend, on Puget Sound, which was the headquarters for a fleet of steamers that he owned on the Pacific. He arranged to have the boys met there by The Bear, a swift, seaworthy little steamer whose captain had cruised often through the Northern waters and who, if anybody, would be likely to know his way to Akotan, the island where Joe's tribe lived.
Remained only the choice of the last member of the party. Both Will and Joe were agreed that he must be a member of the Cornwall Troop. It was hard to choose. "Buck" Whittlesey and Billy Darby were leaders of the Owl and Wolf patrols, to which Will and Joe belonged respectively. "Boots" Lockwood and Freddier Perkins were enthusiastic woodsmen and devoted friends of both the boys; and then there was Jack Dorsey, the best shot in the town, and Bob Coulston, an Eagle Scout. At last Will had a bright idea.
"Next week," he said, "comes the Interscholastic Games. Every fellow whom we have thought of taking is on the team of the Cornwall High. Let 's wait until after the games and pick out the one there who shows the most sand and sense."
Joe and Jud agreed.
"Better pick out a good runner," said the old trapper. "If Joe 's tellin' the truth about that treasure island of his, we 'll all need to be pretty lively on our legs to get back alive."
For years the Cornwall High School had entered teams in the great Interscholastic Games where twenty schools competed for the championship of the East. So far she had never scored a point. Cornwall was a small town, and although her boys were a strong and sturdy lot, they had no track and only the crudest kind of training. Then came Mr. Sanford, the new principal. He solved the most complicated problems in algebra and geometry with dazzling ease. It was rumored that at college he used to read Greek aloud for the pleasure of it and translate the morning newspapers into Latin. Probably that was an exaggeration. At any rate he never showed any such alarming symptoms of learning at Conrwall. It was he, however, hwo had organized and become the scout-master of the Cornwall Boy Scouts. Under him, Will and Joe had won the cabin for the troop two years before, and it was Mr. Sanford who had helped rescue them from the burning cabin in that last never-to-be-forgotten fight with the moonshiners. It was not until school opened again that year, however, that the boys suspected that he knew anything about athletics. One afternoon when school was over, he had strolled down to the cow-pasture which the boys used for an athletic-field, and watched them training for the fall games. He seemed to be more amused than impressed by their efforts. First he watched the sprinters, of which Boots Lockwood was the particular star. Some of them started standing up, others crouched like kangaroos, but one and all hung on their marks when the last signal was given.
"If you 'll spring from both feet, you 'll find that you get away faster," he suggested to the line of alleged sprinters. The boys smiled at one another, and went on with their own
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system. Mr. Sanford's face flushed a little.
"I 'll come back in a little while," he said finally, "and show you that I know what I 'm talking about."
His suggestions to the broad-jumpers on how to strike the take-off and his advice to the quarter-milers about their first hundred were met with the same indifference. Whereupon the principal left the field. Fifteen minutes later he was back again, carrying a traveling-bag. With this he retired to the dressing-house, which had once been a cow-shed. Presently there emerged from this ex-cow-shed a figure in which the boys could scarcely recognize their learned principal. He wore a sleeveless jersey and a pair of running-trunks. On his feet were the first pair of spiked running-shoes that had ever appeared at Cornwall, while in his hands he carried a pair of battered, nicked, and grooved running-corks. The whole team gathered around him as he went toward the straight-away stretch of green turf where the sprinters practised.
"Now," he said decisively, "pick out your three best men and start us off for the full distance."
Boots and two other sprinters lined up beside him, while one of the other boys proceeded to start them. Mr. Sanford crouched down with the others, but as the starter said, "Get set!" his lithe body slowly rose, and at the very first breath of the final "Go!" he leaped into his stride and was off a full yard ahead of the rest. Run as they would, not one of the three best sprinters of the Cornwall High School was able to draw up level with him again. Then he went down to the broad-jump pit and with his first jump covered twenty feet, which was six inches farther than anybody else could negotiate. When he finished, he was surrounded by an admiring group.
"You fellows want to remember," he said, puffing a little, "that even tottering old chaps like me may know something about athletics. If I am still here next year," he went on as he started back to the dressing-house. "I 'm going to put the Cornwall High School athletic team on the map."
Thereafter he called upon Big Jim Donegan. The old man came in puffing and rumbling and grumbling as usual.
"Well, Mr. Schoolmaster," he began, "what can I do for you? You 've taken a cabin and ten good acres of timber-land away form me for your troop and made me pay those two kids of yours a frightful price for their pink pearl. Now what is it? Another hold-up, I expect."
"You have the idea," said the principal, who had become a fast friend of the old man. "I want you to help me turn out a winning athletic team for the Cornwall High School."
The old man was all interest at once. He had been born in Cornwall.
"I 'm afraid you can't do it, Mr. Schoolmaster," he said sympathetically. "You know a lot about book-learnin', but I guess you never had time to learn much about runnin' and jumpin' and so on."
"Oh, I don't know," returned the other. "I used to know something about them, and perhaps I have n't forgotten it all yet. Anyhow, if you will help, we can get a winning team."
"What do you want me to do?" returned old Jim. "I have n't time to go out and run on the team myself."
"Well, I 'll tell you, Mr. Donegan," said the principal. "I want you first to build the best quarter-mile cinder path that money can buy on that old cow-pasture that you let us use, and a little training-house with some shower-baths in place of the old cow-stable. Then I 've just heard that old Mike Murphy, the best trainer in the world, wants to come up from Philadelphia and settle in a Northern climate for his health. He trained the Yale team which won the Intercollegiate years ago, and the Olympic team that won the championship of the world, and I can get him up here if you 'll foot the bill. Then I want you--"
"Whoa! whoa!" yelled the old man. "I smoke, you know, and I 'd like you to leave me enough to buy a little tobacco now and then!"
"Well," returned Mr. Sa[nf]ord, "I 'll let you off from anything more except running-suits and spiked shoes."
Old Jim thought for a moment.
"You 're on," he said finally. "Go as far as you like; only--I expect a team that 'll win."
Great doings followed for the Cornwall High school. A thin-faced man with reddish hair, cold, blue eyes, and a gray mustache came to town. He had been seen to slap the dignified principal of the high-school violently on the back and call him "Dannie." An army of workmen changed the cow-pasture into a well-appointed athletic-field. Then one afternoon, after school, the boys were gathered together, and Mike, as everybody called him, gave them a little talk. He had the rare gift of arousing his audience. He told the boys what athletics had done for America and how it
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helped men and boys to keep themselves straight and clean and strong. Then he went on to tell the boys stories of great athletes whom he had known and trained. He told of Owen, the first man who ever went under ten seconds for the hundred-yard dash in that great race when Jewett, Owen, Westing, and Cary all started in the finals, each with a different start. He told them of old Deerfoot, the Indian, who, running in his moccasins, set a world record of eleven miles and nine hundred and seventy yards for the hour, and of the great professional race of W. G. George and Bill Lang when the mile record went down to 4.12 3/4.
"But the best race I ever saw, lads," he finally ended, "was the day when Yale won the Intercollegiate Cup for keeps after a dozen colleges had been tryin' for ten years. The half-mile race was the last event. Fifty men started. When they turned into the home-stretch, at the last lap, there were three men left, and you could have covered them all with a blanket. Neck and neck and neck they came down, staggerin' and weavin' around, all gone, and just before they got to the tape there was one slim little chap, a quarter-mile runner, who had won the quarter only an hour before and had no business to be runnin' in the half. He threw his head back, and the foam lay on his lips, and he clenched his corks and he came in, and drew away from the bunch, runnin' on nothin' at all but the nerve and courage of him! And he broke the tape a foot ahead of the two best half-milers in the world. And he broke the intercollegiate record, and won the cup, an' he 's right here before you, and his name 's Dannie Sanford!"
There was a sudden silence as the boys looked at Mr. Sanford, who blushed, and tried to stop Mike. Then there was a storm of cheers, after which the trainer went on:
"He sent for me, boys. He says you 've been the laughin'-stock of the whole school league, but if you fellows will come out and do what I tell you next spring, you 'll be doin' the laughin'."
That was the beginning of it. There were seventy-six bo[y]s in the school. Seventy-five of them signed up that afternoon to try for the athletic team. The only reason the seventy-sixth did n't was because he had only one leg. All that winter the boys ran cross-country, rain, shine, snow, or cold. Day after day Mike trained and trained and trained them, indoors and out. The over-confident he held back. The timid he spurred on with stories of what could be done even by weaklings, if only they would dare. The lazy, the disobedient, the lax who would not or could not train, he weeded out; and a few days before the games he told Mr. Sanford that he had a team of boys fit to run for their lives.
(from St. Nicholas Magazine, December 1919, pp. 134-141)
CHAPTER II THE MILE RUN
At last the day of the games dawned, as days have had a habit of doing for several years back. The whole school gathered at the station to go with their team to the college town where the games were to be held. There was Mike, wearing a wonderful new Panama, ostentatiously cheerful and full of good stories and funny jokes, as always before a competition. Mr. Sanford was there in white flannels, and Pop Smith, the pop-corn man, a little old man with a long white beard who looked like a gnome and who claimed to be the official mascot of the Cornwall team. Besides these there were several thousand rooters--at least, they sounded like several thousand. Probably, if counted by numbers and not by noise, they would total fifty. Just as the train was about to start, there was a volley of toots, and down the road whirled a red racer, out of which tumbled old Jim Donegan and Jud Adams.
"I 'm here to se fair play," rumbled the lumber-king.
"Yep," piped up old Jud, to Mike, "I 'm comin' too, in case any of them kids give out and you need a real runner."
Every seat in the vast grand stand which surrounded the college athletic field was filled with rooters from the different schools belonging to the association. As Cornwall High marched on down to their seats, there was a tumult of shouts and laughter from thousands of boys and girls wearing other school colors.
"Now we can start," howled one cheer-leader through a megaphone. "The Backwoodsmen are here!"
"Three cheers for the Also-Rans!" yelled another.
"Rah! Rah! Rah! for the Tail-Enders!" came from across the field.
"You just wait a bit, you fellows over there!" bellowed Jim Donegan, with his face redder than his tie, which was saying a good deal. "We 'll show you some surprises to-day!"
"Don't talk back to them," suggested the principal; ["]you 'll only make them worse."
"They can't be any worse!" howled old Jim. "I like to talk back to 'em."
In the stillness of the dressing-rooms the Cornwall team missed all this. The air was heavy with the smell of raw alcohol, with which brawny rubbers massaged the muscles on which so much depended that day. Worried trainers and troubled captains passed back and forth whispering last words of advice and warning. Here and there could be caught glimpses of boy athletes, all looking a little white and drawn. Some chewed gum, others wore a fixed smile. Some yawned continually, and some shivered as if with a chill as the strain of the weary waiting affected each one of them.
Old Mike wasted very little time in making speeches.
"Lie down, you fellows; keep off your feet and take things easy," he counseled. "You all feel nervous and scared and uncomfortable and as if you can't run worth a cent. That 's the way you ought to feel before a race. I handled Owen the day he first ran under even time in the hundred. Just before the final heat he could n't talk, his teeth chattered so; but he went out and beat the pick of the world. Charlie Kilpatrick could n't eat for two days before the international games
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between Great Britain and the United States at Manhattan Field in 1895. I had to threaten to lick him to keep from starvin' to death; yet he went out and beat the other side all to death and broke the world's record in the half-mile. You chaps ain't anything to look at, a homelier bunch I never saw," went on the old man, "but--you 're fit to run for your lives and you 're going to clean up these city fellows to-day."
So he went on, beguiling the time with many an athletic story, jollying, joking, encouraging, until his team were as comfortable as could be expected. Suddenly a shrill whistle blew outside. Then a leather-voiced announcer bellowed through a megaphone at the door of the training-house. "All out for the first heat of the hundred!"
Boots Lockwood was the only sprinter in the school who had shown enough speed to be entered in the dashes. He was a long, gawky, awkward boy with a comical freckled face and always joking. Only Mike, that judge of boys and men, knew what fire and force were hidden in that awkward body.
"Don't hurry" he said craftily. "It 'll be five minutes at least before they 're ready for this heat. Let the rest of 'em worry out on the track awhile."
Then Sid, the rubber, slapped a big handful of raw alcohol on Boots's sinewy back and suppled up his lithe muscles with a final rubdown. Thrilling all over with the cold tingle of the alcohol, Boots laced on his spiked shoes, and, gripping his new corks, trotted out to join the rest of the entries on the long straight-away, where the dash was to be run. The rest of the waiting team shouted encouragement to him.
"Go to it, old scout!" yelled Captain Bright, from his corner.
"Eat 'em up, Boots!" squealed Bill Darby, who was in the half.
"Show me how to do it," urged Ted Bacon, who was in the next event--the quarter-mile.
Quite different were the remarks that greeted him on the track, where the contestants were waiting for the clerk of the course to finish his roll-call.
"Cornwall 's here; let 's go!" one shouted.
"Don't make him run; give him the heat!" yelled another; while even the badged officials found time to smile at the gawky, freckle- faced country boy. None of this made any impression on Boots. He grinned cheerfully at spectators, officials, and competitors alike, although his freckles stood out a little brighter than usual as his face whitened under the strain. He trotted back and forth a few times to limber up, and a moment later found himself lined up in the first heat. There was such a crowded entry that the clerk announced that first place alone would qualify in the finals. This meant hard going for Boots, for, of the other three men, one was Dole, the winner of the year before, while Black, the champion of the Hill school, the largest in the State, had broken the interscholastic record at his school spring games.
"Now--boys--I 'll--tell--you--to--get--set--and--then--fire--you--off. Any--man--breaking--off--his--mark--before--the--pistol,--goes--back--a--yard," clattered the starter, jumbling the words together according to the time-honored custom of starters.
Boots drew the outside place. There the going was a little soft, but he did not have a man on each side of him. The champion had the inside position, while next to Boots was the record-breaker from Hill. For a moment the whole place throbbed with the cheers of the different schools, while Boots unconcernedly dug his marks in the cinders with his spiked shoes.
"On your marks!" shouted the starter, and Boots fitted his feet into the little holes which he had dug.
"Get set!" came next.
Remembering the advice of the crafty Mike, who had been one of the greatest of professional sprinters in his day, Boots bent over as slowly as possible, knowing that the starter would not shoot the pistol until every competitor was in place. As he finally put his hands on the ground, fully half a second after the others, he straightened out his arms and leaped forward from both feet just as the pistol went off. It was a perfect start, and only possible for one who could control his nerves enough to hold back. Like a flash he broke away a good yard ahead of the others. The unexpectedness of being beaten off their marks by an unknown runner flagged the spirits of the others for the tiniest fraction of a second, and spring is made up of fractions. At the fifty, Boots was fully six feet ahead of his field. Then the record-holder, who was a wonderful finisher, began steadily to overhaul him, with the other two hard on his shoulder. Holding his breath and running as he had never run before, Boots sped down his lane on the long smooth track, while closer and closer he could hear the pat-pat of the speeding feet behind. Ten yards from the finish, the other
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was almost at his shoulder. Then it was that the boy drew upon the fighting fury which lay within him and which had made him Mike's choice. Calling on every atom of nerve and will concentrated on keeping unbroken the swift, rhythmical beat of his stride, he breasted the tape by a tiny fraction of a second ahead of the other. So close had been the finish that the three judges had to confer together before the announcer bellowed to the world at large: "Lockwood, Cornwall High, wins first heat of the hundred! Time, ten flat!"
Boots jogged back to find that the world had changed. There were scattering cheers instead of jeers everywhere, while from the far-away section that had been assigned to the Cornwall High School came a storm of shouts and yells, which always ended with "Boots Lockwood!" Old Mike met him at the start and slapped him joyfully on the back.
"You 're a corker, me boy!" he shouted. "I knew you could do it. You 've killed off the worst in the first heat. The final 's a pipe for you."
"Leaped forward from both feet just as the pistol went off"
When Boots came back in the dressing-room, everybody pounded him on the back. The four-forty, as the quarter-mile is termed in cinder-path parlance, came next. It was to be run in one heat, and Billy Darby sallied forth to do or die. Following Mike's directions, he leaped into the lead at the crack of the pistol, and ran his first hundred yards at sprinting speed, forging far ahead of the field. Unfortunately, he let the excitement of the race run away with his judgment. With a long lead and going strong, it seemed an easy matter to cover the rest of the distance at top speed; but no human legs and lungs have yet been constructed which will allow man or boy to sprint a quarter-mile without slowing up somewhere. Poor Billy turned into the stretch well ahead of the bunch, but here his legs began to wabble, and a red-haired youngster from the Hopkins Grammar School flashed by him, and, almost at the tape, an entry from the Haverford school crowded past him into second place. At any rate he had scored, for first place counted five points, second, two, and third, one.
In the meantime, Buck Whittlesey and Ted Bacon, the biggest and strongest boys at the
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Cornwall school, had been giving the field a taste of country muscle in the twelve-pound shot. Although neither of them had been able to master the tricky drive of the arm and the snappy reverse of body and legs which enables a shot-putter to get everything possible into his put, yet by main strength they managed to score three points for the school with a second and third respectively. By this time the final of the hundred had been called, and Boots fulfilled Mike's prophecy and romped away from his field, winning the event by a full yard and scoring five points with a first for Cornwall again in even time. In the two-twenty, the experience and finishing powers of Black of Hill were a little too much for him, and Boots had to be content with second place.
When the pistol cracked for the start of the half-mile, there did not seem to be a chance for Johnnie Morgan, Cornwall's entry to score a place; but after a game race, he staggered in an unexpected second, adding two more points to Cornwall's mounting score.
The hurdles hurt Conrwall more than any other event. Try as he would, Mike had not been able to teach any of the boys in a single season the hurdle step, which looks so easy and is really so difficult. Hill fattened her score by eleven points in those two events, and went well into the lead. The high jump was another event which helped Hill and hindered Cornwall. Not a point did her entries score. In the broad jump, Dick Johnstone hit the take-off only once in three tries, but that once carried him over twenty feet and gave Cornwall another second.
It was evident that the fight lay between Hill and Cornwall, and that, in order to win, it would be necessary for Cornwall to score firsts in all of the three remaining events. As the audience realized that the fight was between the largest and the smallest of the entries, a wave of sympathy went out toward Cornwall. Flags flared and fluttered through the different sections everywhere, and there was a storm of cheers and shouts, all ending with "Cornwall!" Above them all, however, could still be heard the shattering "Brek-e-kek-kek!" cheer of the great Hill School, which had sent over a thousant rooters to the games that day. Old Mike, who had been coaching Dick at the jumping-pit, came hurrying in.
"Everybody 's yellin' for Cornwall!" he said. "Everybody wants us to down Hill. We can do it! Now, fellows, a long cheer for Captain Bright, who 's goin' to wine the pole-vault; for Joe Couteau, who 's got the five-mile in his pocket; and for good old Freddie Perkins, who 's goin' to end up by takin' first place in the mile! Now altogether!"
The little team stood up and gathered around Mike, who was standing on the rubbing-table. Some were covered with the grime and sweat of their races, others were still sick and faint from their efforts. Some had won and others had lost, but all alike joined in the long cheer of the Cornwall High School with the names of the last three competitors at the end. The echoes had hardly died away when the door burst open and in rushed old Jim Donegan, his hat off and his bristling gray hair standing up like the quills of a porcupine. He rushed to the rubbing-table, and, catching up the twelve-pound shot which lay there, banged the long-suffering table for attention.
"Boys," he yelled, "I 'm an old man and I have knocked all around the world and I 've seen many a grand scrap in my time, but never have I seen such a set of young tigers as you fellows are! I 'm proud of every one of you! We 've got these Hill School chaps licked to a frazzle. All we got to do is to win these last three events, an' I 'll tell the world--we 're goin' to do it! There ain't nobody can down old Bill Bright or beat out Joe Couteau. They licked a gang of moonshiners, and they 'll just eat up that Hill team. More-over, I 've got a hunch right now that Freddie Perkins gobbles up the mile. Them 's my sentiments!" and the old man banged the twelve-pound shot down on the table and rushed out again, to yell for Cornwall.
While they were finishing the finals in the high and low hurdles, in neither of which Cornwall had won a place, Will Bright had been vaulting surely and steadily through the preliminary stages of that long-drawn-out event, the pole-vault. At eleven feet, all the competitors had dropped out except Will and an entry from Hopkins and Hill respectively. Once, twice, and three times each of the others essayed the bar, only to fail.
On his first try, Will soared up like a bird, with a perfect take-off. Then, just as he started the arching swing which was to carry him over, there was a splintering crack and the ash pole broke at some hidden flaw about five feet from the end. There was a shout of warning and horror from the spectators as Will's body plunged down headlong toward the jagged point. The boy's quick eye, however, saw his danger even as he fell. With a writhing twist in mid air, he swung his body out toward the landing-pit, just grazing the
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sharp fragment, which ripped through his jersey, tearing the skin of his left side. Instantly the whole front of his running-shirt was stained with bright red. Half a dozen men rushed to pick him up, but Mike was there first of all.
"Some one get a doctor!" shouted a badged official, bustling up.
"I 'm going on," panted Will, recovering his breath, which had been knocked out of him by the fall, "if I can get a pole."
"Say, Cornwall, you 're a good sport!" said the defeated Hill entry. "Take my pole. I 'd rather be beaten by you than anybody I know."
"That 's the talk," said old Mike, heartily, as Will shook hands with his late opponent. "There 's good sporting blood in both of you."
The Hill pole was a built-up bamboo, with the strength and snap of a steel spring. With a good run, Will made a beautiful take-off. Up and up he rose in the air until he was level with the bar. Suddenly he slid his lift hand up to his right with a quick snap, and his body arched up and over the bar. His progress back to the dressing-house was a triumph. Half-way back, they met Jim Donegan tearing along toward them, wearing the flowing and resplendent badge of an inspector of the course, which he had inveigled out of the management. His duties, as he understood them, were to run around the field and root early and often for Cornwall, in spite of every attempt on the part of other officials to stop him.
"Five more points!" he chanted ecstatically, patting Will gently on his moist back. "We 've got 'em beat!"
Just as they reached the dressing-house, the five-mile event was announced.
"Go to it, boy!" yelled old Jim to Joe Couteau, Cornwall's only entry for that event. "Remember how you used to run down jack-rabbits in the Northwest. Hustle out and tear off five more points for Cornwall."
Joe grinned cheerfully around the circle as he laced on the pair of moccasins which, like that other great Indian distance-runner, Deer-foot, he wore in place of spiked shoes. These moccasins and his dark face made a great sensation.
"Hi! hi!" bellowed the Hill School contingent. "Get on to the Injun, Big Chief, Woo-woo! Whoo-oo-oo-oo-oo!" and striking their mouths with their hands, they achieved what they fondly believed to be an Indian war-whoop. Although there were twelve entries, yet the crowd believed that there was only one man in the race. That was Lowell of Haverford, the record-holder who for two years had won the event easily. The only son of an old Boston family, he was much shocked that he should be expected to run against an Indian. At the end of the first mile he led the bunch by fully fifty yards.
Joe as he passed the starting-post for the fourth time began to increase his speed. One by one he cut down the men ahead of him, and by the time that the fifth quarter was finished he was abreast of the little bunch of five runners who were toiling along nearest the far-away leader. Then without an effort and with a swinging, easy gait he began to do through the field. One or two tried to fight him off, but the steady, even gait which ate up the ground like fire wore them down until he was running second to Lowell, who was now nearly a hundred yards in the lead. At the end of the third mile, Joe had cut this down to thirty yards. As he swung past the starting-post at the beginning of the fifth and last mile, it was as if a mask had suddenly dropped from his impassive face, so keen and eager and confident it showed. The long tireless lope quickened and quickened until Lowell heard the rapid, even pat-pat of moccasined feet coming nearer and nearer. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he caught sight of the dark face of the Indian surging up beside him. Stung by the sight, he put on a burst of speed and for a hundred yards or so drew away well ahead of his opponent. Joe kept on unconcernedly with the same swinging, even gait. Without looking at is opponent, he seemed far more interested in the shouting, cheering crowds in the grand stand.
Soon the approaching beat of the moccasins stung Lowell to a new effort, which for a moment carried him out of ear-shot. Yet even as [he] slackened his speed, the sound of the flying feet behind him came relentlessly nearer and nearer, until the Indian's even breathing was at his shoulder. Again he spurted, but it was a last effort, and in a few moments Joe was once more and for the last time abreast of him. As they ran neck and neck, the two were in strange contrast. Lowell's face was wrinkled and drawn as he strained every nerve and muscle to hold his place, while the Indian, with his effortless gait, seemed to regard his exhausted rival with an amused curiosity. At the end of another lap the Indian quickened his even stride and took the lead, drawing away from his opponent with every beat of his moccasined feet. Again and again Lowell
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"Lowell heard the rapid, even pat-pat of moccasined feet coming nearer and nearer"
spurted gallantly; and though now and then he gained some of his lost distance, the gap between himself and the leader kept widening. On the last lap Joe cut loose and covered the distance at almost sprinting speed, finishing fully half a lap ahead of Lowell and breaking the tape and the record at the same time. Then, to show how little the race had taken out of him, he kept on for an extra lap, cheered to the echo by every section in turn as he passed. Even the Hill delegation gave the little dark record-breaker a tremendous send-off.
Cornwall had scored twenty four points to twenty-five for Hill, and a roar of shouts and cheers swept across the field. Every thing depended on the last race of the day--the mile-run. The Hill delegation, in spite of the frantic efforts of four fat policemen, surged out and dragged across the track their mascot, a reluctant bull pup wearing the Hill colors, thereby throwing an exceeding baneful hoodoo on all the entries save those of Hill. Not to be outdone, Cornwall pulled little Pop Smith across the same part of the track, kicking and squealing and struggling while his long white beard waved in the wind. Haverford had a band. So did Hill. Likewise Hopkins. And these bands played and tooted and fifed ans shrilled and drummed and made every kind of noise that ever tortured the ear-drums of mankind. For fully fifteen minutes the pandemonium kept up, until the policemen and all of the officials, except one gray-haired inspector of the course, were worn out in their attempts to restore order.
Only in the Cornwall dressing-room was there silence. Mike himself gave Fred a final rub-down, and every man on the team crowded around to pat him on the back and shake his hand and wish him luck. It was a very cold hand, clammy with the weary terror of waiting that frets into the courage of the bravest. Fred's eyes however, had a steady fire in them, and his face, although white, was set as steel.
"It 's up to you, my boy," was all Mike said.
"I 'll do my best, Mike," returned Fred, very quietly. Just then the door opened and in burst Mr. Sanford, quite different from the dignified principal of the Cornwall High School whom the boys saw every day. His hat was gone, his face was nearly as red as Jim Donegan's, and his tousled hair stood up like the crest of a cockatoo. He hurried up to Freddie, panting as if he himself had just come from a race. In one hand he held two battered, scarred running-corks, in one of which was a large round hole.
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"Freddie," he said, "these are my old mascot running-corks. I 've carried them in nearly a hundred races. They 're yours now. Squeeze 'em hard and bring back the championship to old Cornwall to-night. That round hole," he went on, "is for the middle finger of your right hand. Sink your nail into it deep when you see the tape in sight."
Johnnie Morgan was to run with Fred as a team mate. As the two came out of the training-house, they stepped into a very tempest of sound. All the cheering before was like a whisper to the hoarse roars that swept
"Both boys ... saw ahead of them the thin red thread."
back and forth across the little arena. Moran, the Hill miler,--slight and beautifully built, with a mocking, resolute face,--although not a record-holder, had won the event the year before in fast time. He was older than most of the other boys, and for two years had run on the team of a city athletic club. He had undoubtedly more experience than any other entry there. The Cornwall entries had planned to have Morgan set the pace, keeping it slow enough to allow Fred's sprint to have a chance in the straight.
As the pistol cracked, John dashed across from the outside and took the lead. Unfortunately for Fred, Moran was an old hand at racing, and when he saw Morgan show down his pace, jumped at once to the conclusion that the other Cornwall entry wanted to save himself for the finish. Racing up, he passed John and, taking the pole, skimmed down the back-stretch at a tremendous clip. With a sprint Cornwall's second string again won the lead as the neared the end of the first lap, but lost it the minute he tried to slow the pace. As they whirled past the starting-post in a bunch, Fred himself tried to set the pace, hoping to slow it down. Yet hardly had he slackened a little, when Moran went past him with a rush. It was evident that he intended to make a runaway race of it from the very start and would take no chances in the home-stretch. Fred set his teeth grimly and buckled down to the task of following his pace.
At the end of the half-mile Morgan droped out. Moran still kept the lead, with Fred just back of him, while right behind Fred were the Haverford and Hopkins entries, running craftily, hoping that the leaders might run themselves off their feet before the finish. For the third time the first four swept past the starting-post, and began the bitter third quarter, that quarter which tests the very soul of a racer, when the ache of the distance makes the taxed muscles and the flagging brain alike cry for rest, with the finish still a weary way off. Moran quickened his pace a little, and Fred strained every muscle to hold his place. His chest felt as if bound with a choking iron band, and his legs began to acquire that strange, numb feeling which is the protest of sorely taxed muscles.
Now it was that the long, tiresome cross-country runs of the winter showed their effect. Back of all his exhaustion, Fred still had the feeling of something in reserve. Yet every stride seemed to rack his very vitals, and the numbness seemed to be stealing from his legs to his brain. Suddenly a great gong clanged. The leader had passed the starting-post and was beginning the last lap. The sound seemed to tap new reserves of energy in Fred's lithe body, and he found himself plunging forward faster and faster as they whirled around the first curve into the back-stretch. At last came the final turn, and under a thunder of cheers the two turned into the back-stretch and quickened their speed.
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Just then from behind with a rush came up the Hopkins entry. On the outside he passed Fred and challenged Moran, who had drawn away a yard or so ahead. Neck and neck he raced with him down the stretch, but, with the finish still twenty yards away, suddenly plunged headlong, his laboring body unable to stand the strain which the untimely sprint had imposed upon it. He fell right across Moran's path, and the latter had to swerve out to avoid tripping over him. This was Fred's chance. With a staggering plunge he shot forward on the inside, and in another second was running neck and neck with the leader. Only ten yards of terrible struggle lay between them and the thin red thread that marked the goal where the impassive judges and the timers, with stop-watches held aloft, stood. Fred's legs seemed made of lead. All of his speed at the finish seemed to have been drained by the tremendous pace. Bright flashes darted before his eyes, while the shouts of the spectators seemed to come from afar.
"Come on, Freddie! Come in! Come in, Cornw[a]ll!" he heard faintly. Moran led by an inch at the last yard, and both boys, with hot, misty eyes, saw ahead of them the thin red thread which seemed to waver and move backward. Gripping the mascot corks, Fred's finger sank into the deep hole, and the feeling called him back to himself for the fraction of a second. Setting his teeth and gripping his corks until his knuckles showed white, he drew upon the last tiny fragment of reserve power which he had left, and at the end of last stride threw himself through the air like a diver. Even as he plunged unconscious, he felt the blessed pressure of the thread as it broke against his breast, a tiny inch before Moran's up-raised foot. Then the arms of Mike and Donegan were around him as they carried him back to the dressing-room.
"I knew it was in you. I knew," old Mike said, but his voice broke even as he spoke.
It seemed a long time after, although it was only a few minutes, when Freddie opened his eyes again. The first thing he saw were the admiring faces of Will and Joe. The first thing he heard was Will's whisper.
"You 're going with us after the Blue Pearl!"
(from St. Nicholas Magazine, January 1920, pp. 254-259)
CHAPTER III OUTWARD BOUND
At last dawned the day when the Argonauts sailed away toward the sunset, like the crew that Jason captained when the world was young. Instead of the Argo, Cornwall's Argonauts voyaged in the super-parlor-Pullman-observation-private car Esmeralda, which belonged to Mr. Donegan, and which, through him, had been attached to the great Transcontinental Express. By reason, too, of Mr. Donegan, that celebrated train for the first time in its history would stop at Cornwall. Theretofore it had never even hesitated when it passed through.
Everybody came to see them off. Strangely enough, too, every one from Chief Selectman Jimmy Wadsworth down to Jed Bunker, who tramped the town making baskets, knew that they were going pearling and when and where and how. Myron Prindle had inside information that they were bound for "the Spanish Main." He was not sure just where said Main might be, but presumed that it was somewhere in Sapin. Anyway, he knew that it was full of pearls and pirates and that Mr. Donegan had chartered a schooner which Jud Adams was to captain. The fact that Jud did n't know a schooner from a gondola made no difference. Myron knew. Uncle Riley Rexford was just as positive that they were going after fresh-water pearls along the banks of the Yukon. He also had inside information. Hattie Platt, the village dressmaker, was absolutely certain that they were bound for the South Seas. She had been told so by some one who knew all about it. She wished she could tell who it was, but she had promised she would not. Jessalie Jones, who wrote poetry, and had it printed under the initials "J. J." in the "Litchfield County Gazette," had it on good authority that the whole trip had something to do with a romance of Jud Adams' youth. She refused to give her authority. In one thing all the stories agreed. That was--Pearls! Miss Jane Bronson, who had taught drawing and English literature at the Cornwall High School from a time beyond which the memory of man runneth not, brought in Volume 15 of the Encyclopædia Britannica--P-Q--of the vintage of 1860. She whispered that it contained a masterly monograph on pearls which she hoped the boys would find time to read on their trip. Guinea Potter's mother brought a bottle of boneset tea which she had brewed herself and which could be used wither inside or outside and was warranted to cure everything. It was a favorite Cornwall remedy and always very effective, probably because it had such an appalling taste that any one who swallowed a dose of it would forget everything else. Old Hen Root who lived over in the Hollow, and who ahd come to Cornwall from SAugatuck on Long Island Sound, brought a clam-hoe down to the station, which he insisted upon presenting to Will.
"It may come in handy," he remarked confidentially, "in case you want to get a mess of oysters."
The Cornwall House Guards were there, ready for the worst, and would have been very impressive if Silas Ford's horse had not balked right on the railroad tracks. As it was nearly train-time, the rest of the guard tried to haul him off by main force. The Cornwall band chose that particular moment to break loose. They tooted and banged and shrilled and squealed, until it sounded as if a boiler factory had blown up. At the very first
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explosion, Silas Ford's horse, which had been bracing his feet and holding back with at least ten horse-power, whisked his tail, cleared the tracks, and was off down the road like a cyclone. As most of the other horses of the guards were hitched to him, the whole squadron disappeared around the corner in a cloud of dust and a confusion of "Whoas!" At that moment a distant whistle was heard, and with a rushing roar, the rumble of mighty wheels and the hissing of sorely tried air-brakes, the majestic Transcontinental Express whirled around the curve and came to a full stop. Then it was that Fred's mother, who was a widow, broke down. As she kissed her boy good-by she was suddenly convinced that neither pearls nor prospects were worth the unknown risks of this far journey.
"Don't go, honey. Stay home with me," she whispered. "I may never see you again."
It was a critical moment. Fred winked very hard and wondered whether, after all, the trip was worth while. It was Barbara Deering who made a diversion. Barbara had a bewitching smile and a voice that always made Fred think of the gurgling of a certain trout-brook as it sang its way down one of the Cornwall hills. Moreover, one could never be certain as to what Barbara was going to do next. To-day she stood in a group of girls with her hands behind her as the good-bys were being said, and, at this critical moment, stepped forward with a great bunch of those rare rose-red orchids, the moccasin-flower, which she must have gathered before breakfast. She handed these to Fred and whispered so low that only he could hear, "Good-by; I 'm very proud of you!" after that any backing out was impossible. Will's father shook hands with him with that indifference which fathers and sons show in public. Joe Couteau's uncle was there with a package of the whitest, sweetest maple sugar in the world, which only the old charcoal-burner knew how to make in his little sugar-bush in the early spring.
"You big fool to go," he murmured affectionately, pressing the package into Joe's hands. "Hurry up and come back."
Then Mr. Sanford and old Mike and Buck Masters, the village constable who had helped rescue Will and Joe from the burning cabin, and Uncle Riley Rexford, and Nathan Hart, the letter-carrier, with a mail-bag in his hand, and Virgil Jones, the postmaster, and half a score of others pressed forward to shake the boys' hands and wish them luck. Only old Jud Adams stood apart from the rest of the crowd.
"Ain't there no one who 's goin' to give me flowers or sugar nor nothin'?" he complained.
"Sure there be!" shouted old Jim Donegan, who had arrived late, as usual, pushing his way through the crowd, red-hot with haste and excitement. "Even if none of these good-lookin' girls will give you anything, I will. You 're all the time complainin' that you can't find any smokin' tobacco in Cornwall that 's got any taste to it. I 've sent down South and hear 's a package of black perique that will just about take the top of your old gray head off," and Big Jim shook the old trapper's hand affectionately and slapped the boys on their backs.
"Good-by, fellows," he shouted as if he were hailing a ship at sea. "Good luck! I wish I were goin' with you instead of this good-for-nothin' old cripple of a Jud Adams."
"What do you mean by such talk, Jim Donegan?" yelled Jud, clutching his perique in one hand and much incensed at this public reference to his age. "Thank ye for the tobacco, but when you come to talk about me bein' old, I want you to understand--" but just then the whistle shrilled impatiently, the majestic conductor, who had been regarding Cornwall tolerantly, swept back the crowd, the porter pushed the boys, clam-hoe, encyclopædia, boneset-tea, and all into the car, and with another bang from the band the Argonauts of Cornwall were off. With a shriek of the whistle which echoed through the hills, the train whirled away toward the enchantments, the adventures, and the waiting lands which, since Time began, have always beckoned to Argonauts from beyond the sunset.
Then came long and varied days of sight-seeing from the observation platform. At first, Jud insisted that they ought to have shaken hands with the waiter when they went into the dining-car, and declared that the conductor ought to have a military salute as a tribute to his "blue-and-brass uniform." The library, the baths, the brass bedsteads, the great leather-lined lounging chairs, and all the other equipment of a plutocratic private car were a source of never-ending delight and amusement to the old trapper. Most of all, however, the whole crowd enjoyed the observation platform at the rear of the car. There, tipped back in comfortable chairs, with their feet up on the brass rail, as cities, prairies and mountains whirled by, they would talk by the hour, and old Jud would spin them yarns about the buffalo herds, the Indians and the antelope which he saw on his first trip across the continent in the seventies.
But even more interesting to the boys were the stories told by Joe Coutearu.
"Joe," said Will, one day, after one of Jud's yarns, "you 've never told me how you managed to come across the continent. Where did you live first, and how did you get East by yourself?"
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For a long minute Joe made no answer, but sat and watched the steel rails spin a shining track behind them across the golden wheat-fields of Dakota.
"I lived," he said at last, "on the Island of Akotan. That mean 'Island of the free People' in my talk," he explained. "My father was a french trapper, who joined our tribe and married my mother. I told you 'bout his being killed by bear," he went on, turning to Will, who nodded as he remembered the talks around the camp-fire that he and Joe used to have when they were winning the cabin for the Cornwall Scouts. "After that," went on Joe, "my mother take me one day across to the mainland where there was a Hudson Bay trading-station and mission-school. She tell me if anything happen to her, I was to leave the tribe and go to this school. When I learned enough, I was to travel and travel and travel east until I found my father's brother. She gave me writing, which my father had left, which showed how to find him." Then Joe came to a stop and looked long into the distance. "My mother's uncle, he shuman of the Free People," he went on after a moment.
"Is that the same as the chief?" inquired Fred.
"No," said Joe, "shuman is higher than chief. There may be two or more chiefs but only one shuman. Chiefs look after every-day things, but shuman he say when there be war or peace, he medicine-man for tribe, and have charge of all big things. After my mother's uncle find pearl he go on long, long journey south to place where the Free People had come from a hundred of years before. He went to see the Great Ones, and learn how to keep his people free and brave and good. While he gone, my mother die, like I tell you," said Joe, turning to Will, who nodded without speaking. The Indian boy's eyes flashed and his hands clenched hard for a moment. When I come back," he went on after a long pause, "and found she had died and my uncle gone and other chiefs trying to take his place, who would n't dared have spoken to him standing up, I tell tribe what I thought. No one answer me back. Then I take canoe and provisions and gun, and leave 'em all, and paddle and paddle and walk and walk until I come to trading-station where mission-school was. There I stay and learn to read and write and be like white boys."
"Did they send you across to your father's uncle?" questioned Jud, with much interest.
"No," said Joe after a long pause, "they not have the money to do that."
"Well, who did send you?" persisted Jud.
"Cheesay," responded the boy, finally.
"Cheesay!" exclaimed Jud. "That 's the Chippewa for lucivee."
"You mean the Canada lynx," broke in Will.
"Yes," responded the old man. "I call 'em lucivees, and the French trappers call 'em loup-cervier, but their name in Chippewa is 'Cheesay.'"
"Tell us how the lynx sent you," begged Fred, who had been sitting an interested listener to the whole conversation. Joe hesitated a moment.
"Well, it was this way," he said. "I want to be like white boys. My mother's people cowards and dogs to let her starve. My uncle gone. I remember she tell me to go back to my father's people. At the trading-station they tell me it take much money--two, three hundred dollars--to travel down to Sitka and take boat and railroad out East. They not have any money. I not have any money. So I start out to earn my fare by trapping. At first I not have very good luck. I trap and trap and hunt and hunt, but catch very little."
"It 's a wonder you caught anythin'," interjected Jud. "Trappin's 's no game for kids. It takes a grown man with good brains and a lot of experience to be a real trapper," and Jud puffed out his chest consciously.
Joe looked at the little old man quizzically. "Yes," he said at last, "it takes fine, big handsome, smart man to be good trapper--like old man Jud, but I did the best I could. I caught a few muskrat and once in a while a mink, but they hardly brought enough to pay for my traps and my grub and my ammunition. Then one day there came a heavy snow. It snow and snow until ground covered three feet deep. I start out one morning with my gun to follow up trap-route. Pretty soon out from the woods I come to fox-trail."
"How do you tell a fox-trail?" asked Fred.
"Trakcs like those of dog," explained Joe, "except they run in straight line and don't spraddle out like dog and are finer and clearer cut and never show any drag-mark on the snow, for fox lift his paw high while dog sometimes drag it. This trail," went on Joe, "showed that the fox had sunk deep, every jump. He seemed to be running hard, and once in a while I could see mark of his brush on snow, showing that he was tired; for while he is fresh, a fox never lets his brush touch the snow. I wonder at first why fox go so fast when snow so deep. At last I see the reason. Near the fox-trail runs a line of big, padded cat-tracks, about twice the size of ordinary cat. Only they don't show four toes like cat-track does. I knew then that it was trail of Cheesay."
"What made them padded?" inquired Will.
"A lynx wears snow-shows in the winter," interposed Jud, before Joe had a chance to answer. "Each toe is covered with a big ball of fluffy
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hair which spreads out nearly flat, so that a lynx can bound over the snow, hardly sinking in at all."
"That 's what this one was doing," went on Joe. "At every jump he would go five or six feet and only sink in a few inches, while the fox went floundering through the snow up to his shoulders. The tracks zigzagged in and out through the trees, as if the old fox was trying to dodge, and once in a while he 'd make a stand against some tree, but always the lynx would drive him out into the open again. At last they led to little lake all frozen over and covered level with snow, and there out in the middle I saw two animals fighting. I hurried up close on my snow-shoes, and just as I got there, Cheesay gave big jump in air and clipped Old Man Fox right over head with his claws and buried him in the snow. Before he could get out, old lynx landed on top of him and bite him through the neck and kill him. By that time I was right close to them, and I yell loud to drive lynx off before he rip up fox's fur. Cheesay very much surprised, give a jump away, and spit and yowled and crouched and pretended that he was going to spring at me. My gun was loaded, and nobody every afraid of Old Man Cheesay, anyhow. I look down at fox, and what you suppose I saw?"
"What?" chorused the rest of the party.
"Silver fox!" exclaimed Joe, impressively. "Black, black as night, and soft and thick and heavy. The longest hairs were tipped with white, so that the fur looked as if it were all frosted with silver, while the big jet-black brush had a silver tip."
"Oh, boy!" broke in Jud. "Think of that luck! I trapped nigh on to twenty years before I got a silver fox, and then he was n't a very good one."
"Well," went on Joe, "they told me at the psot that this one was the best silver fox that had ever been turned in there. They gave me three hundred dollars for it."
"Which was about a third of what it was worth," commented Jud.
"It was enough to take me to Cornwall, anyway," finished Joe.
"Did n't you get the lynx skin, too?" inquired Fred.
Joe looked at him reprovingly. "That just like white man," he said at last; "always selfish and ungrateful. When animal make present to Indian, Indian remember it and play square with animal. That why Indian so much better hunter and trapper than white man and get so much more game. Cheesay he give me black fox; he send me across continent; he bring me back to my father's people. You think for that I kill Cheesay? No!" and Joe regarded the abashed Fred sternly. "I take out my knife and skin fox right there in snow, while Cheesay wait and watch me. Then I give him carcass. He say, 'Thank you,' and I leave him and never kill another lynx--and never will."
"That 's the reason," exclaimed Will, "that you never helped me the time that old lynx jumped over me and scratched me up when we were out winning the cabin for the Cornwall scouts! I never understood why you did n't clip him one when I missed him, but now I see the reason."
Joe nodded silently.
"How did the old lucivee say 'thank you?'" inquired Fred, inquisitively.
Joe opened his mouth wide and gave a long, low "Meow," followed in quick succession by half a dozen others, each one rising in pitch and volume, and the whole ending with three terrific screeches which brought the porter, the waiter, and even the majestic conductor himself running from the car ahead. It was the yowl song of the mating lynx, and it came so suddenly that Fred and Will almost tipped over backward in their chairs. Only old Jud was unmoved. He regarded the imperturbable Joe admiringly.
"You sure have got that lucivee love-song down fine," he said. "I 'd have sworn that there was an old bobcat in this car if I had n't seen you do that."
"If that 's the way Old Man Bobcat talks when he's grateful," said Fred, "I 'd hate to hear him when he 's mad."
After the train officials had become convinced that no murder was being done and had retired, Will was moved to a reminiscence himself anent silver foxes.
"There was a boy named Bill Peebles,' he began, "who once lived in Cornwall, over on Dibble Hill. He went to the high school a couple of terms or so and then his folks moved away. Peebles was quite a hunter, and one day in November he climbed Pond Hill, thinking that he might get a shot at a deer up in the old sheep-pasture at the top. AS he was coming out of the edge of the woods, all of a sudden he saw a jet-black fox just ahead of him. The wind was blowing from the fox, and so it had n't heard him or scented him at all. Peebles crouched down in the bushes and cocked his rifle and drew a careful bead on the fox about fifty yards away. He was just going to press the trigger," went on Will, dramatically, "when out of a corner of his eye he saw something move over on the edge of the woods, and out into the pasture stepped a fine buck, just about the same distance away as the fox. Old Sport Peebles was up in the air. First he sighted at the fox and then he sighted at the
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buck. He could shoot one, but he sure could n't get the other. At last, he figured out that the buck was bigger, and so he aimed carefully and dropped it in its tracks with a bullet just back of the fore shoulder. At the first crack of the rifle, the fox was gone. Bill Peebles got home with the buck, but when his folks found that he had let a thousand-dollar silver fox escape, they came near taking his gun away from him."
"I should think they would!" snorted Jud. "Any Cornwall boy over seven ought to know that a black fox is the most valuable fur in the world, bar one."
"What 's the one?" asked Fred.
"Kalan," said Jud.
"What 's a kalan?"
"Bo-bear."
"Come again," said Fred.
"Well, sea-otter then," said Jud, "since you 're so ignorant. I suppose a good one now would bring pretty near ten thousand dollars, while a silver fox might get as high as five thousand."
"Me for the sea-otter!" exclaimed Will. "I did n't know that there was such an expensive animal on earth. Well, anyway, coming back to Bill Peebles, he moved, soon after that happened, and I don't know what became of him, but I never saw a boy so sorry over anything. If he lives to be a hundred, he 'll never stop regretting that black fox."
As the train sped across the plains and into the country beyond[] Jud became much excited. Towns and cities, he remembered as trading-stations, cattle-depots, and mining-camps. Then one evening the train rumbled into Spokane, and Jud was full of reminiscences.
"Do you see that stone-shed?" he inquired pointing to a tumble-down building not far from the station. "Well, boys, the last time I was here that was a smoke-house. There was n't any railroad and there was n't any city. Where these tracks run was a stage route. There were twenty-five or thirty houses and dance-halls and a hotel called San Francisco House. It was about fifty yards away from that smoke-house."
The old man paused dramatically.
"Go on, Jud," urged Will, "let 's have the story of the smoke-house."
"Yes, Jud," chimed in Fred, "I 'll believe it if it kills me."
The old man regarded him sternly.
"You 'll get into trouble some of these days, young fellow," he said austerely, "with your fresh insinuendoes," and he eyed him severely. Fred bowed his head meekly.
"Go on, boss," he murmured contritely. With a few indignant puffs, old Jud resumed his interrupted story.
"In the stage along with us," he went on, "was an Englishman. He wore a long plaid ulster that would have made Joseph's coat look faded, an' a round, shiny piece of glass seemed to have grown into one of his eyes. We tried to draw the critter out just for the fun o' hearin' him talk, for he kind o' bleated an' used funny soundin' words. At last he shut up like a clam, an' we most forgot him. It was gettin' toward dark when we stopped to change horses at the San Francisco House. Spokane was an awful rough place in those days," and Jud stopped to charge his pipe afresh with some of Big Jim's perique. "All of a sudden," he resumed after a series of quick puffs, like a freight-engine starting, "we saw that Britisher walkin' off by himself with his hands in his pockets, as unconcerned as if he were in London. Just as he got opposite that smoke-house, a big chap jumps out from behind it, shoves a gun into his face, an' wants his money quick. The Englishman looked so funny an' helpless with his mouth open an' that eye-glass an' ulster, that even the hold-up man could n't keep from grinnin'. Before we could get to them, there was a shot fired, an' who do you suppose went down?"
"The tourist, of course," said Will.
"That 's what we thought," responded Jud; "but when we got htere, it was the hold-up man who was lyin' on his face an' the Englishman standin', with his hands still in his pockets, starin' down at him out of that glass eye of his. Come to find out, he carried a short Derringer revolver; an' instead of puttin' up his hands, he 'd shot right through his coat. It was kind of expensive, but mighty effective. He got the robber right through the shoulder," finished Jud. "An' he was the most surprised hold-up man you ever saw. When we turned him over to the sheriff, he said it had served him right for trustin' to appearances."
It was not until toward the end of the trip that a hot-box gave Fred a chance to distinguish himself. The train had been whirling at full speed across a wide plateau, when it came to a sudden stop with much crashing and clanking and wheezing of air-brakes. The Argonauts hurried out, to find that it would take over an hour to repair damages. Glad of a chance to stretch their legs, they started to explore a dry, sandy plain studded with bunches of coarse grass. As they passed one of the grass-clumps, then sounded in front of them a deep, fierce hiss. Close by Jud's foot, the bloated, swollen body of a fearsome snake upreared itself. It was almost white in color, blotched and spotted with bands and streaks of velvety brown, and each scale had a little ridge running down its center. The
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snake's snout was turned upward in a sharp, curved horn, and its black, lidless eyes seemed to flash as the hideous head flattened until it was nearly as wide as the palm of Joe's hand. As the scales on the snake's neck opened out, they showed the golden-yellow skin between, until the serpent's head and neck seemed all aflame as it struck out toward them, a picture of blind, venomous rage. As it stuck, the snake hissed loud enough tob e heard a hundred feet away. Jud probably broke the world's record for the standing back broad-jump. Will said afterward that he sailed through the air like a bird.
"Keep away, boys," Jud shouted. "Somebody get a stick or a stone. That 's a sand-viper, and he 's pizener than rattlesnake. Don't let his breath touch you. It 's nigh as bad as his bite!"
Will and Joe needed no warning. Neither one of them knew much about snakes, and their one experience with the timber rattlesnake in their adventures in the woods had given them a profound distrust of all snake-kind. Then it was that Fred came to the front. Snakes were his specialty. Waving the rest of them back with a noble gesture, he strode right up to the infuriated serpent.
"Get back, boy! He 'll kill you!" piped Jud, from the far background.
Fred not only did not retreat, but actually stretched out his hand, palm up, toward the sharp-curved snout of the bloated snake. With a tremendous hiss, the infuriated reptile apparently struck him violently on the flat of his hand. None of the spectators, however, noticed that the snake's mouth was tight shut. A gasp of horror came from Jud, wile Joe and Will prepared to interfere.
"You thought he bit me that time," said Fred, turning to them. "It only shows that the hand is quicker than the eye."
"Don't be a fool, Fred," interposed Will. "He 'll get you next time."
"There 's no danger," returned Fred, pompously. "I 've a charm which will make this snake kill himself and then come to life." Before the boys could stop him, he stretched out his right hand and tapped the snake several times on the sharp end of his up-curved snout, muttering some unintelligible words at the same time. It was as he said. The bloated serpent stopped hissing, and, turning over and over, seemed to write in terrible agony. Finally, it pulled a coil of its twisting body through its wide open jaws, and, with a few convulsive shudders, stretched itself out with its black-striped, white belly upward, apparently dead. There was a murmur of admiration from the rest of the party.
"How did you do it, Fred?" queried will.
"That kid really has got somethin' to him," muttered Jud, while even Joe was inclined to believe that Fred had stumbled on some bit of the Indian magic in which, in spite of his white training, he firmly believed.
"That 's nothing," said Fred, patronizingly. "Step back behind that bush, and in a moment or so I 'll bring him to life."
Stretching both hands palm up toward the sky, he made a few mystic gestures over the motionless snake and then joined the others behind the bush. One, two, three, four full minutes passed. Suddenly a shudder passed through the motionless body of the snake. Then its head was raised slightly from the ground and it peered all around. Seeing no one in sight, it flopped over and started to wriggle its way into the grass, when Fred rushed out and secured it. The boys and Jud were vastly impressed.
"I never believed it was in you," said Jud, as, from a safe distance, he regarded the snake, which was now peacefully coiled around Fred's arm.
"Tell us the charm," demanded Will.
"Well," said Fred, "if you fellows would study any good book on snakes, you 'd find all the charm you need there. You 'd read there that this is the puff-adder, or hog-nose snake, or sand-viper, as Jud calls it, or spreading-adder or blow-snake or flat-headed adder, for it goes by all these names. You would also find out that it ought to be called the bluff-adder. It never bites. It never opens its mouth when it strikes. It tries to scare people, but it 's really a gentle, harmless, well-behaved snake."
There was a long pause.
"It sure don't look it," said Jud.
(from St. Nicholas Magazine, February 1920, pp. 333-339)
CHAPTER IV THE FREE PEOPLE
At last and at last the continent was crossed. At the end of the longest wharf in Port Townsend, on Puget Sound, the Argonauts met Capple Nord of the timber-tug, Bear, the staunchest of all of Mr. Donegan's lumber-fleet. The captain had cruised and prospected for timber, gold, furs, copper, fossils, and everything else that meant money, from Puget Sound clear to Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean, and knew the far Northwest as well as any living white man. He was short, thick-set, and silent, with a smooth-shaven face, a mouth that shut like a trap, and wintry blue eyes, which could flash like steel on occasion. Big Jim had written the captain full directions, and he had made ready for the party a complete equipment which included food, ammunition, clothes, and two of the best canoes that money could buy, since the last part of the trip had to be under paddle-power.
Followed long days and weeks as the little steamer plowed its way through the North Pacific Ocean until they reached the little island of Attoo, the last and loneliest island of all the Aleutian group. Jud knew the place, for he had been there many years before to trap blue foxes.
"We sure are gettin' into the sunset!" he said, as the island loomed into sight. "You fellows think that San Francisco is far west. Attoo is three thousand miles west of that. It 's the westermost land in North America."
From Attoo they zigzagged northward in and out of islands large and small. Some had snow-covered peaks which towered far up into the sky, or showed smoking volcanoes or crystal glaciers which flowed down their sides like rivers of ice. Others were flat and bare and barren. Back and forth the little steamer circled and doubled through blue-green and whitish-gray waters and almost among a maze of islands ranging from large ones, many miles across, down to those which were hardly more than barren rocks set in lonely seas, surf-beaten and tempest-swept. Among them all the Bear kept steadily onward, circling and doubling through labyrinthine passages and across uncharted sounds and little bays. Past them, at times, floated vast icebergs, snow-white, with blue veins running through them, which contrasted with the deep reds, warm grays, and rich browns and yellows of the granite and sandstone cliffs, while beyond them was the gleam of soft green grass or the steel-blue of glacier ice. Then came a morning of that crystalline clearness which only dawns in the far North, and they could see looming up against the horizon a vast island, separated from them by a mass of reefs and rocks and islets. It showed black against the blue water, and a white coverlet thrown across its dark form showed where a range of snow-covered mountains ran.
"This is as far as I go," announced Captain Nord. "You fellows will have to make the rest of the trip in the canoes. I 'd pile up the old steamer on the reefs if I went any nearer. That is Akotan. They say that it 's a wild, fierce place where no white men have ever been, and I certainly hate to let you kids go in there alone."
Joe, who had been leaning on the rail staring raptly at the island, spoke up.
"No fear," he said. "The Free People live there. They not hurt any one I bring."
"The Free People?" questioned the captain.
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"What are they? I 've lived with Innuits and Aleuts and Kadiakers and Koloshes. Are they any of them?"
"Koloshes are biting dogs," returned Joe, scornfully. "Kadiakers stupider than sea-lions. Aleuts are children who never think alike twice, and the Aleuts are sheep. But the Free People, the Free People are men!"
A few minutes later the two canoes were launched, the equipment stored away in them, and Joe and Will prepared to take their place in one, while Jud and Fred followed in the other.
"Two months from to-day," said the captain, "I 'll be back. There 's a mission-station over there on Nadiak Island about ten miles from here. Jud knows the place. I 'll call for you there--and I sure hope I find you!" he added in an undertone.
There was a chorus of farewells form the crew, four paddles struck the water together, and the Argonauts were on the last lap of their journey. Half an hour later a trail of smoke on the horizon was all they could see of the Bear. The hours passed as they paddled their way among the crowded islets through a landlocked sound guarded by snow-covered mountains whose tops touched the sky and down whose sides the melting snow ran in hundreds of little cataracts. As the streams, clear as crystal and cold as winter, dashed into the green-and-blue sound the fresh water showed white as milk. On the adventurers went through the sullen grandeur of mountain peaks and the dread of smoking volcanoes. Sometimes they were tangled in a maze of rocks and reefs through which the water swirled in dangerous tide-rips. Yet always Joe brought them through unerringly by safe channels and calm courses. Some of the hidden dangers of those treacherous waters, however, they could not avoid. Toward the end of the morning, after they had passed out of the sound into a bay beyond, the smooth glassy water suddenly broke into foam all around them. A moment later it was flecked with white-caps and boiled and bubbled in a tangle of currents which tossed the light canoes like chips here and there.
"Look out!" shouted Joe. "Paddle away from shore!"
For a time it seemed as if both canoes were trapped in the sudden mesh of surging waters which threatened to engulf them or drive them on one of the near-by reefs. For half an hour they paddled desperately toward the open sea, but without being able to escape the clutch of the surging waters. Little by little the raging currents dragged them shoreward and nearer to the black fangs of the waiting reef. Suddenly, when they were almost exhausted by the sustained burst of paddling, the roaring tangle of currents and whirlpools smoothed themselves out, the waves went down, and the little bay lay calm and smiling as before.
"Whew!" grunted Will, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "What was that, anyway?"
"That sea-puss," responded Joe, panting, as he leaned on his paddle. "Sometimes current shifts and runs against tide and makes sea-puss. It never lasts very long."
"It lasted long enough for me," gasped Fred, from the rear canoe. "I was pretty nearly all in."
"Yes," joined in Jud, "I 'd never make a pet of these 'ere sea-pusses! Me for a gentler breed."
Beyond the bay where the fierce puss from the sea had tried to claw them, they paddled on through the panorama of sea and sky and mountain which unfolded before them as they passed island after island. Suddenly the wilence was broken by a bellow from the practical Jud.
"Hey, Chief!" he yelled, "when do we eat? I have n't had anything since 1812. This scenery 's fine, but it ain't very fillin'."
"In a few minutes now," called back Joe. "We land soon for lunch."
"Can't be too soon for me," grumbled Jud.
Followed another stretch of paddling, and then before their delighted eyes broke into view a little island more beautiful than anything that the boys had ever seen before. Compared with the group of barren, rocky, reef-bound islands in which it was set, it seemed like a green oasis of that lonely northern sea. Less than half a mile across, in its midst towered a peak broken into cliffs and ledges of many-colored rock.
"This Half-Way Island," explained Joe, as the canoes grounded on a hard white beach. "It half-way between Akotan and main chain of islands."
"It sure looks good to me!" shouted Fred, as they scrambled ashore with the hamper of provisions, after beaching the canoes beyond the high-water mark. Joe led them to a little pocket of soft green grass which stretched out from the slope of the cliff and through which flowed a clear stream. Beside the brook the grass was all red with the blood-dipped leaves of the painted-cup and purple-and-gold with iris and blue with gentian. Before Joe could stop him, Fred laid down to drink of the clear water from the flowing spring and sprang up with a shout of pain, puffing and blowing like a porpoise.
"It 's boiling hot," he gasped.
"Sure it is, greedy pig!" reproved the Indian. "You come with me to next spring and I get you nice cup of hot chicken soup."
"Say, I 'm in on this!" called Jud, hurrying up.
"Me too!" chimed in Will. "I suppose you 've got a cafeteria hidden somewhere in the rocks.
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After the soup, I 'd like a little vanilla and strawberry ice-cream mixed."
Joe made no reply, but handed each one a tin cup and then commandeering salt and pepper shakers led the way toward the cliff. Some distance from the main stream a smoking spring bubbled out from under a boulder. Its steaming water showed a clear gold. Joe dipped u a cupful, shook in a liberal supply of pepper and salt, stirred it with a stick until it was cool enough to drink, and handed it to Jud, who tasted it warily. An expression of pleased surprise stole over his face, and he tipped his head back and drank and drank until every drop was gone.
"Chicken soup it is!" he said.
In a minute the other two had filled their mugs, and were not satisfied until they had swallowed two or three cups of the clear liquid which, with the addition of seasoning, was hardly to be distinguished from the soup which Joe had named. He could give no explanation of the spring nor from what compound of minerals it had its flavor.
"It always been here," he said. "We used to stop and drink here when crossing over. Winter-time, when cold from long paddle, it taste mighty good."
The boys threw themselves down on the soft grass and attacked the defenceless hamper. Over their heads and around the edges of the cliff whirled and wheeled birds whose variety and rarity delighted the heart of Will, who was the bird expert of his troop. There were skuas, those beautiful pirates of the air, and, up on the rock, nesting murres with black heads and white bodies, looking like rows of champagne bottles as they sat, each one brooding its single egg. Joe told them that the big green eggs of this bird are so tough that the Indians, when they gathered them, threw them into baskets like potatoes, and that the smaller end is long and sharp-pointed, so that, when the wind blows against the cliffs, the eggs move in a circle with the little ends always pointing toward the center instead of rolling off the ledges. Then there were puffins, or sea-parrots, strange birds with triangular bills and the sides of their heads ashy white; and they dig burrows and nest underground. The Leach's petrel, a sooty-brown bird with forked tail having a white patch at its base, was also there--nesting, too, in burrows which ran in under the turf just below the grassroots and ended in a sort of pocket where its single egg was laid. Weill had seen these birds far out at sea on the voyage thither, but had never expected to find them nesting. As they lay watching the swirling clouds of birds streaming above them on the cliff-sides, Will pointed out to them a kittiwake gull, with gleaming white head and tail and pearl-gray wings and back, which was coming in from the sea with a small fish in its beak. Suddenly a dark bird, which had been soaring high in the sky, shot down through the air like a flash straight toward the kittiwake as it flapped leisurely along toward the cliff. Although the stranger flew like a hawk as it neared the water, the boys could plainly see that it was also a dark, blackish-brown gull, with a white band across the under sides of the wings near the tip.
"It 's the jiddy hawk, one of the jaeger gulls," explained Will. "It lives on the fish that other birds catch."
Even as he spoke, the kittiwake gave a startled cry and flew for its life. In and out among the cliffs, twisting and turning, it screamed and flapped and dodged, but always just over it like a black shadow hung its pursuer with long claws stretched out, always threatening, but never striking. Back and forth they went, and still the kittiwake clung to its fish and still the larger gull menaced it from above. At last the jaeger's patience was exhausted, and with a swift flirt of its wings, it made a jab for the kittiwake's head with its harp, hooked beak. The smaller gull managed to dodge the thrust, and then, feeling that there was no use in fighting further against fate, opened its beak and allowed the silvery fish to drop toward the water. There was a flash of brown wings above it, and down through the air whirled the robber-bird and seized the fish in mid-air as neatly as a good fielder scoops in a high fly. The kittiwake, with a mournful squeal, started back to the sea for a fresh supply.
"Some system that!" remarked Jud, admiringly. "Old Mr. Jiddy's fishin' fleet does the workin' and' he does the eatin'."
Just then Will caught sight of a flock of great snowy birds larger than geese, with black wing-tips, which came circling over the cliff a hundred feet above the water.
"Here comes the real fishing fleet!" he exclaimed. "These gulls are dubs compared with them. Just watch that flock of gannets a minute, and you 'll see something pretty."
He had hardly spoken when two of the snowy birds, all luminous in the bright sunlight, suddenly dived from the flock straight down through a hundred feet of space. Their telescopic eyes had seen fish within striking distance in the water below. With long head and neck stretched straight out in front, they balanced themselves with their tails as they went down, whizzing through the air exactly as a human diver would do, and together struck the water with a tremendous splash. Far below the surface they sank, only to come up again, each with a large fish in its sharp beak.
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It was Joe, however, who made the most practical addition to the ornithological discoveries of the day. A flock of small, plump, chubby birds suddenly appeared from nowhere and drifted arund the Argonauts like a cloud of whirling leaves. Springing to his feet, oe seized a long stick in one hand and began to flutter with the other a long bandana, which, with a quick motion, he unwrapped from his neck. As the gay-colored bit of cloth fluttered in the air, the silly, slow-flying birds came close and closer until they were whirling around Joe's head like a swarm of bees. Suddenly dropping the handkerchief, the Indian grasped the stick with both hands and swung it back and forth through the flock with all his might. Before the swarm had time to untangle and fly away, he had laid out fluttering on the beach an even dozen of the plumpest, fattest, roundest birds the boys had ever seen. "Cheekies" Joe called them, but Will recognized them as little auks.
"They best bird to eat in this country," explained Joe, as he hurried over to help the boys secure them. "Indian boys catch them in spring out of air with big nets."
A few moments later, as each of the party wolfed down a fresh-broiled auk, they fully agreed with Joe. Not even the flesh of the ruffed grous or the breast of a wild-celery-fed canvasback duck can compare with the plump, succulent, dark meat of that little auk which so few white men have ever tasted.
Will and Fred would have liked to stay and explore every nook and cranny of Half-Way Island, but dinner was hardly over before Joe was urging them on.
"Long way to go yet," he said. "Wind may come up. Let 's go while goin' 's good."
"Quite right, quite right!" agreed old Jud. "The trouble with you kids is that you always want to be eatin' or loafin'. It 's mighty lucky that you got a hustler along like me," and the old man lay back and smoked his pipe until the canoes were packed and launched.
All that afternoon they paddled on through the maze of islands until at last they came to a long stretch of open sea, beyond which loomed the black bulk of snow-shrouded Akotan, the Island of the Free People. Straight ahead of them the sinking sun made a long golden pathway, and they followed its gleam with hearts as high as those heroes of old, who, with Jason at the helm and Orpheus at the bow, harping them on, smote the wine-colored sea with their oars and drove straight toward the glitter of the Golden Fleece and the beauties and the enchantments and the dangers of that ancient island. In the dimming light, the black outlines of Akotan seemed to snow grim and sinister, and a silence fell upon the little party as they neared the end of their long journey. Had Joe's uncle the Shuman come back into power, and, if not, would white men be permitted to land, or, if once ashore, ever to leave the island? Thoughts like these must have been passing through Joe's mind, but nothing of doubt or anxiety showed in his calm face. As Will watched him, he admired, as he had so often done before, his composure and control. He had the power, which so many white men lack, of slipping on indifference like a mask when vital things were at stake.
As the coast of the island opened up, the boys could see that the foreshore stretched out toward them in a long promontory. On one side of this appeared a narrow opening between towering cliffs, leading into a vast, landlocked bay which stretched far into the interior. Lofty peaks, some snow-crowned and calm, others shrouded in smoke and blackened and barren from hidden fires, guarded the shores of this bay. On the other side of the promontory stretched a belt of small, rocky islands, among which, even on this calm day, the rising tide swelled and roared like a mill-race.
As they neared the shore, Fred had the shock of his life. The silence and the uncertainty and the waiting had been a strain on his nerves, which were not as well attuned to danger as were those of the other three. As he looked anxiously toward the forbidding shores, there sounded a little splash in the water close to the side of the canoe where he was paddling bow. As he turned to look, a round, sleek, dark-brown head shot out of the water not three feet from him and a pair of lustrous brown eyes looked directly into his. To his horrified gaze, it was the head of a man. The hair was sleek and parted by the water, a long moustache drooped over white teeth, and below the brilliant human eyes showed a short, snub nose. In spite of himself, Fred gave a yell and nearly went over into the water.
"Hey! What 's the matter with you?" squawked Jud, from the stern, righting the canoe with difficulty.
"A merman!" gasped Fred, pointing with his paddle at the bobbing head. Even as he moved, it sank out of sight with a plop and there was nothing to be seen but the still green water.
"Merman nothin'1" shouted Jud who had caught a glimpse of the apparition. "It 's only an old hair-seal. They 'll often come up around a boat near shore in this latitude. Say, son," he went on, looking critically at Fred who was shaking all over, "you want to buck up and not have these nervous spells. A hair-seal is about as dangerous as a hair-sofa. If that scares you,
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"Back and forth they went, and still the kittiwake clung to its fish"
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what 'll you do on shore among all the ragin', howlin', slaughterin' Indians that we 're goin' to meet?"
"Well, if it was only a seal, why did it wink at me as it went down?" gasped poor Fred.
Before Jud could answer, Joe from the leading canoe held up his hand for silence. They were nearing a cleft in the rock which led to the inner bay and which was the only entrance to the island. Beyond the point where the tide-rips lashed the rocky islets, the shores of the island came down in lofty cliffs of dark granite, against which the surf boomed and dashed, leaving no landing even for a small boat. These sentinel cliffs, with the raging packs of breakers at their feet, extended all the way around Akotan. The only entrance to the island by winter or summer was through the narrow crooked pass into the landlocked bay.
As they approached nearer and nearer to the gateway, Joe, who was leading, paddled slower and slower, and at last, when they were close to the rift in the rocks, stopped altogether. As the canoes drifted on the water, he raised his paddle high in the air and gave a strange, wailing call which echoed back and forth among the rocks. Hardly had the echoes died away, when a group of men on either side of the little strait stepped out into sight. Some were armed with rifles of the most modern make, others carried short, heavy bows made of whale-bone and wrapped with sinew. As the boys were to learn afterward, this gate was guarded by day and night, nor could any one safely enter without signaling their approach.
For long Joe talked with the leader of the nearest group, a spare, dark, wiry man, with Japanese features, who finally dismissed his attendants and beckoned the canoes to follow him as he walked along the ledges that overhung the narrow channel.
"It all right," said Joe, as the canoes came abreast. "That Haidahn. He old friend of my father and now one of chiefs. He say that Great Chief has come back. He send him word, and we stay in guest-lodge until he see us."
"In through the narrow, crooked pass, which one man could hold unseen against a regiment, they went. Finally, both canoes grounded on a little beach where Haidahn was waiting for them with several attendants. As oe presented the whole party, the chief received them with the dignity and reserve of a prince. To their surprise, Haidahn spoke excellent, although rather old-fashioned, English, which Joe told them he had learned when traveling with some of the arctic explorers in his youth.
The canoes and outfit were left to the attendants, and Haidahn led the way through a little Indian village to the guest-lodge, a large tepee with a totem-pole in front of it. Inside blazed a fire whose smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, while all around were clean, comfortable couches of various furs and skins. There the party rested while Joe explained to them that they would not have the freedom of the village until they had seen the great chief and received permission from his own lips to remain.
"When will that be?" inquired Will.
"Probably right away," said Joe.
Sure enough, after a substantial meal which the chief's attendants brought them, Haidahn himself came to them in the long twilight which faded and dimmed, but never seemed to deeper entirely into dark. A half-moon showed pale against the deep, pulsing, black-violet of the sky as they followed a little winding path which twisted like a snake in and out among knolls and sand-dunes, but always led away from the village, until the barking of the dogs and the shrill tones of the tribe had died away into silence. Suddenly, around the bend, the whole party stood facing the land-locked bay into which they had come a few hours before. In front of them towered a vast peak. Its flanks were black with the iron blackness of naked rock, and its sudden stern girth seemed grim and menacing. Its head was hidden in a cloud of black smoke, shot now and then with the lurid gleam of hidden fires. Even as they looked, the mountain muttered with a deep, harsh, bellowing note that echoed terribly across the deserted bay. At the sound, Will thought of that other mountain which could not be touched, of the Pillar of Cloud of fire and of that Voice so dreadful that those who heard it fell upon their faces and besought that it should speak no more. To-night there came to all of them the thrill of an unearthly horror, as the deep mutter of the sleeping volcano sounded down from the lowering sky. In silence they stole along the edge of the bay, and once again that fearful voice spoke from the clouds and the vast peak seemed to shake and tremble.
"Shishaldin speaks to-night," whispered the chief, stretching a trembling hand toward the mountain. "This has not happened in my time. It means there be great things afoot."
In the half-light they could see ahead of them a low building set against the side of a sand-dune and facing the bay and the dreadful head of Shishaldin.
"The lodge of the great chief," whispered Joe.
It was built of flat slabs of cedar, with a ridge-pole and two slanting cross-beams at either end and without nail or peg, all the beams being cunningly spliced together with strips of hide and
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roping of cedar-bark. In front of the peak of the roof towered a mighty totem-pole fifty feet high. Its back fitted into the front of the lodge, and it was formed of two enormous serpents, facing in opposite directions and carved out of the solid wood. The open jaws of the lower one, some six feet from the ground, gaped horribly, with blood-red fangs five feet apart, and was the only entrance to the lodge. Haidahn led the way to where a notched log led up to the ghastly opening. At the foot of this rude ladder old Jud paused.
"I ain't so fond of snakes," he remonstrated, "that I want to crawl into one's mouth."
The chief was much incensed.
"Come or go!" he hissed from the top of the ladder, motioning to the open jaws and then pointing to the back track. Jud was no quitter.
"I 'll come all right," he returned, picking his way carefully up the notched log, "but I want to say, Mr. High Darn, that I don't think much of your taste in doorways."
Inside was a long room floored with flat cedar slabs and covered with skins. In front of a smoldering fire, on a raised couch covered with heavy furs, sat cross-legged and motionless as a carven image the imposing figure of an old man. He had a huge, massive head, while his face made the boys think of the pictures of Julius Cæsar in their histories. There was the same aquiline nose, tight, thin lips, and air of haughty calm which showed in the face of that other great chief. For some time the little party stood in front of the old man in silence. His hair was white as snow and he sat with shut eyes, so that the boys thought him either blind or asleep. At last, in a voice of amazing depth and resonance, he spoke in English.
"Where you come from, and why?" he questioned.
There was a pause. Then Joe stepped forward.
"I brought them, O Great Chief," he said. At the first sound of his voice the old man stirred slightly and his eyes flashed open, bright and of a lustrous black which contrasted vividly with the whiteness of his hair.
"By what right?" boomed the voice again, while outside the muttering note of dread shishaldin sounded once more.
"By the right of my blood," returned Joe, proudly.
"Show me the sign," commanded the voice again.
(from St. Nicholas Magazine, March 1920, pp. 444-450)
CHAPTER V THE LIFE ADVENTUROUS
In the half-light, with a quick motion the Indian boy pulled open his flannel shirt, exposing his bare breast. Just over the heart a curling, twisted, red mark showed. Will remembered that he had seen it often while scouting with Joe in the days when, stripped to the skin, they had started out to win the cabin for the Troop. He had always supposed it to be some kind of a birth-mark, and, knowing an Indian's sensitiveness in regard to such matters, had never even spoken of it to his companion. To-night, as Joe leaned forward so that the flickering firelight shone full upon him, the tattooed totem of the intertwined serpents stood out in bold relief against his brown skin. The great chief looked at it with eyes that seemed to gleam and glow like the flames that leaped up in the dark. Suddenly rising to his feet with a quick, lithe motion, he towered over the boy for a moment, and, resting his hands on both of the lad's shoulders, looked long and deep into his eyes and spoke to him in the sonorous Chippewa tongue, which only Jud and Joe understood.
"Ilyamna!" he said at last, while a note of tenderness through his deep voice. "They told me that thou hadst come back, but I would not believe it until I had seen thee and the sign with my own eyes. Be thou welcome, and thy friends, to thy home and thy tribe."
"It is indeed my tribe. O my father," returned the boy, in the same language, "but my home is now near the rising sun. I have journeyed from there with these my friends to be glad that thou art still living and to ask thy help to find what thou and I once did seek." And the boy's voice lowered until the last words were almost in a whisper.
There was a long silence.
"What thou askest is now not mine to give," finally returned the chief. "To-day only those may go to Goreloi, the Island of the Bear, who prove themselves worthy. Once there, he who will may seek. Whether he find or not is for the gods to say. I know," he went on, laying a great arm, knotted and gnarled like the trunk of some old tree, caressingly across the boy's shoulders, "that thou wilt prove thyself worthy, and I hope that thy friends journey with thee. One moon from now, those who be chosen will go. Until then, thou and thine shall dwell in the guest-lodge and Haidahn and Negrouac shall teach and test thee and them." Sinking down on his couch again before the fire, the old chief closed his eyes wearily in token that the audience was over.
The five walked in silence for some time after they had left the lodge of the shuman. Something of the mystery and the gloom and the power of the great chief still remained with them. Furthermore, the rest of the Argonauts found themselves regarding Joe with an entirely different feeling from what they had ever had before. It was disconcerting suddenly to find that the boy with whom they had played and joked at home was a prince of the blood royal. Even Will, who knew Joe better than any of the others, and Jud, who had the profoundest disrespect for any and all Indians, found themselves uncon-
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sciously treating him with a certain amount of deference, while Haidahn, proud chief as he was, ever since the shuman had publicly recognized the boy Ilyamna as of his blood, was almost humble when he spoke to him.
Although it was only an hour or so after midnight, yet in those high latitudes the sky was already light. Far away, near the entrance to Oonimak Pass, through which they had come, they could see the snow-covered head of Mount Lituya towering dead and dumb, while just across the bay, all black and blood-red, the vast volcano of Shishaldin muttered to itself. At a great flat rock, which faced the bay at a long distance from the great chief's dwelling, they sat down, while Joe told them what he had said.
"It means," said Will, at last, in a low voice, "that no one goes to the island who has n't proved his courage."
Joe nodded silently.
It was Fred who relieved the situation. "That lets me out," he said disconsolately. "I 'm one of the best cowards in the world. Anyway, you took me along on account of my running."
From that night they lived in the guest-lodge. Every day Haidahn called soon after the morning meal and guided them on hunting trips farther and farther into the wild interior of the island or on fishing voyages through the troubled seas that beat against the rocky shores of Akotan. By degrees, Jud and the boys became acquainted with many of the prominent warriors and chiefs. They all differed from each other, not only in appearance and disposition, but in some cases even in race. A century before, this Athabascan tribe had taken refuge on the island from the Russian freebooters and fur-collectors who had oppressed them. After they had won for themselves the title of the Free People, many adventurous spirits flocked to them from different tribes. Those who showed themselves worthy were taken into the tribe, and many of them became chiefs and rose to high rank in the council of the Free People. Among these was Negouac, with whom the boys became much more intimate than they ever did with Haidahn. He was short and swarthy, with a wide, smiling face, and was nearly as broad as he was high. He called himself an Innuit, which Jud explained was the same as an Eskimo. Negouac proved to be a man of enormous strength and of a wandering, adventurous disposition. As Haidahn's time was more taken up with the affairs of the tribe, it was Negouac who at last accompanied them on all of their trips. Unknown to themselves, the Argonauts were being tried and trained for the tests which later would decide whether any or all of them would go to Goreloi.
The first of the every-day adventures of the Argonauts came one stormy morning. All night long a gale had howled in from the southeast and the surf boomed and bellowed against the cliffs. As the boys sat down to breakfast, a new sound came from the sea, which drowned even the boom of the surf. It was a deep bass roar, with that curious subterranean quality which can be heard in the roar of a full-grown lion. First one, and then another, and then a