The Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska

by L. Frank Baum

On and on we rowed, twisting abruptly this way and that, until suddenly, as we turned a sharp corner and shot into open, shallow water, the adventure culminated in a mighty surprise.

We were surrounded by a band of men—big, brawny fellows who stood waist deep in the water and threw coils of rope about us before we were quite aware of their presence. At the same time they caught the boat and arrested its progress, jerking the oars from the hands of our rowers and making us fast prisoners.

Only Bryonia was quicker than the men who sought to entrap him. Before the noose could settle over his shoulders he leaped into the air and dove headlong beneath the water. But the brave attempt to escape was all in vain, for as he rose to the surface a dozen hands caught him and drew him to the shore, where, despite his struggles, he was bound as securely as the rest of us.

So unexpected was the attack and so cleverly were we mastered that scarcely a word was uttered by our little party as we stared in astonishment into the rough and bearded faces of our captors. Only Captain Gay muttered a string of naughty words under his breath; the rest were silent, and Uncle Naboth, bound round and round with rope so that he could not move, sat in his seat and looked across at me with one of his quaintest winks, as if he would cheer me up in this unexpected crisis.

Nor had a word been spoken by the men who entrapped us. Wading slowly through the water, they drew our boat to a sandy shore and beached it, while we looked curiously around upon the scene that was now clearly unfolded to our view.

The cliffs had ended abruptly, and the center of the island, flat and broad, lay stretched before us. The waters of the inlet from here became shallow, and a wide beach of strangely bright sands extended for two hundred feet on either side of it. Then came the jungle, thick and seemingly impenetrable, beyond which all was unknown. Straight and without a ripple the water lay before us a full quarter of a mile, disappearing thence into the forest.

On the thick sands of the east shore, where we now were, a number of rude huts had been erected, shaped something like Indian tepees and made of intertwined branches covered with leaves from the forest. These stood in a row near to the edge of the jungle, so as to take advantage of its shade.

But more strange than all this was the appearance of the men who had bound us. They were evidently our own countrymen, and from their dress and manners seemed to be miners. But nearly all were in rags and tatters, as if they had been long away from civilization, and their faces were fierce and brutal, bearing the expression of wild beasts in search of prey.

One of them, however, who stood upon the beach regarding us silently and with folded arms, was a personage so remarkable that he instantly riveted our attention. His height was enormous—at least six feet and three inches—and his chest was broad and deep as that of ancient Hercules. He was bearded like a gorilla with fiery red hair, which extended even to his great chest, disclosed through the open grey flannel shirt. There was no hat upon his head, and he wore no coat; but high boots were upon his feet and around his waist a leathern belt stuck full of knives and revolvers.

No stage pirate, no bandit of Southern Europe, was ever half so formidable in appearance as this terrible personage. He stood motionless as a pillar of stone, but his little red eyes, quick and shrewd, roved from one to another of our faces, as if he were making a mental estimate of each one of us—like the ogre who selected his fattest prisoner to grace his pot-pie.