“It seems wilder over here,” said John. “Look how rough the mountains seem and how thick the timber is on above there. And I don’t see any barabbara over here.”
“There’s something that looks like one, back from the beach a little way,” said Jesse, pointing out what seemed like a low heap of earth. They went over and found it to be, indeed, the ruins of an old barabbara, which looked as though it had not been occupied for a lifetime. The roof had fallen in and the walls were full of holes, so that it was quite unfit for occupancy. They left it and passed up the beach, where they saw the ruins of several other houses, no doubt occupied by natives very long ago. Beyond this a short distance, not far from a deep path which was worn in the tundra by the wild game, they saw a number of rude posts standing at different angles, loosely embedded in the soil, and in some instances fallen and rotting in the grass. Some of these had rude cross-arms at their tops, others two cross-arms, the lower one nailed up at a slant. The boys regarded these curiously, but Skookie seemed anxious to move on.
“Why, what’s up, Skookie? What’s the matter?” asked Rob. “What do these posts mean, that look like crosses?”
“Dead mans here—plenty, plenty dead mans, long time,” said Skookie. “No mans live here now. I’m not like dis place.”
“Why,” said Rob, “they’re graves, and these are crosses—I think that one with the double arms must be one of the old Russian crosses. Was there ever a village here, Skookie?”
The Aleut lad nodded his head. “Long times, my peoples live here some day. Russian mans come here, plenty big boats; plenty shoot my peoples. Dose Russian mans make church here, show my peoples about church. Bime-by Russian mans go way. Bime-by my peoples get sick, plenty sick; all die, all dead mans here. My peoples go way, never come back no more. I’m not like dis place.” He shuddered as he looked at the grave posts, and was eager to go on.
“That must have been seventy-five years ago,” commented Rob. “Perhaps small-pox killed off the villagers who built this little town. See, the wind and the weather have polished these posts until they are white as silver. Well, I don’t know but I’m ready to go on myself.”
Shouldering the packs which they had put down when they paused for their investigation, they took their way on up the ancient trail made by the bears and possibly once beaten by human feet. Once they came upon the fresh trail of a giant bear which had passed the night before, according to Skookie, but as the animal had swung off to the left and out of their course, they made no attempt to follow it; and if truth be told, they seemed now so far from home in this new part of the country, and were so depressed by the thought of the abandoned village, that something of their hunting ardor was cooled for the time. The walking across the mile of meadow-like tundra was hard enough, and they were glad when they reached the rockier bank of the stream which came down, broad and shallow in some places, narrow and tumbling in others. Here sometimes they waded in the water to escape the tangled thickets of alder interspersed with the prickly “devil’s club,” peculiar to all Alaska—a fiendish sort of plant covered with small spines, which grows in all fantastic shapes, but which manages to slap one somewhere, no matter where one steps upon it, and whose little prickly points detach themselves and remain in the flesh. Our young explorers, however, were used to Alaska wilderness travel, and they took all of this much as matter of course, pushing steadily on up the valley until they reached a fork, where to the right lay rather better going and larger trees.
They concluded to bear up the right-hand cañon, and, pausing only for a bit to eat, about the middle of the afternoon, they had perhaps gone six or eight miles from the sea-shore when they concluded to camp for the night.