The Queen now made her way past the Chilkoot Inlet, where, said Randolph, who had followed Tom’s example in “reading up” Alaska, Schwatka started to cross the mountains and explore the head-waters of the Yukon.
Pyramid Harbor, at the head of Chilkat Inlet, was now reached, and at this point, the farthest northing of the route, or, to be exact, at latitude 59° 13´, the steamer stopped her wheels, while the obliging stranger and the Thlinkets went ashore in a small boat, which tossed perilously on the choppy waves of the Inlet.
Slowly the steamer swung round, and, having picked up the boat on its return, began its southward course. The wind now swept the decks with stinging force, driving the tourists below or into sheltered corners.
Against the western sky towered the mighty peaks of Fairweather and Crillon, lifting their white summits nearly sixteen thousand feet above the sea.
Until late in the evening the Percivals talked, laughed and sang, while the never-ending day still glowed brightly, and the waves tossed their foam caps in the golden twilight.
Thump! Bump! The girls woke next morning to find the ship trembling from stem to stern. Had the Queen run ashore? No, they were going smoothly enough now. It must have been a dream, that that—
Thump!
That was no dream, any way, for they were wide-awake now. Out of her berth jumped Kittie, and, drawing aside the curtain from their little stateroom window, looked out.
What a sight it was! The ship was moving cautiously, at half-speed, up a narrow bay—Glacier Bay, they afterwards heard it called—surrounded by bare and desolate mountains, along whose upper slopes lay dreary banks of never-melting snow, and whose splintered summits were hidden in dull gray clouds. Across the bay, at its upper end, miles away, stretched an odd-looking line of white cliffs. They could not yet make out what gave them that strange, marble-like look. The surface of the water was all dotted over with floating ice, of every size and shape imaginable. Just in front of Kittie’s window (which overlooked the bridge), the Captain, in thick coat and fur cap, was pacing to and fro. Even while she looked, the ship’s bow struck against a good sized iceberg. Again the steamer shuddered, and the girls knew now what it was that had waked them.
“Sta-a-arboard a little!” called Captain Carroll sharply, as another great berg loomed up, just ahead.