Jimmy held up three fingers and pointed below toward their camp, the smoke of whose fire they could dimly see. At first they could not understand him, until he made motions as if digging, and swung his head from side to side, grunting in such plain imitation of a bear that they could not mistake. Then they saw that this had probably been the feeding-ground of the three bears which they had killed. Apparently the bears had been living high up in the mountains for a long time, waiting for the salmon run to begin. The country was all torn up where they had dug for roots and bulbs.
“Well, now, what’s Jimmy going to do this time?” asked Jesse, interested.
The Aleut, talking to himself in some unknown words, was down on his hands and knees, himself digging in the holes among the alders.
“Karosha!” said he, at length, holding up several long, white bulbs about as thick as his finger; and he made a motion as though to eat them.
“Ah, ha!” said Rob. “This is an Aleut potato-patch, it seems. All right, we’ll just gather some of these and use them for vegetables. They’ll help out the meat and fish, perhaps.”
As Jimmy dug the bulbs they put them into the folds of their jackets and sweaters until they had a good supply. After this they made their way down the mountain, splashed through the creek again, and threw down their new discoveries beside the meat scaffold. Jimmy indulged in a broad smile.
“Plenty soup!” said he, suddenly.
“The beggar!” said Rob. “I shouldn’t wonder if he understood English as well as we do!”
They could not, however, induce him to use any further words than this, which is common among the Aleuts as the meaning of “food” or “plenty to eat,” they having got this word from their association with English-speaking persons. The Aleut language now is a mongrel, made up largely of Russian, with many native words and a few of English.