[CHAPTER XXIV]
A DOUBLE WATCH FOR SCHOONERS
Kooga the Aleut spent the rest of that day and the following night with his new-found friends. The dinner, to which all of them had looked forward with such interest, proved a great success. From his bidarkie the young native produced a small brass kettle, in which they made a venison stew that they ate with mussel-shell spoons. He also brought forth a basket so exquisitely woven of native grasses as to be perfectly water-tight. In this was his choicest treasure, a brick of tea, such as the Western Aleuts procure from Russian traders, and which they guard with most jealous care. From this, after the stew had disappeared and the kettle was thoroughly cleansed, he treated himself and his friends to a brewing of the fragrant leaf.
In the meantime bits of venison and seal meat were cooking and being eaten on all sides, while Kooga every now and then allowed himself an extra relish in the shape of a strip of raw seal blubber. He also showed the others how to roast the larger caribou bones, and extract from them the marrow, which Phil, tasting for the first time, pronounced “immense.”
After the feast came to an end, owing to the inability of its guests to eat another mouthful, Kooga taught them to build a low scaffold of drift-wood, on which to smoke and dry by fire-heat strips of venison and split salmon. In procuring wood for this purpose, he and Phil visited the wrecked whale-boat. The tide was low, and while wandering about in the vicinity of the wreck, the keen eye of the Aleut detected something buried in kelp at the edge of the breakers. Drawing this forth, he laid it at Phil’s feet. To the lad’s astonishment, it proved to be his bag of water-proof rifle-cartridges, lost when the wreck occurred. For an hour or more they searched among the slippery rocks with the hope of finding one or both of the lost guns, but without success. Then, as the recovered cartridges were of no use to him, Phil presented them to Kooga, whose rifle they exactly fitted, to the immense gratification of that young Aleut.
It having been decided that the plan proposed by Serge should be carried out, and a quantity of food having been prepared both for taking and for leaving behind, the two white lads and their native guide made an early start for the south side of the island the next morning. Jalap Coombs remained at the barrabkie, to which they promised to return in a day or two, or at least before the four days, at the expiration of which a schooner might be expected on that side, should have elapsed.
Phil and Kooga, who had struck up a wonderful intimacy, went in the bidarkie, which also carried their very simple camp outfit, while Serge followed down the shore of the strait.
As the little party set forth, Jalap Coombs called after them, “Mind, boys, and get back as quick as ever ye can, either with or without the schooner, for we’ll be turrible lonely while ye’re gone—me and old Kite Roberson will.”
Owing to the intricate and dangerous navigation of Krenitzin Strait, which necessitated long détours and occasioned many delays, the bidarkie did not reach the south side of the island much before Serge, who had put in twenty miles or so of the toughest kind of tramping without a halt.