While the lads talked of sea-otters, their companion, who had cleaned up the dishes by the simple process of sweeping the remains of their meal into the fire, had been deliberately shaving bits of tobacco from a plug that had fortunately escaped a wetting, and filling his beloved pipe. This he had lighted with a live coal deftly picked up in his callous fingers, and he now sat, surrounded by a halo of fragrant smoke, blinking in the firelight, a picture of placid content. Seizing the opportunity of a pause in the conversation he broke in with:
“Sea-otters allers reminds me of old Kite Roberson who once said, consarning ’em, ‘Jal’—he allers called me ‘Jal,’ short for Jalap, ye understand—”
“By-the-way,” interrupted Phil, “you promised to tell us how you happened to have such an outlan—I mean, such a peculiar name.”
“So I did, and so I will. To begin with, I want to say that I don’t believe as a gineral thing in rebelling again’ the name your parents have give ye, when like as not they didn’t have nothing else to give. In some cases, though, it’s difficult to become resigned. I’ve striv faithful to get reconciled to Jalap, without getting an inch nearer to it to-day than I was when I fust realized what a heathenish hail it war. Being the youngest of thirteen boys, and my father allers hankering fur a gal baby, I was naturally a turrible disappointment to him, in addition to being a mortal ugly young duffer to look at. Seeing he was about run out of Scripter names for boys, my father was hard put to it to know what to call me, and as christening day drew nigh he was in a wuss quandary than ever.
“’Bout this time old Kite Roberson—he was young Kite then—came back from his fust v’y’ge, which he had been four years arter whales in the South Pacific. Now in my town and his’n mussels, such as you two was eating just now, was plenty, and the boys uster have mussel roasts as a reg’lar thing. Kite was mortal fond of ’em, and seeing as he hadn’t had none in four years, made up his mind the fust thing when he got back to have the biggest kind of a mussel roast. And so he did. From all accounts he must have et nigh onto a bushel, and naturally they made him so sick that he like to ha’ died. Now old Mis’ Roberson, Kite’s ma, was a master-hand at doctorin’, and what she doctored with mostly was jalap. Of course she give this to Kite, and stood over him while he swallowed it, till he didn’t know which was wust, it or dying.
“Fust time he got round he come over to our house, we being neighbors, to see me, which he hadn’t ever sot eyes on me afore. My father fetched me out, and says, referring to me, ye understand, ‘He ain’t no beauty, is he?’
“‘No,’ says Kite, who was allers plain-spoken, ‘he ain’t, for a fact; and to tell ye the truth, Mr. Coombs, I can’t think of anything he favors so much as he does a dose of jalap.’
“‘Jalap,’ says my father, meditating and turning of the word over in his mouth—‘jalap. It’s bitter but wholesome, and as he’s the dose I’ve got to take whether or no, I’ll call him Jalap, and done with it.’
“He kep’ his word, and that’s how I come to be sot agin mussels.”
“I declare! I don’t blame you, Mr. Coombs,” said Phil, laughing at this quaint bit of family history; “and if I had been in your place I would have had it changed as soon as I grew up.”
“No,” said the mate, decidedly, “that wouldn’t have done, ’cause, you see, it were all owing to the name, for which Kite naturally felt responserble, that he come to be so friendly with me. Sorter trying to make up for what he’d did, ye understand; and his friendship, he being a powerful smart man, made me what I be.”
Phil wanted to laugh again at the evident pride with which the mate of the Seamew regarded his station in life, but realizing that it would be very rude, hastily changed the subject by inquiring: “By-the-way, Mr. Coombs, how soon do you think we shall be obliged to leave this island? If it wasn’t for my poor father’s anxiety I should like to stay here a month. You see, after what Serge has told me, I find there are ever so many things here that I want to see. In fact, I feel as if I must see a sea-otter. That is,” he added, mischievously, “it seems as if a sea-otter was the one thing I otter see.”
“Hey?” ejaculated the mate, taking his pipe from his mouth and gazing at Phil as though he feared something had gone wrong with the lad. Then, as a twinkle in the other’s eye betrayed him, he exclaimed: “Get along, ye young villain! We’ll stay here long enough to let you see all you want of this island, and more too, ef I’m not mightily mistaken in the weather. And now ye’d best follow your chum’s example and turn in, for ef ye ain’t sleepy, ye ought to be arter the day we’ve had and the to-morrows that is a-coming.”
So the three castaways on that desolate northern island slept on their mossy couch as soundly and peacefully as though in their bunks on board the Seamew or in the beds of their distant homes. All night long the wind howled about the stout walls of their shelter, the rain beat on the canvas roof above them, and a mighty roar from the sea filled the air; but none of these things disturbed them, and not until long after daylight did one of them awake.
For a solid week did the tempest rage with unabated fury, and long before the end of that time they were wearied almost beyond endurance with their enforced inaction and monotonous diet. To Phil in particular did the salmon and crabs, that he had thought so good on that first night, grow so distasteful that it became almost impossible for him to swallow the hated food.
During those seven long, weary days they only left the hut when forced to do so to obtain food, wood, or water. Serge went as far as the wreck of their boat, where he obtained several oak ribs and half a dozen nails. The latter were ground, or, rather, rubbed down to sharp points by his companions, while he busied himself in cutting out two of the great clumsy-looking wooden halibut-hooks, such as are used by the Indians about Sitka, and specimens of which are brought from there by every Alaskan tourist. At the proper point in each of these he inserted one of the sharpened nails, and Jalap Coombs lashed them solidly into place with bits of twine.
Phil ridiculed these, and said that any fish stupid enough to be hooked by them deserved to be caught; but Serge only smiled the superior smile of one who knows, and answered: “All right, we’ll see!”
When the gale finally blew itself out Phil did see, and marvelled at the facility with which codfish and flounders were caught by these same despised wooden hooks, which he was forced to admit were as deadly as the finest sproats or Limerick bends he had ever used.
One morning, at the beginning of their second week of captivity, the castaways were awakened by a burst of sunshine, and sprang from their couch of moss to be greeted by as glorious a July day as any of them had ever seen. It was made up of sunshine, blue sky, a dimpled landscape of plain, foot-hill, and snow-capped mountains all glowing with the yellows, reds, purples, and greens of mosses, lichens, and volcanic cliffs. Above all, Shishaldin reared his lofty crest that his filmy smoke-plumes might stream out bravely in the crisp morning breeze.
During the week just past our friends had discussed over and over again their plans for the future, and had decided that the first thing was to attract the attention of some passing vessel that might be induced to take them and their seal-skins to Oonalaska. This place, although lying many miles to the westward, was the nearest settlement and trading-post, and also the point of departure for the monthly steamer to Sitka. At Oonalaska they would dispose of their furs. Phil and Serge would engage passage for the destination they so longed to reach, and Jalap Coombs’s future would be laid out according to circumstances. But first they must catch their schooner.
As vessels were more likely to be seen on the Pacific than on the Bering Sea side of the island, they decided first of all to climb a very considerable elevation that rose almost directly from Krenitzin Strait, and a couple of miles south of their camp. From this they hoped to see both waters. During their walk they caught glimpses of several small bands of caribou, and of one or two distant moving objects that Phil was certain must be bear. Never had he wished for a rifle so much as now. Venison and bear meat! How good either or both of them would taste! How he hated fish and longed for meat! But there was probably no gun of any kind within a hundred miles of him save those that he knew of at the bottom of the sea; so what was the good of wishing for one?
They were disappointed to find that the Pacific was hidden from the elevation they ascended by another rising beyond it. As they descended into the valley between the two, with the intention of climbing the second hill, they were startled by the ringing report of a rifle-shot. A moment later three caribou came flying up the valley with the speed of the wind, rushed past them so close that they involuntarily stepped back for fear of being trampled underfoot, and disappeared. A fourth who was lagging behind, evidently wounded, stumbled, and halted but a short distance from them. Ere he could resume his flight, a second shot, still from some unseen source, stretched him dead at their feet.