CHAPTER IX.
AN HEIRLOOM RETURNED.
Rand, whose inquiring turn of mind was scarcely inferior to that of Jack, but of a more profound and less transitory nature, had shown a strong interest in the Indian boatmen from the beginning of their journey and had struck up an especial friendship with the Indian whose dog had tackled the wild cat and had been later crushed by the Kodiak bear. The red man, while not morose, was taciturn, and replied to all questions with monosyllables and scarcely a smile. He showed friendliness in other ways, and as he became better acquainted with the boys responded to the young Scout leader’s approaches. Day by day and word by word he inducted Rand into the mysteries of the “pigeon,” or jargon used as a language of communication with the natives. It was made up of half Siwash, half English words, the latter so amputated and distorted as scarcely to be recognizable. It was rather automatic in character, as it could be changed or added to as circumstances required, and Rand found it easy to use after he had mastered the first few principles of it, if it may be said to have had any.
One evening, after the day’s work was over, Rand strolled over to the shack where the Indians lived and found his erstwhile friend sitting on a stone, engaged in slowly carving with a sharp knife the soft wood of a sycamore spar that had been carefully cleared of its branches and smoothed to comparative symmetry. The worker had begun at the butt end of the pole and had worked his way carefully upward. The carvings were weird, goggle eyed, snouted and saw-toothed creatures, the like of which could only have originated in the brain of the late Lewis Carroll, who wrote “Alice in Wonderland” or in the dreams of a Siwash nourished on smoked salmon and rancid seal oil. Part of the carved lines of one creature formed the features of another (if they could be dignified by the name of features), and there was a sort of artistic continuity about the whole that aroused Rand’s interest and admiration. At the butt of the pole another Indian had begun with two or three bean tins filled with crude colors evidently made from vegetable dyes, to paint the carvings already finished. Rand pointed to the pole, and asked:
“What?”
“Totem,” grunted the Siwash. “Me chief.” He further informed the young Scout that it was his purpose to set it up in front of the camp. Just then, Swiftwater came along and spoke to the Indian in his native Siwash. The latter arose and stood for a moment erect, with his hand on his breast with so dignified an air that Rand could scarcely recognize in the figure before him the slouching round-shouldered aborigine, who went daily, so stolidly, about the labor of the camp. Swiftwater listened to the rather oratorical harangue which the Indian delivered, smiling at times, but giving the man respectful attention. He even gave him half a salute, as he turned and walked with Rand toward their own tent.
“I didn’t know that we had with us a representative of the old Siwash nobility. The tribal relations of these people are pretty well broken up since we brought our boasted civilization and our whiskey up among their homes, and they don’t recognize the authority of their head men any more. They have ‘got onto’ our most cherished principle that all men were created free and equal, and the chiefs and their families have to hustle for a living as hard as the lowest of them. Still, they cling to their ancient dignities. That totem he’s been carving is the insignia of his clan or family, and as he couldn’t bring the old family totem pole with him, he carves one wherever he settles for a time, and sets it up. You remember in old ‘Ivanhoe,’ Front de Boeuf and the Templar displayed their banners on the castle walls whenever they came up for the week end, and they really didn’t have so much on this old rootdigger after all. I rather like his spunk. Good family connections are really something to be proud of if ye don’t let ’em interfere with yer business, and they don’t come visitin’ too often.”
Something about the totem pole aroused Rand’s imagination, and with the other boys he went over to the shack to look at the “work of art” as Jack insisted on calling it. Although the boys had seen totem poles in the city museums, and one or two on their original ground in the Alaskan villages that they had visited, there was something familiar about this one. As they went over the various figures, trying to distinguish them from each other and speculating on what they were supposed to represent, Pepper, who had been inspecting the upper part of the work, where lack of color made the figures less conspicuous, suddenly exclaimed:
“S-s-say, this fellow’s family isn’t so very old. Here’s the ace of clubs, and that couldn’t have got over here before Columbus, and he didn’t come up this far.”
“What’s that?” said Rand. “Let’s look at it.” Then, for the first time, the reason for the familiarity of the design struck him.