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A year passed. In the great Koyukuk country the summer had come again and with it new life and activity in the way of prospectors and settlers. Craft of all shapes and sizes could be seen trying to force their way against the current of the great river. There were scows, houseboats, and small steamers. Families there were on flat boats which appeared to hold the earthly possessions of many.
It happened that Lieutenant Barnard of the British navy, detached from a war-ship lying at Saint Michael to journey up the river and make inquiries of the Koyukuk natives as to wandering white men, survivors of Sir John Franklin's expedition, who might have been seen or heard of by them, was staying at the post at the time and perished in the general massacre.
We had come down from the remotest points to which the influence of these people has extended; we had met their natives five hundred miles away from their base of instruction, and everywhere we found the same thing. It was said by the white men on the Koyukuk that a Kobuk could not be induced to take a drink of whisky.
The extortions and cruelties of his successor, Deerzhavin, complicated by a standing feud between two native tribes, and probably having the rival powers of certain medicine-men as the match to the mine, brought about the destruction of the place and the death of all its inhabitants, white and native, by a sudden treacherous attack of the Koyukuk Indians.
Half-way on that last day's mush we met the mail-man returning to the Koyukuk. So much had he been delayed that there was danger of a fine and all sorts of trouble, and the mail had been sent out to meet him at the noon cabin, together with a supply of grub for the return trip.
But they kept away from the heat of the fire until noses and cheeks had been rubbed cruelly. Smoke spat in the air, and the resultant crackle was so immediate and loud that he shook his head. "I give it up," he said. "I've never seen cold like this." "One winter on the Koyukuk it went to eighty-six below," Joy answered.
Like all sparsely settled and frontier lands, Alaska is a very hospitable place in general, but the Koyukuk has earned the name of the most hospitable camp in Alaska. Since the numbers are small, and each man is well known to all the others, any sickness or suffering makes an immediate appeal and brings a generous response.
Hay Stockard finished his pipe by the fire, picturing in smoke and coal the unknown upper reaches of the Koyukuk, the strange stream which ended here its arctic travels and merged its waters with the muddy Yukon flood.
This part of the river, which is called the cañon of the Koyukuk, though it is not a true cañon, is very picturesque, and because of frequent overflow, offers glare ice and swift passage to the traveller when it does not embarrass him with running water.
Had it been in summer time one could have seen a narrow and sinuous creek flowing in a northeasterly direction, emptying itself into a much larger and more sinuous stream which trended easterly and united with the great Koyukuk. There were but a few low-lying "benches" to be found. The hills were everywhere. They sprang from the earth like mushrooms in a moist garden.
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