Part 25 (1/2)

”Dat settles it!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the colored man, mighty wroth at this thought. ”I ain't goin' ter stan' no sech doin's. Tryin' ter shoot b.u.t.tsy; is he? I'll show him in jest erbout a minute dat n.o.body kin shoot at ma Shanghai wid imputation an' git erway wid it--no sah!”

The boys had no idea that he would do so reckless a thing. Wash was not ordinarily a courageous person. But he was ”riled all up” now, and he feared for the Shanghai's safety.

Up he jumped, threw down his rifle, and agilely leaped the fortification in the direction of the short Indian who had attracted his anger. He streaked it across the intervening s.p.a.ce so quickly that the startled enemy did not even fire at him.

But Andy Sudds began firing his magazine rifle as fast as he could sight her and pull the trigger, and Roebach followed his example. This volley drove all the Indians to cover and doubtless saved the strangely reckless negro's life.

Wash reached the cover of the Aleut accused by him of aiming directly to finish the Shanghai rooster, and before that startled aborigine could escape, he was disarmed by the black man and dragged across the intervening s.p.a.ce to the fort.

Wash was powerful and could easily do this, for the Indian was not a heavy fellow. But on the way one Indian had fired at the darkey and wounded the Aleut in the leg.

”Lemme tell yo',” roared Wash, ”I ain't gwine to hab no off-color critter like disher try ter combobberate ma Shanghai. Dat is ma final ratification ob de pre-eminent fac's. Does you understand me?”

”We most certainly do, Was.h.!.+” declared Jack, when he could speak for laughing. ”And we'll never call you a coward again.”

”You have given us a hostage,” said the professor. ”You have done well.”

Wash strutted and preened himself over this praise until another bullet sang over his head. Then he dropped down flat on the ground and groaned:

”Golly! dat bullet said--jes' as plain as day--'Whar is dat c.o.o.n?'

D' youse 'speck dat it meant _me_?”

Meanwhile Phineas Roebach had taken the wounded Aleut in hand. He not only extracted the bullet and bound up the wound, but he made the fellow explain the situation in Aleukan and tell why the Indians had attacked the white men. The natives believed implicitly that the white men in the strange flying machine had brought the awful earthquakes and storms of ashes, and that now they were burning up the poor Indians for a part of the day and freezing them the rest of the time.

Believing all the whites in the region leagued together they had at once driven out the traders at Aleukan. This Indian did not know what had become of the traders and their a.s.sistants. They had started on dog sleds toward the Polar Ocean.

No train had come in from Coldfoot for a month. Therefore it was plain that the supplies Professor Henderson had expected to meet him here would not now arrive. The pa.s.s through the Endicott Range was so high that, so the party all believed, an attempt to cross the mountain range would result in the death of those who attempted. There was no atmosphere at the alt.i.tude of that pa.s.s.

There were no more shots fired after the Indian was brought in by Was.h.i.+ngton. The whites talked the situation over and finally the oil man made the Aleuts an offer through the captive. It was agreed that if the white men were allowed two sleds and two teams of good dogs, with provisions for the dogs to last a week, they would instantly set out on the trail of the departed traders, thus removing their fatal presence from the vicinity of Aleukan.

This agreement was considered wise by all hands, for they felt the necessity of joining if possible white men who were more familiar with the territory than they were. In numbers there would be strength. If there was to be a war on this new planet between the whites and the reds, it behooved our friends to join forces with their own kind as quickly as possible.

The captured Indian was made to accompany the train for two days and then was freed. The dog teams swept the party over the frozen trail at good speed toward the Anakturuk River which empties into the Coleville, which in turn reaches the Arctic Ocean at Nigatuck, in sight of the Thetis Islands.

Food was very short. Game seemed to have fled from the valleys through which they pa.s.sed. The cold at night (the only time they could travel) remained intense. And that flight toward the ocean sh.o.r.e--or what had once been that sh.o.r.e--was a perilous journey indeed.

CHAPTER XXV

THE HERD OF KADIAKS

Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson had never experienced so arduous a trip by dog sled as this. The party was really running a race with starvation. The terrible frosts of each long night on this island in the air had killed every species of vegetation the country wide, save the very hardiest trees and shrubs. The country, which two weeks before had been verdant as only a northern country can be verdant in late summer, was now as black as though a fire had swept over it.

Everywhere, too, lay the volcanic ashes that had fallen ere the new planet had been shot from the earth by the volcanic eruption. It was indeed a devastated country through which the Alaskan dogs drew them.

They dared not drive the dogs more than twelve hours out of the long night; but when the word was given to ”mush,” and the train started, the party kept up a good speed for those dozen hours.

Andy Sudds and Phineas Roebach took the lead in this journey. They understood better how to handle the dogs and how to choose the trail.

But, indeed, the trail was pretty well marked for them by the white traders who had gone before. Their camping sites were marked by a plenitude of discarded and empty food tins.