To say that our friends were startled by the sound of these rifle-shots in that wilderness, which but a minute before they would have sworn did not contain a human being other than themselves, but feebly expresses their astonishment and joy. To them, or at least to Phil Ryder, a rifle-shot indicated the presence of white men. These must belong to a vessel that would take him and his companions to some point from which passage might be engaged for Sitka. Thus, ere the breeze had dissipated the little cloud of blue smoke from that second shot, all the perplexities of the situation had vanished, and Phil felt as though the object of his long journey were at length attained. To his amazement and dismay, the figure that bounded into view from behind a jutting point of rock as the caribou fell was not that of a white man, but of a native. Although he was clad in hat, shirt, trousers, and boots of the quality adopted by all who lead rough out-of-door lives, his short figure, dark skin, and broad face proved him to be a full-blooded Aleut.
If the castaways were surprised to see him, he was equally so at their appearance, and at sight of them stopped short in his tracks. Then with a glance at his caribou to assure himself that it was dead, he slowly advanced towards where they stood.
Serge, with extended hand, stepped forth to meet him, and, in the Russian trade patois common to that coast, told him how glad they were to see him, and asked how he happened to be in that place.
He replied that his name was Kooga, that he had come alone in his bidarkie from Oonga Island to act as hunter for, and keep supplied with food during the next three months, a party of sea-otter-catchers who were daily expected to reach that neighborhood from Oonalaska.
Having in turn learned who the strangers were, and expressed his gratification at meeting them, Kooga turned his attention to his game, which he proceeded to skin and cut up with the utmost dexterity.
As the others watched him with hungry anticipations, Serge continued to ply him with questions, and thus learned that he, like themselves, had been weather-bound on the island by the tempest of the past week, but for which his friends would long since have arrived. Now he thought they would leave Oonalaska in the traders’ schooner that very day, and that the next one would witness their arrival off that point of Oonimak nearest the little outlying island of Saanak, where are the best sea-otter grounds of the coast.
“He also says,” continued Serge, interpreting this communication for the benefit of the others, “that after leaving her hunters the schooner will run on to Saanak, where she will cache a store of provisions for their use, and will then return to Oonalaska, not to come back for three months.”
“What a splendid chance for us!” cried Phil. “It is exactly such a one as we have been wanting. Talk about bad-luck now!” he added, with a sly glance at Serge. “It seems to me ours couldn’t be much better than it is if we had arranged it to suit ourselves.”
Serge paid no attention to this remark, for he was listening attentively to Kooga, who was again talking, and saying that in four days from that time another trading-schooner bound for Oonalaska from the eastward was due to pass close to the north side of Oonimak Island.
“Better and better!” exclaimed Phil, when this was translated. “We surely can’t miss them both, and must be taken off by one or the other. I hope it will be by the sea-otter fellow, though, as I should dearly love to see something of that hunting.”
“And I,” said Jalap Coombs, “hope it will be by the other one, seeing as it will be so much handier to load our seal-skins into her.”
“Oh, I had forgotten them!” replied Phil, in a tone of disappointment. “Yes, I suppose we must take the north-side schooner.”
“You speak as if you were certain of catching either one you wanted,” laughed Serge; “but, for my part, I think there is a big chance of missing both of them. They may pass in the night, or in a fog, or too far out to notice our signals. Now I propose that we divide into two parties, and watch at both ends of the island at once. If Mr. Coombs is willing to remain in camp at the north end, you and I can go with Kooga to the south end, where we may have a chance to see something of sea-otter hunting. If at the same time we can catch that schooner, and persuade her to come round to this side of the island, we sha’n’t need the other. If we miss her, or she refuses to take us, we shall still have plenty of time to get back here before the other is due.”
“Good for you, Serge!” shouted Phil. “That’s an immense scheme, and I don’t see why I didn’t think of it myself, only I never do think of things until afterwards.”
“It shows the result of a sea-training,” said Jalap Coombs. “I was jest a-considering of that same plan, and would have laid it afore all hands arter dinner, which, it seems to me, is the thing to be thought of fust. So now, if our oakum-colored friend will give us a hunk of his meat, we’ll lay a course for our own galley fire over yonder. Arter stowing a cargo of grub we’ll consider what’s the next thing to be did.”
“That suits me exactly,” agreed Phil, who had been casting longing eyes at the tempting-looking venison, “and the sooner that plan is carried out the better. So open negotiations at once—won’t you, Serge, like a good fellow? I don’t believe I ever was more nearly starved.”
Serge laughed, and after a few minutes’ conversation with Kooga, informed his companions that the native was perfectly willing to go with them to the barrabkie, and that they were welcome to all the meat they wanted, as his bidarkie would not hold half of it. The fact is that the young Aleut was fully as hungry as they, and possessed of an equal longing for fresh meat, the gale having so interfered with his hunting as to compel him to live on shell-fish ever since he reached the island.
This being settled, all four loaded themselves with venison and followed Kooga’s lead to the place where he had made his lonely and cheerless camp, and where his bidarkie was carefully hauled up on the beach beyond high-water mark. His shelter was a tiny A tent, supported by paddles and spears, and pitched in the lee of a huge bowlder. A quantity of moss heaped within it had formed for him a bed similar to that of our castaways. He had not, however, been able to make a fire, his supply of tinder being wet, and he not having had the good-fortune to discover an eider-duck’s nest.
The bidarkie excited Phil’s curiosity to such an extent that it seemed as though he would never weary of examining it. It was one of the two-holed craft, and after it had been carefully launched and laden the Yankee lad asked Serge if he thought Kooga would allow him to occupy its vacant hatch for the short cruise.
When Serge made the request the young native looked dubious, and shook his head. He had seen too many self-confident white men spilled into the icy waters of that coast from those ticklish craft; but as Phil insisted, he finally yielded a reluctant consent. He, of course, did not know that the white lad had been considered the most expert canoeman in New London, or that his own canoe was a tiny-decked affair of cedar every whit as crank as this bidarkie. His eyes therefore opened wide with surprise as his new companion stepped lightly into the canoe and settled himself in its forward hatch, with all the confidence of one who had always been accustomed to such things. When, in addition to this, Phil seized a double-bladed paddle and began to wield it with the practised skill of an old canoeman, the young Aleut actually laughed aloud with gratified amazement.
As under the influence of its two well-handled paddles the light craft shot away up the strait, Jalap Coombs and Serge watched it with a feeling of pride that their companion should thus prove himself the equal of a native in one of his own especial lines of business. The mate was especially outspoken in his admiration of this feat, which would have been as impossible to him as the navigating of a balloon. “I don’t believe even old Kite Roberson hisself could have done it any handier,” he said, as he resumed his burden of venison, and started with it along-shore in the direction of the barrabkie.
The canoe reached a point opposite the hut some time before the others, and when they got there it was already unloaded. Most of its cargo had been transferred to the hut, and its occupants were just returning for the few things that were left. Among these was Kooga’s rifle, which Phil picked up and examined with interest. He marvelled to find it so good a one, for it was a Winchester of the latest pattern. As he lifted it to his shoulder and sighted it his eye was caught by a slight movement on a small rock nearly half a mile out in the strait. A hair-seal which had been sleeping there had just lifted its head. At that distance it did not look larger than a man’s fist.
Phil drew Kooga’s attention to it and offered him the rifle, signifying by motions that he should shoot; but the native shook his head decisively, and gave the former to understand that the mark was too small for such a distance. Upon this the Yankee lad, carefully adjusting the sights of the rifle, and assuring himself that there was a cartridge in its chamber, took a deliberate aim and fired.
The seal dropped its head as though it had again gone to sleep, and the native smiled.
“Tell him to go and get it,” said Phil to Serge, who came up at that moment. When the latter repeated this request Kooga’s pitying smile changed to an expression of incredulity. Nevertheless, he again placed his canoe in the water and paddled away. When he returned with the dead seal, shot directly through the brain, his expression was one of amazement.
“He must be the white man who makes guns,” he said to Serge, “and command them to do his will. Take him away from here soon, for if he once gets among the kahlan [sea-otter] he will leave none for us.”
A sea-otter hunt was, however, the one thing upon which Phil Ryder’s heart was most set just then. Not only that, but he had determined to go on one in Kooga’s company.