Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin Part 3

"Al-ay-ck-sa--great country," said Kalitan.

"It certainly is," said Ted. "It's fine! I never saw anything like this at home," pointing as he spoke to the scene in front of him.

A group of evergreen trees, firs and the Alaska spruce, so useful for fires and torches, fringed the edge of the ice-field, green and verdant in contrast to the gleaming snows of the mountain, which rose in a gentle slope at first, then precipitously, in a dazzling and enchanting combination of colour. It was as if some marble palace of old rose before them against the heavens, for the ice was cut and serrated into spires and gables, turrets and towers, all seeming to be ornamented with fretwork where the sun's rays struck the peaks and turned them into silver and gold. Lower down the ice looked like animals, so twisted was it into fantastic shapes; fierce sea monsters with yawning mouths seeming ready to devour; bears and wolves, whales, gigantic elephants, and snowy tigers, tropic beasts looking strangely out of place in this arctic clime.

Deep crevices cut the ice-fields, and in their green-blue depths lurked death, for the least misstep would dash the traveller into an abyss which had no bottom. Beyond the glacier itself, the snow-capped mountains rose grand and serene, their glittering peaks clear against the blue sky, which hue the glacier reflected and played with in a thousand glinting shades, from purpling amethyst to lapis lazuli and turquoise.

As they gazed spellbound, a strange thing occurred, a thing of such wonder and beauty that Ted could but grasp his father's arm in silence.

Suddenly the peaks seemed to melt away, the white ice-pinnacles became real turrets, houses and cathedrals appeared, and before them arose a wonderful city of white marble, dream-like and shadowy, but beautiful as Aladdin's palace in the "Arabian Nights." At last Ted could keep silent no longer.

"What is it?" he cried, and the old chief answered, gravely:

"The City of the Dead," but his father said:

"A mirage, my boy. They are often seen in these regions, but you are fortunate in seeing one of the finest I have ever witnessed."

"What is a mirage?" demanded Ted.

"An optical delusion," said his father, "and one I am sure I couldn't explain so that you would understand it. The queer thing about a mirage is that you usually see the very thing most unlikely to be found in that particular locality. In the Sahara, men see flowers and trees and fountains, and here on this glacier we see a splendid city."

"It certainly is queer. What makes glaciers, daddy?" Ted was even more interested than usual in his father's talk because of Kalitan, whose dark eyes never left Mr. Strong's face, and who seemed to drink in every word of information as eagerly as a thirsty bird drinks water.

"The dictionaries tell you that glaciers are fields of ice, or snow and ice, formed in the regions of perpetual snow, and moving slowly down the mountain slopes or valleys. Many people say the glaciers are the fathers of the icebergs which float at sea, and that these are broken off the glacial stream, but others deny this. When the glacial ice and snow reaches a point where the air is so warm that the ice melts as fast as it is pushed down from above, the glacier ends and a river begins. These are the finest glaciers in the world, except, perhaps, those of the Himalayas.

"This bids fair to be a wonderfully interesting place for my work, Ted, and I'm glad you're likely to be satisfied with your new friends, for I shall have to go to many places and do a lot of things less interesting than the things Kalitan can show you.

"See these blocks of fine marble and those superb ma.s.ses of porphyry and chalcedony,--but there's something which will interest you more. Take my gun and see if you can't bring down a bird for supper."

Wild ducks were flying low across the edge of the glacier and quite near to the boys, and Ted grasped his father's gun in wild excitement. He was never allowed to touch a gun at home. Dearly as he loved his mother, it had always seemed very strange to him that she should show such poor taste about firearms, and refuse to let him have any; and now that he had a gun really in his hands, he could hardly hold it, he was so excited. Of course it was not the first time, for his father had allowed him to practise shooting at a mark ever since they had reached Alaska, but this was the first time he had tried to shoot a living target. He selected his duck, aimed quickly, and fired. Bang! Off went the gun, and, wonder of wonders! two ducks fell instead of one.

"Well done, Ted, that duck was twins," cried his father, laughing, almost as excited as the boy himself, and they ran to pick up the birds. Kalitan smiled, too, and quietly picked up one, saying:

"This one Kalitan's," showing, as he spoke, his arrow through the bird's side, for he had discharged an arrow as Ted fired his gun.

"Too bad, Ted. I thought you were a mighty hunter, a Nimrod who killed two birds with one stone," said Mr. Strong, but Ted laughed and said:

"So I got the one I shot at, I don't care." They had wild duck at supper that night, for Chetwoof plucked the birds and roasted them on a hot stone over the spruce logs, and Ted, tired and wet and hungry, thought he had never tasted such a delicious meal in his life.

CHAPTER IV

TED MEETS MR. BRUIN

It seemed to Ted as if he had scarcely touched the pillow on the nights which followed before it was daylight, and he would awake to find the sun streaming in at his tent flap. He always meant to go fis.h.i.+ng with Kalitan before breakfast, so the moment he woke up he jumped out of bed, if his pile of fragrant pine boughs covered with skins could be called a bed, and hurried through his toilet. Quick as he tried to be, however, he was never ready before Kalitan, for, when Ted appeared, the Indian boy had always had his roll in the snow and was preparing his lines.

Kalitan was perfectly fascinated with the American boy. He thought him the most wonderful specimen of a boy that he had ever seen. He knew so much that Kalitan did not, and talked so brightly that being with Ted was to the Indian like having a book without the bother of reading. There were some things about him that Kalitan could not understand, to be sure.

Ted talked to his father just as if he were another boy. He even spoke to Tyee Klake on occasions when that august personage had not only not asked him a question, but was not speaking at all. From the Thlinkit point of view, this was a most remarkable performance on Ted's part, but Kalitan thought it must be all right for a "Boston boy," for even the stern old chief seemed to regard happy-go-lucky Ted with approval.

Ted, on the other hand, thought Kalitan the most remarkable boy he had ever met in all his life. He had not been much with boys. His "Lady Mother," as he always called the gentle, brown-eyed being who ruled his father and himself had not cared to have her little Galahad mingle with the rougher city boys who thronged the streets, and had kept him with herself a great deal. Ted had loved books, and he and his little sister Judith had lived in a pleasant atmosphere of refinement, playing happily together until the boy had grown almost to dread anything common or low.

His mother knew he had moral courage, and would face any issue pluckily, but his father feared he would grow up a milksop, and thought he needed hardening.

Mrs. Strong objected to the hardening process if it consisted in turning her boy loose to learn the ways of the city streets, but had consented to his going with his father, urged thereto by fears for his health, which was not of the best, and the knowledge that he had reached the "bear and Indian" age, and it was certainly a good thing for him to have his experiences first-hand.

To Ted the whole thing was perfectly delightful. When he lay down at night, he would often like to see "Mother and Ju," but he was generally so tired that he was asleep before he had time to think enough to be really homesick. During the day there was too much doing to have any thinking time, and, since he had met this boy friend, he thought of little else but him and what they were to do next. The Tyee had a.s.sured Mr. Strong that it was perfectly safe for the boys to go about together.

"Kalitan knows all the trails," he said. "He take care of white brother.

Anything come, call Chetwoof."

As Mr. Strong was very anxious to penetrate the glacier under Klake's guidance, and wanted Ted to enjoy himself to the full, he left the boys to themselves, the only stipulation being that they should not go on the water without Chetwoof.

There seemed to be always something new to do. As the days grew warmer, the ice broke in the river, and the boys tramped all over the country.

Ted learned to use the bow and arrow, and brought down many a bird for supper, and proud he was when he served up for his father a wild duck, shot, plucked, and cooked all by himself.

They fished in the stream by day and set lines by night. They trapped rabbits and hares in the woods, and one day even got a silver fox, a skin greatly prized by the fur traders on account of its rarity. Kalitan insisted that Ted should have it, though he could have gotten forty dollars for it from a white trader, and Ted was rejoiced at the idea of taking it home to make a set of furs for Judith.

One day Ted had a strange experience, and not a very pleasant one, which might have been very serious had it not been for Kalitan. He had noticed a queer-looking plant on the riverbank the day before, and had stopped to pick it up, when he received such a sudden and unexpected p.r.i.c.king as to cause him to jump back and shout for Kalitan. His hand felt as if it had been pierced by a thousand needles, and he flew to a snow-bank to rub it with snow.

"I must have gotten hold of some kind of a cactus," he said to Kalitan, who only replied:

"Huh! picked hedgehog," as he pointed to where Ted's cactus was ambling indignantly away with every quill rattling and set straight out in anger at having his morning nap disturbed. Kalitan wrapped Ted's hand in soft mud, which took the pain out, but he couldn't use it much for the next few days, and did not feel eager to hunt when his father and the Tyee started out in the morning. Kalitan remained with him, although his eyes looked wistful, for he had heard the chief talk about bear tracks having been seen the day before. Bears were quite a rarity, but sometimes an old cinnamon or even a big black bruin would venture down in search of fresh fish, which he would catch cleverly with his great paws.

Kalitan and Ted fished awhile, and then Ted wandered away a little, wondering what lay around a point of rock which he had never yet explored. Something lay there which he had by no means expected to see, and he scarcely knew what to make of it. On the river-bank, close to the edge of the stream, was a black figure, an Indian fis.h.i.+ng, as he supposed, and he paused to watch. The fisherman was covered with fur from head to foot, and, as Ted watched him, he seemed to have no line or rod. Going nearer, the boy grew even more puzzled? and, though the man's back was toward him, he could easily see that there was something unusual about the figure. Just as he was within hailing distance and about to shout, the figure made a quick dive toward the water and sprang back again with a fish between his paws, and Ted saw that it was a huge bear. He gave a sharp cry and then stood stock-still. The creature looked around and stood gnawing his fish and staring at Ted as stupidly as the boy stared at him. Then Ted heard a halloo behind him and Kalitan's voice:

"Run for Chetwoof, quick!"

Ted obeyed as the animal started to move off. He ran toward the camp, hearing the report of Kalitan's gun as he ran. Chetwoof, hearing the noise, hurried out, and it was but a few moments before he was at Kalitan's side. To Ted it seemed like a day before he could get back and see what was happening, but he arrived on the scene in time to see Chetwoof despatch the animal.

"Hurrah!" cried Ted. "You've killed a bear," but Chetwoof only grunted crossly.

"Very bad luck!" he said, and Kalitan explained:

"Indians don't like to kill bears or ravens. Spirits in them, maybe ancestors."

Ted looked at him in great astonishment, but Kalitan explained:

"Once, long ago, a Thlinkit girl laughed at a bear track in the snow and said: 'Ugly animal must have made that track!' But a bear heard and was angry. He seized the maiden and bore her to his den, and turned her into a bear, and she dwelt with him, until one day her brother killed the bear and she was freed. And from that day Thlinkits speak respectfully of bears, and do not try to kill them, for they know not whether it is a bear or a friend who hides within the s.h.a.ggy skin."

The Tyee and Mr. Strong were greatly surprised when they came home to see the huge carca.s.s of Mr. Bruin, and they listened to the account of Kalitan's bravery. The old chief said little, but he looked approvingly at Kalitan, and said "Hyas kloshe" (very good), which unwonted praise made the boy's face glow with pleasure. They had a great discussion as to whom the bear really belonged. Ted had found him, Kalitan had shot him first, and Chetwoof had killed him, so they decided to go shares.

Ted wanted the skin to take home, and thought it would make a splendid rug for his mother's library, so his father paid Kalitan and Chetwoof what each would have received as their share had the skin been sold to a trader, and they all had bear meat for supper. Ted thought it finer than any beefsteak he had ever eaten, and over it Kalitan smacked his lips audibly.

CHAPTER V