"We'll hold a council," said he. "Now, what do you think is best to do?"

The others remained silent for a time.

"Well," said Jesse, at length, "I want to go home pretty bad. He can have my rifle if he wants it, if he'll take a letter out to John's Uncle d.i.c.k at Kadiak."

"I think it's best," said John. "We'll have two rifles left, and that will be all we really need. Let's go and write the note and take the chance of its ever getting out. Anyway, it is the best we can do."

They returned to the barabbara, where Rob wrote as plainly as he could, with deep marks of the pencil, as follows:

"_Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak_.

"DEAR SIR,--We are all right, but don't know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory.

Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige

"Yours truly, ----."

"Do you think that'll do all right, boys?" he asked.

The others nodded a.s.sent, and so each signed his name. Folding up the paper and tying it in a piece of the membrane which he cut off a corner of his _kamelinka_, Rob finally gave the packet to the old chief.

"Plenty talk-talk thing," he said. "You bring peoples--get-um schooner--my peoples give-um flour, sugar, two rifle, hundred dollars."

Without further comment than a grunt the old chief stowed the packet in an inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse's rifle under his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to leave the coast.

The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.

Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.

"Well," he admitted, "I don't care! I _do_ want to go home!"

XX

THE SILVER-GRAY FOX

After the natives had departed, the young castaways, quite alone on their wild island, felt more lonesome and more uneasy than they had been before. The wilderness seemed to close in about them. None of them had any definite hope or plan for an early rescue or departure from the island, so for some two or three weeks they pa.s.sed the time in a restless and discontented way, doing little to rival the exciting events which had taken place during the visit of the natives. It was now approaching the end of spring, and Rob, more thoughtful perhaps than any of the others, could not conceal from himself the anxiety which began to settle upon him.

In these circ.u.mstances Rob and his friends found the young Aleut, with his cheerful and care-free disposition and his apparent unconcern about the future, of much comfort as well as of great a.s.sistance in a practical way. They nicknamed the Aleut boy Skookie--a shortening of the Chinook word _skook.u.m_, which means _strong_, or _good_, or _all right_. Their young companion, used as he was to life in the open, solved simply and easily all their little problems of camp-keeping.

Under his guidance, they finished the work on the bear-skins, sc.r.a.ping them and rubbing them day after day, until at last they turned them into valuable rugs.

It was Skookie, also, who showed them where to get their salmon and codfish most easily. In short, he naturally dropped into the place of local guide. The native is from his youth trained to observation of natural objects, because his life depends upon such things. With the white man or white boy this is not the case. No matter how much instinct he may have for the life of the wilderness, with him adjustment to that life is a matter of study and effort, whereas with the native all these things are a matter of course. It may be supposed, therefore, that this young Aleut made the best of instructors for the young companions who found themselves castaway in this remote region.

Thus, none of the three white boys had noted more than carelessly the paths of wild animals which came down from the surrounding hills to the sh.o.r.es of the lagoon near which they were camped, although these paths could be seen with ease by any one whose attention was attracted to them. One day they were wandering along the upper end of the lagoon where the gra.s.s, matted with several seasons' growth and standing as tall as their shoulders, stood especially dense. They noticed that Skookie stooped now and then and parted the tangled gra.s.s with his hands. At last, like a young hound, he left their course and began to circle around, crossing farther on what they now discovered to be an easily distinguishable trail made by some sort of small animal.

"What is it? What's up, Skookie?" asked John, whose curiosity always was in evidence.

The Aleut boy did not at first reply, because he did not know how to do so. He made a sort of sign, by putting his two bent fingers, p.r.i.c.ked up, along the side of his head like ears.

"Wolf!" said John.

"No," commented Rob. "I don't think there are any wolves on this island; at least, I never heard of any so far to the West. What is it, Skookie?"

The boy made the same sign, and then spread his hands apart as if to measure the length of some animal.

"Fox!" cried Jesse, with conviction; and Skookie, who understood English better than he spoke it, laughed in a.s.sent.

"Fokus," he said, repeating the word as nearly as he could. Now he traced out the path in the gra.s.s for them, and, beckoning them to follow, showed where it crossed the tundra and ran along the stream, headed back to the higher hills which seemed to be the resort of the wild animals, from which they came down to feed along the beach.

"It's as plain as the nose on a fellow's face," said John. "And some of these paths look as if they were a good many years old."

Indeed, they could trace them out, many of them, worn deep into the moss by the dainty feet of foxes which had travelled the same lines for many years. It was a curious thing, but all these wild animals, even the bears, seemed not to like the work of walking where the footing was soft, so they made paths of their own which they followed from one part of the country to another. On this great Alaskan island nearly every mountain pa.s.s had bear trails and fox paths leading down to the valleys along the streams or from one valley over into another. The foxes as well as the bears seemed to find a great deal of their food along the beaches.

As the young native ran along the fox trail the others had difficulty in keeping up with him.

"What's the matter with him? What's up, Rob?" panted John, who was a trifle fat for his years. "Why doesn't he keep in the plain trails?"

"Let him alone," said Rob. "He may have some idea of his own. See there, he is heading over toward the beach."

They followed him along the faint trail, dimly outlined at places in the moss, and soon they caught the idea which was in his mind. The path headed toward the beach and then zig-zagged, paralleling it as though some fox had come down and caught sight or scent of something interesting and then had investigated it cautiously. Others had trodden in his foot-prints, and so made this path, which at length straightened out and ran directly to the beach just opposite the place where the dead whale lay.

"Plenty--plenty!" said Skookie, pointing his short finger to the trail and then down to the beach where the carca.s.s of the whale lay. Whether he meant plenty of fox or plenty of food for the foxes made little difference.

"They're feeding on the whale, now that the boats have gone," explained Rob. "That is plain. Skookie is just showing us the new trail they have made the last few nights."

Skookie turned back and began to follow the trail toward the mountain.

Without comment the others followed him, and so they ran the faint path back until it climbed directly up the steep bluff, fifty feet in height, and struck a long, flat, higher level, where the foxes all seemed to have established an ancient highway. Several trails here crossed, although each held its own way and did not merge with the others; as though there were bands of foxes which came from one locality and did not mingle with the others.

"Now, what made him come up here?" asked John, whose shorter legs were beginning to tire of this long walk. "We're getting a good way from home."

"Just wait," advised Jesse. "We'll learn something yet, I shouldn't wonder. Skookie's after something; that's plain."

Indeed, the young Aleut, not much farther on, began now to stoop and examine the trail closely. At length he pointed his brown finger at a certain spot near the trail. The others bent over the place.

"Something's been here," said Jesse. The moss had been dug out and put back again.

Skookie smiled and walked on a little farther and showed them several other such places a few yards apart. He held up the fingers of one hand.

"Five _klipsie_," he said, and then swept an arm around toward the face of the mountains, remarking: "My peoples come here."

"Oh," said Rob; "he means that here is where his family come to set their _klipsie_ traps for foxes. I suppose these places are where the same _klipsies_ were set five different times. I have heard that when they catch a fox in one place they always take up their trap and move it on a little way so that the other foxes may not be frightened away by the smell of the dead fox or the trap."

"I wonder," said Jesse, "if any fox would have good fur this late in the spring."

"He might," said Rob, "if he had been living all the time up in the mountains near the snow; but as the natives trap a good deal along the beach, I suppose they took up their traps some time ago. They never like to take fur unless it is good, of course."