The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 29

_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]

Harry, without waiting for any conversation with the other members of the party, busied himself in getting together dinner, knowing that the fellows, who had toted heavy packs over the carry, would be sufficiently hungry and tired. The meal being over, the whole party, including Harry and Roger, started back for the camp, and the boy was surprised to find how short and easy it seemed after the difficulty he had experienced the day before in forcing his way through the bush, where a trail had not been cut. They reached the camp at the upper end of the canyon, where the cook had been left, late in the afternoon and made all ready for the start the following morning.

The next day the entire remainder of the supplies and equipment of the camp were made up into packs and the party started over the portage to where the boats had been left lower down on the river. Roger, being accommodated with a pack weighing about ninety pounds, felt as though he were back in the Minnesota swamps, with the tump strap over his forehead. His familiarity with packing, and his ability to take the trip without feeling any physical inconvenience, was a source of gratification, as Roger's pride was keen not to be thought in any sense a less able member of the party than the oldest and most seasoned hand.

The journey down to the lower end of the canyon did not seem so long, and, as on the previous day, the party reached the lower camp about noon. In the afternoon Gersup and Bulson, taking Roger with them, took advantage of the half day to make a survey before descending into the beaches of the lower Cantwell River.

As it was expected that the going would be easy for a while lower in the stream, Rivers readily acceded to Roger's pet.i.tion that he should take his rifle along. There had been such a lot of caribou about, that the boy felt he ought at least to get one.

"We haven't s.p.a.ce for the head as a trophy, of course, you know," he said, "and I don't approve of shooting for sport, but caribou is good eating, and it is always wise to conserve supplies."

"I've never had a chance at any big game, before, Mr. Rivers," joyfully said the boy.

"All right, then," said the chief, smiling, "I guess you won't reduce the visible supply of caribou in Alaska enough to hurt."

Immediately after dinner the three started, and Roger's luck was with him, for as they rounded the corner of a mountain slope, Gersup halted, and pointed with his finger to four specks about three miles away.

Raising his field gla.s.ses, he said:

"There you are, Doughty; there are your caribou. You've worked pretty hard and ought to have some fun out of it. We can get along all right, and you go after them. You can't very well get lost, but don't try to track them after dark."

Roger nodded, and skirting the slope until he was hidden from the animals' view, he started on a run for a couple of miles, until he thought it would be necessary to exert more prudence. A long and weary progress through the rough country, with the endeavor not so much as to crack a twig or rustle a leaf, brought the lad at last to the little valley where he had seen the caribou, and there the shelter stopped, except for sundry large boulders, which did not afford a complete cover. Roger had worked round, of course, so that he was coming up wind.

He had come within about half a mile of them, when he found cover absolutely gone, so lying p.r.o.ne on his face, and just wriggling forward by movements of his knees a foot or so at a time, he spent at least an hour advancing a quarter of a mile on the objects of his quest.

Suddenly, when he was about four hundred yards away, though he was not conscious of having made a sound, and though he had not been able to discern any change in the direction of the wind, the nearest of the four stopped feeding and threw up his head. The boy had been careful, throughout his crawl, to change the sight on his rifle to the distance he estimated he was from the game, and so, when the caribou stopped, he was ready. He waited a moment, hoping that the animal, seeing and hearing nothing, would resume feeding, but instead, the alarm seemed to communicate itself to the others, and they appeared to prepare for flight.

Like a flash the thought shot through Roger's mind that if they once started to run he would not be able to stalk them again that night, and determining to risk a long shot, rather than none at all, he laid his rifle across a boulder which he had been using as a cover, and taking a careful aim, fired. The distance seemed to him tremendous, and as the rifle cracked the four leaped into full career, but the one at which the boy had fired gave a jump, which, to his excited idea, seemed to show that he had been hit. Away started Roger at full tilt after them, but they were speedily out of sight. Tearing along at topmost speed over the uneven ground, Roger's breath began to give out and little black spots danced before his eyes, but when he reached the trail of the fleeing caribou and found a spot of blood in the tracks of one of them, he would not have changed places with the Director of the Survey. On he went, following this track, and noting that the leaps were growing shorter and shorter, but his endurance was beginning to give out, when he saw before him, not more than half a mile away, a solitary caribou. Knowing that those which had not been hit were probably four or five miles distant at this time, and that they would not stop under fifteen miles or so, the boy knew that this was his victim and he redoubled his energies.

The sight of the pursuer seemed to revive the flagging energies of the deer, and for half an hour he increased the distance. Then Roger saw that he was gaining, although the dusk was coming on fast. Fearing to lose his game, he decided for another long shot, and was again successful, for at the crack of the rifle the caribou fell, staggered to his feet, gave a few convulsive leaps, and fell again, and when, ten minutes later, the boy stood beside the object of his quest, a magnificent Barren Ground Caribou, the animal was dead. Roger knew that it was no use trying to skin the caribou, and greatly though he desired its head, he had been told that the party could not bother with it, so cutting off as much of the meat as he could carry, he started for the camp, which he reached four or five hours later, and displayed his evidence, and told his hunting story with infinite zest and relish.

A couple of days later, while the men were enjoying an after-dinner smoke, Roger noticed Rivers stooping by the edge of one of the river bars, flicking water out of a gold pan in regular cadenced jerks. Seeing the boy, he beckoned to him, and carefully pointing to two or three tiny particles of metal that lay on the rock beside him, he held out his hand to the boy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKINNING A CARIBOU.

Within the Arctic Circle, animals are slain for food, rarely for sport.

_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]

"Gold!" he said.

"You have found a gold mine?" Roger inquired excitedly.

The geologist smiled at the boy's sudden conclusion that unimagined wealth lay exposed before them.

"Gold does not come in quarries like building stone," he said with a laugh. "Did you think it came in great ma.s.ses of rock?"

"No," answered Roger, "but I thought it came in veins through the rocks."

"So it does, but you can find it in sand. What is sand?"

The boy thought a moment. "Why," he said, at length, "sand is rocks ground small by the action of wind and water."

"Very well," said his chief. "Now if some of the rocks ground small contained a vein of gold, what would happen to it?"

"The gold would be turned into sand, too," answered the boy.

"Only in part," said the older man. "The gold is hard and heavy, and when it is eroded from the rocks it comes in flakes rather than small particles. Then, you see, when sand is washed this way," ill.u.s.trating by a cradling motion, "the gold sinks to the bottom as the sand is washed away from it, and you can take out the pieces of gold with comparative ease."

"Then it ought to be very easy to get gold!" exclaimed the boy with visions of Arabian Nights wealth floating before his eyes.

"Don't you believe it. There is gold on this river bar, as I have shown you, and, indeed, gold has been reported by the Survey on nearly all the bars of the Tanana River and its tributaries; but the geological history of the region is far from perfectly known yet, and the tracing to their original sources the debris of the Cantwell and Tanana Rivers is an excessively complicated subject. Of course, if you found the original vein of gold from which these flakes came, it would pay big, but near its source it may be in sufficient quant.i.ty to pay well, even in placer form."

"But if you can wash it right out of the sand," objected Roger, his imagination fired by the sight of the particles of metal, "why not get it that way?"

"Nothing easier," replied the geologist. "Thousands of people might come up here and wash the sands of this and other rivers, the White River in particular, but it doesn't follow that they would get enough to pay them for their trouble. Just think what it would cost to get up here! I suppose from the 'colors' in this sand, each one of us could wash from six to ten dollars' worth of gold a day through the summer, but what use would that be? It wouldn't pay the expenses of the trip; still hundreds have made small fortunes by such methods."

"Then prospecting for gold's not so easy after all?"

"It's one of the hardest lives I know," was the reply, "and the most dissatisfying. If you happen to strike a 'pay-streak,' as it is called, it may be very profitable."

"But if you strike the original vein?" asked Roger. "Isn't it pretty good then?"

"Only under certain conditions," answered the older man. "You can't crush the quartz rock except with heavy machinery, and you can easily see that it's no light job getting huge crushers up here. And that's not all: after you have spent thousands of dollars in buying the machinery and more thousands in moving it to this forsaken spot, you then have to spend tens of thousands building up a water power development, or else face the still more difficult problem of transporting coal to run your engines. Then high wages are a big factor, too!"

"Then, if it's so hard to get at, what drew the crowds at the time of the Yukon and Nome 'strikes?'" asked Roger.

"The desire to get rich quick," was the reply. "It is safe to say that not more than ten per cent. of the thousands of people who came to Alaska in the gold rush succeeded. Alaska is no Eldorado to pick up wealth idly, though the gold industry, properly capitalized, is important and worth $20,000,000 annually to the country."

"But surely some one made money in the Klondike and Nome fields?"

"There was a lot of gold near the surface, and the first-comers got that without much trouble, as well as getting the richest claims. There is plenty more there, but it is in frozen gravels and hard to get out.

Prospecting for gold is the best thing I know to keep away from, unless you are willing to live in solitude and disappointment all your life, living on the bare hope that some time you may be lucky enough to strike a rich 'pocket.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END OF A HARD CLIMB.

A station made in the Land of Snow, the seated figure on a bank which never melts.

_Photograph by U.S.G.S._]

CHAPTER XVI

DECLARING WAR ON UNCLE SAM