14 Arctic Adventure (17 page)

‘Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock. All right by you? .

‘Fine. I’ll be ready.’

The next morning after breakfast Hal paid the proprietor, who said, ‘I suppose you’re out after more animals. I can give you some advice. I can tell you where you can find rabbits and woodchucks, and porcupines and skunks.’

‘Thank you so much,’ said Hal, ‘but we would be afraid to tackle such savage animals. Don’t you know of anything that won’t bite?’

‘Well,’ said the proprietor, ‘there’s the lizard and the toad and the frog.’

Hal said, ‘You’re giving us some very valuable information. We’ll look for some lizards and toads and frogs. You’re quite sure that they don’t bite?’

‘I’ve never laid hands on them myself. That’s the best policy. Leave them alone-then they can’t hurt you.’

The landlord never suspected that Hal had been kidding him. Roger laughed when he heard about it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’d better get after those toads and frogs.’

The flight over hundreds of snowy peaks stabbing the sky was as exciting as it had been before. Nanook enjoyed the ride. He was not at all nervous, because he was travelling with the two humans he loved They would take care of him and he would take care of them.

As soon as they had dodged one peak they faced another. It kept them a little breathless, not knowing at what moment they might collide with one of these towers of solid rock. Ben usually flew over them. But that was not so easy when he was toting half a ton of polar bear.

Smoke ahead told them that they were approaching the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Martin Volcano was sending its white cloud of steam thousands bf feet into the air. They passed over the great Katmai Volcano. A terrific eruption in 1812, which had spread a haze over half of the world’s surface, was credited to Mount Katmai. The effects were felt in Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. Volcanic ash a foot deep was laid down on Kodiak Island a hundred miles away. Violent earthquakes laid open the land and from the cracks there was a gigantic flow of red hot sand, which kept rolling fifteen miles, consuming everything in its path. Steam, boiling hot, spouted from the cracks, scorching anyone who happened to come near. That was the birth of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.

Below them the crater of Katmai Volcano was eight miles wide. At its bottom they expected to see fire —instead there was a large lake.

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes had lost many of its smokes, but at least a thousand remained. The plane came down in the Valley, singeing the wings as they passed over a column of fire. If that fire had reached the tanks of gasoline there would have been an explosion that would end for good and all the Hunt expedition.

After visiting the fumaroles, as these jets of fiery steam were called, they flew back a few miles to Grosvenor Camp, named after the president of the National Geographic Society, which had originally explored this region.

Beside the camp was Lake Grosvenor and around it on all sides rose great volcanic mountains, Kaguyak still on fire, Griggs, Mageik, Martin blazing furiously, and many others, all well over a mile high.

The manager of Grosvenor Camp heartily welcomed the boys and their bear. Hal spoke to him about the great eruption.

‘I was here when it happened,’ said the manager. ‘Of course I was a young man then. It scared me half to death. The days were as dark as the nights. The earth kept shaking and fire spouted from the volcanoes. Hot ash covered the houses several feet deep.

But not one person died. Vesuvius buried a whole city. That didn’t happen here because there was no city.

The boys spent a day exploring the Valley. Even where steam was not spouting up, the ground was so hot that they could not sit on it. Every once in a while there was a rumble beneath that shook the earth. There were deep gullies that had to be crossed. To go down fifty feet and climb up on the other side, was exhausting. With every step their ankles sank into hot sand. At any moment their feet might start a burning avalanche that would carry them down with it. Nanook had less trouble. His clawed feet went down through the sand and clutched the rocks beneath. He climbed up the sliding slopes with ease. The boys found that the best way to get up was to hang on to Nanook.

Walking over the flat places, they found the earth so hot it nearly burned through the soles of their caribou boots.

They had brought along a can of food, but the food was cold. They attached a string to the can and let it down into a fumarole. After a few minutes it came up boiling hot. How convenient to have a stove waiting for you wherever you walked.

And if they wanted a cold drink, they had only to place their bottle, which had been warmed by the sun, upon one of the glaciers which came down from the mountains. In a few moments the drink was as cold as if it had contained ice cubes.

But this fascinating experience was not getting them an elk. The next morning they set out on a walk past Mount LaGorce to Hallo Bay. There they boarded a ferry which took them across Shelikof Strait to Afognak Island.

There was a dense fog. Roger said, ‘The island has a good name — Afog. Is it always foggy here?’

Hal said, ‘There’s a lot of fog along this coast.’

They could see no elk. But suddenly they heard them. The orchestra of the elks —bugles, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and the deep thunder of the tuba.

Hal remembered what Theodore Roosevelt had said: ‘Heard at a little distance, it is one of the grandest and most beautiful sounds in nature.’

He was right. The song of the elks was a sound never to be forgotten.

Hal said, ‘Any zoo would be tickled to death to get an elk just for its music alone.’

‘Why did we have to come way down here to find elk?’ Roger asked.

‘There used to be plenty of them in Alaska, but the Indians killed them to get their two upper teeth.’

‘Why in the world did they want them?’ ‘They used the teeth as ornaments to adorn their clothes. These were supposed to be charms to keep off evil. One Indian chief thought himself well protected because he had fifty elk teeth sewn to his garments. Thousands of elk were killed just for their teeth, and their bodies were left to rot. This island was off by itself and hard to get to so the elk that were here thrived and multiplied.’

Roger said, ‘Since there are so few still alive I hate to take one of them.’

‘But taking them is exactly what will keep them alive,’ said Hal. ‘Safe in a zoo, away from the charm hunters, they can raise their babies in peace, they can have medical treatment when they need it, and they will no longer be an endangered species. I mean they won’t die out like so many other fine animals that have disappeared from the earth.’

Roger said, ‘I heard the pilot say these were Roosevelt elk. Why are they called that?’

‘Because Teddy Roosevelt took a great interest in them and in their fine music. These are the largest of all the world’s elks. In honour of a great president they were named Roosevelt elk.’

The fog lifted a little and they could see the orchestra. It was a magnificent sight. More than a hundred of the great animals stood with their heads thrown back, pouring their music into the sky. Their splendid antlers almost touched their backs.

A man appeared. He strode up to the two boys and demanded, ‘What do you want?’

‘Is that any business of yours?’ said Hal.

‘It certainly is my business. I’m here to guard these animals. We have no use for charm hunters.’

‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Hal. ‘We are not charm hunters. We don’t believe in charms to keep away the evil eye.’

‘That’s just so much talk,’ said the guard. ‘We’ve had a lot like you. You just want to murder an elk and cut out pieces of his hide and get his upper teeth and sell them to the Indians. I know your kind. Get off this island. There’ll be no killing here.’

‘Just what can we use to kill an elk? You can see that we have no rifles. I have a pocket knife—that’s all. My brother doesn’t even have that. I think he does have a toothpick. Do you think we could kill an elk with a toothpick?’

‘Then why did you come here?’

‘To hear the music. Also, we want to take one animal alive for a zoo. Our name is Hunt. Do you read the papers?’

‘Of course I read the papers. Do you think I’m a dummy? Guess I owe you an apology.’ He smiled for the first time. ‘So you are the young fellows we’ve been reading about? Still I don’t see how you are going to capture an elk with nothing but a toothpick.’

‘How many elk do you have on the island?’

‘Only three hundred. Every day we lose a few.’

‘What do you mean—how do you lose them?’

‘To charm hunters. And to these devilish wolves and wolverines and bears. They’d be much safer in a zoo. If you want one, take it —but I don’t know how you’re going to do it.’

‘We’ll find a way,’ said Hal.

‘Well, I must be getting on,’ said the guard. ‘Good luck to you.’

The boys, now on their own, puzzled over the problem of what to do. Hal had a lasso, but a powerful elk would snap it as if it were a thread.

‘How about the sleep gun?’ said Roger.

‘The sleep gun would put an animal to sleep. Then how the dickens could we get him to the dock and on a boat? He’d just lie there until he woke up and we’d be no better off. We couldn’t carry him. One of these big bulls must weigh at least eight hundred pounds and he’s nine feet long.’

‘If we had a helicopter,’ Roger said, ‘it would pick him up and carry him across the water to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.’

Hal felt in his pockets. ‘I have a handkerchief, and I have a little money, but, darn it, I don’t seem to have a helicopter.’

Then the answer to their problem appeared. It was a ball of black fur from which stared two blazing red eyes.

‘A wolverine!’ exclaimed Hal.

It leaped up on the back of a great stag and sank its claws into the animal’s flanks. A bad smell came from the shaggy little beast. It was a powerful musky odour. Roger held his nose.

‘That’s why they call it a ‘skunk bear’,’ said Hal.

The skunk bear fixed his large red eyes upon the boys as if daring them to do anything they could.

‘He’ll kill the elk,’ said Hal. ‘The wolverine kills just for the fun of it.’

The wolverine growled at the two humans and his growl developed into a roar that was louder than a bear’s. He was small, not more than three feet long, but his terrible strength and fierceness were known throughout Alaska. The boys felt very helpless as they watched this furious beast.

But how about the lasso? It couldn’t be used on the elk but it might do nicely in the case of the skunk bear.

Hal threw it over the wolverine’s neck. Both boys pulled with all the strength that was in them. The wolverine dug its claws more deeply into the suffering elk. The great bugler was not bugling now. He tried to scrape his enemy from his back with his horns but the wolverine had evidently taken that into account. He had positioned himself far enough back so that the horns did not reach him. When the elk grew weak with pain, his attacker would come forward and, clasping his sharp claws around the animal’s neck, would choke him to death.

But this thing around his own neck — he didn’t like it and tried to scrape it off. The boys could not pull him loose. Another bull came up. Roger had an inspiration. He made a loop in the other end of the rope and dropped it over the horns of the elk who had just arrived. Then he gave the animal a strong slap on the flank and the bull leaped away jerking the wolverine from the other bull’s back. Hal flipped the lasso free.

The tortured elk was bleeding from the gashes made in his hide by the savage claws of the wolverine. Hal went into his pockets and found more than money and a handkerchief. He took out a tube of antiseptic salve and doctored the wounds of the injured elk. The intelligent animal stood still. He knew who his friends were. Besides, he was too weak to do any galloping.

‘Let’s start toward the dock and see if he follows,’ said Hal.

The elk did follow, very slowly. He was trembling with pain. He kept looking from right to left, watching for other beasts that might do him harm. With these two humans who had saved his life, he would be safe.

With them he went out on the dock and followed them as they boarded the ferry for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The manager of Grosvenor Camp, being an animal lover, warmly received this four-legged guest and gave him a stall in the barn with plenty of fodder of the sort that he liked best. As soon as a cargo plane was available he would be shipped south.

In the meantime he began to bugle, weakly at first, but soon he was trumpeting what Roosevelt had called, ‘one of the grandest and most beautiful sounds in nature’.

‘In latin it is called Ursus horribilis,’ Hal said. ‘Ursus means bear and horribilis, of course, means horrible. And we have to get one.’

They were hunting by helicopter. Ben Bolt had consented to fly the boys and their Nanook to Kodiak Island and stay with them until they captured a grizzly.

‘It sure is a new way to hunt,’ said Ben. ‘But it has its good points. It might take you weeks if you walked. Flying, we may come on one in a day or so. They say Grayback Mountain is the best place to find them. We’ll just fly round and round Grayback, up and down, until we spot one. Then we’ll land and grab him.’

It was not going to be quite that easy. They circled the mountain all day and saw nothing. At dusk they landed on the summit and put up their tent.

‘Better luck tomorrow,’ said Ben.

They had their ‘better luck’ sooner than that. A little past midnight Roger heard a snorting and snuffling just outside the tent. He nudged Hal. ‘Wake up! There’s your grizzly.’

Hal leaped up, grabbed his trousers, and was in such a hurry that he put both his legs into the same leg. He hopped out of the tent and fell over the grizzly who was so astonished that he ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.

Ben woke up. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing much,’ said Hal. ‘Just taking a little exercise.’

‘At midnight?’ Ben turned on his torch. ‘My word! A bear got one of your legs.’