Thus, still baffled, the two waited doggedly for the spring, hopeful still, not giving way to useless repinings, yet very weary of the bonds of frost that held them fast. The Indians lived a simple life, not so very different from that of their Eskimo friends. They kept their igloos in severe weather. When it was mild, they trapped red and white foxes, wolverines, and ermine, and kept a keen eye out for caribou, whose coming meant a feast and many hides for traffic in the spring trading-meet, to which they looked forward. The sun vanished and came again. The winter solstice passed, and day by day he rode a little higher in the southern sky. February came and March, with its wild gales, and the flying snow that drifted back and forth across the country in clouds that obscured the sun at noon, and sometimes wrapped the igloos deep beneath its whelming white volumes, again drifted away from them and left them half bare to the keen winds; then April with its mild air, a sun that left them little night and settled the snow till it was as hard as a floor where packed in solid drifts. The Indians prospered, and the boys shared their prosperity. Early in April a great herd of caribou shambled by the village, and the whole community turned out to slaughter them. Never had they killed so many deer; indeed, far more were shot than could be properly attended to, and many were left to the wolves. There was little hunting to this. The stupid caribou, running hither and thither, were shot down with repeating rifles, which are as plentiful among the wild tribes of Alaska as among civilized hunters. Then the herd, so great that the slaughter seemed in no wise to diminish it, passed on.
“Our white visitors,” said the head man of the village, “have brought good fortune with them. There shall be a feast.”
“Look here,” said Harry to Joe privately, on hearing this; “you don’t suppose this is any seal’s head business, this one, do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Joe, “this is to be a real banquet, I think.”
A real banquet it was, indeed. The largest igloo in the village was the scene, everybody in the place was present, and the amount of deer meat eaten was astonishing. Then there followed an entertainment in the nature of private theatricals. Each hunter in turn gave a description of the most exciting event in his life, suiting the action to the word, and making of it an exceedingly interesting and dramatic recital. Humorous scenes in every-day life, and amusing mishaps in hunting and fishing, were also acted out in realistic fashion, and brought shouts of laughter from all.
The crowning number in the entertainment, however, was a cake walk done by the boys, who blackened their faces with soot and gave the burlesque with much spirit. They were called upon to repeat this until they were obliged to quit from sheer weariness, and then they laughed themselves out of breath at the queer antics of their friends, who began immediately to imitate this novel form of entertainment. It was the first really hearty laugh they had had for a long time, and it did them both a world of good.
Then came the start down river, and the bustle of preparation, together with the homeward thought, put them in great spirits. Half a dozen sleds, each with its team of dogs, were piled high with provisions, caribou hides, fox, ermine, and wolverine pelts, and the whole community started down the stream on the hard settled snow. The boys computed that they had a journey of two hundred miles ahead of them, taking into account the windings of the river, and that their destination was the sandspit at Hotham Inlet. The Indians verified this on being shown the chart, and seemed to have a good understanding of a map. They moved by leisurely stages, stopping often for a day or two to rest or on account of bad weather. Yet the weather in the main was delightful, varying between the freezing-point and perhaps zero or a little below, with a dry air and mainly a bright sun that made it a pleasure to be alive. In traveling, the head man of the village led, over the hard crust, or breaking a path through softer snow on rude snowshoes. His own team and sled followed, then another team with a man or boy leading, and so on. The women and children strung along between the teams where the snow was soft, or on either side where it was hard. The dogs were intelligent and well trained, and the work of guiding them thus in single file was not difficult.
Early May found them a hundred miles toward their destination, and here, in one day, many interesting things happened. They had found their two slabs of whalebone, brought from the Arctic coast, of great value to them in trade. They had split one of these into small strips and peddled them out in barter to the men of the tribe, who coveted whalebone, and were as eager as stage Yankees for a trade. They had bought with this, among other things, two pair of rude snowshoes, and on the day I speak of, while the tribe rested, they started down river on an exploring trip. It was warm and bright, and thawed a little in the sun in sheltered nooks.
The Kowak in its middle course winds among cliffs, carving its way through high bluffs on one side, leaving alluvial stretches of level flats at the base of other heights opposite. From one of these sheer bluffs, facing the south, wind and sun had taken the snow, and as they approached they saw sticking from the dark soil of its surface white objects like weather-worn logs of driftwood.
“Funny!” said Joe; “they look like bones, those logs. See, there are some that look like the knuckle-bone of a ham, and there are others like rib-bones.”