CHAPTER XIII.
DOWN THE RIVER TO NOME.
Two days later, Colonel Snow and the boys, accompanied by Swiftwater,having taken leave of their new made friends at Dawson, embarked on asmall launch (a new importation from the States) and started on a leisuretrip down the Yukon, intending to use this means of river travel as far asthe military post at Fort Gibbon, at the mouth of the Tanana, up whichriver Swiftwater was to proceed to the Fairbanks mining district, thelatest discovered and most important in Alaska.
Colonel Snow's plan was to drop down the river in the swift motor boat,stopping at several army posts where he had friends, some of whom had comeup from Seattle with the party and had extended the hospitalities of thevarious posts to them. They had left the crated aeroplane at Dawson withother heavy baggage to come down on the large river steamer Amelia, whichwas not due on its first trip up from St. Michael's for nearly a week, andwhich would overtake them on its return trip down the river at FortGibbon, another United States Army post.
The first stop of the party was to be at Eagle, a small, but prosperoustown, on the boundary line between Alaska and Yukon territory, containingthe most northerly custom house of the United States. Here they were to"declare" the aeroplane and the property they were to bring back into theUnited States and satisfy the customs authorities that it was all ofAmerican manufacture, after which it would be examined and passed when the"Amelia" came along. Adjoining the town of Eagle is the army post of FortEgbert, garrisoned by two companies of infantry, and here Colonel Snowproposed to spend the night with his brother officers as their firststopping place.
The distance from Dawson to Eagle is about 150 miles, but the high poweredlaunch they had secured with a crew of two, running down stream madeeasily thirty miles an hour, and they expected to reach their destinationearly in the afternoon.
"Colonel, if ye don't mind," said Swiftwater, "I'd like to stop off anhour or so up at Forty-mile, jest above here."
"Certainly," replied the Colonel, "we're making first-class progress andshall have plenty of time to reach Eagle before night. There's a wirelessstation and a line of military telegraph to the coast at Eagle, and Isimply desire to get there early enough to get off some dispatches toWashington before the post telegraph office closes."
"W-w-hat's 'Forty-mile?' I've heard of 'Forty-rod,' but never of'Forty-mile,'" remarked Pepper flippantly.
"Wa-al," drawled the miner, "they was pretty near synon'mous, as you say,when I first knew the place. Forty-mile is the only civilized place ofhabitation between Dawson and Eagle. It's on the Yukon side of the river,and is a trading station for the Forty-mile mining district, the firstreal gold mining region opened up in this region. It was the scene of myearly triumphs as a 'sourdough' after I left the whaling business, and I'mushed' into it in the winter along with Dowling, the great mail carrierof this region, who carried the mail up the Yukon on the ice, with a dogteam, nine hundred miles between Dawson and Fort Gibbon once a month.
"I got a good paying claim on Forty-mile Creek and took out so much richgravel that winter that after I cleaned up in the spring I got an ideathat I didn't need any more, and sold out and hiked for the States. Itdidn't last long, and I had to come back, but not up here. I thought I'dlike to stop for an hour or so and see if any of my old partners werehere."
There was little of interest at Forty-mile, except the big warehouses ofthe trading companies, but they had dinner ashore, and Swiftwater managedto find among the scanty population one or two of his old comrades, whohad given up the search for gold and were content to work for the tradingcompanies. A rapid but uneventful run during the afternoon brought them toEagle, where they were greeted with delight by the three hundred or morecitizens, and the few army officers, who, after welcoming the party,carried the Colonel off to the barracks, the boys being quartered in theonly hotel of the place, run by the postmistress of the town, who hadformerly been a school teacher in the States, and who made the boys' staydelightfully homelike.
Desiring to make Circle the next day, a distance of nearly two hundredmiles by the river, they left Eagle at an early hour after taking on boarda supply of fuel of a rather questionable character, for which they had topay a heavy price. The trading companies said that this was the secondlaunch that had visited Eagle and the demand for high-grade fuel was notgreat.
"Say, boys, what is 'mush'?" asked Jack, suddenly, as they sped down theriver.
"C-c-cornmeal, salt and water, boiled," promptly spoke up Pepper, who wasthe expert on most things edible.
"It's what we make de pone an' de hoecake of, honey," corrected Rand.
"I dunno," broke in Don, "but I hear it's some foolish substitute foroatmeal porridge."
"My uncle feeds the chickens lots of it out on his farm," insisted Dick.
"Here, here," cried Jack, as soon as he could get in a word. "My mindisn't constantly on the menu. It's queer how a young man's fancyconstantly turns to something to eat at any time of day. I'm talking ofsome word that Swiftwater used yesterday, referring to Forty-mile."
"Better ask him," suggested Rand, "he's an awful good explainer."
The miner, who had been talking with Colonel Snow about the value ofAlaska mining investments in various districts, heard his name mentionedand turned with a smile.
"What's Swiftwater's latest crime?" he asked.
"We wanted to know what you meant by the word 'mush' you used yesterday,"said Jack.
"Oh, that means simply gettin' somewhere; jest walkin' which, I might say,has been up to this time the chief means of communication in this bigAlaska. I don't know where the word come from, but it was here when Iarrived. I always supposed it was Eskimo. The whole Eskimo language,before I learned it, used to sound to me like a mouthful of it. However, ayoung feller who was up here some years ago, a newspaper man like you (hewas with a party of United States senators), gave me a new idea on thematter. He showed me that the most of Alaska that wasn't forest andmountain and rock was just a soft wet spongy mat of roots and grass andmoss that every step on it just pernounced the word."
"Ah, you mean McClain," exclaimed Colonel Snow. "I've read his work, andit is the most lucid, modest, and understandable descriptive work on theAlaskan country that has yet appeared."
The low grade fuel and inferior oil which they had taken aboard at Eaglehad its effect on the engine which showed signs of "laying down," as theengineer said, several times during the day. Finally, after a peculiarlyvicious splutter the motor "backfired," setting the oil soaked dungareesof the engineer aflame, and promptly "died." The engineer did not hesitatewith so much oil and gasoline around him, but went over the side into theYukon with one hand on the gunwale and, as soon as his burning clothingwas soaked, was helped aboard again by his companion.
It became absolutely necessary to clean the engine, and while one of theboys kept the launch in the middle of the river as it drifted, with anoar, the others rolled up their sleeves, and with the knowledge gainedfrom their aeroplane motors, aided the steersman to disconnect and cleanthe machinery. Meantime the engineer arrayed himself in dry clothing.
"Well, well," said he, as he came out of the cabin, "I didn't know we hada group of experts aboard. I supposed the aviator that went up yesterdayknew all about it, but this help will save us about an hour's time, and wehaven't been getting any too much speed out of her to-day."
The engine behaved excellently for the rest of the day, and about fiveo'clock in the afternoon they landed at the town of Circle.
They found it a village of a couple of hundred, the supply point for theBirch Creek mining region.
At an early hour the next morning they were again on the bosom of theriver, the engine having again been cleaned and "nursed" as the engineerdescribed it for the day. The river had begun to widen and the bank tofall to almost a dead level just before reaching Circle the night before,and they now entered upon a dreary expanse of tundra or flat marsh landcovered with a meager growth of willow and stunted birch. The river spreadout to a width
of nearly a dozen miles, dividing into many channelssurrounding small bushy islands and rendering navigation very difficult.The wheelman, who was an old river pilot, was thoroughly acquainted withwhat he called the "Yukon flats," and managed to elude the sandbars andsunken islands with considerable dexterity.
"The trouble is," he confided to Swiftwater, "that this old river isclosed six months in the year, and we never can tell whether we're goin'to find any of it here when the ice goes out in the spring. It wanders'round as if it had no home or mother, and where we find a twenty-footchannel this fall there may be a dusty wagon road next spring."
At nine o'clock in the forenoon, Swiftwater rose and stepped onto the roofof the cabin and scanned the far-off shore intently. Suddenly, he turnedto the interested Scouts, and removing his broad brim made a mock bow andsaid impressively:
"Young fellows, let me welcome you to the Frigid Zone; we have justcrossed Arctic Circle."
"Wha--wha--where is it?" cried Pepper excitedly.
"Where's what?" asked Swiftwater.
"Th-the Circle."
"All in your imagination, if you'll remember back to your geography,"replied the miner, with a smile, while the other boys who were slightlyawed by the new situation, for a moment, gave a hearty laugh.
"Don't appear to be very frigid, does it?" remarked the Colonel, and theboys, who, for the first time, felt that they had really invaded the"Terrible North" of the explorers, gazed with new interest on the lushgreen meadows of the shores and the foliage of the tree-covered island.
They ran on down the river, and an hour later landed at Fort Yukon, anabandoned military post, the most northerly point on the river, lying atthe mouth of the Porcupine, the Yukon's most important tributary.