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Updated: June 6, 2025
Instinctively each boy reached for his rifle, which he had left leaning against the carcass of the great bear. Apparently not alarmed, the face kept its place, staring steadily at them. Rob now guessed the truth, which was that this Aleut savage had heard the shots and had entered the mouth of the creek in his boat.
He will depend on the winds driving in a dead whale, or on the fish of the shore, or on the eggs of the sea-birds that nest on these rocks millions upon millions such myriads of birds they seem to crowd each other for foot room, and the noise of their wings is like a great wind. The Aleut himself is what any race of men would become in generations of such a life.
Hazlett were uneasy enough when finally the Bennington steamed majestically through the narrow mouth of Kaludiak Bay the first steamer ever to awaken the echoes there and finally swung to her anchor at a point indicated by the Aleut chief. But to the whistle there came no answer of a rifle-shot, no signal fluttered, and no smoke was seen.
Without hesitation Rob fired two shots into the water ahead of his boat, and held up his hand in command to him to stop. These things were language that even an Aleut could understand. Scowling and sullen, he slowly paddled up to the bank. He understood the fierce menace of the three rifles now pointing at him.
To the sea-captains who feasted with him and drank themselves torpid under his table, he proposed a plan he would supply the Aleut hunters for them to hunt on shares as far south as southern California. Always, too, he was an eager buyer of their goods, giving them in exchange seal-skins from the Seal Islands. Boston vessels were the first to enter partnership with Baranof.
My folks'll pay him whatever is right, if it comes to that; and you never saw an Aleut who wasn't glad to get hold of a little money, I'll warrant that." "Well," said Rob, "we'll let it stand that way. And now, as the night seems to be about half done, suppose you and Jess keep watch together and let me take a little nap. If one of you gets sleepy the other can waken him.
"It hasn't been dead very long, so maybe its mother is still around, or its daddy. That would be something worth while, wouldn't it? Five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars, perhaps." The older Aleut was standing on the summit of the sea-wall, shading his eyes and looking steadily out over the waves. At last he gave a loud, sharp call, in which an instant later the Aleut boy joined.
Indian women and children would be left at the Russian fort as hostages of good conduct, and at the head of as many as four, five hundred, a thousand Aleut Indian hunters who had been bludgeoned, impressed, bribed by the promise of firearms to hunt for the Cossacks, six Russians would set out to coast a tempestuous sea for a thousand miles in frail boats made of parchment stretched on whalebone.
What still remains unexplained is the native one-sided method of paddling; that is to say, in a two-hatch baidarka, both natives make six or seven short strokes on one side together, and then change to the other side. An absolutely straight course is thus impossible, but the Aleut is a creature of habit, and smiles at all new suggestions.
"If you can cast as light a thing as a little trout fly with this rod," he said, "you ought to be able to cast these hooks larger, not much heavier, and just about right to go straight. Anyhow, let's go down and try." "Good idea!" agreed Rob. And they all departed, the Aleut boy with them, to the lower reaches of the stream, where, as has been said, the salmon now more frequently resorted.
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