“All right,” said John. “Of course we’ll have to take our tillicum along. Mush on, Jimmy!”
The Aleut, although apparently a native of the country where the language of the dog-train was little known, nevertheless seemed to understand the Alaskan command to “March!” He stood ready, only looking to see which way they wished him to go. Rob set off in advance, and they all splashed through the waters of the shallows at the lower end of the lagoon.
“Here’s where Jimmy has a good deal the best of us,” said Rob, pointing to their wet feet. “Our shoes will be gone in a little while; but look at his seal boots with high tops. They keep his feet dry.”
“They call them tabosas,” said John. “The Eskimos use boots like that, but they call them mukluks. You see, I used to know a native from up-coast who was a waiter in a restaurant at Valdez. That’s how I picked up my knowledge of the Aleut language—which, you see, is quite considerable,” he concluded, swelling out his chest a trifle.
“I see now why he wanted that seal,” commented Rob. “Every country has its own way of getting along, hasn’t it? Now, I suppose Jimmy here is about as comfortable when he is at home as we are in our houses down in Valdez; and he certainly does know how to make his living off the country.”
They now continued their slow climb up the steep mountain-side, which lay beyond the little creek. Here the deep moss or tundra extended quite to the top of the smallest peak, but although heavy snow-fields lay at the top, the spring sunshine had now melted the snow at the lower levels, so that continually they were walking in little pools of ice-water, none too pleasant to persons shod as they were.
Jesse, the youngest of the party, now and then stopped for a moment to catch his breath; and, in fact, he seemed none too happy with some of these hardships of their experience.
“Come on,” said Rob; “we’ll stop when we get to the thicket just up above there. Jimmy acts as though he was looking for something up there—I don’t know what.”
They toiled on upward, now and again turning to look at the great expanse of country which lay below them—the wide bay shining in the sunlight, the magnificent panorama of the mountains beyond, and the line of the deep sea beyond the entrance to the bay. They turned as they heard a sudden exclamation from Jimmy, who was prowling at the edge of the alder thicket where they had stopped for the moment. As he pointed down they saw the surface of the ground among the alders ripped up as though by a giant plough.