CHAPTER XIX
HARD ASHORE
It was at this juncture that Tom came aft with a rope trailing in his hand. It was the original rope. He had drawn it aboard when he discovered it dangling from the mooring bitts into the water.
"Look at this rope," he cried excitedly. "It was no accident that we went adrift."
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Dacre.
"That it was cut."
"Cut?"
"Yes."
"How do you know that?"
"All the rope is not here. If it had slipped from the anchor we cast ashore among the rushes, or if the anchor had slipped, it would be."
"Perhaps some animal chewed it."
"We'll soon see that. Who's got a match?"
Tom struck a lucifer. As it flared up, Mr. Dacre took the end of the rope in his hand. A single glance sufficed. The rope had been severed so cleanly that there was no question that it had been done by a sharp knife. No animal's teeth could have made that neat, clean incision.
"Well, what do you think of that?" demanded Tom.
"Who could hae done it?" wondered Sandy.
"I know." Jack interjected the remark with confidence.
"Who?"
"Those natives. That bunch that raided our pantry."
"By Jove, boy, I believe you are right," declared Mr. Chillingworth. "It would be just like one of their tricks."
"Well, here we are, stuck hard and fast," said Mr. Dacre. "I suppose those natives would feel highly gratified if they could see our predicament."
"I guess we ought to be glad that they didn't set the boat on fire," commented Jack indignantly. "I'd like to have a brief interview with them."
As an examination showed that the Yukon Rover was in no particular danger, it was decided to wait till daylight before trying to get her off the bar. In the meantime, Sandy went below and began getting up steam, for he had banked his fires during the sleeping period. The others discussed the situation.
It was plain that they had drifted some distance, though how far they had, of course, no means of estimating. Although no actual harm had been done, they naturally felt incensed against the natives, who they were certain had played the scurvy trick on them. Had the wily old chief and his followers happened along just then, they would have met with a warm reception. Perhaps it was just as well that they did not.
After hot coffee had been served out, all hands went to work with a will to release the steamer from her sandy bed. But this proved to be no easy task. It had been hoped that she could be got off under her own power by dint of utilizing the stern wheel. But the blades of the wheel were stuck in the sand, and to have tried to work them might have crippled the ship permanently.
Another plan, therefore, was adopted. The boys got out the small boat and taking the anchor on board carried it some distance up the stream. Then they returned to the ship and began heaving with might and main on the cable, using the small capstan to do this. A cheer went up when, after about half an hour of back-breaking work, they felt the Yukon Rover give a quiver and move about an inch.
"Hurrah, boys! Keep it up! We'll soon be afloat!" cried Tom cheerfully.
Sure enough, as they worked they got the vessel further and further off the sand-bank and at last had the satisfaction of feeling her floating free. As soon as this happened, the engine was started and the steamer began bucking the current once more. The anchor was hoisted as the Yukon Rover came "up on it" and the voyage, which had been so mischievously interrupted, was resumed with great cheerfulness. About ten miles up the river they came to the spot where they had anchored the night before. The steamer was stopped and the boys went ashore to investigate. On the banks were the tell-tale marks of the keels of the bidarkas and numerous footmarks around them. The anchor was found undisturbed, with about ten feet of rope attached to it, and was brought back on board.
The resumption of the journey found them still traversing much the same kind of country as that they had hitherto steamed through. Low banks, thickly grown with alders and other water-loving trees, islands covered with willows, sand-bars and sluggish, outbranching sloughs innumerable.
These willow islands formed troublesome obstructions to navigation. But the outcropping willows at least served one useful purpose. They indicated the presence of sand-bars which, in some instances, lay several feet beneath the surface of water at the high stage of the river. It was not till some days later, during which time they had steadily bucked the current, only tying up for sleep, that the character of the scenery began to change and the boys felt that they were really getting into a wild country at last.
The flat banks and occasional small towns with remnants of Russian forts and occupancy about them, had been left behind. Now the banks shot up steeply above the swift current, and the Yukon Rover was called upon to test her power against the full strength of the stream.
One night, – of course, it was not dark, but "rest time," – the travelers tied up on the north bank of the stream under a particularly precipitous mass of cliff. It towered above them like the side wall of a skyscraper. Mr. Dacre, who examined it, declared that it had once been a glacier, and there were still traces of glacial action visible upon it. The ground thereabouts was also rich in fossils and the boys obtained permission to go ashore and collect a few of these last.
They set off in high spirits, landing by the long gangplank which the Yukon Rover carried for such purposes. Shouting and laughing they made their way up through the woods till they had clambered to quite a height. All their pockets were bulging with specimens of rock formation, many of them very curious.
"Let's go over to the edge of that glacier," said Sandy, "and hae a look doon on the river. It must be a grand sight."
Nothing loath, they struck off over the rough ground under the larch and pine trees, and soon found themselves at the edge of the sharp acclivity, which had been ground almost to the smoothness of a board by a mighty glacier centuries before. They had not climbed so far above the river as they had imagined from the laboriousness of the ascent. In fact, they were surprised to find that far from being at the top of the glacier, hundreds of feet of its extent still towered above them.
Below lay the Yukon Rover tied to the bank, with the smoke wisping lazily from her funnel. Mr. Dacre and his partner sat out on deck reading. It was a peaceful scene, the silence broken only by the voice of the river as its mighty current hastened down to the sea. All at once though, the calm of the scene was rudely scattered by a loud yell from Sandy.
The Scotch lad had been amusing himself by throwing rocks down the smooth incline of the glacier, which sloped right down into the river, and watching them vanish in the current.
In the course of this amusement he had climbed up on the edge of the treacherously smooth rock chute, which was practically what it was.
"Look out there, Sandy!" warned Tom, knowing the boy's remarkable faculty for getting into trouble.
"Hoot toot! Dinna fash yersel' aboot me," returned Sandy easily, and set another rock rolling and bounding down the glacier.
As if in bravado, he clambered right up on the smooth cliff before his companions could check him. But at that instant his foot caught on a rock and he stumbled and fell.
Tom jumped forward to save him, but the lad's clothes tore from his grasp, as Sandy shot downward at a terrific speed, at the same time emitting a wild shriek of terror.
At the same instant his cry was echoed by Jack, for Tom, who had in vain sought to save his chum, now shared Sandy's misfortune and went chuting downward to the river on the smooth rock chute at lightning speed.
"Help!" cried Jack, as if human aid could accomplish anything, "help! They'll both be killed."
"Ki-i-i-i-i-l-l-e-d!" flung back the mocking echoes from the cliffs.
CHAPTER XX
DOWN THE GLACIER
Sandy's wild shout of alarm caused the gentlemen on the deck of the Yukon Rover to start up in affright.
They looked above them and what they saw was sufficiently alarming. Two boys, rolling and tumbling down the smooth rock slope, bound straight for the river! So swiftly did it all happen that they had hardly time to realize the catastrophe that had overtaken the boys, before the two victims of this double disaster struck the water with a splash and vanished from view.
"Quick, Chillingworth! The life preservers!" cried Mr. Dacre running to where they were kept. He flung all he could lay his hands on far out toward the spot where the glacier dipped into the water. In another instant, to the unspeakable relief of both men, they saw two heads come to the surface.
But on Sandy's head was a broad cut, and though he struck out toward the nearest life preserver, his efforts were feeble. It was evident that he had been injured in his fall, but how badly, of course, they could not tell. Tom was striking out with strong, swift movements. He had seized one of the life preservers, when he perceived Sandy's plight. Instantly dropping the ring, he struck out for the Scotch lad.
Just as he reached his chum's side, the rushing current caught both boys in its grip and hurtled them out toward the middle of the stream. So swiftly did it run that, despite Tom's strong strokes, he could not gain an inch on the body of his chum, which was being borne like something inanimate down the stream.
The gentlemen on the deck of the Yukon Rover watched this scene with fascinated horror. Powerless to aid, all they could do was to watch the outcome of this drama.
In the meantime, Jack, pale with fright, was coming down the steep cliffside in leaps and bounds. He had not seen his brother and his comrade rise and did not know but that they had not reappeared at all.
Tom felt the current grip him like a giant's embrace. He had been partially stunned by the swiftness of his flight down the steep, precipitous glacier, but the plunge into the cold waters of the river had revived him. When he had risen to the surface after his plunge, he was in full possession of all his faculties. To his delight he was not injured, and almost the first thing he saw near him was Sandy's head.
As we know, he struck out for it, only to have his chum snatched almost out of his very arms by the mighty sweep of the current.
Like those on the steamboat, he had seen the cut over Sandy's eye and knew that he was injured. This made Tom all the more feverishly anxious to catch up with him, for although Sandy was a strong and good swimmer and had plenty of presence of mind in the water, if he was seriously hurt it was not probable he could stay long above the surface.
But Tom speedily found that, try as he would, he could make no gain on his chum. He heard Sandy cry out despairingly as the current swept him round a bend. The next instant Tom realized that not far below them lay some cruel rapids which the Yukon Rover had bucked that afternoon with the greatest difficulty. He knew that if something didn't happen before they got into the grip of that boiling, seething mass of water, their doom was sealed.
He almost fancied as he drifted along, allowing the current to carry him and saving his strength for the struggle he knew must come, that he could already hear the roaring voice of the rapids and see the white water whipping among the jagged black rocks, contact with which would mean death.
It was at this instant that he spied something that gave him a gleam of hope. Right ahead of them there loomed up a possible chance that he had forgotten. It was one of those willowy islets that have been mentioned as dotting the Yukon for almost its entire length. If he could but gain that, if some lucky sweep of the current would but carry Sandy in among the trees, both their lives might be saved.
And now the river played one of those freaks that rapidly running streams containing a great volume of water frequently do. Sandy's body was swept off into a sort of side eddy, while Tom felt himself seized by an irresistible force and rushed forward in the grip of the tide as it roared down to the rapids.
Horror at his utter incapacity to stem it or to do aught but yield to the rush of the stream, rendered him almost senseless for an instant. In his imagination his body was already being battered in the rapids and flung hither and thither in the boiling whirlpools.
But suddenly an abrupt collision that almost knocked the breath out of his body gave him something else to think of. Twigs brushed and scratched his face and he was held fast by branches. With a swift throb of thankfulness he realized the next instant that the impossible had happened.
A vagary of the current had swung him into the midst of the willow island and he was anchored safely in the branches of one of the trees. But he gave himself little time to think over this. His thoughts were of Sandy. Where was the Scotch boy?
Had he been swept on down the river to the rapids or had he sunk? Hardly had these questions time to flash through his mind, when he gave a gasp and felt his heart leap.
Coming toward him, and not more than a few feet away, was a dark object that he knew to be Sandy's head. The next instant he saw the boy's appealing eyes.
Sandy had seen him, too, as the same current that had caught Tom in its embrace hurtled his chum down the river.
"Tom!" he cried. "Tom!"
Tom made no reply.
It was no time for words. He quickly judged with his eye the spot where Sandy must be borne by him, and clambered out upon a branch overhanging the water. His object was to save his chum, but it must be confessed that his chances of doing so looked precarious.
The limb upon which he had climbed was, in the first place, not a branch in which much confidence could be consistently placed. It was to all appearances rotten, although it bore his weight. But it was no time to weigh chances. The stream was bearing Sandy down upon the willow island, and Tom realized that, unless the boy was carried into the midst of the clump as he had been, he would hardly have strength enough left to grab a projecting branch and thus save himself from the grip of the river.
He had hardly made up his mind to the plan he would pursue when Sandy was right upon him. But he was further out than Tom had calculated. However, Tom had anticipated this possibility and throwing himself flat on the limb, he twisted his legs around it and reached out, with an inward prayer that he might be successful in the struggle that was to ensue between himself and the mighty Yukon.
As Sandy shot by, Tom's arms enveloped him. The pull of the current was stronger than he thought, but he held on for dear life, his face almost touching the rushing waters. He was drawing Sandy in toward him and in another instant both would have been safe, when there was an ominous "crack!"
The branch had parted under the double strain!
In a moment both boys were caught in the clutch of the current of the swiftly flowing "Golden River."
CHAPTER XXI
THE GRIP OF THE YUKON
The moments that followed were destined to be burned for his lifetime into Tom's brain. Half choked, sputtering, blinded by spray and spume, he found himself in the water with Sandy, completely exhausted by this time, to care for as well as himself. The Scotch boy lay like a dead burden on Tom's arm, and it was all that he could do to keep him afloat and still keep his own head above water.
Suddenly something struck him on the back of the head. It was the branch that had snapped off and cast them into the wild waters. But Tom at that moment hailed it as an aid and caught hold of it with his free arm. It was a large limb and to his delight he found that it kept them afloat, aided by his skillful treading of water.
But barely had he time to rejoice in this discovery, when the roar of the rapids ahead of them caused his brain to swim dizzily with fear. He knew that in the center of the rapids was a comparatively wide, smooth channel through which they had ascended that afternoon in the Yukon Rover.
If the current shot them through this, there was still a chance that they might live, slender though that hope appeared to be. But on either side of this channel, if such it could be called, there uprose rocks like black, jagged fangs in and amongst which the water boiled and swirled and undersucked with the voice of a legion of witches. It was into one of these maelstroms that poor Tom was confident they were being borne.
Now the sound of the rapids grew louder. They roared and rumbled like the noise of a giant spinning factory in full operation. The noise was deafening and to Tom's excited ears it sounded like the shrill laughter of malign fates. Suddenly something dragged at his legs. It felt as if some monster of the river had risen from its depths and had seized him.
But Tom knew it was no living creature. It was something far more terrible, – the undertow.
He caught himself wondering if this were the end, as he was sucked under and the water closed over his head with a roar like that of a thousand cataracts.
His lungs seemed bursting, his ear drums felt as if an intolerable weight was pressing in upon them. Tom was sure he could not have lasted another second, when he was suddenly shot to the surface with the same abruptness with which he had been drawn under.
Ahead of him were two rocks between which the pent up river rushed like an express train. Tom had just time to observe this and figure in a dull way that he and Sandy would be dragged through that narrow passage to a miserable death, when something occurred that gave him renewed hope.
In that terrible plunge under the water when the undertow had its way with him, the boy, more by instinct than anything else, had retained his grip upon the willow branch. As has been said, it was a thick stick of timber and had parted under the leverage of the boys' double weight near to the trunk.
What happened was this, – and Tom did not realize what had occurred till some seconds later, so suddenly did his deliverance from what appeared certain death come upon him. As the boys were being drawn in between the two rocks the branch became twisted around, broadside to the stream.
Before Tom knew what was taking place, and quite without effort on his part, the stick of timber was caught across the two rocks, barring Tom's progress further. The force of the current kept it there like a barrier, while the water tugged and tore in vain at Tom and Sandy. For some time after his deliverance, Tom was not capable of moving a limb. But now he began to edge his way toward the rock which was closest in to the shore.
It sloped down to the river, and on the side nearest to him had a broad base which he thought would prove easy to climb. So it might have been had he not been burdened with Sandy, but as it was, things took on a different aspect and he was confronted with a task of more difficulty than he had anticipated.
By slow and laborious steps he managed to secure a foothold on the rock and to reach a position where he could draw Sandy up beside him. When he had done this, Tom, almost exhausted, sank back on the smooth stone surface, and while the river raced by almost at his feet gave thanks to Providence for their wonderful delivery from the jaws of the rapids.
For some time he reclined, thus getting back his strength and examining Sandy's injury, which appeared to be only a flesh wound. The immersion in the cold water and the amount of it he had swallowed was probably more to blame for his collapse than the wound. Tom bathed the cut and was presently rewarded by seeing Sandy open his eyes.
The Scotch boy pluckily declared that he felt all right except for a slight dizziness.
"Well, rest up a while," said Tom. "We've done a whole lot, but there's a heap more to be accomplished."
While Sandy got together his exhausted faculties, Tom made a survey of their situation. What he saw did not encourage him much. Toward the stream were swirling pools and jagged rocks. Shoreward, the rocks extended in a line which, although broken here and there by water ways through which eddies bubbled tempestuously, he yet thought might be capable of being bridged. He was pretty sure, in fact, that he could manage the passage, but of Sandy he was by no means so certain. It required a cool head and a steady nerve to negotiate the course to safety that Tom had mapped out as being the only one available.
Manifestly the longer they stayed where they were, the more time they were wasting. It would be impossible for a boat to reach them where they were marooned, and the only course was to attempt to reach the shore. Tom explained the case to Sandy and the Scotch boy declared that he felt strong enough to attempt the feat.
With Tom in the lead they set out. It was fully a hundred yards to the shore, and a slippery, dangerous causeway that they had to traverse. But although once or twice Sandy was within an inch of losing his nerve and the passage was marked by many slips and halts, yet in time they gained the margin of the stream and drew long breaths as they attained safety under the big pines that fringed it almost to its edge.
There followed a short rest and then they set off up the bank, eying the stream for the small boat from the Yukon Rover which they felt certain would be sent out. Sure enough, before long, a glad shout from Tom announced that he had sighted the little craft. At the same instant, Jack and Mr. Dacre, who manned it, caught sight of the two lads on the shore. They lost no time in pulling toward them, and in a very short time the reunited adventurers were warmly shaking hands and listening to Tom's recital of their thrilling escape from a terrible death in the rapids.
The adventurous lives the Bungalow Boys had led, made them disinclined to dwell upon the details of the occurrence, but in their hearts there was a feeling of deep gratitude to the Providence that had intervened and saved them from one of the most perilous positions in which they had ever been placed.