Part 33

"That doesn't seem to be the way you are treating your fingers," said Jesse, looking at the cloth in which Rob still kept a big poultice of black mud.

"Well, a poultice draws poison out of a wound, you see," said Rob, "and mud is good for that. We had a pointer dog once, and he came home with his face all swelled up, and my father said he had been bitten by a snake. We didn't know what to do, but the dog did; he wouldn't let any one touch him, but went off to a slough back of the house and lay down in the mud, and he kept his head in the mud for two or three days. He got well all right. Your foot cannot be any worse than if you had been snake-bitten, surely, and you and I ought to have as much sense as the dog. My hand does not hurt now, and I'll warrant Skookie and I will fix up your foot in a jiffy."

He put his head out of the door and called for John and Skookie, both of whom presently came, the latter soon returning with a double handful of mud, for which Rob had asked. Meantime they had taken off Jesse's shoe and stocking, cleaned the wound, and Rob had cut it open even a little wider with his knife--at which Jesse made a wry face.

"I hate to do it, Jess," said Rob, "but that is what I read doctors do in a case like this. Now for a good poultice. You will be all right in a day or so."

In truth, they very probably did the very best that could be done in such circumstances. There might have been serious trouble from a wound from an old klipsie barb. Surgeons have died from poison received from knives used in post-mortem work. Lockjaw might very well follow upon a wound from a piece of dirty iron of this kind; but, luckily, the germ of that disease seemed not to exist in this case; at least the treatment which Rob applied proved quite effective and no evil results followed. Although Jesse limped for a time, in a few days he became quite well, and the swelling in the foot amounted to very little.

"But now," said John one morning, as the three of them sat by the fireside in the barabbara, "we are a fine-looking lot, aren't we? Just look at us--every one of us has got something the matter with him!" They all took a glance and broke out in a loud laugh together, in which Skookie joined uproariously. As a matter of fact, each one of them was wearing a bandage. Rob had his hand done up, Jesse's foot was encased in a mud plaster, and John still wore his handkerchief tied over his nose, whose tip he had nearly severed in his attempt at eating after the Aleut fashion.

"Well," said Rob, "it's lucky that none of us is hurt bad enough to cripple him seriously, anyway; although I guess Skookie will have to do most of the work of getting wood and water for a day or so yet."

"There's no reason why I could not carry wood and water," said John. "My nose is not in the road."

"I shouldn't say it was," said Jesse. "It never was long enough to get in the road, John, and it seems as though you had tried your best to shorten it as it was." They never tired of laughing at John for his clumsiness in Aleut table manners.

"Now, see here, Jess," said John, "if you keep on making fun of my nose I won't give you any more mud for your old foot. I'm the only one that is not taking the mud cure excepting Skookie. I might just advise you two that about all our salt whale meat is gone, and it is too late now to get any more. It is about time we did some fishing, it seems to me."

"Well, I don't want to sit around this way all the time," said Jesse. "I am for going out in the dory and trying for some fresh codfish. I'm rather tired of salmon again."

"That's right," said Rob. "I was just going to say the same thing. Back home we used to like salmon better than codfish, because the codfish was always salt. Salmon used to be forty cents a pound back in the States, but out here, where we can catch forty pounds in an hour, we don't like it as well as codfish. All right, Jess, I'm game to go down to the mouth of the creek where we left the dory, and go out in the bay for a try after cod. But how will you get down there with your foot all tied up?"

Jesse put his hand on Skookie's shoulder. "Oh, that will be easy," said he. "Skookie and I will go down the creek in the bidarka."

They agreed to this plan, and Jesse, hobbling out to the edge of the lagoon, picked up one of the bidarka's paddles--a narrow-bladed, pointed implement such as the Aleuts always use--rested the end of the paddle on the bottom on the other side of the bidarka, and, steadying himself by this means, slipped into place in the front hatch of the boat, just as one would step into a tottery birch-bark, although not even the latter can be more ticklish than one of these skin-covered native boats. Skookie was less particular, but, with the confidence born of long experience, took a running jump as he pushed off the bidarka and scrambled into the rear hatch. An instant later his own paddle was in motion, and Jesse and he made good speed down the creek. All the boys had by this time learned something about the use of the bidarka, and could handle themselves fairly well without swinging the craft from side to side as they paddled. Jesse always thought that the paddles were too small, but the only answer Skookie made to this criticism was, "My peoples long time make paddles dis way."

The four met at the mouth of the creek, and soon they launched the faithful dory, in which they always kept their cod-lines on the hand-reels under the stern seat. Skookie took command of the expedition, for he seemed to know instinctively where the best fish could be found. Under his instruction he and John paddled the boat out fifty fathoms or so from the extreme beach point, where he motioned John to take up his hand-line while he held the boat in place. "Plenty deep waters here," he said; "plenty dose codfish."

"Sure!" said John. "Here's right where Jimmy took us the first time."

The boys threw over their lines, letting the heavy leads of the big hooks sink into more than one hundred feet of water. They had not long to wait, for the codfish seemed to be extremely numerous hereabout. John gave a sudden jerk and began to pull in rapidly, hand over hand. After a time they could see the gleam of a ten-pound codfish coming up to the surface on the line, rolling and twisting lazily and making no great fight. With a whoop John threw him into the boat, where the fish seemed even too lazy to flap about very much. It was a fine, dark fish, and Skookie gave it his professional approval as he rapped it over the head. Hardly had John gotten his fish into the boat before Jesse also began to pull in and added a second prize. Rob was fishing on the opposite side of the boat, and using a sort of squid with lead run around the hook, much like a bluefish squid. He was pulling the bait up and down with long jerks, as the native codfishers do, when all at once he felt something strike. "This fish seems mighty heavy," said he, "and it runs around different from a cod." None the less, he kept on pulling in line, and at length saw the gleam of a fish. "Humph!" said he, "no wonder it pulls hard! I've hooked it right square in the side. It pulls harder than a foul-hooked salmon, down that deep in the water. I wonder what it is?"

It was a flat, shiny fish, handsome enough to look at, but Skookie shook his head. "Him no good," said he, and at once threw it overboard.

"I think that is what the sailormen call a silver hake," said Rob; "but if Skookie doesn't approve of it, I guess we won't take any chances."

The fish kept on biting at Rob's peculiar lure and at the pieces of salmon which the other boys used as bait. In the course of an hour they had the bow end of the dory well piled up with codfish, and Rob declared that they had enough. They also had nearly a dozen gnarled, knobby-looking fish, mostly all head, which Skookie insisted were better than codfish, to which they later all agreed. Sailors call these fish "sea-lawyers," because of their wide mouths, as they explain it. They rowed in to the beach near the mouth of the creek and dressed their fish on the shore not far from the salmon pool. After this they lay about in the sunshine of a beautiful day and idled away an hour or two more.

"I'll tell you what, fellows," said John, after a time, as he stopped throwing pebbles into the pool, "we ought to have some sort of a camp down here at the mouth of the creek, too. Look over there at that rock face on the other side of the creek; that would be a fine place to build another house. I think it would be fun."

"But look at us, all crippled up as we are," said Rob. "We never were in as bad shape to go to work."

"Oh, well," demurred Jesse, "we wouldn't have to do it all in one day. I think, too, it would be some fun to build a barabbara all of our own."

"I suppose we could float some logs down the creek," said Rob, "and maybe pick up some drift-wood on the beach and tow it around with the dory. And there's some drift right here at the mouth of our creek. We could build it over there just back of those scrubby trees, and with the cover of those and the tall grass no one could see it from the water unless he looked mighty close. And, as John says, it might save us a walk once in a while."

"If that wasn't a rock wall over there," said Jesse, "we could make a dugout; but there isn't any cave or opening in the rock there."

"No," said Rob, "and we can't build a bark house like a Chippewa, nor a mat house like a Siwash, nor a tepee like a Sioux. On the whole, I have noticed that every country knows how to build its own houses best. The natives here make barabbaras because they have material for that sort of house, and they seem to do pretty well, if they do smoke a little."

"Suppose we build a barabbara, then," suggested Jesse.

"Ask Skookie," suggested Rob.