But Reversing The Words Of St. Paul In His Account Of His
Shipwreck, It Came To Pass That We All At Length Got Safe To Sea And
By Hard Rowing Managed To Reach A Fine Harbor Before Dark, Fifteen
Sweet, Serene Miles From The Howlers.
Our camp this evening was made at the head of a narrow bay bordered
by spruce and hemlock woods.
We made our beds beneath a grand old
Sitka spruce five feet in diameter, whose broad, winglike branches
were outspread immediately above our heads. The night picture as I
stood back to see it in the firelight was this one great tree,
relieved against the gloom of the woods back of it, the light on the
low branches revealing the shining needles, the brown, sturdy trunk
grasping an outswelling mossy bank, and a fringe of illuminated
bushes within a few feet of the tree with the firelight on the tips
of the sprays.
Next morning, soon after we left our harbor, we were caught in a
violent gust of wind and dragged over the seething water in a
passionate hurry, though our sail was close-reefed, flying past the
gray headlands in most exhilarating style, until fear of being
capsized made us drop our sail and run into the first little nook we
came to for shelter. Captain Toyatte remarked that in this kind of
wind no Indian would dream of traveling, but since Mr. Young and I
were with him he was willing to go on, because he was sure that the
Lord loved us and would not allow us to perish.
We were now within a day or two of Chilcat. We had only to hold a
direct course up the beautiful Lynn Canal to reach the large Davidson
and other glaciers at its head in the canyons of the Chilcat and
Chilcoot Rivers. But rumors of trouble among the Indians there now
reached us. We found a party taking shelter from the stormy wind in a
little cove, who confirmed the bad news that the Chilcats were
drinking and fighting, that Kadachan's father had been shot, and that
it would be far from safe to venture among them until blood-money had
been paid and the quarrels settled. I decided, therefore, in the mean
time, to turn westward and go in search of the wonderful
"ice-mountains" that Sitka Charley had been telling us about.
Charley, the youngest of my crew, noticing my interest in glaciers,
said that when he was a boy he had gone with his father to hunt seals
in a large bay full of ice, and that though it was long since he had
been there, he thought he could find his way to it. Accordingly, we
pushed eagerly on across Chatham Strait to the north end of Icy
Strait, toward the new and promising ice-field.
On the south side of Icy Strait we ran into a picturesque bay to
visit the main village of the Hoona tribe.
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