Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast Part 15

In spite of this a.s.surance Alaric was so loath to venture that the boys spent several hours in discussing their situation and prospects before he finally consented to revisit Skook.u.m John's camp. By this time the day was drawing to its close, and the lengthening forest shadows, flung far out over the placid waters of the Sound, were so suggestive of a night of darkness and hunger amid all sorts of possible terrors as to outweigh all other considerations. So the boys plunged into the twilight gloom of the thick-set trees, and began the uncertain task of retracing the way by which they had come.

As neither of them was a woodsman, this soon proved more difficult than they had expected. The trees all looked alike, and they made so many turns to avoid prostrate trunks and ma.s.ses of entangled branches that within half an hour they came to a halt, and each read in the troubled face of the other a confirmation of his own fears. They had certainly lost their way, and could not even tell in which direction lay the sea-sh.o.r.e they had so recently left. Bonny thought it was in front, while Alaric was equally certain that it still lay behind them.

"If we could only make a fire," said the former, "I wouldn't mind so much staying right where we are till daylight; but I should hate to do so without one. Haven't you any matches?"

"Not one," replied Alaric; "but I thought you always carried them."

"So I do; but I used them all on that old lantern last night. I almost wish now I'd never invented that thing, and that they had caught us.

They wouldn't have starved us, at any rate, and perhaps the prison isn't so very bad, after all."

"I don't know about that," rejoined Alaric, stoutly. "To my mind a prison is the very worst thing, worse even than starving. After all, this doesn't seem to me so bad a fix as some from which I've already escaped. Going to China, for instance, or drifting alone at night in a small boat."

"What do you mean by going to China?" asked Bonny, wonderingly.

"Hark!" exclaimed the other, without answering this question. "Don't you hear something?"

"Nothing but the wind up aloft."

"Well, I do. I hear some sort of a moaning, and it sounds like a child."

"Maybe it's a bear or a wolf, or something of that kind," suggested Bonny, whose notions concerning wild animals were rather vague.

"Of course it may be," admitted Alaric; "but it sounds so human that we must go and find out, for if it is a child in distress we are bound to rescue it."

"Yes, I suppose we are; only if it proves to be a bear, I wonder who will rescue us."

Alaric had already set off in the direction of the moaning; and ere they had taken half a dozen steps Bonny also heard it plainly. Then they paused and shouted, hoping that if the sound came from a bear the animal would run away. As they could hear no evidences of a retreat, and as the moaning still continued, they again pushed on. It was now so dark that they could do little more than feel their way past trees, over logs, and through dense beds of ferns. All the while the sound by which they were guided grew more and more distinct, until it seemed to come from their very feet.

At this moment the moaning ceased, as though the sufferer were listening. Then it was succeeded by a plaintive cry that went straight to Alaric's heart. He could dimly see the outline of a great log directly before him. Stooping beside it and groping among the ferns, his hands came in contact with something soft and warm that he lifted carefully. It was a little child, who uttered a sharp cry of mingled pain and terror at being picked up by a stranger.

"Poor little thing!" exclaimed the boy. "I am afraid it is badly injured, and shouldn't be one bit surprised if it had broken a limb. I must try and find out so as not to hurt it unnecessarily."

"Well," said Bonny, in a tragic tone, "they say troubles fly in flocks.

I thought we were in a pretty bad fix before; but now we surely have run into difficulty. Whatever are we to do with a baby?"

"Bonny!" cried Alaric, without answering this question, "I do believe it's the little Indian girl who drove away the dog, and something is the matter with one of her ankles."

"Skook.u.m John's little Siwash kid!" exclaimed Bonny, joyfully. "Then we can't be so very far from his camp. Now if we only knew in which direction it lay."

As if in answer to this wish there came a cry, far-reaching and long drawn: "Nitt.i.tan! Nitt.i.tan! Ohee! Ohee!"

For several hours Skook.u.m John and his eldest son, Bah-die, had been searching the woods for two white lads whom the third lieutenant of the cutter claimed to have lost. He had promised the Indian a reward of twenty-five dollars if he would bring them to the cutter, and Skook.u.m John had at once set forth with the idea of earning this money as speedily as possible.

Little Nitt.i.tan, his youngest daughter, whom he loved above all others, noted his going, and after a while decided to follow him. When darkness put an end to the Indian's fruitless search and he returned to his camp, he found it in an uproar. Nitt.i.tan was missing, and no one could imagine what had become of her.

For a moment the bereaved father was stunned. Then he prepared several torches, and, accompanied by Bah-die, set forth to find her. At the edge of the forest he raised a mighty cry that he hoped would reach the little one's ears. To his amazement it was answered by a cheery "h.e.l.lo!

h.e.l.lo there, Skook.u.m John!"

"Ohee! Ohee!" shouted the Indian.

"Here's your _tenas klootchman_" (little woman), came the voice from the forest, and the happy father knew that he who shouted had found the lost child and was bringing her to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARRIVAL AT SKOOk.u.m JOHN'S]

On the outskirts of his camp he stood and waited, with blazing torch uplifted above his head, and an expectant group of women and half-grown children huddled behind him. He was greatly perplexed when a few minutes later a tall white lad whom he had never before seen emerged from the forest bearing the lost child in his arms. There was another behind him, though, who was promptly recognized, for Skook.u.m John knew Bonny Brooks well, and instantly it came to him that these were the boys whom the revenue-man claimed to have lost. And they had found his little one. How glad he was that his own search for them had been unsuccessful! But this was not the time to be thinking of them. There was his own little Nitt.i.tan. He must have her in his arms and hold her close before he could feel that she was really safe.

He stepped forward to take her, but the strange lad drew back, and Bonny cried out: "_Kloshe nanitsh, Skook.u.m. Tenas klootchman la pee, hyas sick_," by which he conveyed the idea that the little woman had hurt her foot quite badly. Then he added, "It's all right, Rick. He understands that he must handle her gently."

So Alaric relinquished his burden, and the swarthy father, rejoicing but anxious, bore the child to a rude hut of brush and cedar mats, the open front of which was faced by a brightly blazing fire. Here he laid her gently down on a soft bear-skin and knelt beside her.

Alaric, who seemed to consider the child as still under his care, knelt on the opposite side and began to feel very carefully of one of the little ankles. He had not spent all his life in company with doctors without learning something of their trade, and after a brief examination he announced to Bonny that there were no broken bones, but merely a dislocation of the ankle-joint.

"I don't know anything about it," said Bonny, "but I should think that would be just as bad."

"No, indeed! A dislocation is not serious if promptly attended to. You explain to him that I am a sort of a doctor, and can make the child well in a few seconds if he will let me. Then I want him to hold her while I pull the joint into place."

So Bonny explained that his friend was a _hyas doctin_ or great medicine-man who could make Nitt.i.tan well _hyak_ (quick), and the anxious father, having implicit faith in the white man's skill, consented to allow Alaric to make the attempt.

The little one uttered a sharp cry, as, with a quick wrench, the dislocated bone was snapped into place, and Alaric, with flushed face, but very proud of what he had done, regained his feet.

"Now," he said, "let them bathe the ankle in water as hot as the child can bear, and by to-morrow she'll be all right. And, Bonny, if you know how to ask for anything to eat, for goodness' sake take pity on the starving poor, and say it quick."

CHAPTER XVIII

LIFE IN SKOOk.u.m JOHN'S CAMP

Skook.u.m John, which in Chinook means "Strong John," was a Makah, or Neah Bay, Indian, whose home was at Cape Flattery, on the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific, and at the southern side of the entrance to the superb strait of Juan de Fuca. He was a _Tyhee_, or chief, among his people, for he was not only their biggest man, being a trifle over six feet tall, while very few of his tribe exceeded five feet nine inches in height, but he was the boldest and most successful hunter of whales among them. This alone would have given him high rank in the tribe, for to them the whales that frequent the warm waters of the coast are what buffalo were to the Indians of the great plains.

The Makahs are fish-eaters, and while they catch and dry or smoke quant.i.ties of salmon, halibut, and cod, they esteem the whale more than all other denizens of the sea, because there is so much of him, because he is so good to eat, and because he furnishes them with the oil which they use on all their food, as we use b.u.t.ter, and which they trade for nearly every other necessity of their simple life.

They hunt the whale in big open canoes hewn from logs of yellow-cedar, long-beaked and wonderfully carved, painted a dead black outside and bright red within. Formerly they used sails of cedar matting, but now they are made of heavy drilling or light duck. Eight men go in a whaling-canoe--one to steer, one to throw the slender harpoons, and six to wield the long paddles, the blades of which are wide at the upper end and gradually narrow to a point below, which is the very best way to make all paddles except those used for steering. In these canoes Skook.u.m John and his people chase whales far out to sea, sometimes following them for days without returning to land. Every time they get near enough to one of the monsters they hurl into him a harpoon, to the head of which is attached, by a length of stout kelp, a float made of a whole seal-skin sewn up and inflated. The heavy drag of these floats eventually so tires the whale that he is at the mercy of his enemies, and they tow him ash.o.r.e in triumph.

The big Siwash, being an expert whaleman, had much oil to trade, and made frequent visits to Victoria for this purpose. Here, being an intelligent man and keenly noticing all that he saw, he learned much concerning the whites and their ways, besides picking up a fair knowledge of their language.

So it happened that when the smugglers who proposed to operate in the upper Sound began to cast, about for some trustworthy person, who would also be free from suspicion, to look out for their interests in that section, and keep them posted as to the whereabouts of cutters, they very wisely selected Skook.u.m John, and offered him inducements that he could not afford to refuse. He, of course, knew nothing of the laws they proposed to violate, nor did he care, for political economy had never been included in Skook.u.m John's studies.

So the Makah Tyhee closed his substantial house of hewn planks on Neah Bay, and, with all his wives and children--of whom Bah-die was the eldest and little Nitt.i.tan the youngest--and his dogs and canoes, and much whale oil, and many mats, he made the long journey to the place in which we find him. Here he established a summer camp of brush huts, and ostensibly went into the business of fis.h.i.+ng for the Tacoma market. He had brought his big whaling-canoe, and the little paddling canoes in which his children were accustomed to brave the Pacific breakers apparently for the fun of being rolled over and over in the surf. Above all, he had brought a light sailing-canoe which was fas.h.i.+oned with such skill that its equal for speed and weatherly qualities had never been seen among canoes of its size on the coast. It was in this swift craft that he darted about the Sound at night to discover the movements of revenue-men, watch for signals from incoming smugglers, and flash in return the lights that told of safety or danger.

Although not possessed of a high sense of honor, Skook.u.m John was loyal to his employers, because it paid him to be so, and because no one had ever tempted him to be otherwise. At the same time he was not above performing a service for the other side, provided it would also pay, and so he did not hesitate to promise the cutter's third lieutenant that in return for twenty-five dollars he would use every effort to find and return to him the lost boys. As the lieutenant had not seen fit to mention the capture of the smuggling sloop that morning, or to say that the boys in question formed part of her crew, he had no idea that one of them was the lad with whom he had arranged his entire system of night signals.

When he did learn of the blow that threatened to retire him from business, and the reason why the revenue-men were so desirous of finding the lost boys, he began to wish that he saw his way clear to the winning of that reward, for twenty-five dollars is a large sum to be made so easily. But the revenue-men wanted _two_ boys, and the only other one besides Bonny at present available, was the young medicine-man, the _hyas doctin_, who had not only found his dearly loved Nitt.i.tan in the dark _hyas stick_ (forest), but had so marvellously mended what he firmly believed to have been a broken leg.

The old Siwash was not honorable, and he was very mercenary. At the same time, he was grateful, and would have suffered much to prevent harm from coming to the lad who had placed him under such obligations. He was also superst.i.tious, and rather afraid of the powers of a _hyas doctin_. So he determined to make the boys as comfortable as possible, and keep them with him until he could communicate with the _Tyhee_ of the _piah-s.h.i.+p_ (steamer). If two lost boys were worth twenty-five dollars, one lost boy must be worth at least half that sum; while it was just possible that he might obtain the whole reward for one boy. In that case, Bonny must be handed over to those who were willing to pay for him; for business is business even among the Siwash, and charity begins at home all over the world. Of course, Skook.u.m John did not use these expressions, for he was not acquainted with them, but what he thought meant exactly the same thing.