The Young Alaskans by Emerson Hough (best novels to read to improve english .TXT) 📖

be able to go inside, hunting, before long,” said Jesse, stoutly. “My father doesn’t care if I go with him.”

“How would you like to go over to Kadiak with me?” asked Uncle Dick, directly, looking at them keenly from his gray eyes.

“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Rob. The three gathered round him.

“Are you going over there right away?” asked Jesse, staring up at him.

Uncle Dick nodded. “Same boat,” he answered. “I’m going on with the Yucatan to Seward, and will take the Nora from there to Kadiak. Chance of your life to spend the summer, if your mothers will say the word. And not to hurry you any, you’ve got just about an hour and a quarter to get ready—that is to say, to get consent and get ready both.”

The three boys hardly stopped to hear the last of his words. They were off, running at top speed across the long sidewalk toward the town. Uncle Dick followed them at his leisure, talking and telling the news to his acquaintances, of whom he had many in the town. He explained to these that the government work in soundings would be done by the revenue cutter Bennington, along the shores of Kadiak Island, for the next four months. Now, although to those unfamiliar with Alaska, Valdez may seem as far away as Kadiak, the latter really is some hundreds of miles farther to the northwest, and near the base of that long peninsula which tapers to a point in the Aleutian Islands. A dweller in a coast town in Alaska knows what goes on immediately about him. There were few in Valdez who knew more of Kadiak than they did of Kamchatka.

“G’long there, ye young rascals!” called out a hearty voice at the fleeing boys. Captain John Ryan waved a cap toward them as he came down the gang-plank. But the boys, usually ready enough to visit with him on his stops at Valdez, were now too much excited to more than wave their hands as they disappeared.

“So ye’re plannin’ to take the rascals along with us, west, are ye?” asked Captain John Ryan of Uncle Dick. “A summer out there would be the makin’ of the youngsters.”

Uncle Dick’s eyes wrinkled in a smile as he and the sturdy sea-captain started on down and walked to the town. At the farther end they were met by the three boys and by three nice-looking ladies, each prosperous-looking and well dressed, and each bearing a very anxious expression of countenance.

“I tell you it’s absolutely absurd, Richard,” began one of these, as they approached—“your putting such notions into the heads of these boys.”

“It’s all utterly impossible, of course,” said Rob’s mother, in turn, her mouth closing tightly as she looked around at her son.

Mrs. Wilcox said less, but kept her hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “What would you do at night with no one to see you safe in bed, my son?” said she, at length.

“Oh, mother!” began Jesse, shamefacedly.

“I’ll take care of the boys,” said Uncle Dick, at length. “I won’t mollycoddle them, and they will have to shift for themselves, but I’ll see that they get through all right. Think it over, good people. It will be the making of the kids.”

“Oh, well now, Richard,” began Mrs. Hardy, once more, “how do we know when you are coming back?”

“You don’t know. I don’t know myself.”

“But these boys have to go to school.”

“Oh, I’ll get them back in time for the fall term. Boats are coming down from Kadiak every month or so.”

“But they say the storms out that way are perfectly frightful,” began Mrs. McIntyre.

“We’ll not be in any storms. The cutter Bennington anchors in the harbors, and, besides, the boys will be ashore in town at Kadiak. You don’t suppose that Uncle Sam will let me have them around underfoot all the time, do you? I’ll have something else to do.”

“But what could the boys do, then?” inquired Mrs. McIntyre.

“Nothing much. Hunt seals and otters and whales and bears, and a few little things like that—catch more codfish and salmon than they ever thought of around here—go boat-riding with the Aleuts—”

“In those tippy bidarkas?”

“Tippy bidarkas,” nodded Uncle Dick; “and go egg-hunting on the gull rocks, and all sorts of things. Why, they’d have the time of their lives, that’s all.”

“But not one of the boys has a father at home now to advise in the matter,” hesitated Jesse’s mother. “They are all inside, and won’t be back for a week.”

“They’ll all be back just a week too late,” answered Uncle Dick. “In about three-quarters of an hour from now, as Captain Ryan here will advise you, we start; and these boys, I think, will be on board the Yucatan headed for Kadiak. You want to remember that this is Alaska, and that these are Alaskan boys. They’ve got to grow up knowing how to take care of themselves in this country. They’re not sissies, with red morocco shoes and long yellow curls—they’re the stuff we’ve got to make men out of up here. How’d Alaska ever have been found, in the first place, if there hadn’t been real men raised from real boys?”

“Oh, well!” began Mrs. McIntyre; and each of the other ladies echoed, “Oh, well!”

“Oh, well!” echoed Uncle Dick. “I’ll tell you what: you had better hurry back home and get their blankets rolled, and an extra pair of shirts and some spare socks thrown together. And, boys, the best thing you can do is to go down to the store and get some ammunition. We can get all the grub we want from the ship’s stores out at Kadiak. Now, excuse me, ladies, but don’t take my time arguing this matter, because I’ve got several things to do; and the boat’s going to start inside of an hour, and we’re going to start with her!”

Sure enough, when at last the heavy boom of the Yucatan’s warning whistle caused the window glass along the main street to tremble, a little party once more wended its way down the sidewalk toward the wharf. Uncle Dick led the way, earnestly talking with three very grave and anxious mothers. Behind him, perfectly happy, and shouting excitedly to one another, came Rob, Jesse, and John. Each carried a rifle in its case, and each looked excitedly now and then at the wagon which was carrying their bundles of luggage to the wharf.

“All aboard!” called the mate at the head of the gang-plank, laying hold of the side lines and waiting to pull it in. Again came the heavy whistle of the ocean steamer. The little group now broke apart; and in a moment the boys, somewhat sobered now, were waving their farewells to the mothers, who stood, anxious and tearful, on the dock.

“Cast off, there!” came the hoarse order from the captain’s bridge.

“Ay, ay, sir!” rejoined the mate, repeating the command to the dock hands. Slowly the great propeller began to churn the green water astern into white. The bow of the great vessel slowly swung, and majestically she headed on her way out to the mouth of the bay. Clouds of white gulls followed her, dipping and soaring. Once more her whistle saluted the town from which she departed, its note echoing deeply from the steep fronts of the adjacent mountains. The wheelsman laid the course straight for the mouth of the gap between the outer mountains which marked the mouth of the bay. In less than an hour the bold headlands were passed. Beyond rolled the white-topped swells of the sea, across which lay none might tell how much of adventure.

“Now,” said Rob, turning to his friends, “maybe we’ll see something of the world.”

III THE JOURNEY TO THE NORTH

The good ship Yucatan steadily ploughed her way along the rock-bound Alaskan coast until, at noon of the second day, she nosed her way into the entrance of that great indentation of the coast known as Resurrection Bay, and finally concluded her own northbound journey at the docks of the town of Seward, which lies at the head of that harbor. Here the voyagers were to change to a smaller vessel, the sturdy little craft called the Nora, which was to carry them still farther northward and westward. The young travellers, although before this they had known Alaska to be a great country, now began to think that they had not dreamed how large it really was, for Uncle Dick advised them that they would need to steam almost a week yet farther before they could arrive at Kadiak harbor.

Once out of Resurrection Bay on their journey to the farther north, they began to see sights strange even to them, long as they had been used to Alaska. Hundreds of sea-lions crowded some lofty rocks not far beyond the entrance to the bay, roaring and barking at the ship as she steamed close in to the rocks, and plunging off in scores as the whistles of the boat aroused and frightened them from their basking in the sun.

Rob’s eyes proved keener than those of his friend, and he was always looking out across the sea in search of some strange object.

“What’s that, Mr. Dick?” he exclaimed, after he had been gazing steadily at the far horizon for some moments.

Uncle Dick hastened to his state-room and returned with a pair of field-glasses.

“That,” said he, “is a whale—in fact, more than one; indeed, I think there is a big school of whales on ahead. We’ll run almost square into them at this rate.”

Sure enough, within the hour they came within plain sight of a number of great black objects which at first seemed like giant logs rolling on the water. All at once there appeared splashes of white water among the whales, and the latter seemed to be much agitated, hastening hither and thither as though in fear. Captain Zim Jones, of the Nora, leaned down from his place on the bridge.

“School of killers in there!” he sang out.

“That’s right,” exclaimed Uncle Dick, handing the glasses to Rob. “Watch close now! Don’t you see those smaller black things swimming along, with tall, upright fins? Those are killers, and they are fighting the whales right now!”

Eagerly the boys took turns with the glasses, watching the strange combat of the sea now going on. Evidently some of the whales were much distressed; one large one seemed to be the especial mark of the enemy, which pursued him in a body.

“Look, look!” cried John. “He jumped almost out of the water. He is as big as a house!”

“I didn’t know anything could hurt a whale, he’s so big!” commented Jesse. “How do they fight a whale?”

“Maybe they poke ’em with that big fin,” said Uncle Dick. “But they do the damage with their jaws. One of them will bite a chunk out of a whale, and as quick as he lets go another will take his place. They come pretty near to eating the whale alive sometimes, although I don’t know that they really kill them very often.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Rob, who was looking steadily ahead. “There is one right ahead of us who just came up, and he’s acting mighty stupid. See, he’s coming right across the bows. If we don’t look out we’ll hit him. There!”

Even as he spoke there came a heavy jar which almost stopped the ocean vessel. Her steel-shod bow had struck the whale full in the middle of the body.

“Caught him square amidships,” sung out Captain Zim from his station. “I guess we finished what the killers began!”

The great creature lay for an instant stunned on the surface of the water, its vast body bent as though its back were broken. Then as the ship passed on