The Young Alaskans on the Trail Part 15

This time the little disks fell irregularly, and Moise expressed his disgust.

"Five one kin', three other kin'; no good!" said he. "She'll have to come up two, four, seex, eight--the hard way for heem to come is all tam the way he'll win. You see?" he continued on shaking and thumping the bowl and catching the little disks, and as he won or lost, Alex gravely handed him the little sticks, or counters, or received them back from him as the case might be.

This ancient gambling device of the Indians was very simple and the game was soon learned, but the knack of catching the disks in the pan proved quite difficult. John undertook it, with the result that he spilled every one of them out when they fell in the shallow bowl, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Moise.

"You'll not been Injun," said Moise. "If any of those pieces he'll fly out of pan, then you have to give up the pan to the next man. You'll make a loss that tam. All tam Injun he'll play those platter game in the house at night," continued Moise. "Two, four man, she'll sit on blanket an' play many hour. His woman she'll cook meat on the fire.

Another man he'll sit an' poun' the drum. You'll see my drum, I s'pose."

He now fished out from under his bed one of the singular Cree drums, a shallow, one-sided circle of bent wood covered with tightly stretched moose skin. He showed them how the Indian drummer held this, straining it tight with thongs stretched from finger to thumb, and making the music by drumming with the fingers of the other hand.

"Injun he'll use those drum sometime to pa.s.s tam," said Moise.

"Sometam he'll use heem for pray. S'pose I'll want ver' much for get moose--I'll play on heem an' seeng. S'pose I want for get grizzly ver'

much--then I seeng _ver_' hard for get grizzly. S'pose you'll seeng an' play, always you'll get those game, sure."

"I don't see what we'd do without you, Moise," said John, who was continually rummaging around in Moise's ditty-bag. "For instance, what's this funny-looking knife you have here?"

"That's worth noticing," said Alex. "You young gentlemen ought to get you one of those knives each before you leave the country. That's what we call a crooked knife--you see, the end of the blade is turned up."

"How do you use that sort of thing?" asked John, curiously.

"As any native Injun always uses a knife," rejoined Alex. "You see how the handle is put on--well, an Injun never whittles away from him, but always pulls the knife toward him. You'll see, too, that he never sharpens a blade on both sides, but puts all the bevel on one side--look at my big hunting-knife here--it's only sharpened on one side, and the other is perfectly flat."

"Well, what makes Indians do that way?" asked John, wonderingly.

"I don't know," said Alex, "except that they always have done so. You see, they use files rather than whetstones to sharpen their tools.

Maybe they find it easier to put on an edge in this way. Anyhow, if an Injun is making a canoe or a pair of snowshoes, or doing any other whittling work, you will see him use one of these crooked knives, and he'll always whittle toward him, with his thumb out at the end of the handle. I don't know who first invented these crooked knives,"

continued Alex, musingly, "but they've always been that way since my father can remember. As to this big buffalo knife, I suppose the Northwest Company or the Hudson Bay people invented that. They've been selling them in the trade for a hundred and fifty years or so."

"I suppose each country has its own tools and its own ways," ventured Rob.

"Precisely."

"I've been told," Rob went on, "that that's the way the Chinese use a knife or a saw--they pull it to them instead of pus.h.i.+ng it away."

"Well," said Alex, smiling, "some people say that all of us Injuns came across the narrow salt water far to the northwest. You know, too, don't you, that the Crees call themselves the First People?"

"They certainly were first in here," a.s.sented Rob; "and, as we've said before, it's hardly fair to call any white man a real discoverer--all this country was known long before a white man ever set foot in it."

XIII

THE CARIBOU HUNT

The supply of mountain mutton had lessened with alarming rapidity in this open-air work, which tends to give any man or boy a strong appet.i.te. Moise looked rather ruefully at the few pieces which he still had hanging on his meat line near the camp.

"I'll tol' you this sheep she's getting mighty scarce now pretty soon before long," said he.

"Why not make a hunt, Alex?" asked Rob. "It looks like fairly good country, and you might be able to get something."

"We might get a bear," said Alex, "or possibly a moose. For all I know, the buffalo used to come this far back in from the east. It doesn't look like sheep country just in here, however, because we have to go too far to get to the mountains."

"How about caribou?"

Alex shook his head. "You mustn't ask me," said he. "This isn't my country, and I've never been here before, nor seen any man who has been here. I know there are caribou in British Columbia, far to the north."

"Mackenzie talks about seeing reindeer in here."

"Yes, I suppose he meant the black-faced caribou of the mountains, and not the regular barren-ground animal which goes in the big herds. It's odd, but those early men didn't seem to know all the animals on which they depended so much. Without doubt Mackenzie called the musk-ox some sort of buffalo, and he called these mountain caribou the reindeer.

But we might get one for all of that. How would you like to go with me across the river, Mr. Rob, and make a little hunt?"

"Fine!" a.s.sented Rob, eagerly. "But how about the others?"

"I'll tell you, Rob," said John, who, to tell the truth, was just a little tired from the hard work of the day before; "you and Alex go across, and after a while Moise will take Jess and me out on this side a little way back. We'll all meet here this evening."

This plan was agreed to, and in the course of a few moments Alex and Rob were pus.h.i.+ng across the river in the _Mary Ann_, equipped lightly for their first hunt after some game which Rob was eager to meet because it was new to him.

Once more they pushed through heavy undergrowth close to the river, traveled up a rather lofty bank, and found themselves in flatter country, beyond which at some distance rose some mountains.

"I'll bet you," said Rob, "that this is just about where Mackenzie climbed the tree to look around--you can't see much from the river down there, and his men were complaining about the hard work, and he didn't know where he was. So he climbed a tree to have a look."

"Well, Mr. Rob," said Alex, "if you don't mind, I'll let you do the climbing, while I sit here and smoke. I'm not quite as light as I once was."

"All right," said Rob. And, divesting himself of his cartridge-belt and jacket, a little later he began to make his way up to the topmost branches of the tall spruce, breaking off the dead limbs as he slowly advanced upward.

Rob remained aloft for some moments, but at last descended and rejoined Alex.

"Now, what did you see, Mr. Rob?" inquired the old hunter.

"Well, I don't know," said Rob; "it's hard to figure out exactly, of course. But Mackenzie talks about high mountains off to the northwest, and a parallel range of mountains running to the south, with a narrow valley between. That, of course, must be this river, and as near as I can tell, it must have been about here that he and Mackay and the Indian hunters took to the sh.o.r.e to spy out the way."

"And jolly well got lost, too, eh?"

"They certainly did--got lost from their boat for an entire day! I can imagine how they felt when they didn't know whether the boat was above them or below them. Mackenzie says the mosquitoes about ate them up.

They sent branches down the river to let the boatmen know they were above them. It wasn't until night that finally they found the boat was far below them. I'll warrant they were glad when they got together again. The truth is, the men were almost ready to turn back and leave Mackenzie where he was."

"They'd have done that a dozen times but for his courage," said Alex.

"Well, now, what would you do, Mr. Rob, if you should get lost in the woods or mountains any time?"

"I'd try to keep cool," said Rob, "but I'm not sure that I could. It's a mighty bad feeling--I know what it is myself. What would you do, Alex, if you ever got lost in a storm, or anything of that kind?"

"Sit down and build a fire," answered Alex. "Go to sleep, take it easy, and wait till my mind got cool. Then when you're rested and all ready to go on, you nearly always know which is the right direction.

You see, an Injun is a good deal like a dog, as Moise would say. But now suppose I should get separated from you in here--how would you get back to camp?"

"Well, you see," said Rob, "there is that high mountain on this side of the river, and there is one right opposite, far off on the east side. I know our camp is on the line between those two peaks. Of course I'd know the river was downhill, unless I wandered off over some other little divide. I'd just simply go downhill as straight as I could until I hit the river. Of course I couldn't tell, maybe, whether I was just above or below the camp. But I'd wait to see smoke, and I'd fire off my rifle, hoping that some one would hear me. Then I think I would not go very far from that place. I'd sit down and build a smoke, and wait."