The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Part 28

At the rate of a pound a day a man for four months, it would take all of five hundred dog teams of ten dogs each to get the stuff up there!

An' what would you do with the five thousand dogs when you got 'em up there?

[Ill.u.s.tration: REINDEER MESSENGERS OF RESCUE.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: REINDEER THAT SAVED THREE HUNDRED LIVES.

Part of Charlie Artisarlook's herd, driven a thousand miles through blizzards by three Coast Guard heroes.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

"No, winter travel in Alaska's got to be by reindeer. You mayn't know it, but it's the U. S. Government that has made the Eskimos happy.

There's one man, Sheldon Jackson, of the Bureau of Education, who's brought more peace and happiness to a larger number of people than 'most any man I know."

"How? By introducing reindeer?"

"Just that," the whaler answered. "The Eskimo would have been wiped off the face of the earth but for that one man's work. He started the reindeer idea, he brought in a few himself, he got the Government interested an' now reindeer are the backbone of northern Alaska. Our steam whalers had driven the whales an' the walrus an' the seal so far north that the Eskimo couldn't reach them. They were slowly starvin' to death by hundreds when Uncle Sam stepped in. And your captain commandant, that's Bertholf, who I'm telling you about now, he did a lot for Alaska when he brought in the bigger breed, the Tunguse reindeer, which are comin' to be the real beasts o' burden here in the north. It was knowin' what could be done with reindeer that sent Jarvis round to Point Rodney and Cape Prince of Wales to get the herds together an'

start 'em north."

"I thought," said Eric, wrinkling up his forehead, "there was a herd nearer than that. How about the Teller Station at Port Clarence? Isn't that a reindeer layout?"

"It is," said the old whaler, "but distress among the miners in the Upper Yukon had been reported earlier, an' that herd had been started off for there. Jarvis figured on rounding up Artisarlook's herd at Point Rodney, and the Government herd under C. M. Lopp at Cape Prince of Wales, an' arrangin' to drive 'em to Point Barrow. Then, by pickin' up Bertholf, who was to cut straight across the Seward Peninsula with the dog-teams and the provisions, he would be sure of having enough supplies to push north.

"Then Jarvis struck snow-drifts! The guides traveled with snowshoes an'

did their best to make a trail, Jarvis doing a big share o' the work.

The runners of the sleds went clear down an' the dogs sank nearly out of sight in their struggles to move 'em. The men had to go backwards and forwards a dozen times in front of the sled, stamping it down hard.

Then the dogs would drag it ten feet or so an' they'd have to pound the snow again. There's something that's exhaustin'. Even the dogs played out an' simply lay down in the snow, refusin' to go any farther."

"Without any shelter?"

"Huskies don't need any shelter. They're tough brutes so far as weather is concerned. Durin' the coldest winter weather in the worst blizzards they'll curl up anywhere on the snow an' sleep, an' when the snow has drifted over 'em, get up, shake themselves, an' lie down in the same place again for another sleep."

"They sc.r.a.p a lot, too, don't they?"

"At feedin' time. When bein' fed they are like wild animals an' snarl an' bite each other, keepin' up one continual fight until everything is eaten. It's more than one man's job with a club to keep 'em quiet enough for all the dogs to get their share. But when all the grub is done with, they'll get moderately quiet again.

"At Golovin Bay, Jarvis found the Teller reindeer herd under Dr.

Kettleson. He was on his way to St. Michael for the Upper Yukon, same as I told you, an' had started from Port Clarence three weeks before but had been stopped by the deep snow. So Jarvis sent back the dog teams to Bertholf, who was waiting for them at Unalaklik, and started out with reindeer teams."

"How do reindeer travel?" queried the boy.

"All right, in winter, but they're irregular," the other replied. "Every one has got to be ready in the morning for the start, for the instant the head team moves, all the deer are off with a jump, full gallop. For half an hour or so they go like an express train, then they sober down to a more steady rate of speed, an' finally, when they are tired, they'll drop into a walk. Jarvis' deer played him a nasty trick on this trip."

"What was that?" asked the boy.

"It was on the way to Point Rodney. It was blowing a living gale an' the snow was blinding. In the dark Jarvis' deer wandered from the trail, got entangled in a lot of driftwood on the beach, which was half covered over with snow, took fright, an' finally wound up by running the sled full speed agin a stump, breakin' the harness, draggin' the line out of Jarvis' hand an' disappearin' in the darkness an' the flying snow.

Luckily Jarvis knew enough not to try and follow him. He stayed right there."

"All night?" queried the boy.

"Luckily, he didn't have to," the other answered. "Two hours later, a search party found him. They dug a hole in the snow an' camped right there.

"The next day they only made five miles. The storm was so bad that the man breakin' trail couldn't stand up an' had to crawl on his hands and knees. Even the reindeer wouldn't travel in a straight line, wantin' to turn their tails to the blast. This would have taken the party straight out to sea over the ice. After three days' delay, Jarvis insisted on travel, an' he nearly had a mutiny on his hands. But he put it through.

He's one of the kind of men that always keeps on going!

"Then came the time for diplomacy. Jarvis had to persuade 'Charlie'

Artisarlook, just on his say-so, to give up his whole herd, his entire wealth, promisin' that the same number of deer should be returned. As a small village had grown up around this herd of Artisarlook's--which made him quite the most prominent member of his race for miles around--an' as they depended entirely for their food and clothing on the reindeer herd, it was like askin' a city to empty its houses of everything for the sake of men they'd never even seen. I think it says a lot for the Eskimos that they agreed."

"It's bully!"

"That's me, too. It's something to give up every penny you own merely on a promise that it will be returned, to leave your wife, family an'

neighbors starving, an' go eight hundred miles from home in an Arctic winter over a terrible road to help a party of white men in distress.

"When Artisarlook agreed, Jarvis and he went on ahead, leaving Surgeon Call to follow with the herd to Cape Prince of Wales. This, Jarvis told me, was one of the worst bits of road on the entire trip. Here's what Jarvis said himself about it:

"'As I remember it, the thermometer was over thirty below zero and there was a tidy blizzard blowing when we started for Cape Prince of Wales.

The going was rough beyond words. In the afternoon, suddenly Artisarlook wanted to camp, but I thought he was trying to work on my fears, so I made him go on. But the boy was right, for shortly after it got dark we struck the bluffs near Cape York and our road was over the ice crushes that lined the sh.o.r.e.

"'I have never seen such a road. Artisarlook went ahead to try and pick out the way, if indeed it could be called a way, which was nothing but blocks of ice heaped in confusion and disorder. I stayed behind to manage the heavy sled which was continually capsizing in the rough ice.

By eight o'clock I was done out and quite willing to camp. But this time Artisarlook would not stop. It was too cold to camp on the ice without shelter or wood--the ice we were on was in danger of breaking away from the bluffs at any minute, and then it might be the end of us. We must get on beyond the line of bluffs before stopping.

"'To make matters worse I stepped through a crack in the ice into the water, and, almost instantaneously, my leg to the knee was a ma.s.s of ice. I was now compelled to go on to some place where the foot-gear could be dried. As though in a dream, suffering the most horrible tortures of fatigue, we pushed on dispiritedly until midnight, when we came to a small hut about ten by twelve, in which fifteen people were already sleeping. It was the most horrible place I have ever been in, but, at the same time, I was never so happy to be under a roof before.

Though I had eaten nothing all day, I was too tired to do more than to crawl into my sleeping-bag and sleep.

"'The blizzard raged as fiercely outside as on the day before, but I could not stay in that pestilential and filthy hut. Even Artisarlook--and an Eskimo is not over-particular--found difficulty in eating his breakfast. For my part--I could not breathe. The air was horrible and it was refres.h.i.+ng to get outside and to be going through the storm and over the rough ice. Fortunately there was another village about ten miles further on and we stopped there and had a good meal to fortify ourselves against the battle around the mountains of the Cape York.

"'At last I had struck the worst road in the world. All the tremendous pressure of the Polar Seas forcing the ice to the southward was checked by the land ma.s.ses of Siberia and Alaska. The ice, twisted and broken, crushed and mangled, piled in a welter of frozen confusion along the sh.o.r.e. Darkness set in before we came to the worst of it, and a faint moon gave little light for such a road. For fifteen miles there was not ten feet of level ground. Though the temperature was thirty below zero, Artisarlook and I were wet to the skin with perspiration from the violence of the work. We would have to get under the heavy sled and lift it to the top of an ice hummock sometimes as high as our shoulders or even higher and then ease it down on the other side. Three times out of four it would capsize.

"'It was a continuous jumble of dogs, sleds, men and ice--particularly ice--and it would be hard to tell which suffered most, men or dogs. Once in helping the sled over a bad place, I was thrown nearly nine feet down a slide, landing on the back of my head with the sled on me. Our sleds were racked and broken, our dogs played out and we ourselves scarce able to move when we finally reached Mr. Lopp's house at the Cape.'"

"Glorious!" cried Eric, his eyes s.h.i.+ning; "they won through!"

"Yes, they got through all right," the whaler answered. "They still had a terrible journey ahead of them, but success was sure. Two or three days later Dr. Call reported with Artisarlook's herd. Lopp, of course, was an expert in handling deer an', besides, knew the country well. With sleds and over four hundred reindeer, equipped in every way except for provisions, Jarvis started for the north. He met Bertholf at the appointed meeting-place, Bertholf having done miracles in crossing the divide with the provisions.

"Meantime Lopp took a chance with the deer that no one less experienced in local conditions dared ha' done. In the teeth of a blizzard he forced the deer herd over the ice of Kotzebue Sound, miles away from land.

Though he himself was badly frostbitten, an' though every one of the herders arrived on the further sh.o.r.e with severe frost-bites, the crossing was achieved, savin' several weeks o' time.

"So, with the deer comin' over the mountains, where they could find moss, an' with the Coast Guard men coming up the coast in the dog teams Bertholf had brought, rescue came up to us on Point Barrow.

"I've seen some strange sights in my time an' I've lived all my life with men who sported with death daily. But I've never seen a stranger sight than strong men creepin' out of the snow-banked hovels where they'd been for four long months, half-starved and three-quarters sick, to actually feel Jarvis to make sure that he was real.

"Many and many a man reckoned it was delirium to think that help had come. It seemed beyond belief. An' when Jarvis told 'em that four hundred reindeer were only a day's journey away, an' that there was fresh meat enough for all--old seadogs that hadn't had any sort of feeling for years, just broke down and cried like children.

"Then, while the excitement was at its height, and everybody was asking questions at the same time, a grizzled old whaler, who had been whalin'

for half a century an' more, I guess, half-blind with scurvy, crept forward and laid his hand on Jarvis' shoulder.