The aeroplane was loosely crated for the journey, and early in the month of July the Scouts took the train for their second trip from Skagway to White Horse. Upon their arrival at the end of their three hours" journey, Colonel Snow, Rand and Swift.w.a.ter repaired to a nearby Siwash village, to which the wounded chief had been conveyed upon their return from Gold Creek and found him nearly recovered from his injury.
He showed considerable satisfaction at meeting them, and was evidently very grateful to Swift.w.a.ter and the boys for their kindness to him. He said the return of the ancient tribal relic had greatly rejoiced the members of the tribe, and had aroused great interest among the older men in the old legends attached to the heirloom. These had to do with a great wealth of ivory which had been stored in a cave at the top of a cliff during a tribal war over a hundred years before, and that this cave was in the mountains which "ended near the Great Water." As near as Swift.w.a.ter could make out the mountains referred to were either the great Alaskan range which swings in a semicircle across the territory from the international boundary on the Yukon, where the range bears the name of Nuzotin, west to Cook Inlet, an arm of the North Pacific Ocean or the Chugach or Kenai ranges nearer the coast. Four great peaks are features of the Alaskan range, chief of them being Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in all America--20,464 feet--until recently unconquered by any of the ambitious mountain climbers who have attacked it.
The chief said further that some of his young men were ambitious to hunt for this peak, and that he himself would go with them over into the Cook Inlet region for the salmon fishing, and later would take up a search through the mountains aided by a remnant of the tribe which still haunts that section. He promised Rand that should the treasure be found he would share with the boys who had returned their ancient relic to the village.
While Colonel Snow had little faith in the existence of the cave or the possibility of its rediscovery, he saw that the spirit of adventure was aroused in the boys, and as he proposed that they should see as much as possible of Alaska, and as he himself must later visit the copper mining region he made an arrangement to meet the chief at Seward in the Kenai Peninsula, the end of the military cable to Seattle, late in August.
The Indians greatly desired that the boys should visit their village that night for a "potlatch," but as they could not do so the villagers insisted on presenting each of the party with a handsome hand woven blanket, the manufacture of which is the chief native industry.
Meantime, the other boys had paid a visit to the Custom House to give bond for their airship, but as the collector could find nothing of the kind on the tariff list, as none had ever been entered at a Yukon customs house, he concluded it was exempt and allowed it free entry.
"I see that the members of your Congress insist that a protective tariff is for the primary purpose of preventing foreign compet.i.tion with home industries. As I do not believe that you will find an aviation industry on the Yukon, I guess I am safe in letting you take your machine through."
The boys also visited the police barracks and found their three friends of the forest patrol whom they again heartily thanked. At seven o"clock, at what would have been night anywhere else, they went aboard the "Yukoner"
with the aeroplane, and an hour later cast off lines for Dawson. Here another exhibition was made, and under Swift.w.a.ter"s guidance a visit paid to the mining camps.
CHAPTER XIII.
DOWN THE RIVER TO NOME.
Two days later, Colonel Snow and the boys, accompanied by Swift.w.a.ter, having taken leave of their new made friends at Dawson, embarked on a small launch (a new importation from the States) and started on a leisure trip down the Yukon, intending to use this means of river travel as far as the military post at Fort Gibbon, at the mouth of the Tanana, up which river Swift.w.a.ter was to proceed to the Fairbanks mining district, the latest discovered and most important in Alaska.
Colonel Snow"s plan was to drop down the river in the swift motor boat, stopping at several army posts where he had friends, some of whom had come up from Seattle with the party and had extended the hospitalities of the various posts to them. They had left the crated aeroplane at Dawson with other heavy baggage to come down on the large river steamer Amelia, which was not due on its first trip up from St. Michael"s for nearly a week, and which would overtake them on its return trip down the river at Fort Gibbon, another United States Army post.
The first stop of the party was to be at Eagle, a small, but prosperous town, on the boundary line between Alaska and Yukon territory, containing the most northerly custom house of the United States. Here they were to "declare" the aeroplane and the property they were to bring back into the United States and satisfy the customs authorities that it was all of American manufacture, after which it would be examined and pa.s.sed when the "Amelia" came along. Adjoining the town of Eagle is the army post of Fort Egbert, garrisoned by two companies of infantry, and here Colonel Snow proposed to spend the night with his brother officers as their first stopping place.
The distance from Dawson to Eagle is about 150 miles, but the high powered launch they had secured with a crew of two, running down stream made easily thirty miles an hour, and they expected to reach their destination early in the afternoon.
"Colonel, if ye don"t mind," said Swift.w.a.ter, "I"d like to stop off an hour or so up at Forty-mile, jest above here."
"Certainly," replied the Colonel, "we"re making first-cla.s.s progress and shall have plenty of time to reach Eagle before night. There"s a wireless station and a line of military telegraph to the coast at Eagle, and I simply desire to get there early enough to get off some dispatches to Washington before the post telegraph office closes."
"W-w-hat"s "Forty-mile?" I"ve heard of "Forty-rod," but never of "Forty-mile,"" remarked Pepper flippantly.
"Wa-al," drawled the miner, "they was pretty near synon"mous, as you say, when I first knew the place. Forty-mile is the only civilized place of habitation between Dawson and Eagle. It"s on the Yukon side of the river, and is a trading station for the Forty-mile mining district, the first real gold mining region opened up in this region. It was the scene of my early triumphs as a "sourdough" after I left the whaling business, and I "mushed" into it in the winter along with Dowling, the great mail carrier of this region, who carried the mail up the Yukon on the ice, with a dog team, nine hundred miles between Dawson and Fort Gibbon once a month.
"I got a good paying claim on Forty-mile Creek and took out so much rich gravel that winter that after I cleaned up in the spring I got an idea that I didn"t need any more, and sold out and hiked for the States. It didn"t last long, and I had to come back, but not up here. I thought I"d like to stop for an hour or so and see if any of my old partners were here."
There was little of interest at Forty-mile, except the big warehouses of the trading companies, but they had dinner ash.o.r.e, and Swift.w.a.ter managed to find among the scanty population one or two of his old comrades, who had given up the search for gold and were content to work for the trading companies. A rapid but uneventful run during the afternoon brought them to Eagle, where they were greeted with delight by the three hundred or more citizens, and the few army officers, who, after welcoming the party, carried the Colonel off to the barracks, the boys being quartered in the only hotel of the place, run by the postmistress of the town, who had formerly been a school teacher in the States, and who made the boys" stay delightfully homelike.
Desiring to make Circle the next day, a distance of nearly two hundred miles by the river, they left Eagle at an early hour after taking on board a supply of fuel of a rather questionable character, for which they had to pay a heavy price. The trading companies said that this was the second launch that had visited Eagle and the demand for high-grade fuel was not great.
"Say, boys, what is "mush"?" asked Jack, suddenly, as they sped down the river.
"C-c-cornmeal, salt and water, boiled," promptly spoke up Pepper, who was the expert on most things edible.
"It"s what we make de pone an" de hoecake of, honey," corrected Rand.
"I dunno," broke in Don, "but I hear it"s some foolish subst.i.tute for oatmeal porridge."
"My uncle feeds the chickens lots of it out on his farm," insisted d.i.c.k.
"Here, here," cried Jack, as soon as he could get in a word. "My mind isn"t constantly on the menu. It"s queer how a young man"s fancy constantly turns to something to eat at any time of day. I"m talking of some word that Swift.w.a.ter used yesterday, referring to Forty-mile."
"Better ask him," suggested Rand, "he"s an awful good explainer."
The miner, who had been talking with Colonel Snow about the value of Alaska mining investments in various districts, heard his name mentioned and turned with a smile.
"What"s Swift.w.a.ter"s latest crime?" he asked.
"We wanted to know what you meant by the word "mush" you used yesterday,"
said Jack.
"Oh, that means simply gettin" somewhere; jest walkin" which, I might say, has been up to this time the chief means of communication in this big Alaska. I don"t know where the word come from, but it was here when I arrived. I always supposed it was Eskimo. The whole Eskimo language, before I learned it, used to sound to me like a mouthful of it. However, a young feller who was up here some years ago, a newspaper man like you (he was with a party of United States senators), gave me a new idea on the matter. He showed me that the most of Alaska that wasn"t forest and mountain and rock was just a soft wet spongy mat of roots and gra.s.s and moss that every step on it just pernounced the word."
"Ah, you mean McClain," exclaimed Colonel Snow. "I"ve read his work, and it is the most lucid, modest, and understandable descriptive work on the Alaskan country that has yet appeared."
The low grade fuel and inferior oil which they had taken aboard at Eagle had its effect on the engine which showed signs of "laying down," as the engineer said, several times during the day. Finally, after a peculiarly vicious splutter the motor "backfired," setting the oil soaked dungarees of the engineer aflame, and promptly "died." The engineer did not hesitate with so much oil and gasoline around him, but went over the side into the Yukon with one hand on the gunwale and, as soon as his burning clothing was soaked, was helped aboard again by his companion.
It became absolutely necessary to clean the engine, and while one of the boys kept the launch in the middle of the river as it drifted, with an oar, the others rolled up their sleeves, and with the knowledge gained from their aeroplane motors, aided the steersman to disconnect and clean the machinery. Meantime the engineer arrayed himself in dry clothing.
"Well, well," said he, as he came out of the cabin, "I didn"t know we had a group of experts aboard. I supposed the aviator that went up yesterday knew all about it, but this help will save us about an hour"s time, and we haven"t been getting any too much speed out of her to-day."
The engine behaved excellently for the rest of the day, and about five o"clock in the afternoon they landed at the town of Circle.
They found it a village of a couple of hundred, the supply point for the Birch Creek mining region.
At an early hour the next morning they were again on the bosom of the river, the engine having again been cleaned and "nursed" as the engineer described it for the day. The river had begun to widen and the bank to fall to almost a dead level just before reaching Circle the night before, and they now entered upon a dreary expanse of tundra or flat marsh land covered with a meager growth of willow and stunted birch. The river spread out to a width of nearly a dozen miles, dividing into many channels surrounding small bushy islands and rendering navigation very difficult.
The wheelman, who was an old river pilot, was thoroughly acquainted with what he called the "Yukon flats," and managed to elude the sandbars and sunken islands with considerable dexterity.
"The trouble is," he confided to Swift.w.a.ter, "that this old river is closed six months in the year, and we never can tell whether we"re goin"
to find any of it here when the ice goes out in the spring. It wanders "round as if it had no home or mother, and where we find a twenty-foot channel this fall there may be a dusty wagon road next spring."
At nine o"clock in the forenoon, Swift.w.a.ter rose and stepped onto the roof of the cabin and scanned the far-off sh.o.r.e intently. Suddenly, he turned to the interested Scouts, and removing his broad brim made a mock bow and said impressively:
"Young fellows, let me welcome you to the Frigid Zone; we have just crossed Arctic Circle."
"Wha--wha--where is it?" cried Pepper excitedly.
"Where"s what?" asked Swift.w.a.ter.
"Th-the Circle."
"All in your imagination, if you"ll remember back to your geography,"
replied the miner, with a smile, while the other boys who were slightly awed by the new situation, for a moment, gave a hearty laugh.