But he insisted
on trying, saying on no account whatever must I leave him. I
therefore concluded to try to get him to the ship by short walks from
one fire and resting-place to another. While he was resting I went
ahead, looking for the best way through the brush and rocks, then
returning, got him on his feet and made him lean on my shoulder while
I steadied him to prevent his falling. This slow, staggering struggle
from fire to fire lasted until long after sunrise. When at last we
reached the ship and stood at the foot of the narrow single plank
without side rails that reached from the bank to the deck at a
considerable angle, I briefly explained to Mr. Young's companions,
who stood looking down at us, that he had been hurt in an accident,
and requested one of them to assist me in getting him aboard. But
strange to say, instead of coming down to help, they made haste to
reproach him for having gone on a "wild-goose chase" with Muir.
"These foolish adventures are well enough for Mr. Muir," they said,
"but you, Mr. Young, have a work to do; you have a family; you have a
church, and you have no right to risk your life on treacherous peaks
and precipices."
The captain, Nat Lane, son of Senator Joseph Lane, had been swearing
in angry impatience for being compelled to make so late a start and
thus encounter a dangerous wind in a narrow gorge, and was
threatening to put the missionaries ashore to seek their lost
companion, while he went on down the river about his business. But
when he heard my call for help, he hastened forward, and elbowed the
divines away from the end of the gangplank, shouting in angry
irreverence, "Oh, blank! This is no time for preaching! Don't you see
the man is hurt?"
He ran down to our help, and while I steadied my trembling companion
from behind, the captain kindly led him up the plank into the saloon,
and made him drink a large glass of brandy. Then, with a man holding
down his shoulders, we succeeded in getting the bone into its socket,
notwithstanding the inflammation and contraction of the muscles and
ligaments. Mr. Young was then put to bed, and he slept all the way
back to Wrangell.
In his mission lectures in the East, Mr. Young oftentimes told this
story. I made no record of it in my notebook and never intended to
write a word about it; but after a miserable, sensational caricature
of the story had appeared in a respectable magazine, I thought it but
fair to my brave companion that it should be told just as it happened.
Chapter V
A Cruise in the Cassiar
Shortly after our return to Wrangell the missionaries planned a grand
mission excursion up the coast of the mainland to the Chilcat
country, which I gladly joined, together with Mr. Vanderbilt, his
wife, and a friend from Oregon. The river steamer Cassiar was
chartered, and we had her all to ourselves, ship and officers at our
command to sail and stop where and when we would, and of course
everybody felt important and hopeful. The main object of the
missionaries was to ascertain the spiritual wants of the warlike
Chilcat tribe, with a view to the establishment of a church and
school in their principal village; the merchant and his party were
bent on business and scenery; while my mind was on the mountains,
glaciers, and forests.
This was toward the end of July, in the very brightest and best of
Alaska summer weather, when the icy mountains towering in the pearly
sky were displayed in all their glory, and the islands at their feet
seemed to float and drowse on the shining mirror waters.
After we had passed through the Wrangell Narrows, the mountains of
the mainland came in full view, gloriously arrayed in snow and ice,
some of the largest and most river-like of the glaciers flowing
through wide, high-walled valleys like Yosemite, their sources far
back and concealed, others in plain sight, from their highest
fountains to the level of the sea.
Cares of every kind were quickly forgotten, and though the Cassiar
engines soon began to wheeze and sigh with doleful solemnity,
suggesting coming trouble, we were too happy to mind them. Every face
glowed with natural love of wild beauty. The islands were seen in
long perspective, their forests dark green in the foreground, with
varying tones of blue growing more and more tender in the distance;
bays full of hazy shadows, graduating into open, silvery fields of
light, and lofty headlands with fine arching insteps dipping their
feet in the shining water. But every eye was turned to the mountains.
Forgotten now were the Chilcats and missions while the word of God
was being read in these majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the
sky. The earnest, childish wonderment with which this glorious page
of Nature's Bible was contemplated was delightful to see. All evinced
eager desire to learn.
"Is that a glacier," they asked, "down in that canyon? And is it all
solid ice?"
"Yes."
"How deep is it?"
"Perhaps five hundred or a thousand feet."
"You say it flows. How can hard ice flow?"
"It flows like water, though invisibly slow."
"And where does it come from?"
"From snow that is heaped up every winter on the mountains."
"And how, then, is the snow changed into ice?"
"It is welded by the pressure of its own weight."
"Are these white masses we see in the hollows glaciers also?"
"Yes."
"Are those bluish draggled masses hanging down from beneath the
snow-fields what you call the snouts of the glaciers?"
"Yes."
"What made the hollows they are in?"
"The glaciers themselves, just as traveling animals make their own
tracks."
"How long have they been there?"
"Numberless centuries," etc.
