“Where are we, anyway?” asked Joe, and the query was pertinent if the answer which he got was not.
“Riding the elephant,” replied Harry, with a rueful grin.
Over their heads, ten feet away in the snow roof through which they had come, were four holes which let in the nebulous twilight by which they saw. They and the mastodon tusks had come that way. To get back was another matter.
They looked about with much curiosity not untempered with dismay. They were beneath the crust of an enormous drift that the winter storms had whirled over the mastodon cliff. Under their feet was a mixture of mud and bones from the cliff, carpeted with grass and moss. Around them grew willows. The slender top branches of these had been caught by the first damp snow of early autumn and bent beneath it till they twined, holding the bulk of it up. This had frozen there and the succeeding snows had piled above it, leaving the place free, an ideal natural cold frame for the shrubs and grass of the bottom land. These appreciated the shelter, and feeling the thrill of spring in their dark world, were already putting forth young green leaves. Up and down stream the cavern extended indefinitely. On one side it ended abruptly against the cliff, on the other it tapered down to the river ice, already worn thin on its edge and beginning to thaw.
For an hour they wandered back and forth in this strange cavern, their eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. It was fortunate that this had not happened a few weeks later. Then the freshening flood of the river would no doubt have drowned them like rats in a hole. Now they were free—to wait for the flood, unless they could get out. But both boys were Yankees, and there is always a way out of a scrape, though it sometimes takes a Yankee to find it. Joe suggested that they climb the stubby willows and thence dig their way up, but his plan failed, for he could not get footing enough to get through the snow. Instead, he fell again to the bottom and rubbed his other leg. Harry suggested the plan that ultimately succeeded. With his knife he cut stout willow stakes and sharpened them at the end. Then walking toward the ice till they were blocked by the low roof, they began to dig a tunnel slanting upward and outward. It was a long dig through frozen crust and layers of damp snow, but they finally emerged like ground squirrels in the spring, and found the glare of the sun on the snow quite blinding.
That night in camp the head man of the tribe came to the boys to trade. He wanted more whalebone, and he offered them things which they had not seen before. These were rough ornaments of green jade, some mere bits of stone, others rudely chipped into shapes. One of these was a rude image of Buddha such as Harry had seen in Chinese collections. Harry marveled at this greatly, but the Indian could give no explanation concerning it except that his father had got it in trade from a coast native. By what strange mutations this had come from its Oriental fatherland may never be known, but the north has its routes of trade as have other regions. Things go from hand to hand among the tribes, and this had probably passed in centuries of time through Tartar tribes to the Chuckchis, over to the Diomedes, down the coast to Hotham Inlet, and up the river to the father of the head man. Now it was on its way back to the sea, and may ultimately reach its fatherland by circumnavigating the globe. Who knows?
It was while examining these jade ornaments that Harry noted something else that gave him a start of surprise. He thought at first it was a yellow and dirty image of a seal carved from a walrus tooth, such as he had bought at the Diomedes as a curio and lost in the sinking of the Bowhead. He picked this up carelessly and was astonished at its weight. He put the point of his knife to it and it left a clear, dull yellow streak. Then he passed it to Joe without a word.
It was a two ounce nugget of pure gold, hammered or carved into that rude semblance of a seal which is the delight of the Eskimo image maker. Joe’s eyes snapped at sight of it and he bought it forthwith, though he had to give a good deal of bone for it. The head man had seen his eyes snap when Harry handed it to him, and made him pay accordingly.