The Young Alaskans, Emerson Hough [the chimp paradox .txt] 📗

eight or ten pounds in weight, which in that part of the world are never known to take any kind of lure.

In a few minutes Rob, having found a longish pole in the grass near by, had hurriedly bound with a piece of cod-line the three large hooks at the end so that they made a gang or gaff. Taking this, and rolling up his trousers high as he could, he waded into the shallow, ice-cold water.

“Where are they now?” he asked of the others, who remained on the bank.

“There they come—there’s a school coming now!” cried Jesse.

All at once Rob could see the surface of the water below him just barely moving in low, silvery ripples as though a faint wind touched it. A sort of metallic lustre seemed to hang above the water—the reflection from the bright scales of the many fish swimming close to the surface. Presently, as he looked into the water directly at his feet, he could see scores of large, ghostly looking creatures, pale green or silvery, passing slowly by him, some of them so close as almost to touch his legs as he stood motionless. Once or twice he struck with his gaff, but the quick motions of the fish foiled him; and it looked as though the boys would wait some time for their breakfast, after all. At last, however, he waded closer to the shore and half hid behind a bush, extending his gaff in front of him with the hooks resting on the bottom.

“Now, drive them over this way—throw in some stones,” he directed.

The others did as he said, and all at once Rob saw the water directly in front of him full of a mass of confused fish. A quick jerk, and he had a fine, fat fish fast, and the next instant it was flopping on the bank, while all three of them fell upon it with eager cries.

“Now another!” said Rob. “They may not be running all day.”

He returned to his hiding-place near the bush, and thus in a few minutes he had secured a half-dozen splendid fish.

“That will do for now,” said he. “What do you think of the chance for breakfast now, Mister John?”

John grinned happily. He already had a couple of the fish nicely cleaned.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Jesse, “after we’ve had breakfast we’ll catch a lot of these fat ones and split them open the way the Indians do. I think we could make a smoking-rack for them without much trouble.”

“Capital,” said Rob. “We ought to dry some fish when we have the chance, because no one can tell how long we may have to live here.”

“But we won’t do anything till after breakfast,” said John, looking up.

“No,” laughed Rob, “I’m just as hungry as you are. So now let’s build a little fire and, since we have no frying-pan as yet, do what we can at broiling some salmon steaks on sticks.”

It was not the first time they had cooked fish in this way, and although they sadly missed the salt to which they were accustomed, they made a good breakfast from salmon and a cracker or so apiece, which Rob doled out to them from their scanty supply.

“We ought to keep what we have as long as we can,” said Rob. “For instance, we’ve only a couple of boxes of matches, and we must not waste one if we can help it. We’ll look around after awhile and see if we can scare up a frying-pan. But now I move that the first thing we do be to explore our country just a little bit.”

“Agreed,” said John, who was now well fed and contented. “Suppose we walk down to the mouth of the creek over there.”

Following along the winding shores of the small stream, which here at high tide was not above the level of the sea, they found themselves finally at the angle between the creek and the open bay, beyond the end of the low sea-wall which has earlier been mentioned. The creek here turned in sharply toward the foot of the mountain, and across from where the boys stood a sheer rock wall rose several hundred feet. This shut off the view of a part of the bay on that side, but in other directions they could see the white-topped waves rolling, eight or ten miles across to the farther side, where there were many other bays making back among the mountains.

Out in the bay where the stream emptied, schools of salmon, apparently thousands in number, were flinging themselves into the air as they started toward the mouth of the creek. At the last angle of the stream, where it turned against the rock wall, there was a pool perhaps fifty feet across and twenty feet in depth, and as the boys looked down into this it seemed literally packed with hundreds and thousands of great salmon, which swam around and around before picking out the current of the stream up which they were to swim.

“Here’s fish enough for us whenever we want any,” said Rob. “We can catch them here without much trouble, I think.”

“I don’t know, we may not be so badly off here for a while, after all,” admitted John.

“Just look at the gulls,” said Jesse, idly shying a pebble at one great bird as it came screaming along close above them, to join its kind in the great flocks that circled around above the salmon, which they were helpless to feed upon, not being equipped with beak and talons like the eagles.

“Yes,” said Rob, “thousands of them. And every pair of them with a nest somewhere, and every nest with two eggs, and a good many of them good to eat. Do you see those tall, ragged rocks out there? That looks to me like their nesting-ground.”

“But we can’t get there,” said John, pointing to the creek.

“Oh yes, we can, in two ways. We could wade the creek up above and climb across the shoulder of the mountain there, and maybe cross the next creek beyond, and so get out to those rocks on the point below. Or we can launch the dory up above and come down the coast to the mouth of the creek, and then skirt the shore over there.”

“Why don’t we bring our boat over here and take it up the creek?” asked Jesse. “We wouldn’t have to row more than a mile or so, and then we’d always know our boat was safe.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Rob. “We’ll do that this very day. Suppose we go back now to the house.”

They now turned and began slowly to walk up the creek again. Suddenly Rob stooped down and parted the grass, looking closely at something on the ground.

“What is it, Rob?” asked John, joining him.

The two now pushed the grass apart and looked down eagerly. Rob rose to his knees and pushed the cap back on his forehead.

“If I didn’t know better,” said he, “I’d call that the track of an elephant or a mastodon or something. See, there it goes, all along the shore.”

“But it can’t be an elephant,” said Jesse.

“No, it can’t be anything but just what it is—the track of a bear! What Uncle Dick said is true. Look, this track is more than half as long as my arm.”

“We’d better get back to the house as quick as we can,” said Jesse, anxiously. “That bear may come back any minute!”

IX THE BIG BEAR OF KADIAK

The three now started up the creek toward the barabbara, their steps perhaps a little quicker than when they came down-stream. Rob was scanning the mountain-side carefully, and looking as well at the sign along the creek bank.

“That’s where he lives, up in that cañon across the creek, very likely,” he said, at length. “Here’s where he crossed in the shallow water, and last night he fished all along this bank. My! I’ll bet he’s full of bones to-day. It’s the first run of fish, and he was so hungry he ate pretty near everything except the backbone.” He pointed to a dozen skeletons of salmon that lay half hidden in the grass. The latter was trampled down as though cows had been in pasture there.

“I don’t know,” said Jesse, soberly. “I always wanted to kill a bear, and there’s three of us now and we’ve got guns; but I don’t believe I ever wanted to kill a bear quite as big as this one. Why, he could smash in the door of our house in the night and eat us up if he wanted to.”

“We’ll eat him, that’s what we’ll do,” said John, decisively. “I only wish we had a kettle or a frying-pan or something.”

“Seems to me you’d better get the bear first,” said Jesse. “But we might look in among the traps in the back of the hut and see what we can find. These hunters nearly always leave some kind of cooking things at their camps.”

Sure enough, when the boys entered the barabbara to look after their rifles, and began to rummage among the piles of klipsies which they found thrown back under the eaves, they unearthed a broken cast-iron frying-pan and, what caused them even greater delight, a little, dirty sack, which contained perhaps three or four pounds of salt. They sat on the grass of the floor and looked at one another with broad smiles. “If everything keeps up as lucky as this,” said Jesse, “we’ll be ready to keep house all right pretty soon. But ought we to use these things that don’t belong to us?”

“Surely we may,” answered Rob. “It is always the custom in a wild country for any one who is lost and in need to take food when he finds it, and to use a camp as though it were his own. Of course we mustn’t waste anything or carry anything off, but while we’re here we’ll act as though this place were ours, and if any one finds us here we’ll pay for what we use. That’s the Alaska way, as you know.”

“You’re not going out after that big bear, are you?” asked Jesse, anxiously, of Rob.

“Of course; we’re all going! What are these new rifles for—just look, brand-new high-power Winchesters, every one—and any one of these guns will shoot as hard for us as for a grown man.”

They sat for some time in the hut discussing various matters. At last John crawled to the door and looked out. He was rather a matter-of-fact boy in his way, and there seemed no special excitement in his voice as he remarked: “Well, Rob, there comes your bear.”

The others hurried to the door. Sure enough, upon the bare mountain slope beyond the lagoon, nearly half a mile away, there showed plainly enough the body of an enormous bear, large as a horse. It was one of the great Kadiak bears, which are the biggest of all the world.

“Cracky!” said Jesse; “he looks pretty big to me. Do you suppose he’ll find us here in the house?”

Rob, the oldest of the three, who had been on one or two hunts with his father, looked serious as he watched this giant animal advancing down the hill-side with its long, reaching stride. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. “Look!” said he; “there’s two more just come out of the brush. It’s an old she bear and her cubs coming down to fish!”

All could now see the three bears, the great, yellow-gray mother, huge and shaggy, and the two cubs, darker in color and, of course, much smaller, although each was as large as the ordinary black bear of the United States. Certainly it was an exciting moment as the