One morning we heard a yell from the Siwash, and soon they came running over the little knoll which separated our camp from theirs, and began grabbing the articles that belonged to some of the miners. We were at a loss to know the meaning of what seemed at first to be a very unceremonious proceeding, but when we saw the miners, with many shamefaced glances at us, help the natives in the distribution of the material, we realized that these men had forsaken us and their resolutions; so greedy were they to reach the land of gold that they had gone to the natives and agreed to pay them the demanded rates on condition that they should have all the packers themselves, leaving none to us. We let these men and their natives go in peace, without even a reproach: less than a week afterwards we had the deep satisfaction of passing them on the trail, and even in lending them a hand in a series of little difficulties for which, in their haste, they had come unprepared. The veteran miner in Alaska is a splendid, open-hearted, generous fellow; the newcomer, or "chicharko," is a thing to be avoided.
After this we had to wait till the natives had got back from carrying the miners' supplies, and then we agreed, with what grace we could, to pay the price that the others had. The Indians were quite a horde, capable of carrying in one trip all the supplies belonging to our party and that of the English traveller. Since they were paid by the pound they vied in taking enormous loads; the largest carried was 161 pounds, but all the men's packs ranged from 125 to 150 pounds. Women and half-grown boys carried packs of 100 pounds. It was a "Stick" or interior Indian, named at the mission Tom, but originally possessed of a fearful and unpronounceable name, who carried the largest load. He was barely tolerated and was somewhat badgered by the Chilkoots, hence he fled much to the society of the whites, and would squat near for hours, always smiling horribly when looked at; he claimed to be a chief among his own wretched people, and spent all his spare time in blackening his face, reserving rings around the eyes which he smeared with red ochre—having done which, he grinned ghastly approval of himself!
Pete started over the Pass in advance of the party, to procure for us if possible a boat at Lake Lindeman.
"Dis is dirt time I gross Pass," said Pete. "Virst dime I dake leedle pack—den I vos blayed out; nex' dime I dake leedle roll of clo'es—den I vos blayed out too, py chimney: dis dime I dake notting—den I vill be blayed out too!"
The natives, after much shouting and confusion and wrangling, made up their packs about noon, and started out, we following; just before getting to snow-line they stopped in a place where a chaotic mass of boulders form a trifling shelter, grateful to wild beasts or wild men like these. Here they deposited their loads, and with exasperating indifference composed themselves to sleep. We tried to persuade them to go on, but to no avail, and we discovered afterwards, as often happened to us in our dealing with the natives, that they were right. It was June, and yet the snow lay deep on all the upper parts of the Pass; and in the long, warm days it became soft and mushy, making travel very difficult, especially with heavy packs. As soon as the sun went down behind the hills, however, the air became cool, and a hard crust formed, so that walking was much better.
We left the natives and followed a trail which led among the boulders and then higher up the mountain, where many moccasined feet had left a deep path through the icy snow. We tramped onward, sometimes on hard ice, sometimes through soft snow, strung out in Indian file, saying nothing, saving our breath for our lungs; at times the crust rang hollow to our tread, and beneath us we could hear torrents raging. It was about eight o'clock at night when we started, and the sun in the narrow valley had already gone down behind the high glaciers on the mountain-tops, even at this latitude and in the month of June; so the long northern twilight which is Alaska's substitute for night in the summer months soon began to settle down upon us. At the same time the moisture from the snow which all day long had been lying in the sun, began cooling into mists, changeful and of different thicknesses; and in the dim light gave to everything a weird and unnatural aspect.
Even our fellow-travellers were distorted and magnified, now lengthwise, now sidewise, so that those above us were powerful-limbed giants, striding up the hill, while those behind us were flattened and broadened, and seemed straddling along as grotesquely as spiders. When we drew near and looked at each other we were inclined to laugh, but there was something in the pale-blue, ghastly color of the faces that made us stop, half-frightened. At twelve o'clock it was so dark that we could hardly follow the trail; then we saw a fire gleaming like a will-o'-the-wisp somewhere above us, and clambering up the steep rock which stuck out of the snow and overhung the trail, we saw a couple of figures crouching over a tiny blaze of twigs and smoking roots. It was a native and his "klutchman" or squaw; he turned out to be deaf-and-dumb, but made signs to us,—as we squatted ourselves around the fire,—that the night was dark, the trail dangerous, and that it would be better to wait till it grew a little lighter. So we kept ourselves warm for a half-hour or more by our exertions in tearing up roots for a fire: the fire itself being nothing more than a smoky, flary pile of wet fagots, hardly enough to warm our numbed fingers by. Then a dim figure came toiling up to us. It was one of our packers, and he explained in broken, profane, and obscene English, of which he was very proud, (the foundation of his knowledge had been laid in the mission, and the trimmings, which were profuse and with the same idea many times repeated, like an art pattern, had been picked up from straggling whites) that the trail was good now. So we very gladly took up our march again.
Two of us soon got ahead of the guide and all the rest of our party, following the beaten track in the snow; after a while the ascent became very steep, as the last sheer declivity of the Pass was reached, and we began to suspect that we had strayed from the right path, for although here was a track, we could find no footprints on it, but only grooves as if from things which had slid down. Yet we decided not to go back, for we did not know how far we had strayed from the path, and the climbing was not so easy that we were anxious to do it twice. So we kept on upward, and the ascent soon became so steep that we were obliged to stop and kick footholds in the crust at every step.
It was twilight again, but still foggy, and we could see neither up nor down, only what appeared to be a vast chasm beneath us, wherein great indistinct shapes were slowly shifting—an impression infinitely more grand and appalling than the reality. At any rate, it made us very careful in every step, for we had no mind that a misplaced foot should send us sliding down the grooves we were following. At last we gained the top, found here again the trail we had lost, and waited for the rest. Around us, sticking out of the snow, were rocks, which appeared distorted and moving. It was the mists which moved past them, giving a deceptive effect. My companion suddenly exclaimed, "There's a bear!" On looking, my imagination gave the shape the same semblance, but on going towards it, it resolved itself very reluctantly into a rock, as if ashamed of its failure to "bluff." Most grown-up people, as well as children, I fancy, are more or less afraid of the dark—where the uncertain evidence of the eyes can be shaped by the imagination into unnatural things. Goethe must once have felt something like what Faust expressed when he stood at night in one of the rugged Hartz districts:
"Seh' die Baüme hinter Baüme,
Wie sie schnell vorüber rücken,
Und die Klippen, die sich bücken,
Und die langen Felsennasen,
Wie sie schnarchen, wie sie blasen."