"Get in there," I said to Preble and Billy. "Come on, Weeso." We four jumped into the boat and proceeded to push off with all the supplies.
Authorities differ as to the time it took for the crew to make up their minds. Two seconds and eleven seconds are perhaps the extremes of estimate. They came jumping aboard as fast as they could.
We attacked the floe, each with a lodge-pole; that is, Billy and Preble did in the bow, while Freesay and I did at the rear; and in thirty-five minutes we had pushed through and were sailing the open sea.
The next day we had the same scene repeated with less intensity, in this case because Freesay sided with me. What would I not give to have had a crew of white men. A couple of stout Norwegian sailors would have done far better than this whole outfit of reds.
When we stopped for supper No. 1 a tiny thimbleful of down on two pink matches ran past, and at once the mother, a Peetweet, came running in distress to save her young. The brave Beaulieu fearlessly seized a big stick and ran to kill the little one. I shouted out, "Stop that," in tones that implied that I owned the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, but could not have saved the downling had it not leaped into the water and dived out of sight. It came up two feet away and swam to a rock of safety, where it bobbed its latter end toward its adversaries and the open sea in turn.
I never before knew that they could dive.
About eight o'clock we began to look for a good place to camp and make meal No. 6. But the islands where usually we found refuge from the dogs were without wood, and the shores were too rugged and steep or had no dry timber, so we kept going on. After trying one or two places the Indians said it was only a mile to Indian Mountain River (Der-sheth Tessy), where was a camp of their friends. I was always glad of a reason for pushing on, so away we went. My crew seized their rifles and fired to let their village know we were coming. The camp came quickly into view, and volley after volley was fired and returned.
These Indians are extremely poor and the shots cost 5 and 6 cents each. So this demonstration totalled up about $2.00.
As we drew near the village of lodges the populace lined up on shore, and then our boys whispered, "Some white men." What a peculiar thrill it gave me! I had seen nothing but Indians along the route so far and expected nothing else. But here were some of my own people, folk with whom I could talk. They proved to be my American friend from Smith Landing, he whose hand I had lanced, and his companion, a young Englishman, who was here with him prospecting for gold and copper. "I'm all right now," he said, and, held up the hand with my mark on it, and our greeting was that of white men meeting among strangers in a far foreign land.
As soon as we were ashore a number of Indians came to offer meat for tobacco. They seemed a lot of tobacco-maniacs. "Tzel-twee" at any price they must have. Food they could do without for a long time, but life without smoke was intolerable; and they offered their whole dried product of two Caribou, concentrated, nourishing food enough to last a family many days, in exchange for half a pound of nasty stinking, poisonous tobacco.