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diff --git a/old/30697-8.txt b/old/30697-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f84c313 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30697-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3654 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Alaska Days with John Muir, by Samuel Hall +Young + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Alaska Days with John Muir + + +Author: Samuel Hall Young + + + +Release Date: December 17, 2009 [eBook #30697] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR*** + + +E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Chris Curnow, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital +material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 30697-h.htm or 30697-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30697/30697-h/30697-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30697/30697-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/alaskadayswithjo00younuoft + + + + + +ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR + +[Illustration: JOHN MUIR WITH ALASKA SPRUCE CONES] + + +ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR + +by + +S. HALL YOUNG + +Illustrated + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York Chicago Toronto +Fleming H. Revell Company +London and Edinburgh + +Copyright, 1915, by +Fleming H. Revell Company + +New York: 158 Fifth Avenue +Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. +Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. +London: 21 Paternoster Square +Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE MOUNTAIN 11 + + II THE RESCUE 37 + + III THE VOYAGE 59 + + IV THE DISCOVERY 95 + + V THE LOST GLACIER 125 + + VI THE DOG AND THE MAN 163 + + VII THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE 201 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING + PAGE + + John Muir with Alaska Spruce Cones _Title_ + + Fort Wrangell 12 + + The Mountain 24 + + One of the Marvelous Array of Lakes 40 + + Glacier--Stickeen Valley 54 + + Chilcat Woman Weaving a Blanket 82 + + Muir Glacier 114 + + Davidson Glacier 128 + + Taku Glacier 150 + + The Front of Muir Glacier 168 + + Glacial Crevasses 186 + + John Muir in Later Life 200 + + + Map 70 + (Voyages of Muir and Young) + + + + + THE MOUNTAIN + + + + +THUNDER BAY + + + Deep calm from God enfolds the land; + Light on the mountain top I stand; + How peaceful all, but ah, how grand! + + Low lies the bay beneath my feet; + The bergs sail out, a white-winged fleet, + To where the sky and ocean meet. + + Their glacier mother sleeps between + Her granite walls. The mountains lean + Above her, trailing skirts of green. + + Each ancient brow is raised to heaven: + The snow streams always, tempest-driven, + Like hoary locks, o'er chasms riven + + By throes of Earth. But, still as sleep, + No storm disturbs the quiet deep + Where mirrored forms their silence keep. + + A heaven of light beneath the sea! + A dream of worlds from shadow free! + A pictured, bright eternity! + + The azure domes above, below + (A crystal casket), hold and show, + As precious jewels, gems of snow, + + Dark emerald islets, amethyst + Of far horizon, pearls of mist + In pendant clouds, clear icebergs, kissed + + By wavelets,--sparkling diamonds rare + Quick flashing through the ambient air. + A ring of mountains, graven fair + + In lines of grace, encircles all, + Save where the purple splendors fall + On sky and ocean's bridal-hall. + + The yellow river, broad and fleet, + Winds through its velvet meadows sweet-- + A chain of gold for jewels meet. + + Pours over all the sun's broad ray; + Power, beauty, peace, in one array! + My God, I thank Thee for this day. + + + + +I + +THE MOUNTAIN + + +In the summer of 1879 I was stationed at Fort Wrangell in southeastern +Alaska, whence I had come the year before, a green young student fresh +from college and seminary--very green and very fresh--to do what I could +towards establishing the white man's civilization among the Thlinget +Indians. I had very many things to learn and many more to unlearn. + +Thither came by the monthly mail steamboat in July to aid and counsel me +in my work three men of national reputation--Dr. Henry Kendall of New +York; Dr. Aaron L. Lindsley of Portland, Oregon, and Dr. Sheldon Jackson +of Denver and the West. Their wives accompanied them and they were to +spend a month with us. + +Standing a little apart from them as the steamboat drew to the dock, his +peering blue eyes already eagerly scanning the islands and mountains, +was a lean, sinewy man of forty, with waving, reddish-brown hair and +beard, and shoulders slightly stooped. He wore a Scotch cap and a long, +gray tweed ulster, which I have always since associated with him, and +which seemed the same garment, unsoiled and unchanged, that he wore +later on his northern trips. He was introduced as Professor Muir, the +Naturalist. A hearty grip of the hand, and we seemed to coalesce at once +in a friendship which, to me at least, has been one of the very best +things I have known in a life full of blessings. From the first he was +the strongest and most attractive of these four fine personalities to +me, and I began to recognize him as my Master who was to lead me into +enchanting regions of beauty and mystery, which without his aid must +forever have remained unseen by the eyes of my soul. I sat at his feet; +and at the feet of his spirit I still sit, a student, absorbed, +surrendered, as this "priest of Nature's inmost shrine" unfolds to me +the secrets of his "mountains of God." + +[Illustration: FORT WRANGELL + +Near the mouth of the Stickeen--the starting point of the expeditions] + +Minor excursions culminated in the chartering of the little steamer +_Cassiar_, on which our party, augmented by two or three friends, +steamed between the tremendous glaciers and through the columned canyons +of the swift Stickeen River through the narrow strip of Alaska's +cup-handle to Glenora, in British Columbia, one hundred and fifty miles +from the river's mouth. Our captain was Nat. Lane, a grandson of the +famous Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon. Stocky, broad-shouldered, +muscular, given somewhat to strange oaths and strong liquids, and eying +askance our group as we struck the bargain, he was withal a genial, +good-natured man, and a splendid river pilot. + +Dropping down from Telegraph Creek (so named because it was a principal +station of the great projected trans-American and trans-Siberian line of +the Western Union, that bubble pricked by Cyrus Field's cable), we tied +up at Glenora about noon of a cloudless day. + +"Amuse yourselves," said Captain Lane at lunch. "Here we stay till two +o'clock to-morrow morning. This gale, blowing from the sea, makes safe +steering through the Canyon impossible, unless we take the morning's +calm." + +I saw Muir's eyes light up with a peculiar meaning as he glanced +quickly at me across the table. He knew the leading strings I was in; +how those well-meaning D.D.s and their motherly wives thought they had a +special mission to suppress all my self-destructive proclivities toward +dangerous adventure, and especially to protect me from "that wild Muir" +and his hare-brained schemes of mountain climbing. + +"Where is it?" I asked, as we met behind the pilot house a moment later. + +He pointed to a little group of jagged peaks rising right up from where +we stood--a pulpit in the center of a vast rotunda of magnificent +mountains. "One of the finest viewpoints in the world," he said. + +"How far to the highest point?" + +"About ten miles." + +"How high?" + +"Seven or eight thousand feet." + +That was enough. I caught the D.D.s with guile. There were Stickeen +Indians there catching salmon, and among them Chief Shakes, who our +interpreter said was "The youngest but the headest Chief of all." Last +night's palaver had whetted the appetites of both sides for more. On the +part of the Indians, a talk with these "Great White Chiefs from +Washington" offered unlimited possibilities for material favor; and to +the good divines the "simple faith and childlike docility" of these +children of the forest were a constant delight. And then how well their +high-flown compliments and flowery metaphors would sound in article and +speech to the wondering East! So I sent Stickeen Johnny, the +interpreter, to call the natives to another _hyou wawa_ (big talk) and, +note-book in hand, the doctors "went gayly to the fray." I set the +speeches a-going, and then slipped out to join the impatient Muir. + +"Take off your coat," he commanded, "and here's your supper." + +Pocketing two hardtacks apiece we were off, keeping in shelter of house +and bush till out of sight of the council-house and the flower-picking +ladies. Then we broke out. What a matchless climate! What sweet, +lung-filling air! Sunshine that had no weakness in it--as if we were +springing plants. Our sinews like steel springs, muscles like India +rubber, feet soled with iron to grip the rocks. Ten miles? Eight +thousand feet? Why, I felt equal to forty miles and the Matterhorn! + +"Eh, mon!" said Muir, lapsing into the broad Scotch he was so fond of +using when enjoying himself, "ye'll see the sicht o' yer life the day. +Ye'll get that'll be o' mair use till ye than a' the gowd o' Cassiar." + +From the first, it was a hard climb. Fallen timber at the mountain's +foot covered with thick brush swallowed us up and plucked us back. +Beyond, on the steeper slopes, grew dwarf evergreens, five or six feet +high--the same fir that towers a hundred feet with a diameter of three +or four on the river banks, but here stunted by icy mountain winds. The +curious blasting of the branches on the side next to the mountain gave +them the appearance of long-armed, humpbacked, hairy gnomes, bristling +with anger, stretching forbidding arms downwards to bar our passage to +their sacred heights. Sometimes an inviting vista through the branches +would lure us in, when it would narrow, and at its upper angle we would +find a solid phalanx of these grumpy dwarfs. Then we had to attack +boldly, scrambling over the obstinate, elastic arms and against the +clusters of stiff needles, till we gained the upper side and found +another green slope. + +Muir led, of course, picking with sure instinct the easiest way. Three +hours of steady work brought us suddenly beyond the timber-line, and the +real joy of the day began. Nowhere else have I see anything approaching +the luxuriance and variety of delicate blossoms shown by these high, +mountain pastures of the North. "You scarce could see the grass for +flowers." Everything that was marvelous in form, fair in color, or sweet +in fragrance seemed to be represented there, from daisies and campanulas +to Muir's favorite, the cassiope, with its exquisite little pink-white +bells shaped like lilies-of-the-valley and its subtle perfume. Muir at +once went wild when we reached this fairyland. From cluster to cluster +of flowers he ran, falling on his knees, babbling in unknown tongues, +prattling a curious mixture of scientific lingo and baby talk, +worshiping his little blue-and-pink goddesses. + +"Ah! my blue-eyed darlin', little did I think to see you here. How did +you stray away from Shasta?" + +"Well, well! Who'd 'a' thought that you'd have left that niche in the +Merced mountains to come here!" + +"And who might you be, now, with your wonder look? Is it possible that +you can be (two Latin polysyllables)? You're lost, my dear; you belong +in Tennessee." + +"Ah! I thought I'd find you, my homely little sweetheart," and so on +unceasingly. + +So absorbed was he in this amatory botany that he seemed to forget my +existence. While I, as glad as he, tagged along, running up and down +with him, asking now and then a question, learning something of plant +life, but far more of that spiritual insight into Nature's lore which is +granted only to those who love and woo her in her great outdoor palaces. +But how I anathematized my short-sighted foolishness for having as a +student at old Wooster shirked botany for the "more important" studies +of language and metaphysics. For here was a man whose natural science +had a thorough technical basis, while the superstructure was built of +"lively stones," and was itself a living temple of love! + +With all his boyish enthusiasm, Muir was a most painstaking student; and +any unsolved question lay upon his mind like a personal grievance until +it was settled to his full understanding. One plant after another, with +its sand-covered roots, went into his pockets, his handkerchief and the +"full" of his shirt, until he was bulbing and sprouting all over, and +could carry no more. He was taking them to the boat to analyze and +compare at leisure. Then he began to requisition my receptacles. I stood +it while he stuffed my pockets, but rebelled when he tried to poke the +prickly, scratchy things inside my shirt. I had not yet attained that +sublime indifference to physical comfort, that Nirvana of passivity, +that Muir had found. + +Hours had passed in this entrancing work and we were progressing upwards +but slowly. We were on the southeastern slope of the mountain, and the +sun was still staring at us from a cloudless sky. Suddenly we were in +the shadow as we worked around a spur of rock. Muir looked up, startled. +Then he jammed home his last handful of plants, and hastened up to +where I stood. + +"Man!" he said, "I was forgetting. We'll have to hurry now or we'll miss +it, we'll miss it." + +"Miss what?" I asked. + +"The jewel of the day," he answered; "the sight of the sunset from the +top." + +Then Muir began to _slide_ up that mountain. I had been with mountain +climbers before, but never one like him. A deer-lope over the smoother +slopes, a sure instinct for the easiest way into a rocky fortress, an +instant and unerring attack, a serpent-glide up the steep; eye, hand and +foot all connected dynamically; with no appearance of weight to his +body--as though he had Stockton's negative gravity machine strapped on +his back. + +Fifteen years of enthusiastic study among the Sierras had given him the +same pre-eminence over the ordinary climber as the Big Horn of the +Rockies shows over the Cotswold. It was only by exerting myself to the +limit of my strength that I was able to keep near him. His example was +at the same time my inspiration and despair. I longed for him to stop +and rest, but would not have suggested it for the world. I would at +least be game, and furnish no hint as to how tired I was, no matter how +chokingly my heart thumped. Muir's spirit was in me, and my "chief end," +just then, was to win that peak with him. The impending calamity of +being beaten by the sun was not to be contemplated without horror. The +loss of a fortune would be as nothing to that! + +[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN + +He pointed to a little group of jagged peaks rising right up from where +we stood--a pulpit in the center of a vast rotunda of magnificent +mountains] + +We were now beyond the flower garden of the gods, in a land of rocks +and cliffs, with patches of short grass, caribou moss and lichens +between. Along a narrowing arm of the mountain, a deep canyon flumed a +rushing torrent of icy water from a small glacier on our right. Then +came moraine matter, rounded pebbles and boulders, and beyond them the +glacier. Once a giant, it is nothing but a baby now, but the ice is +still blue and clear, and the crevasses many and deep. And that day it +had to be crossed, which was a ticklish task. A misstep or slip might +land us at once fairly into the heart of the glacier, there to be +preserved in cold storage for the wonderment of future generations. But +glaciers were Muir's special pets, his intimate companions, with whom he +held sweet communion. Their voices were plain language to his ears, +their work, as God's landscape gardeners, of the wisest and best that +Nature could offer. + +No Swiss guide was ever wiser in the habits of glaciers than Muir, or +proved to be a better pilot across their deathly crevasses. Half a mile +of careful walking and jumping and we were on the ground again, at the +base of the great cliff of metamorphic slate that crowned the summit. +Muir's aneroid barometer showed a height of about seven thousand feet, +and the wall of rock towered threateningly above us, leaning out in +places, a thousand feet or so above the glacier. But the earth-fires +that had melted and heaved it, the ice mass that chiseled and shaped it, +the wind and rain that corroded and crumbled it, had left plenty of +bricks out of that battlement, had covered its face with knobs and +horns, had ploughed ledges and cleaved fissures and fastened crags and +pinnacles upon it, so that, while its surface was full of man-traps and +blind ways, the human spider might still find some hold for his claws. + +The shadows were dark upon us, but the lofty, icy peaks of the main +range still lay bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun. There was +no time to be lost. A quick glance to the right and left, and Muir, who +had steered his course wisely across the glacier, attacked the cliff, +simply saying, "We must climb cautiously here." + +Now came the most wonderful display of his mountain-craft. Had I been +alone at the feet of these crags I should have said, "It can't be done," +and have turned back down the mountain. But Muir was my "control," as +the Spiritists say, and I never thought of doing anything else but +following him. He thought he could climb up there and that settled it. +He would do what he thought he could. And such climbing! There was never +an instant when both feet and hands were not in play, and often elbows, +knees, thighs, upper arms, and even chin must grip and hold. Clambering +up a steep slope, crawling under an overhanging rock, spreading out like +a flying squirrel and edging along an inch-wide projection while fingers +clasped knobs above the head, bending about sharp angles, pulling up +smooth rock-faces by sheer strength of arm and chinning over the edge, +leaping fissures, sliding flat around a dangerous rock-breast, testing +crumbly spurs before risking his weight, always going up, up, no +hesitation, no pause--that was Muir! My task was the lighter one; he did +the head-work, I had but to imitate. The thin fragment of projecting +slate that stood the weight of his one hundred and fifty pounds would +surely sustain my hundred and thirty. As far as possible I did as he +did, took his hand-holds, and stepped in his steps. + +But I was handicapped in a way that Muir was ignorant of, and I would +not tell him for fear of his veto upon my climbing. My legs were all +right--hard and sinewy; my body light and supple, my wind good, my +nerves steady (heights did not make me dizzy); but my arms--there lay +the trouble. Ten years before I had been fond of breaking colts--till +the colts broke me. On successive summers in West Virginia, two colts +had fallen with me and dislocated first my left shoulder, then my right. +Since that both arms had been out of joint more than once. My left was +especially weak. It would not sustain my weight, and I had to favor it +constantly. Now and again, as I pulled myself up some difficult reach I +could feel the head of the humerus move from its socket. + +Muir climbed so fast that his movements were almost like flying, legs +and arms moving with perfect precision and unfailing judgment. I must +keep close behind him or I would fail to see his points of vantage. But +the pace was a killing one for me. As we neared the summit my strength +began to fail, my breath to come in gasps, my muscles to twitch. The +overwhelming fear of losing sight of my guide, of being left behind and +failing to see that sunset, grew upon me, and I hurled myself blindly at +every fresh obstacle, determined to keep up. At length we climbed upon a +little shelf, a foot or two wide, that corkscrewed to the left. Here we +paused a moment to take breath and look around us. We had ascended the +cliff some nine hundred and fifty feet from the glacier, and were within +forty or fifty feet of the top. + +Among the much-prized gifts of this good world one of the very richest +was given to me in that hour. It is securely locked in the safe of my +memory and nobody can rob me of it--an imperishable treasure. Standing +out on the rounded neck of the cliff and facing the southwest, we could +see on three sides of us. The view was much the finest of all my +experience. We seemed to stand on a high rostrum in the center of the +greatest amphitheater in the world. The sky was cloudless, the level sun +flooding all the landscape with golden light. From the base of the +mountain on which we stood stretched the rolling upland. Striking boldly +across our front was the deep valley of the Stickeen, a line of foliage, +light green cottonwoods and darker alders, sprinkled with black fir and +spruce, through which the river gleamed with a silvery sheen, now +spreading wide among its islands, now foaming white through narrow +canyons. Beyond, among the undulating hills, was a marvelous array of +lakes. There must have been thirty or forty of them, from the pond of an +acre to the wide sheet two or three miles across. The strangely +elongated and rounded hills had the appearance of giants in bed, wrapped +in many-colored blankets, while the lakes were their deep, blue eyes, +lashed with dark evergreens, gazing steadfastly heavenward. Look long at +these recumbent forms and you will see the heaving of their breasts. + +The whole landscape was alert, expectant of glory. Around this great +camp of prostrate Cyclops there stood an unbroken semicircle of mighty +peaks in solemn grandeur, some hoary-headed, some with locks of brown, +but all wearing white glacier collars. The taller peaks seemed almost +sharp enough to be the helmets and spears of watchful sentinels. And +the colors! Great stretches of crimson fireweed, acres and acres of +them, smaller patches of dark blue lupins, and hills of shaded yellow, +red, and brown, the many-shaded green of the woods, the amethyst and +purple of the far horizon--who can tell it? We did not stand there more +than two or three minutes, but the whole wonderful scene is deeply +etched on the tablet of my memory, a photogravure never to be effaced. + + + + + THE RESCUE + + + + +THE MOUNTAIN'S FAITH + + + At eventide, upon a dreary sea, + I watched a mountain rear its hoary head + To look with steady gaze in the near heaven. + The earth was cold and still. No sound was heard + But the dream-voices of the sleeping sea. + The mountain drew its gray cloud-mantle close, + Like Roman senator, erect and old, + Raising aloft an earnest brow and calm, + With upward look intent of steadfast faith. + The sky was dim; no glory-light shone forth + To crown the mountain's faith; which faltered not, + But, ever hopeful, waited patiently. + + At morn I looked again. Expectance sat + Of immanent glory on the mountain's brow. + And, in a moment, lo! the glory _came!_ + An angel's hand rolled back a crimson cloud. + Deep, rose-red light of wondrous tone and power-- + A crown of matchless splendor--graced its head, + Majestic, kingly, pure as Heaven, yet warm + With earthward love. A motion, like a heart + With rich blood beating, seemed to sway and pulse, + With might of ecstasy, the granite peak. + A poem grand it was of Love Divine-- + An anthem, sweet and strong, of praise to God-- + A victory-peal from barren fields of death. + Its gaze was heavenward still, but earthward too-- + For Love seeks not her own, and joy is full, + Only when freest given. The sun shone forth, + And now the mountain doffed its ruby crown + For one of diamonds. Still the light streamed down; + No longer chill and bleak, the morning glowed + With warmth and light, and clouds of fiery hue + Mantled the crystal glacier's chilly stream, + And all the landscape throbbed with sudden joy. + + + + +II + +THE RESCUE + + +Muir was the first to awake from his trance. Like Schiller's king in +"The Diver," "Nothing could slake his wild thirst of desire." + +"The sunset," he cried; "we must have the whole horizon." + +Then he started running along the ledge like a mountain goat, working to +get around the vertical cliff above us to find an ascent on the other +side. He was soon out of sight, although I followed as fast as I could. +I heard him shout something, but could not make out his words. I know +now he was warning me of a dangerous place. Then I came to a sharp-cut +fissure which lay across my path--a gash in the rock, as if one of the +Cyclops had struck it with his axe. It sloped very steeply for some +twelve feet below, opening on the face of the precipice above the +glacier, and was filled to within about four feet of the surface with +flat, slaty gravel. It was only four or five feet across, and I could +easily have leaped it had I not been so tired. But a rock the size of my +head projected from the slippery stream of gravel. In my haste to +overtake Muir I did not stop to make sure this stone was part of the +cliff, but stepped with springing force upon it to cross the fissure. +Instantly the stone melted away beneath my feet, and I shot with it down +towards the precipice. With my peril sharp upon me I cried out as I +whirled on my face, and struck out both hands to grasp the rock on +either side. + +Falling forward hard, my hands struck the walls of the chasm, my arms +were twisted behind me, and instantly both shoulders were dislocated. +With my paralyzed arms flopping helplessly above my head, I slid swiftly +down the narrow chasm. Instinctively I flattened down on the sliding +gravel, digging my chin and toes into it to check my descent; but not +until my feet hung out over the edge of the cliff did I feel that I had +stopped. Even then I dared not breathe or stir, so precarious was my +hold on that treacherous shale. Every moment I seemed to be slipping +inch by inch to the point when all would give way and I would go +whirling down to the glacier. + +After the first wild moment of panic when I felt myself falling, I do +not remember any sense of fear. But I know what it is to have a thousand +thoughts flash through the brain in a single instant--an anguished +thought of my young wife at Wrangell, with her immanent motherhood; an +indignant thought of the insurance companies that refused me policies on +my life; a thought of wonder as to what would become of my poor flocks +of Indians among the islands; recollections of events far and near in +time, important and trivial; but each thought printed upon my memory by +the instantaneous photography of deadly peril. I had no hope of escape +at all. The gravel was rattling past me and piling up against my head. +The jar of a little rock, and all would be over. The situation was too +desperate for actual fear. Dull wonder as to how long I would be in the +air, and the hope that death would be instant--that was all. Then came +the wish that Muir would come before I fell, and take a message to my +wife. + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE MARVELOUS ARRAY OF LAKES] + +Suddenly I heard his voice right above me. "My God!" he cried. Then he +added, "Grab that rock, man, just by your right hand." + +I gurgled from my throat, not daring to inflate my lungs, "My arms are +out." + +There was a pause. Then his voice rang again, cheery, confident, +unexcited, "Hold fast; I'm going to get you out of this. I can't get to +you on this side; the rock is sheer. I'll have to leave you now and +cross the rift high up and come down to you on the other side by which +we came. Keep cool." + +Then I heard him going away, whistling "The Blue Bells of Scotland," +singing snatches of Scotch songs, calling to me, his voice now receding, +as the rocks intervened, then sounding louder as he came out on the face +of the cliff. But in me hope surged at full tide. I entertained no more +thoughts of last messages. I did not see how he could possibly do it, +but he was John Muir, and I had seen his wonderful rock-work. So I +determined not to fall and made myself as flat and heavy as possible, +not daring to twitch a muscle or wink an eyelid, for I still felt myself +slipping, slipping down the greasy slate. And now a new peril +threatened. A chill ran through me of cold and nervousness, and I slid +an inch. I suppressed the growing shivers with all my will. I would keep +perfectly quiet till Muir came back. The sickening pain in my shoulders +increased till it was torture, and I could not ease it. + +It seemed like hours, but it was really only about ten minutes before he +got back to me. By that time I hung so far over the edge of the +precipice that it seemed impossible that I could last another second. +Now I heard Muir's voice, low and steady, close to me, and it seemed a +little below. + +"Hold steady," he said. "I'll have to swing you out over the cliff." + +Then I felt a careful hand on my back, fumbling with the waistband of my +pants, my vest and shirt, gathering all in a firm grip. I could see only +with one eye and that looked upon but a foot or two of gravel on the +other side. + +"Now!" he said, and I slid out of the cleft with a rattling shower of +stones and gravel. My head swung down, my impotent arms dangling, and I +stared straight at the glacier, a thousand feet below. Then my feet came +against the cliff. + +"Work downwards with your feet." + +I obeyed. He drew me close to him by crooking his arm and as my head +came up past his level he caught me by my collar with his teeth! My +feet struck the little two-inch shelf on which he was standing, and I +could see Muir, flattened against the face of the rock and facing it, +his right hand stretched up and clasping a little spur, his left holding +me with an iron grip, his head bent sideways, as my weight drew it. I +felt as alert and cool as he. + +"I've got to let go of you," he hissed through his clenched teeth. "I +need both hands here. Climb upward with your feet." + +How he did it, I know not. The miracle grows as I ponder it. The wall +was almost perpendicular and smooth. My weight on his jaws dragged him +outwards. And yet, holding me by his teeth as a panther her cub and +clinging like a squirrel to a tree, he climbed with me straight up ten +or twelve feet, with only the help of my iron-shod feet scrambling on +the rock. It was utterly impossible, yet he did it! + +When he landed me on the little shelf along which we had come, my nerve +gave way and I trembled all over. I sank down exhausted, Muir only less +tired, but supporting me. + +The sun had set; the air was icy cold and we had no coats. We would soon +chill through. Muir's task of rescue had only begun and no time was to +be lost. In a minute he was up again, examining my shoulders. The right +one had an upward dislocation, the ball of the humerus resting on the +process of the scapula, the rim of the cup. I told him how, and he soon +snapped the bone into its socket. But the left was a harder proposition. +The luxation was downward and forward, and the strong, nervous reaction +of the muscles had pulled the head of the bone deep into my armpit. +There was no room to work on that narrow ledge. All that could be done +was to make a rude sling with one of my suspenders and our +handkerchiefs, so as to both support the elbow and keep the arm from +swinging. + +Then came the task to get down that terrible wall to the glacier, by the +only practicable way down the mountain that Muir, after a careful +search, could find. Again I am at loss to know how he accomplished it. +For an unencumbered man to descend it in the deepening dusk was a most +difficult task; but to get a tottery, nerve-shaken, pain-wracked cripple +down was a feat of positive wonder. My right arm, though in place, was +almost helpless. I could only move my forearm; the muscles of the upper +part simply refusing to obey my will. Muir would let himself down to a +lower shelf, brace himself, and I would get my right hand against him, +crawl my fingers over his shoulder until the arm hung in front of him, +and falling against him, would be eased down to his standing ground. +Sometimes he would pack me a short distance on his back. Again, taking +me by the wrist, he would swing me down to a lower shelf, before +descending himself. My right shoulder came out three times that night, +and had to be reset. + +It was dark when we reached the base; there was no moon and it was very +cold. The glacier provided an operating table, and I lay on the ice for +an hour while Muir, having slit the sleeve of my shirt to the collar, +tugged and twisted at my left arm in a vain attempt to set it. But the +ball was too deep in its false socket, and all his pulling only bruised +and made it swell. So he had to do up the arm again, and tie it tight to +my body. It must have been near midnight when we left the foot of the +cliff and started down the mountain. We had ten hard miles to go, and no +supper, for the hardtack had disappeared ere we were half-way up the +mountain. Muir dared not take me across the glacier in the dark; I was +too weak to jump the crevasses. So we skirted it and came, after a mile, +to the head of a great slide of gravel, the fine moraine matter of the +receding glacier. Muir sat down on the gravel; I sat against him with my +feet on either side and my arm over his shoulder. Then he began to hitch +and kick, and presently we were sliding at great speed in a cloud of +dust. A full half-mile we flew, and were almost buried when we reached +the bottom of the slide. It was the easiest part of our trip. + +Now we found ourselves in the canyon, down which tumbled the glacial +stream, and far beneath the ridge along which we had ascended. The +sides of the canyon were sheer cliffs. + +"We'll try it," said Muir. "Sometimes these canyons are passable." + +But the way grew rougher as we descended. The rapids became falls and we +often had to retrace our steps to find a way around them. After we +reached the timber-line, some four miles from the summit, the going was +still harder, for we had a thicket of alders and willows to fight. Here +Muir offered to make a fire and leave me while he went forward for +assistance, but I refused. "No," I said, "I'm going to make it to the +boat." + +All that night this man of steel and lightning worked, never resting a +minute, doing the work of three men, helping me along the slopes, easing +me down the rocks, pulling me up cliffs, dashing water on me when I grew +faint with the pain; and always cheery, full of talk and anecdote, +cracking jokes with me, infusing me with his own indomitable spirit. He +was eyes, hands, feet, and heart to me--my caretaker, in whom I trusted +absolutely. My eyes brim with tears even now when I think of his utter +self-abandon as he ministered to my infirmities. + +About four o'clock in the morning we came to a fall that we could not +compass, sheer a hundred feet or more. So we had to attack the steep +walls of the canyon. After a hard struggle we were on the mountain +ridges again, traversing the flower pastures, creeping through openings +in the brush, scrambling over the dwarf fir, then down through the +fallen timber. It was half-past seven o'clock when we descended the last +slope and found the path to Glenora. Here we met a straggling party of +whites and Indians just starting out to search the mountain for us. + +As I was coming wearily up the teetering gang-plank, feeling as if I +couldn't keep up another minute, Dr. Kendall stepped upon its end, +barring my passage, bent his bushy white brows upon me from his six feet +of height, and began to scold: + +"See here, young man; give an account of yourself. Do you know you've +kept us waiting----" + +Just then Captain Lane jumped forward to help me, digging the old Doctor +of Divinity with his elbow in the stomach and nearly knocking him off +the boat. + +"Oh, hell!" he roared. "Can't you see the man's hurt?" + +Mrs. Kendall was a very tall, thin, severe-looking old lady, with face +lined with grief by the loss of her children. She never smiled. She had +not gone to bed at all that night, but walked the deck and would not let +her husband or the others sleep. Soon after daylight she began to lash +the men with the whip of her tongue for their "cowardice and inhumanity" +in not starting at once to search for me. + +"Mr. Young is undoubtedly lying mangled at the foot of a cliff, or else +one of those terrible bears has wounded him; and you are lolling around +here instead of starting to his rescue. For shame!" + +When they objected that they did not know where we had gone, she +snapped: "Go everywhere until you find him." + +Her fierce energy started the men we met. When I came on board she at +once took charge and issued her orders, which everybody jumped to obey. +She had blankets spread on the floor of the cabin and laid me on them. +She obtained some whisky from the captain, some water, porridge and +coffee from the steward. She was sitting on the floor with my head in +her lap, feeding me coffee with a spoon, when Dr. Kendall came in and +began on me again: + +"Suppose you had fallen down that precipice, what would your poor wife +have done? What would have become of your Indians and your new church?" + +Then Mrs. Kendall turned and thrust her spoon like a sword at him. +"Henry Kendall," she blazed, "shut right up and leave this room. Have +you no sense? Go instantly, I say!" And the good Doctor went. + +My recollections of that day are not very clear. The shoulder was in a +bad condition--swollen, bruised, very painful. I had to be strengthened +with food and rest, and Muir called from his sleep of exhaustion, so +that with four other men he could pull and twist that poor arm of mine +for an hour. They got it into its socket, but scarcely had Muir got to +sleep again before the strong, nervous twitching of the shoulder +dislocated it a second time and seemingly placed it in a worse condition +than before. Captain Lane was now summoned, and with Muir to direct, +they worked for two or three hours. Whisky was poured down my throat to +relax my stubborn, pain-convulsed muscles. Then they went at it with two +men pulling at the towel knotted about my wrist, two others pulling +against them, foot braced to foot, Muir manipulating my shoulder with +his sinewy hands, and the stocky Captain, strong and compact as a bear, +with his heel against the yarn ball in my armpit, takes me by the elbow +and says, "I'll set it or pull the arm off!" + +[Illustration: GLACIER--STICKEEN VALLEY + +Muir, fresh and enthusiastic as ever, was the pilot of the party across +the moraine and upon the great ice mountain] + +Well, he almost does the latter. I am conscious of a frightful strain, +a spasm of anguish in my side as his heel slips from the ball and kicks +in two of my ribs, a snap as the head of the bone slips into the +cup--then kindly oblivion. + +I was awakened about five o'clock in the afternoon by the return of the +whole party from an excursion to the Great Glacier at the Boundary Line. +Muir, fresh and enthusiastic as ever, had been the pilot across the +moraine and upon the great ice mountain; and I, wrapped like a mummy in +linen strips, was able to join in his laughter as he told of the big +D.D.'s heroics, when, in the middle of an acre of alder brush, he asked +indignantly, in response to the hurry-up calls: "Do you think I'm going +to leave my wife in this forest?" + +One overpowering regret--one only--abides in my heart as I think back +upon that golden day with John Muir. He could, and did, go back to +Glenora on the return trip of the _Cassiar_, ascend the mountain again, +see the sunset from its top, make charming sketches, stay all night and +see the sunrise, filling his cup of joy so full that he could pour out +entrancing descriptions for days. While I--well, with entreating arms +about one's neck and pleading, tearful eyes looking into one's own, what +could one do but promise to climb no more? But my lifelong lamentation +over a treasure forever lost, is this: "I never saw the sunset from that +peak." + + + + + THE VOYAGE + + + + +TOW-A-ATT + + + You are a child, old Friend--a child! + As light of heart, as free, as wild; + As credulous of fairy tale; + As simple in your faith, as frail + In reason; jealous, petulant; + As crude in manner; ignorant, + Yet wise in love; as rough, as mild-- + You are a child! + + You are a man, old Friend--a man! + Ah, sure in richer tide ne'er ran + The blood of earth's nobility, + Than through your veins; intrepid, free; + In counsel, prudent; proud and tall; + Of passions full, yet ruling all; + No stauncher friend since time began; + You are a MAN! + + + + +III + +THE VOYAGE + + +The summer and fall of 1879 Muir always referred to as the most +interesting period of his adventurous life. From about the tenth of July +to the twentieth of November he was in southeastern Alaska. Very little +of this time did he spend indoors. Until steamboat navigation of the +Stickeen River was closed by the forming ice, he made frequent trips to +the Great Glacier--thirty miles up the river, to the Hot Springs, the +Mud Glacier and the interior lakes, ranges, forests and flower pastures. +Always upon his return (for my house was his home the most of that time) +he would be full to intoxication of what he had seen, and dinners would +grow cold and lamps burn out while he held us entranced with his +impassioned stories. Although his books are all masterpieces of lucid +and glowing English, Muir was one of those rare souls who talk better +than they write; and he made the trees, the animals, and especially the +glaciers, live before us. Somehow a glacier never seemed cold when John +Muir was talking about it. + +On September nineteenth a little stranger whose expected advent was +keeping me at home arrived in the person of our first-born daughter. For +two or three weeks preceding and following this event Muir was busy +writing his summer notes and finishing his pencil sketches, and also +studying the flora of the islands. It was a season of constant rains +when the _saanah_, the southeast rain-wind, blew a gale. But these +stormy days and nights, which kept ordinary people indoors, always +lured him out into the woods or up the mountains. + +One wild night, dark as Erebus, the rain dashing in sheets and the wind +blowing a hurricane, Muir came from his room into ours about ten o'clock +with his long, gray overcoat and his Scotch cap on. + +"Where now?" I asked. + +"Oh, to the top of the mountain," he replied. "It is a rare chance to +study this fine storm." + +My expostulations were in vain. He rejected with scorn the proffered +lantern: "It would spoil the effect." I retired at my usual time, for I +had long since learned not to worry about Muir. At two o'clock in the +morning there came a hammering at the front door. I opened it and there +stood a group of our Indians, rain-soaked and trembling--Chief +Tow-a-att, Moses, Aaron, Matthew, Thomas. + +"Why, men," I cried, "what's wrong? What brings you here?" + +"We want you play (pray)," answered Matthew. + +I brought them into the house, and, putting on my clothes and lighting +the lamp, I set about to find out the trouble. It was not easy. They +were greatly excited and frightened. + +"We scare. All Stickeen scare; plenty cly. We want you play God; plenty +play." + +By dint of much questioning I gathered at last that the whole tribe were +frightened by a mysterious light waving and flickering from the top of +the little mountain that overlooked Wrangell; and they wished me to pray +to the white man's God and avert dire calamity. + +"Some miner has camped there," I ventured. + +An eager chorus protested; it was not like the light of a camp-fire in +the least; it waved in the air like the wings of a spirit. Besides, +there was no gold on the top of a hill like that; and no human being +would be so foolish as to camp up there on such a night, when there were +plenty of comfortable houses at the foot of the hill. It was a spirit, a +malignant spirit. + +Suddenly the true explanation flashed into my brain, and I shocked my +Indians by bursting into a roar of laughter. In imagination I could see +him so plainly--John Muir, wet but happy, feeding his fire with spruce +sticks, studying and enjoying the storm! But I explained to my natives, +who ever afterwards eyed Muir askance, as a mysterious being whose ways +and motives were beyond all conjecture. + +"Why does this strange man go into the wet woods and up the mountains on +stormy nights?" they asked. "Why does he wander alone on barren peaks +or on dangerous ice-mountains? There is no gold up there and he never +takes a gun with him or a pick. _Icta mamook_--what make? Why--why?" + +The first week in October saw the culmination of plans long and eagerly +discussed. Almost the whole of the Alexandrian Archipelago, that great +group of eleven hundred wooded islands that forms the southeastern +cup-handle of Alaska, was at that time a _terra incognita_. The only +seaman's chart of the region in existence was that made by the great +English navigator, Vancouver, in 1807. It was a wonderful chart, +considering what an absurd little sailing vessel he had in which to +explore those intricate waters with their treacherous winds and tides. + +But Vancouver's chart was hastily made, after all, in a land of fog and +rain and snow. He had not the modern surveyor's instruments, boats or +other helps. And, besides, this region was changing more rapidly than, +perhaps, any other part of the globe. Volcanic islands were being born +out of the depths of the ocean; landslides were filling up channels +between the islands; tides and rivers were opening new passages and +closing old ones; and, more than all, those mightiest tools of the great +Engineer, the glaciers, were furrowing valleys, dumping millions of tons +of silt into the sea, forming islands, promontories and isthmuses, and +by their recession letting the sea into deep and long fiords, forming +great bays, inlets and passages, many of which did not exist in +Vancouver's time. In certain localities the living glacier stream was +breaking off bergs so fast that the resultant bays were lengthening a +mile or more each year. Where Vancouver saw only a great crystal wall +across the sea, we were to paddle for days up a long and sinuous fiord; +and where he saw one glacier, we were to find a dozen. + +My mission in the proposed voyage of discovery was to locate and visit +the tribes and villages of Thlingets to the north and west of Wrangell, +to take their census, confer with their chiefs and report upon their +condition, with a view to establishing schools and churches among them. +The most of these tribes had never had a visit from a missionary, and I +felt the eager zeal an Eliot or a Martin at the prospect of telling them +for the first time the Good News. Muir's mission was to find and study +the forests, mountains and glaciers. I also was eager to see these and +learn about them, and Muir was glad to study the natives with me--so +our plans fitted into each other well. + +"We are going to write some history, my boy," Muir would say to me. +"Think of the honor! We have been chosen to put some interesting people +and some of Nature's grandest scenes on the page of human record and on +the map. Hurry! We are daily losing the most important news of all the +world." + +In many respects we were most congenial companions. We both loved the +same poets and could repeat, verse about, many poems of Tennyson, Keats, +Shelley and Burns. He took with him a volume of Thoreau, and I one of +Emerson, and we enjoyed them together. I had my printed Bible with me, +and he had his in his head--the result of a Scotch father's discipline. +Our studies supplemented each other and our tastes were similar. We had +both lived clean lives and our conversation together was sweet and +high, while we both had a sense of humor and a large fund of stories. + +But Muir's knowledge of Nature and his insight into her plans and +methods were so far beyond mine that, while I was organizer and +commander of the expedition, he was my teacher and guide into the inner +recesses and meanings of the islands, bays and mountains we explored +together. + +Our ship for this voyage of discovery, while not so large as +Vancouver's, was much more shapely and manageable--a _kladushu etlan_ +(six fathom) red-cedar canoe. It belonged to our captain, old Chief +Tow-a-att, a chief who had lately embraced Christianity with his whole +heart--one of the simplest, most faithful, dignified and brave souls I +ever knew. He fully expected to meet a martyr's death among his heathen +enemies of the northern islands; yet he did not shrink from the voyage +on that account. + +His crew numbered three. First in importance was Kadishan, also a chief +of the Stickeens, chosen because of his powers of oratory, his kinship +with Chief Shathitch of the Chilcat tribe, and his friendly relations +with other chiefs. He was a born courtier, learned in Indian lore, songs +and customs, and able to instruct me in the proper Thlinget etiquette to +suit all occasions. The other two were sturdy young men--Stickeen John, +our interpreter, and Sitka Charley. They were to act as cooks, +camp-makers, oarsmen, hunters and general utility men. + +We stowed our baggage, which was not burdensome, in one end of the +canoe, taking a simple store of provisions--flour, beans, bacon, sugar, +salt and a little dried fruit. We were to depend upon our guns, +fishhooks, spears and clamsticks for other diet. As a preliminary to our +palaver with the natives we followed the old Hudson Bay custom, then +firmly established in the North. We took materials for a +_potlatch_,--leaf-tobacco, rice and sugar. Our Indian crew laid in their +own stock of provisions, chiefly dried salmon and seal-grease, while our +table was to be separate, set out with the white man's viands. + +We did not get off without trouble. Kadishan's mother, who looked but +little older than himself, strongly objected to my taking her son on so +perilous a voyage and so late in the fall, and when her scoldings and +entreaties did not avail she said: "If anything happens to my son, I +will take your baby as mine in payment." + +[Illustration: VOYAGES OF MUIR AND YOUNG 1879 and 1880 IN SOUTHEASTERN +ALASKA] + +One sunny October day we set our prow to the unknown northwest. Our +hearts beat high with anticipation. Every passage between the islands +was a corridor leading into a new and more enchanting room of Nature's +great gallery. The lapping waves whispered enticing secrets, while the +seabirds screaming overhead and the eagles shrilling from the sky +promised wonderful adventures. + +The voyage naturally divides itself into the human interest and the +study of nature; yet the two constantly blended throughout the whole +voyage. I can only select a few instances from that trip of six weeks +whose every hour was new and strange. + +Our captain, taciturn and self-reliant, commanded Muir's admiration from +the first. His paddle was sure in the stern, his knowledge of the wind +and tide unfailing. Whenever we landed the crew would begin to dispute +concerning the best place to make camp. But old Tow-a-att, with the mast +in his hand, would march straight as an arrow to the likeliest spot of +all, stick down his mast as a tent-pole and begin to set up the tent, +the others invariably acquiescing in his decision as the best possible +choice. + +At our first meal Muir's sense of humor cost us one-third of a roll of +butter. We invited our captain to take dinner with us. I got out the +bread and other viands, and set the two-pound roll of butter beside the +bread and placed both by Tow-a-att. He glanced at the roll of butter and +at the three who were to eat, measured with his eye one-third of the +roll, cut it off with his hunting knife and began to cut it into squares +and eat it with great gusto. I was about to interfere and show him the +use we made of butter, but Muir stopped me with a wink. The old chief +calmly devoured his third of the roll, and rubbing his stomach with +great satisfaction pronounced it "_hyas klosh_ (very good) glease." + +Of necessity we had chosen the rainiest season of the year in that +dampest climate of North America, where there are two hundred and +twenty-five rainy days out of the three hundred and sixty-five. During +our voyage it did not rain every day, but the periods of sunshine were +so rare as to make us hail them with joyous acclamation. + +We steered our course due westward for forty miles, then through a +sinuous, island-studded passage called Rocky Strait, stopping one day to +lay in a supply of venison before sailing on to the village of the Kake +Indians. My habit throughout the voyage, when coming to a native town, +was to find where the head chief lived, feed him with rice and regale +him with tobacco, and then induce him to call all his chiefs and head +men together for a council. When they were all assembled I would give +small presents of tobacco to each, and then open the floodgate of talk, +proclaiming my mission and telling them in simplest terms the Great New +Story. Muir would generally follow me, unfolding in turn some of the +wonders of God's handiwork and the beauty of clean, pure living; and +then in turn, beginning with the head chief, each Indian would make his +speech. We were received with joy everywhere, and if there was suspicion +at first old Tow-a-att's tearful pleadings and Kadishan's oratory +speedily brought about peace and unity. + +These palavers often lasted a whole day and far into the night, and +usually ended with our being feasted in turn by the chief in whose house +we had held the council. I took the census of each village, getting the +heads of the families to count their relatives with the aid of +beans,--the large brown beans representing men, the large white ones, +women, and the small Boston beans, children. In this manner the first +census of southeastern Alaska was taken. + +Before starting on the voyage, we heard that there was a Harvard +graduate, bearing an honored New England name, living among the Kake +Indians on Kouyou Island. On arriving at the chief town of that tribe we +inquired for the white man and were told that he was camping with the +family of a sub-chief at the mouth of a salmon stream. We set off to +find him. As we neared the shore we saw a circular group of natives +around a fire on the beach, sitting on their heels in the stoical Indian +way. We landed and came up to them. Not one of them deigned to rise or +show any excitement at our coming. The eight or nine men who formed the +group were all dressed in colored four-dollar blankets, with the +exception of one, who had on a ragged fragment of a filthy, two-dollar, +Hudson Bay blanket. The back of this man was towards us, and after +speaking to the chief, Muir and I crossed to the other side of the fire, +and saw his face. It was the white man, and the ragged blanket was all +the clothing he had upon him! An effort to open conversation with him +proved futile. He answered only with grunts and mumbled monosyllables. +Thus the most filthy, degraded, hopelessly lost savage that we found in +this whole voyage was a college graduate of great New England stock! + +"Lift a stone to mountain height and let it fall," said Muir, "and it +will sink the deeper into the mud." + +At Angoon, one of the towns of the Hootz-noo tribe, occurred an incident +of another type. We found this village hilariously drunk. There was a +very stringent prohibition law over Alaska at that time, which +absolutely forbade the importation of any spirituous liquors into the +Territory. But the law was deficient in one vital respect--it did not +prohibit the importation of molasses; and a soldier during the military +occupancy of the Territory had instructed the natives in the art of +making rum. The method was simple. A five-gallon oil can was taken and +partly filled with molasses as a base; into that alcohol was placed (if +it were obtainable), dried apples, berries, potatoes, flour, anything +that would rot and ferment; then, to give it the proper tang, ginger, +cayenne pepper and mustard were added. This mixture was then set in a +warm place to ferment. Another oil can was cut up into long strips, the +solder melted out and used to make a pipe, with two or three turns +through cool water,--forming the worm, and the still. Talk about your +forty-rod whiskey--I have seen this "hooch," as it was called because +these same Hootz-noo natives first made it, kill at more than forty +rods, for it generally made the natives _fighting_ drunk. + +Through the large company of screaming, dancing and singing natives we +made our way to the chief's house. By some miracle this majestic-looking +savage was sober. Perhaps he felt it incumbent upon him as host not to +partake himself of the luxuries with which he regaled his guests. He +took us hospitably into his great community house of split cedar planks +with carved totem poles for corner posts, and called his young men to +take care of our canoe and to bring wood for a fire that he might feast +us. The wife of this chief was one of the finest looking Indian women I +have ever met,--tall, straight, lithe and dignified. But, crawling about +on the floor on all fours, was the most piteous travesty of the human +form I have ever seen. It was an idiot boy, sixteen years of age. He had +neither the comeliness of a beast nor the intellect of a man. His name +was _Hootz-too_ (Bear Heart), and indeed all his motions were those of a +bear rather than of a human being. Crossing the floor with the swinging +gait of a bear, he would crouch back on his haunches and resume his +constant occupation of sucking his wrist, into which he had thus formed +a livid hole. When disturbed at this horrid task he would strike with +the claw-like fingers of the other hand, snarling and grunting. Yet the +beautiful chieftainess was his mother, and she _loved_ him. For sixteen +years she had cared for this monster, feeding him with her choicest +food, putting him to sleep always in her arms, taking him with her and +guarding him day and night. When, a short time before our visit, the +medicine men, accusing him of causing the illness of some of the head +men of the village, proclaimed him a witch, and the whole tribe came to +take and torture him to death, she fought them like a lioness, not +counting her own life dear unto her, and saved her boy. + +When I said to her thoughtlessly, "Oh, would you not be relieved at the +death of this poor idiot boy?" she saw in my words a threat, and I shall +never forget the pathetic, hunted look with which she said: + +"Oh, no, it must not be; he shall not die. Is he not my son, +_uh-yeet-kutsku_ (my dear little son)?" + +If our voyage had yielded me nothing but this wonderful instance of +mother-love, I should have counted myself richly repaid. + +One more human story before I come to Muir's part. It was during the +latter half of the voyage, and after our discovery of Glacier Bay. The +climax of the trip, so far as the missionary interests were concerned, +was our visit to the Chilcat and Chilcoot natives on Lynn Canal, the +most northern tribes of the Alexandrian Archipelago. Here reigned the +proudest and worst old savage of Alaska, Chief Shathitch. His wealth +was very great in Indian treasures, and he was reputed to have cached +away in different places several houses full of blankets, guns, boxes of +beads, ancient carved pipes, spears, knives and other valued heirlooms. +He was said to have stored away over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat +blankets woven by hand from the hair of the mountain goat. His tribe was +rich and unscrupulous. Its members were the middle-men between the +whites and the Indians of the Interior. They did not allow these Indians +to come to the coast, but took over the mountains articles purchased +from the whites--guns, ammunition, blankets, knives and so forth--and +bartered them for furs. It was said that they claimed to be the +manufacturers of these wares and so charged for them what prices they +pleased. They had these Indians of the Interior in a bondage of fear, +and would not allow them to trade directly with the white men. Thus they +carried out literally the story told of Hudson Bay traffic,--piling +beaver skins to the height of a ten-dollar Hudson Bay musket as the +_price_ of the musket. They were the most quarrelsome and warlike of the +tribes of Alaska, and their villages were full of slaves procured by +forays upon the coasts of Vancouver Island, Puget Sound, and as far +south as the mouth of the Columbia River. I was eager to visit these +large and untaught tribes, and establish a mission among them. + +[Illustration: CHILCAT WOMAN WEAVING A BLANKET + +Chief Shathitch was said to have over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat +blankets, woven by hand, from the hair of the mountain goat] + +About the first of November we came in sight of the long, low-built +village of Yin-des-tuk-ki. As we paddled up the winding channel of the +Chilcat River we saw great excitement in the town. We had hoisted the +American flag, as was our custom, and had put on our best apparel for +the occasion. When we got within long musket-shot of the village we saw +the native men come rushing from their houses with their guns in their +hands and mass in front of the largest house upon the beach. Then we +were greeted by what seemed rather too warm a reception--a shower of +bullets falling unpleasantly around us. Instinctively Muir and I ceased +to paddle, but Tow-a-att commanded, "_Ut-ha, ut-ha!_--pull, pull!" and +slowly, amid the dropping bullets, we zigzagged our way up the channel +towards the village. As we drew near the shore a line of runners +extended down the beach to us, keeping within shouting distance of each +other. Then came the questions like bullets--"_Gusu-wa-eh?_--Who are +you? Whence do you come? What is your business here?" And Stickeen John +shouted back the reply: + +"A great preacher-chief and a great ice-chief have come to bring you a +good message." + +The answer was shouted back along the line, and then returned a message +of greeting and welcome. We were to be the guests of the chief of +Yin-des-tuk-ki, old Don-na-wuk (Silver Eye), so called because he was in +the habit of wearing on all state occasions a huge pair of silver-bowed +spectacles which a Russian officer had given him. He confessed he could +not see through them, but thought they lent dignity to his countenance. +We paddled slowly up to the village, and Muir and I, watching with +interest, saw the warriors all disappear. As our prow touched the sand, +however, here they came, forty or fifty of them, without their guns this +time, but charging down upon us with war-cries, "_Hoo-hooh, hoo-hooh_," +as if they were going to take us prisoners. Dashing into the water they +ranged themselves along each side of the canoe; then lifting up our +canoe with us in it they rushed with excited cries up the bank to the +chief's house and set us down at his door. It was the Thlinget way of +paying us honor as great guests. + +Then we were solemnly ushered into the presence of Don-na-wuk. His house +was large, covering about fifty by sixty feet of ground. The interior +was built in the usual fashion of a chief's house--carved corner posts, +a square of gravel in the center of the room for the fire surrounded by +great hewn cedar planks set on edge; a platform of some six feet in +width running clear around the room; then other planks on edge and a +high platform, where the chieftain's household goods were stowed and +where the family took their repose. A brisk fire was burning in the +middle of the room; and after a short palaver, with gifts of tobacco and +rice to the chief, it was announced that he would pay us the +distinguished honor of feasting us first. + +It was a never-to-be-forgotten banquet. We were seated on the lower +platform with our feet towards the fire, and before Muir and me were +placed huge washbowls of blue Hudson Bay ware. Before each of our native +attendants was placed a great carved wooden trough, holding about as +much as the washbowls. We had learned enough Indian etiquette to know +that at each course our respective vessels were to be filled full of +food, and we were expected to carry off what we could not devour. It was +indeed a "feast of fat things." The first course was what, for the +Indian, takes the place of bread among the whites,--dried salmon. It +was served, a whole washbowlful for each of us, with a dressing of +seal-grease. Muir and I adroitly manoeuvred so as to get our salmon +and seal-grease served separately; for our stomachs had not been +sufficiently trained to endure that rancid grease. This course finished, +what was left was dumped into receptacles in our canoe and guarded from +the dogs by young men especially appointed for that purpose. Our +washbowls were cleansed and the second course brought on. This consisted +of the back fat of the deer, great, long hunks of it, served with a +gravy of seal-grease. The third course was little Russian potatoes about +the size of walnuts, dished out to us, a washbowlful, with a dressing of +seal-grease. The final course was the only berry then in season, the +long fleshy apple of the wild rose mellowed with frost, served to us in +the usual quantity with the invariable sauce of seal-grease. + +"Mon, mon!" said Muir aside to me, "I'm fashed we'll be floppin' aboot +i' the sea, whiles, wi' flippers an' forked tails." + +When we had partaken of as much of this feast of fat things as our +civilized stomachs would stand, it was suddenly announced that we were +about to receive a visit from the great chief of the Chilcats and the +Chilcoots, old Chief Shathitch (Hard-to-Kill). In order to properly +receive His Majesty, Muir and I and our two chiefs were each given a +whole bale of Hudson Bay blankets for a couch. Shathitch made us wait a +long time, doubtless to impress us with his dignity as supreme chief. + +The heat of the fire after the wind and cold of the day made us very +drowsy. We fought off sleep, however, and at last in came stalking the +biggest chief of all Alaska, clothed in his robe of state, which was an +elegant chinchilla blanket; and upon its yellow surface, as the chief +slowly turned about to show us what was written thereon, we were +astonished to see printed in black letters these words, "To Chief +Shathitch, from his friend, William H. Seward!" We learned afterwards +that Seward, in his voyage of investigation, had penetrated to this +far-off town, had been received in royal state by the old chief and on +his return to the States had sent back this token of his appreciation of +the chief's hospitality. Whether Seward was regaled with viands similar +to those offered to us, history does not relate. + +To me the inspiring part of that voyage came next day, when I preached +from early morning until midnight, only occasionally relieved by Muir +and by the responsive speeches of the natives. + +"More, more; tell us more," they would cry. "It is a good talk; we never +heard this story before." And when I would inquire, "Of what do you wish +me now to talk?" they would always say, "Tell us more of the Man from +Heaven who died for us." + +Runners had been sent to the Chilcoot village on the eastern arm of Lynn +Canal, and twenty-five miles up the Chilcat River to Shathitch's town of +Klukwan; and as the day wore away the crowd of Indians had increased so +greatly that there was no room for them in the large house. I heard a +scrambling upon the roof, and looking up I saw a row of black heads +around the great smoke-hole in the center of the roof. After a little a +ripping, tearing sound came from the sides of the building. They were +prying off the planks in order that those outside might hear. When my +voice faltered with long talking Tow-a-att and Kadishan took up the +story, telling what they had learned of the white man's religion; or +Muir told the eager natives wonderful things about what the great one +God, whose name is Love, was doing for them. The all-day meeting was +only interrupted for an hour or two in the afternoon, when we walked +with the chiefs across the narrow isthmus between Pyramid Harbor and the +eastern arm of Lynn Canal, and I selected the harbor, farm and townsite +now occupied by Haines mission and town and Fort William H. Seward. This +was the beginning of the large missions of Haines and Klukwan. + + + + + THE DISCOVERY + + + + +MOONLIGHT IN GLACIER BAY + + + To heaven swells a mighty psalm of praise; + Its music-sheets are glaciers, vast and white. + Sky-piercing peaks the voiceless chorus raise, + To fill with ecstasy the wond'ring night. + + Complete, with every part in sweet accord, + Th' adoring breezes waft it up, on wings + Of beauty-incense, giving to the Lord + The purest sacrifice glad Nature brings. + + The list'ning stars with rapture beat and glow; + The moon forgets her high, eternal calm + To shout her gladness to the sea below, + Whose waves are silver tongues to join the psalm. + + Those everlasting snow-fields are not cold; + This icy solitude no barren waste. + The crystal masses burn with love untold; + The glacier-table spreads a royal feast. + + Fairweather! Crillon! Warders at Heaven's gate! + Hoar-headed priests of Nature's inmost shrine! + Strong seraph forms in robes immaculate! + Draw me from earth; enlighten, change, refine; + + Till I, one little note in this great song, + Who seem a blot upon th' unsullied white, + No discord make--a note high, pure and strong-- + Set in the silent music of the night. + + + + +IV + +THE DISCOVERY + + +The nature-study part of the voyage was woven in with the missionary +trip as intimately as warp with woof. No island, rock, forest, mountain +or glacier which we passed, near or far, was neglected. We went so at +our own sweet will, without any set time or schedule, that we were +constantly finding objects and points of surprise and interest. When we +landed, the algæ, which sometimes filled the little harbors, the limpets +and lichens of the rocks, the fucus pods that snapped beneath our feet, +the grasses of the beach, the moss and shrubbery among the trees, and, +more than all, the majestic forests, claimed attention and study. Muir +was one of the most expert foresters this country has ever produced. He +was never at a loss. The luxuriant vegetation of this wet coast filled +him with admiration, and he never took a walk from camp but he had a +whole volume of things to tell me, and he was constantly bringing in +trophies of which he was prouder than any hunter of his antlers. Now it +was a bunch of ferns as high as his head; now a cluster of minute and +wonderfully beautiful moss blossoms; now a curious fungous growth; now a +spruce branch heavy with cones; and again he would call me into the +forest to see a strange and grotesque moss formation on a dead stump, +looking like a tree standing upon its head. Thus, although his objective +was the glaciers, his thorough knowledge of botany and his interest in +that study made every camp just the place he wished to be. He always +claimed that there was more of pure ethics and even of moral evil and +good to be learned in the wilderness than from any book or in any abode +of man. He was fond of quoting Wordsworth's stanza: + + "One impulse from a vernal wood + Will teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good, + Than all the sages can." + +Muir was a devout theist. The Fatherhood of God and the Unity of God, +the immanence of God in nature and His management of all the affairs of +the universe, was his constantly reiterated belief. He saw design in +many things which the ordinary naturalist overlooks, such as the +symmetry of an island, the balancing branches of a tree, the harmony of +colors in a group of flowers, the completion of a fully rounded +landscape. In his view, the Creator of it all saw every beautiful and +sublime thing from every viewpoint, and had thus formed it, not merely +for His own delight, but for the delectation and instruction of His +human children. + +"Look at that, now," he would say, when, on turning a point, a wonderful +vista of island-studded sea between mountains, with one of Alaska's +matchless sunsets at the end, would wheel into sight. "Why, it looks as +if these giants of God's great army had just now marched into their +stations; every one placed just right, just right! What landscape +gardening! What a scheme of things! And to think that He should plan to +bring us feckless creatures here at the right moment, and then flash +such glories at us! Man, we're not worthy of such honor!" + +Thus Muir was always discovering to me things which I would never have +seen myself and opening up to me new avenues of knowledge, delight and +adoration. There was something so intimate in his theism that it +purified, elevated and broadened mine, even when I could not agree with +him. His constant exclamation when a fine landscape would burst upon our +view, or a shaft of light would pierce the clouds and glorify a +mountain, was, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" + +Two or three great adventures stand out prominently in this wonderful +voyage of discovery. Two weeks from home brought us to Icy Straits and +the homes of the Hoonah tribe. Here the knowledge of the way on the part +of our crew ended. We put into the large Hoonah village on Chichagof +Island. After the usual preaching and census-taking, we took aboard a +sub-chief of the Hoonahs, who was a noted seal hunter and, therefore, +able to guide us among the ice-floes of the mysterious Glacier Bay of +which we had heard. Vancouver's chart gave us no intimation of any inlet +whatever; but the natives told of vast masses of floating ice, of a +constant noise of thunder when they crashed from the glaciers into the +sea; and also of fearsome bays and passages full of evil spirits which +made them very perilous to navigate. + +In one bay there was said to be a giant devil-fish with arms as long as +a tree, lurking in malignant patience, awaiting the passage that way of +an unwary canoe, when up would flash those terrible arms with their +thousand suckers and, seizing their prey, would drag down the men to the +bottom of the sea, there to be mangled and devoured by the horrid beak. +Another deep fiord was the abode of _Koosta-kah_, the Otter-man, the +mischievous Puck of Indian lore, who was waiting for voyagers to land +and camp, when he would seize their sleeping forms and transport them a +dozen miles in a moment, or cradle them on the tops of the highest +trees. Again there was a most rapacious and ferocious killer-whale in a +piece of swift water, whose delight it was to take into his great, +tooth-rimmed jaws whole canoes with their crews of men, mangling them +and gulping them down as a single mouthful. Many were these stories of +fear told us at the Hoonah village the night before we started to +explore the icy bay, and our credulous Stickeens gave us rather broad +hints that it was time to turn back. + +"There are no natives up in that region; there is nothing to hunt; +there is no gold there; why do you persist in this _cultus coly_ +(aimless journey)? You are likely to meet death and nothing else if you +go into that dangerous region." + +All these stories made us the more eager to explore the wonders beyond, +and we hastened away from Hoonah with our guide aboard. A day's sail +brought us to a little, heavily wooded island near the mouth of Glacier +Bay. This we named Pleasant Island. + +As we broke camp in the morning our guide said: "We must take on board a +supply of dry wood here, as there is none beyond." + +Leaving this last green island we steered northwest into the great bay, +the country of ice and bare rocks. Muir's excitement was increasing +every moment, and as the majestic arena opened before us and the Muir, +Geicke, Pacific and other great glaciers (all nameless as yet) began to +appear, he could hardly contain himself. He was impatient of any delay, +and was constantly calling to the crew to redouble their efforts and get +close to these wonders. Now the marks of recent glaciation showed +plainly. Here was a conical island of gray granite, whose rounded top +and symmetrical shoulders were worn smooth as a Scotch monument by +grinding glaciers. Here was a great mountain slashed sheer across its +face, showing sharp edge and flat surface as if a slab of mountain size +had been sawed from it. Yonder again loomed a granite range whose huge +breasts were rounded and polished by the resistless sweep of that great +ice mass which Vancouver saw filling the bay. + +Soon the icebergs were charging down upon us with the receding tide and +dressing up in compact phalanx when the tide arose. First would come +the advance guard of smaller bergs, with here and there a house-like +mass of cobalt blue with streaks of white and deeper recesses of +ultra-marine; here we passed an eight-sided, solid figure of +bottle-green ice; there towered an antlered formation like the horns of +a stag. Now we must use all caution and give the larger icebergs a wide +berth. They are treacherous creatures, these icebergs. You may be +paddling along by a peaceful looking berg, sleeping on the water as mild +and harmless as a lamb; when suddenly he will take a notion to turn +over, and up under your canoe will come a spear of ice, impaling it and +lifting it and its occupants skyward; then, turning over, down will go +canoe and men to the depths. + +Our progress up the sixty miles of Glacier Bay was very slow. Three +nights we camped on the bare granite rock before we reached the limit of +the bay. All vegetation had disappeared; hardly a bunch of grass was +seen. The only signs of former life were the sodden and splintered +spruce and fir stumps that projected here and there from the bases of +huge gravel heaps, the moraine matter of the mighty ice mass that had +engulfed them. They told the story of great forests which had once +covered this whole region, until the great sea of ice of the second +glacial period overwhelmed and ground them down, and buried them deep +under its moraine matter. When we landed there were no level spots on +which to pitch our tent and no sandy beaches or gravel beds in which to +sink our tent-poles. I learned from Muir the gentle art of sleeping on a +rock, curled like a squirrel around a boulder. + +We passed by Muir Glacier on the other side of the bay, seeking to +attain the extreme end of the great fiord. We estimated the distance by +the tide and our rate of rowing, tracing the shore-line and islands as +we went along and getting the points of the compass from our little +pocket instrument. + +Rain was falling almost constantly during the week we spent in Glacier +Bay. Now and then the clouds would lift, showing the twin peaks of La +Perouse and the majestic summits of Mts. Fairweather and Crillon. These +mighty summits, twelve thousand, fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand +feet high, respectively, pierced the sky directly above us; sometimes +they seemed to be hanging over us threateningly. Only once did the sky +completely clear; and then was preached to us the wonderful Sermon of +Glacier Bay. + +Early that morning we quitted our camp on a barren rock, steering +towards Mt. Fairweather. A night of sleepless discomfort had ushered in +a bleak gray morning. Our Indians were sullen and silent, their scowling +looks resenting our relentless purpose to attain to the head of the bay. +The air was damp and raw, chilling us to the marrow. The forbidding +granite mountains, showing here and there through the fog, seemed +suddenly to push out threatening fists and shoulders at us. All night +long the ice-guns had bombarded us from four or five directions, when +the great masses of ice from living glaciers toppled into the sea, +crashing and grinding with the noise of thunder. The granite walls +hurled back the sound in reiterated peals, multiplying its volume a +hundredfold. + +There was no Love apparent on that bleak, gray morning: Power was there +in appalling force. Visions of those evergreen forests that had once +clung trustingly to these mountain walls, but had been swept, one and +all, by the relentless forces of the ice and buried deep under mountains +of moraine matter, but added to the present desolation. We could not +enjoy; we could only endure. Death from overturning icebergs, from +charging tides, from mountain avalanche, threatened us. + +Suddenly I heard Muir catch his breath with a fervent ejaculation. "God, +Almighty!" he said. Following his gaze towards Mt. Crillon, I saw the +summit highest of all crowned with glory indeed. It was not sunlight; +there was no appearance of shining; it was as if the Great Artist with +one sweep of His brush had laid upon the king-peak of all a crown of the +most brilliant of all colors--as if a pigment, perfectly made and +thickly spread, too delicate for crimson, too intense for pink, had +leaped in a moment upon the mountain top; "An awful rose of dawn." The +summit nearest Heaven had caught a glimpse of its glory! It was a rose +blooming in ice-fields, a love-song in the midst of a stern epic, a drop +from the heart of Christ upon the icy desolation and barren affections +of a sin-frozen world. It warmed and thrilled us in an instant. We who +had been dull and apathetic a moment before, shivering in our wet +blankets, were glowing and exultant now. Even the Indians ceased their +paddling, gazing with faces of awe upon the wonder. Now, as we watched +that kingly peak, we saw the color leap to one and another and another +of the snowy summits around it. The monarch had a whole family of royal +princes about him to share his glory. Their radiant heads, ruby crowned, +were above the clouds, which seemed to form their silken garments. + +As we looked in ecstatic silence we saw the light creep down the +mountains. It was changing now. The glowing crimson was suffused with +soft, creamy light. If it was less divine, it was more warmly human. +Heaven was coming down to man. The dark recesses of the mountains began +to lighten. They stood forth as at the word of command from the Master +of all; and as the changing mellow light moved downward that wonderful +colosseum appeared clearly with its battlements and peaks and columns, +until the whole majestic landscape was revealed. + +Now we saw the design and purpose of it all. Now the text of this great +sermon was emblazoned across the landscape--"_God is Love_"; and we +understood that these relentless forces that had pushed the molten +mountains heavenward, cooled them into granite peaks, covered them with +snow and ice, dumped the moraine matter into the sea, filling up the +sea, preparing the world for a stronger and better race of men (who +knows?), were all a part of that great "All things" that "work together +for good." + +Our minds cleared with the landscape; our courage rose; our Indians +dipped their paddles silently, steering without fear amidst the +dangerous masses of ice. But there was no profanity in Muir's +exclamation, "We have met with God!" A lifelong devoutness of gratitude +filled us, to think that we were guided into this most wonderful room of +God's great gallery, on perhaps the only day in the year when the skies +were cleared and the sunrise, the atmospheric conditions and the point +of view all prepared for the matchless spectacle. The discomforts of the +voyage, the toil, the cold and rain of the past weeks were a small price +to pay for one glimpse of its surpassing loveliness. Again and again +Muir would break out, after a long silence of blissful memory, with +exclamations: + +"We saw it; we saw it! He sent us to His most glorious exhibition. +Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!" + +Two or three inspiring days followed. Muir must climb the most +accessible of the mountains. My weak shoulders forbade me to ascend more +than two or three thousand feet, but Muir went more than twice as high. +Upon two or three of the glaciers he climbed, although the speed of +these icy streams was so great and their "frozen cataracts" were so +frequent, that it was difficult to ascend them. + +I began to understand Muir's whole new theory, which theory made Tyndall +pronounce him the greatest authority on glacial action the world had +seen. He pointed out to me the mechanical laws that governed those +slow-moving, resistless streams; how they carved their own valleys; how +the lower valley and glacier were often the resultant in size and +velocity of the two or three glaciers that now formed the branches of +the main glaciers; how the harder strata of rock resisted and turned the +masses of ice; how the steely ploughshares were often inserted into +softer leads and a whole mountain split apart as by a wedge. + +Muir would explore all day long, often rising hours before daylight and +disappearing among the mountains, not coming to camp until after night +had fallen. Again and again the Indians said that he was lost; but I had +no fears for him. When he would return to camp he was so full of his +discoveries and of the new facts garnered that he would talk until long +into the night, almost forgetting to eat. + +Returning down the bay, we passed the largest glacier of all, which was +to bear Muir's name. It was then fully a mile and a half in width, and +the perpendicular face of it towered from four to seven hundred feet +above the surface of the water. The ice masses were breaking off so fast +that we were forced to put off far from the face of the glacier. The +great waves threatened constantly to dash us against the sharp points of +the icebergs. We wished to land and scale the glacier from the eastern +side. We rowed our canoe about half a mile from the edge of the glacier, +but, attempting to land, were forced hastily to put off again. A great +wave, formed by the masses of ice breaking off into the water, +threatened to dash our loaded canoe against the boulders on the beach. +Rowing further away, we tried it again and again, with the same result. +As soon as we neared the shore another huge wave would threaten +destruction. We were fully a mile and a half from the edge of the +glacier before we found it safe to land. + +[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER + +Returning down Glacier Bay, we visited the largest glacier of all, which +was to bear Muir's name] + +Muir spent a whole day alone on the glacier, walking over twenty miles +across what he called the glacial lake between two mountains. A cold, +penetrating, mist-like rain was falling, and dark clouds swept up the +bay and clung about the shoulders of the mountains. When night +approached and Muir had not returned, I set the Indians to digging out +from the bases of the gravel hills the frazzled stumps and logs that +remained of the buried forests. These were full of resin and burned +brightly. I made a great fire and cooked a good supper of venison, +beans, biscuit and coffee. When pitchy darkness gathered, and still Muir +did not come, Tow-a-att made some torches of fat spruce, and taking with +him Charley, laden with more wood, he went up the beach a mile and a +half, climbed the base of the mountain and kindled a beacon which +flashed its cheering rays far over the glacier. + +Muir came stumbling into camp with these two Indians a little before +midnight, very tired but very happy. "Ah!" he sighed, "I'm glad to be in +camp. The glacier almost got me this time. If it had not been for the +beacon and old Tow-a-att, I might have had to spend the night on the +ice. The crevasses were so many and so bewildering in their mazy, +crisscross windings that I was actually going farther into the glacier +when I caught the flash of light." + +I brought him to the tent and placed the hot viands before him. He +attacked them ravenously, but presently was talking again: + +"Man, man; you ought to have been with me. You'll never make up what you +have lost to-day. I've been wandering through a thousand rooms of God's +crystal temple. I've been a thousand feet down in the crevasses, with +matchless domes and sculptured figures and carved ice-work all about me. +Solomon's marble and ivory palaces were nothing to it. Such purity, such +color, such delicate beauty! I was tempted to stay there and feast my +soul, and softly freeze, until I would become part of the glacier. What +a great death that would be!" + +Again and again I would have to remind Muir that he was eating his +supper, but it was more than an hour before I could get him to finish +the meal, and two or three hours longer before he stopped talking and +went to sleep. I wish I had taken down his descriptions. What splendid +reading they would make! + +But scurries of snow warned us that winter was coming, and, much to the +relief of our natives, we turned the prow of our canoe towards Chatham +Strait again. Landing our Hoonah guide at his village, we took our route +northward again up Lynn Canal. The beautiful Davison Glacier with its +great snowy fan drew our gaze and excited our admiration for two days; +then the visit to the Chilcats and the return trip commenced. Bowling +down the canal before a strong north wind, we entered Stevens Passage, +and visited the two villages of the Auk Indians, a squalid, miserable +tribe. We camped at the site of what is now Juneau, the capital of +Alaska, and no dream of the millions of gold that were to be taken from +those mountains disturbed us. If we had known, I do not think that we +would have halted a day or staked a claim. Our treasures were richer +than gold and securely laid up in the vaults of our memories. + +An excursion into Taku Bay, that miniature of Glacier Bay, with its then +three living glaciers; a visit to two villages of the Taku Indians; past +Ft. Snettisham, up whose arms we pushed, mapping them; then to Sumdum. +Here the two arms of Holkham Bay, filled with ice, enticed us to +exploration, but the constant rains of the fall had made the ice of the +glaciers more viscid and the glacier streams more rapid; hence the vast +array of icebergs charging down upon us like an army, spreading out in +loose formation and then gathering into a barrier when the tide turned, +made exploration to the end of the bay impossible. Muir would not give +up his quest of the mother glacier until the Indians frankly refused to +go any further; and old Tow-a-att called our interpreter, Johnny, as for +a counsel of state, and carefully set forth to Muir that if he persisted +in his purpose of pushing forward up the bay he would have the blood of +the whole party on his hands. + +Said the old chief: "My life is of no account, and it does not matter +whether I live or die; but you shall not sacrifice the life of my +minister." + +I laughed at Muir's discomfiture and gave the word to retreat. This one +defeat of a victorious expedition so weighed upon Muir's mind that it +brought him back from the California coast next year and from the arms +of his bride to discover and climb upon that glacier. + +On down now through Prince Frederick Sound, past the beautiful Norris +Glacier, then into Le Conte Bay with its living glacier and icebergs, +across the Stickeen flats, and so joyfully home again, Muir to take the +November steamboat back to his sunland. + +I have made many voyages in that great Alexandrian Archipelago since, +traveling by canoe over fifteen thousand miles--not one of them a dull +one--through its intricate passages; but none compared, in the number +and intensity of its thrills, in the variety and excitement of its +incidents and in its lasting impressions of beauty and grandeur, with +this first voyage when we groped our way northward with only Vancouver's +old chart as our guide. + + + + + THE LOST GLACIER + + + + +NIGHT IN A CANOE + + + A dreary world! The constant rain + Beats back to earth blithe fancy's wings; + And life--a sodden garment--clings + About a body numb with pain. + + Imagination ceased with light; + Of Nature's psalm no echo lingers. + The death-cold mist, with ghostly fingers, + Shrouds world and soul in rayless night. + + An inky sea, a sullen crew, + A frail canoe's uncertain motion; + A whispered talk of wind and ocean, + As plotting secret crimes to do! + + The vampire-night sucks all my blood; + Warm home and love seem lost for aye; + From cloud to cloud I steal away, + Like guilty soul o'er Stygian flood. + + Peace, morbid heart! From paddle blade + See the black water flash in light; + And bars of moonbeams streaming white, + Have pearls of ebon raindrops made. + + From darkest sea of deep despair + Gleams Hope, awaked by Action's blow; + And Faith's clear ray, though clouds hang low, + Slants up to heights serene and fair. + + + + +V + +THE LOST GLACIER + + +John Muir was married in the spring of 1880 to Miss Strentzel, the +daughter of a Polish physician who had come out in the great stampede of +1849 to California, but had found his gold in oranges, lemons and +apricots on a great fruit ranch at Martinez, California. A brief letter +from Muir told of his marriage, with just one note in it, the depth of +joy and peace of which I could fathom, knowing him so well. Then no word +of him until the monthly mailboat came in September. As I stood on the +wharf with the rest of the Wrangell population, as was the custom of our +isolation, watching the boat come in, I was overjoyed to see John Muir +on deck, in that same old, long, gray ulster and Scotch cap. He waved +and shouted at me before the boat touched the wharf. + +Springing ashore he said, "When can you be ready?" + +"Aren't you a little fast?" I replied. "What does this mean? Where's +your wife?" + +"Man," he exclaimed, "have you forgotten? Don't you know we lost a +glacier last fall? Do you think I could sleep soundly in my bed this +winter with that hanging on my conscience? My wife could not come, so I +have come alone and you've got to go with me to find the lost. Get your +canoe and crew and let us be off." + +The ten months since Muir had left me had not been spent in idleness at +Wrangell. I had made two long voyages of discovery and missionary work +on my own account,--one in the spring, of four hundred fifty miles +around Prince of Wales Island, visiting the five towns of Hydah Indians +and the three villages of the Hanega tribe of Thlingets. Another in the +summer down the coast to the Cape Fox and Tongass tribes of Thlingets, +and across Dixon entrance to Ft. Simpson, where there was a mission +among the Tsimpheans, and on fifteen miles further to the famous mission +of Father Duncan at Metlakahtla. I had written accounts of these trips +to Muir; but for him the greatest interest was in the glaciers and +mountains of the mainland. + +Our preparations were soon made. Alas! we could not have our noble old +captain, Tow-a-att, this time. On the tenth of January, 1880,--the +darkest day of my life,--this "noblest Roman of them all" fell dead at +my feet with a bullet through his forehead, shot by a member of that +same Hootz-noo tribe where he had preached the gospel of peace so simply +and eloquently a few months before. The Hootz-noos, maddened by the +fiery liquor that bore their name, came to Wrangell, and a preliminary +skirmish led to an attack at daylight of that winter day upon the +Stickeen village. Old Tow-a-att had stood for peace, and rather than +have any bloodshed had offered all his blankets as a peace offering, +although in no physical fear himself; but when the Hootz-noos, +encouraged by the seeming cowardice of the Stickeens, broke into their +houses, and the Christianized tribe, provoked beyond endurance, came out +with their guns, Tow-a-att came forth armed only with his old carved +spear, the emblem of his position as chief, to see if he could not call +his tribe back again. At my instance, as I stood with my hand on his +shoulder, he lifted up his voice to recall his people to their houses, +when, in an instant, the volley commenced on both sides, and this +Christian man, one of the simplest and grandest souls I ever knew, fell +dead at my feet, and the tribe was tumbled back into barbarism; and the +white man, who had taught the Indians the art of making rum, and the +white man's government, which had afforded no safeguard against such +scenes, were responsible. + +[Illustration: DAVIDSON GLACIER + +The beautiful Davidson Glacier, with its great snow-white fan, drew our +gaze and excited our admiration for two days] + +Muir mourned with me the fate of this old chief; but another of my men, +Lot Tyeen, was ready with a swift canoe. Joe, his son-in-law, and Billy +Dickinson, a half-breed boy of seventeen who acted as interpreter, +formed the crew. When we were about to embark I suddenly thought of my +little dog Stickeen and made the resolve to take him along. My wife and +Muir both protested and I almost yielded to their persuasion. I shudder +now to think what the world would have lost had their arguments +prevailed! That little, long-haired, brisk, beautiful, but very +independent dog, in co-ordination with Muir's genius, was to give to the +world one of its greatest dog-classics. Muir's story of "Stickeen" ranks +with "Rab and His Friends," "Bob, Son of Battle," and far above "The +Call of the Wild." Indeed, in subtle analysis of dog character, as well +as beauty of description, I think it outranks all of them. All over the +world men, women and children are reading with laughter, thrills and +tears this exquisite little story. + +I have told Muir that in his book he did not do justice to my puppy's +beauty. I think that he was the handsomest dog I have ever known. His +markings were very much like those of an American Shepherd dog--black, +white and tan; although he was not half the size of one; but his hair +was so silky and so long, his tail so heavily fringed and beautifully +curved, his eyes so deep and expressive and his shape so perfect in its +graceful contours, that I have never seen another dog quite like him; +otherwise Muir's description of him is perfect. + +When Stickeen was only a round ball of silky fur as big as one's fist, +he was given as a wedding present to my bride, two years before this +voyage. I carried him in my overcoat pocket to and from the steamer as +we sailed from Sitka to Wrangell. Soon after we arrived a solemn +delegation of Stickeen Indians came to call on the bride; but as soon as +they saw the puppy they were solemn no longer. His gravely humorous +antics were irresistible. It was Moses who named him Stickeen after +their tribe--an exceptional honor. Thereafter the whole tribe adopted +and protected him, and woe to the Indian dog which molested him. Once +when I was passing the house of this same Lot Tyeen, one of his large +hunting dogs dashed out at Stickeen and began to worry him. Lot rescued +the little fellow, delivered him to me and walked into his house. Soon +he came out with his gun, and before I knew what he was about he had +shot the offending Indian dog--a valuable hunting animal. + +Stickeen lacked the obtrusively affectionate manner of many of his +species, did not like to be fussed over, would even growl when our +babies enmeshed their hands in his long hair; and yet, to a degree I +have never known in another dog, he attracted the attention of +everybody and won all hearts. + +As instances: Dr. Kendall, "The Grand Old Man" of our Church, during his +visit of 1879 used to break away from solemn counsels with the other +D.D.s and the carpenters to run after and shout at Stickeen. And Mrs. +McFarland, the Mother of Protestant missions in Alaska, often begged us +to give her the dog; and, when later he was stolen from her care by an +unscrupulous tourist and so forever lost to us, she could hardly +afterwards speak of him without tears. + +Stickeen was a born aristocrat, dainty and scrupulously clean. From +puppyhood he never cared to play with the Indian dogs, and I was often +amused to see the dignified but decided way in which he repulsed all +attempts at familiarity on the part of the Indian children. He admitted +to his friendship only a few of the natives, choosing those who had +adopted the white man's dress and mode of living, and were devoid of the +rank native odors. His likes and dislikes were very strong and always +evident from the moment of his meeting with a stranger. There was +something almost uncanny about the accuracy of his judgment when "sizing +up" a man. + +It was Stickeen himself who really decided the question whether we +should take him with us on this trip. He listened to the discussion, pro +and con, as he stood with me on the wharf, turning his sharp, expressive +eyes and sensitive ears up to me or down to Muir in the canoe. When the +argument seemed to be going against the dog he suddenly turned, +deliberately walked down the gang-plank to the canoe, picked his steps +carefully to the bow, where my seat with Muir was arranged, and curled +himself down on my coat. The discussion ended abruptly in a general +laugh, and Stickeen went along. + +Then the acute little fellow set about, in the wisest possible way, to +conquer Muir. He was not obtrusive, never "butted in"; never offended by +a too affectionate tongue. He listened silently to discussions on his +merits, those first days; but when Muir's comparisons of the brilliant +dogs of his acquaintance with Stickeen grew too "odious" Stickeen would +rise, yawn openly and retire to a distance, not slinkingly, but with +tail up, and lie down again out of earshot of such calumnies. When we +landed after a day's journey Stickeen was always the first ashore, +exploring for field mice and squirrels; but when we would start to the +woods, the mountains or the glaciers the dog would join us, coming +mysteriously from the forest. When our paths separated, Stickeen, +looking to me for permission, would follow Muir, trotting at first +behind him, but gradually ranging alongside. + +After a few days Muir changed his tone, saying, "There's more in that +wee beastie than I thought"; and before a week passed Stickeen's victory +was complete; he slept at Muir's feet, went with him on all his rambles; +and even among dangerous crevasses or far up the steep slopes of granite +mountains the little dog's splendid tail would be seen ahead of Muir, +waving cheery signals to his new-found human companion. + +Our canoe was light and easily propelled. Our outfit was very simple, +for this was to be a quick voyage and there were not to be so many +missionary visits this time. It was principally a voyage of discovery; +we were in search of the glacier that we had lost. Perched in the high +stern sat our captain, Lot Tyeen, massive and capable, handling his +broad steering paddle with power and skill. In front of him Joe and +Billy pulled oars, Joe, a strong young man, our cook, hunter and best +oarsman; Billy, a lad of seventeen, our interpreter and Joe's assistant. +Towards the bow, just behind the mast, sat Muir and I, each with a +paddle in his hands. Stickeen slumbered at our feet or gazed into our +faces when our conversation interested him. When we began to discuss a +landing place he would climb the high bow and brace himself on the top +of the beak, an animated figure-head, ready to jump into the water when +we were about to camp. + +Our route was different from that of '79. Now we struck through Wrangell +Narrows, that tortuous and narrow passage between Mitkof and Kupreanof +Islands, past Norris Glacier with its far-flung shaft of ice appearing +above the forests as if suspended in air; past the bold Pt. Windham with +its bluff of three thousand feet frowning upon the waters of Prince +Frederick Sound; across Port Houghton, whose deep fiord had no ice in it +and, therefore, was not worthy of an extended visit. We made all haste, +for Muir was, as the Indians said, "always hungry for ice," and this was +more especially his expedition. He was the commander now, as I had been +the year before. He had set for himself the limit of a month and must +return by the October boat. Often we ran until late at night against the +protests of our Indians, whose life of infinite leisure was not +accustomed to such rude interruption. They could not understand Muir at +all, nor in the least comprehend his object in visiting icy bays where +there was no chance of finding gold and nothing to hunt. + +The vision rises before me, as my mind harks back to this second trip of +seven hundred miles, of cold, rainy nights, when, urged by Muir to make +one more point, the natives passed the last favorable camping place and +we blindly groped for hours in pitchy darkness, trying to find a +friendly beach. The intensely phosphorescent water flashed about us, the +only relief to the inky blackness of the night. Occasionally a salmon or +a big halibut, disturbed by our canoe, went streaming like a meteor +through the water, throwing off coruscations of light. As we neared the +shore, the waves breaking upon the rocks furnished us the only +illumination. Sometimes their black tops with waving seaweed, surrounded +by phosphorescent breakers, would have the appearance of mouths set +with gleaming teeth rushing at us out of the dark as if to devour us. +Then would come the landing on a sandy beach, the march through the +seaweed up to the wet woods, a fusillade of exploding fucus pods +accompanying us as if the outraged fairies were bombarding us with tiny +guns. Then would ensue a tedious groping with the lantern for a camping +place and for some dry, fat spruce wood from which to coax a fire; then +the big camp-fire, the bean-pot and coffee-pot, the cheerful song and +story, and the deep, dreamless sleep that only the weary voyageur or +hunter can know. + +Four or five days sufficed to bring us to our first objective--Sumdum or +Holkham Bay, with its three wonderful arms. Here we were to find the +lost glacier. This deep fiord has two great prongs. Neither of them +figured in Vancouver's chart, and so far as records go we were the first +to enter and follow to its end the longest of these, Endicott Arm. We +entered the bay at night, caught again by the darkness, and groped our +way uncertainly. We probably would have spent most of the night trying +to find a landing place had not the gleam of a fire greeted us, flashing +through the trees, disappearing as an island intervened, and again +opening up with its fair ray as we pushed on. An hour's steady paddling +brought us to the camp of some Cassiar miners--my friends. They were +here at the foot of a glacier stream, from the bed of which they had +been sluicing gold. Just now they were in hard luck, as the constant +rains had swelled the glacial stream, burst through their wing-dams, +swept away their sluice-boxes and destroyed the work of the summer. +Strong men of the wilderness as they were, they were not discouraged, +but were discussing plans for prospecting new places and trying it again +here next summer. Hot coffee and fried venison emphasized their welcome, +and we in return could give them a little news from the outside world, +from which they had been shut off completely for months. + +Muir called us before daylight the next morning. He had been up since +two or three o'clock, "studying the night effects," he said, listening +to the roaring and crunching of the charging ice as it came out of +Endicott Arm, spreading out like the skirmish line of an army and +grinding against the rocky point just below us. He had even attempted a +moonlight climb up the sloping face of a high promontory with Stickeen +as his companion, but was unable to get to the top, owing to the +smoothness of the granite rock. It was newly glaciated--this whole +region--and the hard rubbing ice-tools had polished the granite like a +monument. A hasty meal and we were off. + +"We'll find it this time," said Muir. + +A miner crawled out of his blankets and came to see us start. "If it's +scenery you're after," he said, "ten miles up the bay there's the nicest +canyon you ever saw. It has no name that I know of, but it is sure some +scenery." + +The long, straight fiord stretched southeast into the heart of the +granite range, its funnel shape producing tremendous tides. When the +tide was ebbing that charging phalanx of ice was irresistible, storming +down the canyon with race-horse speed; no canoe could stem that current. +We waited until the turn, then getting inside the outer fleet of +icebergs we paddled up with the flood tide. Mile after mile we raced +past those smooth mountain shoulders; higher and higher they towered, +and the ice, closing in upon us, threatened a trap. The only way to +navigate safely that dangerous fiord was to keep ahead of the charging +ice. As we came up towards the end of the bay the narrowing walls of the +fiord compressed the ice until it crowded dangerously around us. Our +captain, Lot, had taken the precaution to put a false bow and stern on +his canoe, cunningly fashioned out of curved branches of trees and +hollowed with his hand-adz to fit the ends of the canoe. These were +lashed to the bow and stern by thongs of deer sinew. They were needed. +It was like penetrating an arctic ice-floe. Sometimes we would have to +skirt the granite rock and with our poles shove out the ice-cakes to +secure a passage. It was fully thirty miles to the head of the bay, but +we made it in half a day, so strong was the current of the rising tide. + +I shall never forget the view that burst upon us as we rounded the last +point. The face of the glacier where it discharged its icebergs was very +narrow in comparison with the giants of Glacier Bay, but the ice cliff +was higher than even the face of Muir Glacier. The narrow canyon of hard +granite had compressed the ice of the great glacier until it had the +appearance of a frozen torrent broken into innumerable crevasses, the +great masses of ice tumbling over one another and bulging out for a few +moments before they came crashing and splashing down into the deep water +of the bay. The fiord was simply a cleft in high mountains, and the +depth of the water could only be conjectured. It must have been hundreds +of feet, perhaps thousands, from the surface of the water to the bottom +of that fissure. Smooth, polished, shining breasts of bright gray +granite crowded above the glacier on every side, seeming to overhang the +ice and the bay. Struggling clumps of evergreens clung to the mountain +sides below the glacier, and up, away up, dizzily to the sky towered the +walls of the canyon. Hundreds of other Alaskan glaciers excel this in +masses of ice and in grandeur of front, but none that I have seen +condense beauty and grandeur to finer results. + +"What a plucky little giant!" was Muir's exclamation as we stood on a +rock-mound in front of this glacier. "To think of his shouldering his +way through the mountain range like this! Samson, pushing down the +pillars of the temple at Gaza, was nothing to this fellow. Hear him roar +and laugh!" + +Without consulting me Muir named this "Young Glacier," and right proud +was I to see that name on the charts for the next ten years or more, for +we mapped Endicott Arm and the other arm of Sumdum Bay as we had Glacier +Bay; but later maps have a different name. Some ambitious young ensign +on a surveying vessel, perhaps, stole my glacier, and later charts give +it the name of Dawes. I have not found in the Alaskan statute books any +penalty attached to the crime of stealing a glacier, but certainly it +ought to be ranked as a felony of the first magnitude, the grandest of +grand larcenies. + +A couple of days and nights spent in the vicinity of Young Glacier were +a period of unmixed pleasure. Muir spent all of these days and part of +the nights climbing the pinnacled mountains to this and that viewpoint, +crossing the deep, narrow and dangerous glacier five thousand feet above +the level of the sea, exploring its tributaries and their side canyons, +making sketches in his note-book for future elaboration. Stickeen by +this time constantly followed Muir, exciting my jealousy by his plainly +expressed preference. Because of my bad shoulder the higher and steeper +ascents of this very rugged region were impossible to me, and I must +content myself with two thousand feet and even lesser climbs. My +favorite perch was on the summit of a sugar-loaf rock which formed the +point of a promontory jutting into the bay directly in front of my +glacier, and distant from its face less than a quarter of a mile. It was +a granite fragment which had evidently been broken off from the +mountain; indeed, there was a niche five thousand feet above into which +it would exactly fit. The sturdy evergreens struggled half-way up its +sides, but the top was bare. + +On this splendid pillar I spent many hours. Generally I could see Muir, +fortunate in having sound arms and legs, scaling the high rock-faces, +now coming out on a jutting spur, now spread like a spider against the +mountain wall. Here he would be botanizing in a patch of green that +relieved the gray of the granite, there he was dodging in and out of the +blue crevasses of the upper glacial falls. Darting before him or +creeping behind was a little black speck which I made out to be +Stickeen, climbing steeps up which a fox would hardly venture. +Occasionally I would see him dancing about at the base of a cliff too +steep for him, up which Muir was climbing, and his piercing howls of +protest at being left behind would come echoing down to me. + +But chiefly I was engrossed in the great drama which was being acted +before me by the glacier itself. It was the battle of gravity with +flinty hardness and strong cohesion. The stage setting was perfect; the +great hall formed by encircling mountains; the side curtains of +dark-green forest, fold on fold; the gray and brown top-curtains of the +mountain heights stretching clear across the glacier, relieved by vivid +moss and flower patches of yellow, magenta, violet and crimson. But the +face of the glacier was so high and rugged and the ice so pure that it +showed a variety of blue and purple tints I have never seen +surpassed--baby-blue, sky-blue, sapphire, turquoise, cobalt, indigo, +peacock, ultra-marine, shading at the top into lilac and amethyst. The +base of the glacier-face, next to the dark-green water of the bay, +resembled a great mass of vitriol, while the top, where it swept out of +the canyon, had the curves and tints and delicate lines of the iris. + +[Illustration: TAKU GLACIER + +There followed an excursion into Taku Bay, that miniature of Glacier +Bay, with its three living glaciers] + +But the glacier front was not still; in form and color it was changing +every minute. The descent was so steep that the glacial rapids above the +bay must have flowed forward eighty or a hundred feet a day. The ice +cliff, towering a thousand feet over the water, would present a slight +incline from the perpendicular inwards toward the canyon, the face being +white from powdered ice, the result of the grinding descent of the ice +masses. Here and there would be little cascades of this fine ice +spraying out as they fell, with glints of prismatic colors when the +sunlight struck them. As I gazed I could see the whole upper part of the +cliff slowly moving forward until the ice-face was vertical. Then, foot +by foot it would be pushed out until the upper edge overhung the water. +Now the outer part, denuded of the ice powder, would present a face of +delicate blue with darker shades where the mountain peaks cast their +shadows. Suddenly from top to bottom of the ice cliff two deep lines of +prussian blue appeared. They were crevasses made by the ice current +flowing more rapidly in the center of the stream. Fascinated, I watched +this great pyramid of blue-veined onyx lean forward until it became a +tower of Pisa, with fragments falling thick and fast from its upper apex +and from the cliffs out of which it had been split. Breathless and +anxious, I awaited the final catastrophe, and its long delay became +almost a greater strain than I could bear. I jumped up and down and +waved my arms and shouted at the glacier to "hurry up." + +Suddenly the climax came in a surprising way. The great tower of crystal +shot up into the air two hundred feet or more, impelled by the pressure +of a hundred fathoms of water, and then, toppling over, came crashing +into the water with a roar as of rending mountains. Its weight of +thousands of tons, falling from such a height, splashed great sheets of +water high into the air, and a rainbow of wondrous brilliance flashed +and vanished. A mighty wave swept majestically down the bay, rocking the +massive bergs like corks, and, breaking against my granite pillar, +tossed its spray half-way up to my lofty perch. Muir's shout of +applause and Stickeen's sharp bark came faintly to my ears when the deep +rumbling of the newly formed icebergs had subsided. + +That night I waited supper long for Muir. It was a good supper--a +mulligan stew of mallard duck, with biscuits and coffee. Stickeen romped +into camp about ten o'clock and his new master soon followed. + +"Ah!" sighed Muir between sips of coffee, "what a Lord's mercy it is +that we lost this glacier last fall, when we were pressed for time, to +find it again in these glorious days that have flashed out of the mists +for our special delectation. This has been a day of days. I have found +four new varieties of moss, and have learned many new and wonderful +facts about world-shaping. And then, the wonder and glory! Why, all the +values of beauty and sublimity--form, color, motion and sound--have +been present to-day at their very best. My friend, we are the richest +men in all the world to-night." + +Charging down the canyon with the charging ice on our return, we kept to +the right-hand shore, on the watch for the mouth of the canyon of "some +scenery." We had not been able to discover it from the other side as we +ascended the fiord. We were almost swept past the mouth of it by the +force of the current. Paddling into an eddy, we were suddenly halted as +if by a strong hand pushed against the bow, for the current was flowing +like a cataract out of the narrow mouth of this side canyon. A rocky +shelf afforded us a landing place. We hastily unloaded the canoe and +pulled it up upon the beach out of reach of the floating ice, and there +we had to wait until the next morning before we could penetrate the +depths of this great canyon. + +We shot through the mouth of the canyon at dangerous speed. Indeed, we +could not do otherwise; we were helpless in the grasp of the torrent. At +certain stages the surging tide forms an actual fall, for the entrance +is so narrow that the water heaps up and pours over. We took the +beginning of the flood tide, and so escaped that danger; but our speed +must have been, at the narrows, twenty miles an hour. Then, suddenly, +the bay widened out, the water ceased to swirl and boil and the current +became gentle. + +When we could lay aside our paddles and look up, one of the most +glorious views of the whole world "smote us in the face," and Muir's +chant arose, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." + +Before entering this bay I had expressed a wish to see Yosemite Valley. +Now Muir said: "There is your Yosemite; only this one is on much the +grander scale. Yonder towers El Capitan, grown to twice his natural +size; there are the Sentinel, and the majestic Dome; and see all the +falls. Those three have some resemblance to Yosemite Falls, Nevada and +Bridal Veil; but the mountain breasts from which they leap are much +higher than in Yosemite, and the sheer drop much greater. And there are +so many more of these and they fall into the sea. We'll call this +Yosemite Bay--a bigger Yosemite, as Alaska is bigger than California." + +Two very beautiful glaciers lay at the head of this canyon. They did not +descend to the water, but the narrow strip of moraine matter without +vegetation upon it between the glaciers and the bay showed that it had +not been long since they were glaciers of the first class, sending out a +stream of icebergs to join those from the Young Glacier. These glaciers +stretched away miles and miles, like two great antennæ, from the head of +the bay to the top of the mountain range. But the most striking features +of this scene were the wonderfully rounded and polished granite breasts +of these great heights. In one stretch of about a mile on either side of +the narrow bay parallel mouldings, like massive cornices of gray +granite, five or six thousand feet high, overhung the water. These had +been fluted and rounded and polished by the glacier stream, until they +seemed like the upper walls and Corinthian capitals of a great temple. +The power of the ice stream could be seen in the striated shoulders of +these cliffs. What awful force that tool of steel-like ice must have +possessed, driven by millions of tons of weight, to mould and shape and +scoop out these flinty rock faces, as the carpenter's forming plane +flutes a board! + +When we were half-way up this wonderful bay the sun burst through a rift +of cloud. "Look, look!" exclaimed Muir. "Nature is turning on the +colored lights in her great show house." + +Instantly this severe, bare hall of polished rock was transformed into a +fairy palace. A score of cascades, the most of them invisible before, +leapt into view, falling from the dizzy mountain heights and spraying +into misty veils as they descended; and from all of them flashed +rainbows of marvelous distinctness and brilliance, waving and dancing--a +very riot of color. The tinkling water falling into the bay waked a +thousand echoes, weird, musical and sweet, a riot of sound. It was an +enchanted palace, and we left it with reluctance, remaining only six +hours and going out at the turn of the flood tide to escape the +dangerous rapids. Had there not been any so many things to see beyond, +and so little time in which to see them, I doubt if Muir would have quit +Yosemite Bay for days. + + + + + THE DOG AND THE MAN + + + + +MY FRIENDS + + + Two friends I have, and close akin are they. + For both are free + And wild and proud, full of the ecstasy + Of life untrammeled; living, day by day, + A law unto themselves; yet breaking none + Of Nature's perfect code. + And far afield, remote from man's abode, + They roam the wilds together, two as one. + + Yet, one's a dog--a wisp of silky hair, + Two sharp black eyes, + A face alert, mysterious and wise, + A shadowy tail, a body lithe and fair. + And one's a man--of Nature's work the best, + A heart of gold, + A mind stored full of treasures new and old, + Of men the greatest, strongest, tenderest. + + They love each other--these two friends of mine-- + Yet both agree + In this--with that pure love that's half divine + They both love me. + + + + +VI + +THE DOG AND THE MAN + + +There is no time to tell of all the bays we explored; of Holkham Bay, +Port Snettisham, Tahkou Harbor; all of which we rudely put on the map, +or at least extended the arms beyond what was previously known. Through +Gastineau Channel, now famous for some of the greatest quartz mines and +mills in the world, we pushed, camping on the site of what is now +Juneau, the capital city of Alaska. + +An interesting bit of history is to be recorded here. Pushing across the +flats at the head of the bay at high tide the next morning (for the +narrow, grass-covered flat between Gastineau Channel and Stevens +Passage can only be crossed with canoes at flood tide), we met two old +gold prospectors whom I had frequently seen at Wrangell--Joe Harris and +Joe Juneau. Exchanging greetings and news, they told us they were out +from Sitka on a leisurely hunting and prospecting trip. Asking us about +our last camping place, Harris said to Juneau, "Suppose we camp there +and try the gravel of that creek." + +These men found placer gold and rock "float" at our camp and made quite +a clean-up that fall, returning to Sitka with a "gold-poke" sufficiently +plethoric to start a stampede to the new diggings. Both placer and +quartz locations were made and a brisk "camp" was built the next summer. +This town was first called Harrisburg for one of the prospectors, and +afterwards Juneau for the other. The great Treadwell gold quartz mine +was located three miles from Juneau in 1881, and others subsequently. +The territorial capital was later removed from Sitka to Juneau, and the +city has grown in size and importance, until it is one of the great +mining and commercial centers of the Northwest. + +Through Stevens Passage we paddled, stopping to preach to the Auk +Indians; then down Chatham Strait and into Icy Strait, where the crystal +masses of Muir and Pacific glaciers flashed a greeting from afar. We +needed no Hoonah guide this time, and it was well we did not, for both +Hoonah villages were deserted. The inhabitants had gone to their +hunting, fishing or berry-picking grounds. + +At Pleasant Island we loaded, as on the previous trip, with dry wood for +our voyage into Glacier Bay. We were not to attempt the head of the bay +this time, but to confine our exploration to Muir Glacier, which we had +only touched upon the previous fall. Pleasant Island was the scene of +one of Stickeen's many escapades. The little island fairly teemed with +big field mice and pine squirrels, and Stickeen went wild. We could hear +his shrill bark, now here, now there, from all parts of the island. When +we were ready to leave the next morning he was not to be seen. We got +aboard as usual, thinking that he would follow. A quarter of a mile's +paddling and still no little black head could be discovered in our wake. +Muir, who was becoming very much attached to the little dog, was plainly +worried. + +"Row back," he said. + +So we rowed back and called, but no Stickeen. Around the next point we +rowed and whistled; still no Stickeen. At last, discouraged, I gave the +signal to move off. So we rounded the curving shore and pushed towards +Glacier Bay. At the far point of the island, a mile from our camping +place, we suddenly discovered Stickeen away out in the water, paddling +calmly and confidently towards our canoe. How he had ever got there I +cannot imagine. I think he must have been taking a long swim out on the +bay for the mere pleasure of it. Muir always insisted that he had +listened to our discussion of the route to be taken, and, with an +uncanny intuition that approached clairvoyance, knew just where to head +us off. + +When we took him aboard he went through his usual performance, making +his way, the whole length of the canoe, until he got under Muir's legs, +before shaking himself. No protests or discipline availed, for Muir's +kicks always failed of their pretended mark. To the end of his +acquaintance with Muir, he always chose the vicinity of Muir's legs as +the place to shake himself after a swim. + +At Muir Glacier we spent a week this time, making long trips up the +mountains that overlooked the glacier and across its surface. On one +occasion Muir, with the little dog at his heels, crossed entirely in a +diagonal direction the great glacial lake, a trip of some thirty miles, +starting before daylight in the morning and not appearing at camp until +long after dark. Muir always carried several handkerchiefs in his +pockets, but this time he returned without any, having used them all up +making moccasins for Stickeen, whose feet were cut and bleeding from the +sharp honeycomb ice of the glacial surface. This mass of ice is so vast +and so comparatively still that it has but few crevasses, and Muir's day +for traversing it was a perfect one--warm and sunny. + +[Illustration: THE FRONT OF MUIR GLACIER + +We could understand the constant breaking off and leaping up and +smashing down of the ice, and the formation of the great mass of bergs] + +Another day he and I climbed the mountain that overlooked it and +skirted the mighty ice-field for some distance, then walked across the +face of the glacier just back of the rapids, keeping away from the deep +crevasses. We drove a straight line of stakes across the glacial stream +and visited them each day to watch the deflection and curves of the +stakes, and thus arrive at some conception of the rate at which the ice +mass was moving. In some parts of the glacial stream this ice current +flowed as fast as fifty or sixty feet a day, and we could understand the +constant breaking off and leaping up and smashing down of the ice and +the formation of that great mass of bergs. + +Shortly before we left Muir Glacier, I saw Muir furiously angry for the +first and last time in my acquaintance with him. We had noticed day +after day, whenever the mists admitted a view of the mountain slopes, +bands of mountain goats looking like little white mice against the green +of the high pastures. I said to Joe, the hunter, one morning: "Go up and +get us a kid. It will be a great addition to our larder." + +He took my breech-loading rifle and went. In the afternoon he returned +with a fine young buck on his shoulders. While we were examining it he +said: + +"I picked the fattest and most tender of those that I killed." + +"What!" I exclaimed, "did you kill more than this one?" + +He put up both hands with fingers extended and then one finger: + +"_Tatlum-pe-ict_ (eleven)," he replied. + +Muir's face flushed red, and with an exclamation that was as near to an +oath as he ever came, he started for Joe. Luckily for that Indian he saw +Muir and fled like a deer up the rocks, and would not come down until he +was assured that he would not be hurt. I shared Muir's indignation and +would have enjoyed seeing him administer the richly deserved thrashing. + +Muir had a strong aversion to taking the life of any animal; although he +would eat meat when prepared, he never killed a wild animal; even the +rattlesnakes he did not molest during his rambles in California. Often +his softness of heart was a source of some annoyance and a great deal of +astonishment to our natives; for he would take pleasure in rocking the +canoe when they were trying to get a bead on a flock of ducks or a deer +standing on the shore. + +On leaving the mouth of Glacier Bay we spent a week or more exploring +the inlets and glaciers to the west. These days were rainy and cold. We +groped blindly into unknown, unmapped, fog-hidden fiords and bayous, +exploring them to their ends and often making excursions to the glaciers +above them. + +The climax of the trip, however, was the last glacier we visited, Taylor +Glacier, the scene of Muir's great adventure with Stickeen. We reached +this fine glacier in the afternoon of a very stormy day. We were +approaching the open Pacific, and the _saanah_, the southeast rain-wind, +was howling through the narrow entrance into Cross Sound. For twenty +miles we had been facing strong head winds and tidal waves as we crept +around rocky points and along the bases of dizzy cliffs and +glacier-scored rock-shoulders. We were drenched to the skin; indeed, our +clothing and blankets had been soaking wet for days. For two hours +before we turned the point into the cozy harbor in front of the glacier +we had been exerting every ounce of our strength; Lot in the stern +wielding his big steering paddle, now on this side, now on that, +grunting with each mighty stroke, calling encouragement to his crew, +"_Ut-ha, ut-ha! hlitsin! hlitsin-tin!_ (pull, pull, strong, with +strength!)"; Joe and Billy rising from their seats with every stroke and +throwing their whole weight and force savagely into their oars; Muir and +I in the bow bent forward with heads down, butting into the slashing +rain, paddling for dear life; Stickeen, the only idle one, looking over +the side of the boat as though searching the channel and then around at +us as if he would like to help. All except the dog were exhausted when +we turned into the sheltered cove. + +While the men pitched the tents and made camp Muir and I walked through +the thick grass to the front of the large glacier, which front stretched +from a high, perpendicular rock wall about three miles to a narrow +promontory of moraine boulders next to the ocean. + +"Now, here is something new," exclaimed Muir, as we stood close to the +edge of the ice. "This glacier is the great exception. All the others of +this region are receding; this has been coming forward. See the mighty +ploughshare and its furrow!" + +For the icy mass was heaving up the ground clear across its front, and, +on the side where we stood, had evidently found a softer stratum under +a forest-covered hill, and inserted its shovel point under the hill, +heaved it upon the ice, cracking the rocks into a thousand fragments; +and was carrying the whole hill upon its back towards the sea. The large +trees were leaning at all angles, some of them submerged, splintered and +ground by the crystal torrent, some of the shattered trunks sticking out +of the ice. It was one of the most tremendous examples of glacial power +I have ever seen. + +"I must climb this glacier to-morrow," said Muir. "I shall have a great +day of it; I wish you could come along." + +I sighed, not with resignation, but with a grief that was akin to +despair. The condition of my shoulders was such that it would be madness +to attempt to join Muir on his longer and more perilous climbs. I +should only spoil his day and endanger his life as well as my own. + +That night I baked a good batch of camp bread, boiled a fresh kettle of +beans and roasted a leg of venison ready for Muir's breakfast, fixed the +coffee-pot and prepared dry kindling for the fire. I knew he would be up +and off at daybreak, perhaps long before. + +"Wake me up," I admonished him, "or at least take time to make hot +coffee before you start." For the wind was rising and the rain pouring, +and I knew how imperative the call of such a morning as was promised +would be to him. To traverse a great, new, living, rapidly moving +glacier would be high joy; but to have a tremendous storm added to this +would simply drive Muir wild with desire to be himself a part of the +great drama played on the glacier-stage. + +Several times during the night I was awakened by the flapping of the +tent, the shrieking of the wind in the spruce-tops and the thundering of +the ocean surf on the outer barrier of rocks. The tremulous howling of a +persistent wolf across the bay soothed me to sleep again, and I did not +wake when Muir arose. As I had feared, he was in too big a hurry to take +time for breakfast, but pocketed a small cake of camp bread and hastened +out into the storm-swept woods. I was aroused, however, by the +controversy between him and Stickeen outside of the tent. The little +dog, who always slept with one eye and ear alert for Muir's movements, +had, as usual, quietly left his warm nest and followed his adopted +master. Muir was scolding and expostulating with him as if he were a +boy. I chuckled to myself at the futility of Muir's efforts; Stickeen +would now, as always, do just as he pleased--and he would please to go +along. + +Although I was forced to stay at the camp, this stormy day was a most +interesting one to me. There was an old Hoonah chief camped at the mouth +of the little river which flowed from under Taylor Glacier. He had with +him his three wives and a little company of children and grandchildren. +The many salmon weirs and summer houses at this point showed that it had +been at one time a very important fishing place. + +But the advancing glacier had played havoc with the chief's salmon +stream. The icy mass had been for several years traveling towards the +sea at the rate of at least a mile every year. There were still silver +hordes of fine red salmon swimming in the sea outside of the river's +mouth. But the stream was now so short that the most of these salmon +swam a little ways into the mouth of the river and then out into the +salt water again, bewildered and circling about, doubtless wondering +what had become of their parent stream. + +The old chief came to our camp early, followed by his squaws bearing +gifts of salmon, porpoise meat, clams and crabs; and at his command two +of the girls of his family picked me a basketful of delicious wild +strawberries. He sat motionless by my fire all the forenoon, smoking my +leaf tobacco and pondering deeply. After the noon meal, which I shared +with him, he called Billy, my interpreter, and asked for a big talk. + +With all ceremony I made preparations, gave more presents of leaf +tobacco and hardtack and composed myself for the palaver. After the +usual preliminaries, in which he told me at great length what a great +man I was, how like a father to all the people, comparing me to sun, +moon, stars and all other great things; I broke in upon his stream of +compliments and asked what he wanted. + +Recalled to earth he said: "I wish you to pray to your God." + +"For what do you wish me to pray?" I asked. + +The old man raised his blanketed form to its full height and waved his +hand with a magnificent gesture towards the glacier. "Do you see that +great ice mountain?" + +"Yes." + +"Once," he said, "I had the finest salmon stream upon the coast." +Pointing to a point of rock five or six miles beyond the mouth of the +glacier he continued: "Once the salmon stream extended far beyond that +point of rock. There was a great fall there and a deep pool below it, +and here for years great schools of king salmon came crowding up to the +foot of that fall. To spear them or net them was very easy; they were +the fattest and best salmon among all these islands. My household had +abundance of meat for the winter's need. But the cruel spirit of that +glacier grew angry with me, I know not why, and drove the ice mountain +down towards the sea and spoiled my salmon stream. A year or two more +and it will be blotted out entirely. I have done my best. I have prayed +to my gods. Last spring I sacrificed two of my slaves, members of my +household, my best slaves, a strong man and his wife, to the spirit of +that glacier to make the ice mountain stop; but it comes on, and now I +want you to pray to _your_ God, the God of the white man, to see if He +will make the glacier stop!" + +I wish I could describe the pathetic earnestness of this old Indian, +the simplicity with which he told of the sacrifice of his slaves and the +eager look with which he awaited my answer. When I exclaimed in horror +at his deed of blood he was astonished; he could not understand. + +"Why, they were _my_ slaves," he said, "and the man suggested it +himself. He was glad to go to death to help his chief." + +A few years after this our missionary at Hoonah had the pleasure of +baptizing this old chief into the Christian faith. He had put away his +slaves and his plural wives, had surrendered the implements of his old +superstition, and as a child embraced the new gospel of peace and love. +He could not get rid of his superstition about the glacier, however, and +about eight years afterwards, visiting at Wrangell, he told me as an +item of news which he expected would greatly please me that, doubtless +as a result of my prayers, Taylor Glacier was receding again and the +salmon beginning to come into that stream. + +At intervals during this eventful day I went to the face of the glacier +and even climbed the disintegrating hill that was riding on the +glacier's ploughshare, in an effort to see the bold wanderers; but the +jagged ice peaks of the high glacial rapids blocked my vision, and the +rain driving passionately in horizontal sheets shut out the mountains +and the upper plateau of ice. I could see that it was snowing on the +glacier, and imagined the weariness and peril of dog and man exposed to +the storm in that dangerous region. I could only hope that Muir had not +ventured to face the wind on the glacier, but had contented himself with +tracing its eastern side, and was somewhere in the woods bordering it, +beside a big fire, studying storm and glacier in comparative safety. + +When the shadows of evening were added to those of the storm I had my +men gather materials for a big bonfire, and kindle it well out on the +flat, where it could be seen from mountain and glacier. I placed dry +clothing and blankets in the fly tent facing the camp-fire, and got +ready the best supper at my command: clam chowder, fried porpoise, bacon +and beans, "savory meat" made of mountain kid with potatoes, onions, +rice and curry, camp biscuit and coffee, with dessert of wild +strawberries and condensed milk. + +It grew pitch-dark before seven, and it was after ten when the dear +wanderers staggered into camp out of the dripping forest. Stickeen did +not bounce in ahead with a bark, as was his custom, but crept silently +to his piece of blanket and curled down, too tired to shake himself. +Billy and I laid hands on Muir without a word, and in a trice he was +stripped of his wet garments, rubbed dry, clothed in dry underwear, +wrapped in a blanket and set down on a bed of spruce twigs with a plate +of hot chowder before him. When the chowder disappeared the other hot +dishes followed in quick succession, without a question asked or a word +uttered. Lot kept the fire blazing just right, Joe kept the victuals hot +and baked fresh bread, while Billy and I waited on Muir. + +Not till he came to the coffee and strawberries did Muir break the +silence. "Yon's a brave doggie," he said. Stickeen, who could not yet be +induced to eat, responded by a glance of one eye and a feeble pounding +of the blanket with his heavy tail. + +Then Muir began to talk, and little by little, between sips of coffee, +the story of the day was unfolded. Soon memories crowded for utterance +and I listened till midnight, entranced by a succession of vivid +descriptions the like of which I have never heard before or since. The +fierce music and grandeur of the storm, the expanse of ice with its +bewildering crevasses, its mysterious contortions, its solemn voices +were made to live before me. + +[Illustration: GLACIAL CREVASSES + +"We had to make long, narrow tacks and doublings, tracing the edges of +tremendous transverse and longitudinal crevasses--beautiful and awful"] + +When Muir described his marooning on the narrow island of ice +surrounded by fathomless crevasses, with a knife-edged sliver curving +deeply "like the cable of a suspension bridge" diagonally across it as +the only means of escape, I shuddered at his peril. I held my breath as +he told of the terrible risks he ran as he cut his steps down the wall +of ice to the bridge's end, knocked off the sharp edge of the sliver, +hitched across inch by inch and climbed the still more difficult ascent +on the other side. But when he told of Stickeen's cries of despair at +being left on the other side of the crevasse, of his heroic +determination at last to do or die, of his careful progress across the +sliver as he braced himself against the gusts and dug his little claws +into the ice, and of his passionate revulsion to the heights of +exultation when, intoxicated by his escape, he became a living whirlwind +of joy, flashing about in mad gyrations, shouting and screaming "Saved! +saved!" my tears streamed down my face. Before the close of the story +Stickeen arose, stepped slowly across to Muir and crouched down with his +head on Muir's foot, gazing into his face and murmuring soft canine +words of adoration to his god. + +Not until 1897, seventeen years after the event, did Muir give to the +public his story of Stickeen. How many times he had written and +rewritten it I know not. He told me at the time of its first publication +that he had been thinking of the story all of these years and jotting +down paragraphs and sentences as they occurred to him. He was never +satisfied with a sentence until it balanced well. He had the keenest +sense of melody, as well as of harmony, in his sentence structure, and +this great dog-story of his is a remarkable instance of the growth to +perfection of the great production of a great master. + +The wonderful power of endurance of this man, whom Theodore Roosevelt +has well called a "perfectly natural man," is instanced by the fact +that, although he was gone about seventeen hours on this day of his +adventure with Stickeen, with only a bite of bread to eat, and never +rested a minute of that time, but was battling with the storm all day +and often racing at full speed across the glacier, yet he got up at +daylight the next morning, breakfasted with me and was gone all day +again, with Stickeen at his heels, climbing a high mountain to get a +view of the snow fountains and upper reaches of the glacier; and when he +returned after nightfall he worked for two or three hours at his notes +and sketches. + +The latter part of this voyage was hurried. Muir had a wife waiting for +him at home and he had promised to stay in Alaska only one month. He had +dallied so long with his icy loves, the glaciers, that we were obliged +to make all haste to Sitka, where he expected to take the return +steamer. To miss that would condemn him to Alaska and absence from his +wife for another month. Through a continually pouring rain we sailed by +the then deserted town of Hoonah, ascended with the rising tide a long, +narrow, shallow inlet, dragged our canoe a hundred yards over a little +hill and then descended with the receding tide another long, narrow +passage down to Chatham Strait; and so on to the mouth of Peril Strait +which divided Baranof from Chichagof Island. + +On the other side of Chatham Strait, opposite the mouth of Peril, we +visited again Angoon, the village of the Hootz-noos. From this town the +painted and drunken warriors had come the winter before and attacked the +Stickeens, killing old Tow-a-att, Moses and another of our Christian +Indians. The trouble was not settled yet, and although the two tribes +had exchanged some pledges and promised to fight no more, I feared a +fresh outbreak, and so thought it wise to pay another visit to the +Hootz-noos. As we approached Angoon, however, I heard the war-drums +beating with their peculiar cadence, "tum-tum"--a beat off--"tum-tum, +tum-tum." As we came up to the beach I saw what was seemingly the whole +tribe dancing their war-dances, arrayed in their war-paint with their +fantastic war-gear on. So earnestly engaged were they in their dance +that they at first paid no attention whatever to me. My heart sank into +my boots. "They are going back to Wrangell to attack the Stickeens," I +thought, "and there will be another bloody war." + +Driving our canoe ashore, we hurried up to the head chief of the +Hootz-noos, who was alternately haranguing his people and directing the +dances. + +"Anatlask," I called, "what does this mean? You are going on the +warpath. Tell me what you are about. Are you going back to Stickeen?" + +He looked at me vacantly a little while, and then a grin spread from ear +to ear. It was the same chief in whose house I had seen the idiot boy a +year before. + +"Come with me," he said. + +He led us into his house and across the room to where in state, +surrounded by all kinds of chieftain's gear, Chilcat blankets, totemic +carvings and paintings, chieftain's hats and cunningly woven baskets, +there lay the body of a stalwart young man wrapped in a +button-embroidered blanket. The chief silently removed the blanket from +the face of the dead. The skull was completely crushed on one side as +by a heavy blow. Then the story came out. + +The hootz, or big brown bear of that country, is as large and savage as +the grizzly bear of the Rockies. At certain seasons he is, as the +natives say, "_quonsum-sollex_" (always mad). The natives seldom attack +these bears, confining their attention to the more timid and easily +killed black bears. But this young man with a companion, hunting on +Baranof Island across the Strait, found himself suddenly confronted by +an enormous hootz. The young man rashly shot him with his musket, +wounding him sufficiently to make him furious. The tremendous brute +hurled his thousand pounds of ferocity at the hunter, and one little tap +of that huge paw crushed his skull like an egg-shell. His companion +brought his body home; and now the whole tribe had formally declared +war on that bear, and all this dancing and painting and drumming was in +preparation for a war party, composed of all the men, dogs and guns in +the town. They were going on the warpath to get that bear. Greatly +relieved, I gave them my blessing and sped them on their way. + +We had been rowing all night before this incident, and all the next +night we sailed up the tortuous Peril Strait, going upward with the +flood, one man steering while the other slept, to the meeting place of +the waters; then down with the receding tide through the islands, and so +on to Sitka. Here we met a warm reception from the missionaries, and +also from the captain and officers of the old man-of-war _Jamestown_, +afterwards used as a school ship for the navy in the harbor of San +Francisco. + +Alaska at that time had no vestige of civil government, no means of +punishing crime, no civil officers except the customs collectors, no +magistrate or police,--everyone was a law to himself. The only sign of +authority was this cumbersome sailing vessel with its marines and +sailors. It could not move out of Sitka harbor without first sending by +the monthly mail steamer to San Francisco for a tug to come and tow it +through these intricate channels to the sea where the sails could be +spread. Of course, it was not of much use to this vast territory. The +officers of the _Jamestown_ were supposed to be doing some surveying, +but, lacking the means of travel, what they did amounted to very little. + +They were interested at once in our account of the discovery of Glacier +Bay and of the other unmapped bays and inlets that we had entered. At +their request, from Muir's notes and our estimate of distances by our +rate of sailing, and of directions from observations of our little +compass, we drew a rough map of Glacier Bay. This was sent on to +Washington by these officers and published by the Navy Department. For +six or seven years it was the only sailing chart of Glacier Bay, and two +or three steamers were wrecked, groping their way in these uncharted +passages, before surveying vessels began to make accurate maps. So from +its beginning has Uncle Sam neglected this greatest and richest of all +his possessions. + +Our little company separated at Sitka. Stickeen and our Indian crew were +the first to leave, embarking for a return trip to Wrangell by canoe. +Stickeen had stuck close to Muir, following him everywhere, crouching +at his feet where he sat, sleeping in his room at night. When the time +came for him to leave Muir explained the matter to him fully, talking to +and reasoning with him as if he were human. Billy led him aboard the +canoe by a dog-chain, and the last Muir saw of him he was standing on of +the canoe, howling a sad farewell. + +Muir sailed south on the monthly mail steamer; while I took passage on a +trading steamer for another missionary trip among the northern tribes. + +So ended my canoe voyages with John Muir. Their memory is fresh and +sweet as ever. The flowing stream of years has not washed away nor +dimmed the impressions of those great days we spent together. Nearly all +of them were cold, wet and uncomfortable, if one were merely an animal, +to be depressed or enlivened by physical conditions. But of these +so-called "hardships" Muir made nothing, and I caught his spirit; +therefore, the beauty, the glory, the wonder and the thrills of those +weeks of exploration are with me yet and shall endure--a rustless, +inexhaustible treasure. + + + + + THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE + + + + +JOHN MUIR + + + He lived aloft, exultant, unafraid. + All things were good to him. The mountain old + Stretched gnarled hands to help him climb. The peak + Waved blithe snow-banner greeting; and for him + The rav'ning storm, aprowl for human life, + Purred like the lion at his trainer's feet. + The grizzly met him on the narrow ledge, + Gave gruff "good morning"--and the right of way. + The blue-veined glacier, cold of heart and pale, + Warmed, at his gaze, to amethystine blush, + And murmured deep, fond undertones of love. + + He walked apart from men, yet loved his kind, + And brought them treasures from his larger store. + For them he delved in mines of richer gold. + Earth's messenger he was to human hearts. + The starry moss flower from its dizzy shelf, + The ouzel, shaking forth its spray of song, + The glacial runlet, tinkling its clear bell, + The rose-of-morn, abloom on snowy heights-- + Each sent by him a jewel-word of cheer. + Blind eyes he opened and deaf ears unstopped. + + He lived aloft, apart. He talked with God + In all the myriad tongues of God's sweet world; + But still he came anear and talked with us, + Interpreting for God to listn'ing men. + +[Illustration: JOHN MUIR IN LATER LIFE] + + + + +VII + +THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE + + +The friendship between John Muir and myself was of that fine sort which +grows and deepens with absence almost as well as with companionship. +Occasional letters passed from one to the other. When I felt like +writing to Muir I obeyed the impulse without asking whether I "owed" him +a letter, and he followed the same rule--or rather lack of rule. +Sometimes answers to these letters came quickly; sometimes they were +long delayed, so long that they were not answers at all. When I sent him +"news of his mountains and glaciers" that contained items really novel +to him his replies were immediate and enthusiastic. When he had found +in his great outdoor museum some peculiar treasure he talked over his +find with me by letter. + +Muir's letters were never commonplace and sometimes they were long and +rich. I preserved them all; and when, a few years ago, an Alaska +steamboat sank to the bottom of the Yukon, carrying with it my library +and all my literary possessions, the loss of these letters from my +friend caused me more sorrow than the loss of almost any other of my +many priceless treasures. + +The summer of 1881, the year following that of our second canoe voyage, +Muir went, as scientific and literary expert, with the U.S. revenue +cutter _Rogers_, which was sent by the Government into the Arctic Ocean +in search of the ill-fated De Long exploring party. His published +articles written on the revenue cutter were of great interest; but in +his more intimate letters to me there was a note of disappointment. + +"There have been no mountains to climb," he wrote, "although I have had +entrancing long-distance views of many. I have not had a chance to visit +any glaciers. There were no trees in those arctic regions, and but few +flowers. Of God's process of modeling the world I saw but +little--nothing for days but that limitless, relentless ice-pack. I was +confined within the narrow prison of the ship; I had no freedom, I went +at the will of other men; not of my own. It was very different from +those glorious canoe voyages with you in your beautiful, fruitful +wilderness." + +A very brief visit at Muir's home near Martinez, California, in the +spring of 1883 found him at what he frankly said was very distasteful +work--managing a large fruit ranch. He was doing the work well and +making his orchards pay large dividends; but his heart was in the hills +and woods. Eagerly he questioned me of my travels and of the "progress" +of the glaciers and woods of Alaska. Beyond a few short mountain trips +he had seen nothing for two years of his beloved wilds. + +Passionately he voiced his discontent: "I am losing the precious days. I +am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing +in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the +mountains to learn the news." + +In 1888 the ten years' limit which I had set for service in Alaska +expired. The educational necessities of my children and the feeling that +was growing upon me like a smothering cloud that if I remained much +longer among the Indians I would lose all power to talk or write good +English, drove me from the Northwest to find a temporary home in +Southern California. + +I had not notified Muir of my coming, but suddenly appeared in his +orchard at Martinez one day in early summer. It was cherry-picking time +and he was out among his trees superintending a large force of workmen. +He saw me as soon as I discovered him, and dropping the basket he was +carrying came running to greet me with both hands outstretched. + +"Ah! my friend," he cried, "I have been longing mightily for you. You +have come to take me on a canoe trip to the countries beyond--to Lituya +and Yakutat bays and Prince William Sound; have you not? My weariness of +this hum-drum, work-a-day life has grown so heavy it is like to crush +me. I'm ready to break away and go with you whenever you say." + +"No," I replied, "I am leaving Alaska." + +"Man, man!" protested Muir, "how can you do it? You'll never carry out +such a notion as that in the world. Your heart will cry every day for +the North like a lost child; and in your sleep the snow-banners of your +white peaks will beckon to you. + +"Why, look at me," he said, "and take warning. I'm a horrible example. +I, who have breathed the mountain air--who have really lived a life of +freedom--condemned to penal servitude with these miserable little +bald-heads!" (holding up a bunch of cherries). "Boxing them up; putting +them in prison! And for money! Man! I'm like to die of the shame of it. + +"And then you're not safe a day in this sordid world of money-grubbing +men. I came near dying a mean, civilized death, the other day. A +Chinaman emptied a bucket of phosphorus over me and almost burned me up. +How different that would have been from a nice white death in the +crevasse of a glacier! + +"Gin it were na for my bairnies I'd rin awa' frae a' this tribble an' +hale ye back north wi' me." + +So Muir would run on, now in English, now in broad Scotch; but through +all his raillery there ran a note of longing for the wilderness. "I want +to see what is going on," he said. "So many great events are happening, +and I'm not there to see them. I'm learning nothing here that will do me +any good." + +I spent the night with him, and we talked till long after midnight, +sailing anew our voyages of enchantment. He had just completed his work +of editing "Picturesque California" and gave me a set of the beautiful +volumes. + +Our paths did not converge again for nine years; but I was to have, +after all, a few more Alaska days with John Muir. The itch of the +wanderlust in my feet had become a wearisome, nervous ache, increasing +with the years, and the call of the wild more imperative, until the +fierce yearning for the North was at times more than I could bear. + +The first of the great northward gold stampedes--that of 1897 to the +Klondyke in Northwestern Canada on the borders of Alaska--afforded me +the opportunity for which I was longing to return to the land of my +heart. The latter part of August saw me on _The Queen_, the largest of +that great fleet of passenger boats that were traversing the thousand +miles of wonder and beauty between Seattle and Skagway. These steamboats +were all laden with gold seekers and their goods. Seattle sprang into +prominence and wealth, doubling her population in a few months. From +every community in the United States, from all Canada and from many +lands across the oceans came that strange mob of lawyers, doctors, +clerks, merchants, farmers, mechanics, engineers, reporters, +sharpers--all gold-struck--all mad with excitement--all rushing +pell-mell into a thousand new and hard experiences. + +As I stood on the upper deck of the vessel, watching the strange scene +on the dock, who should come up the gang-plank but John Muir, wearing +the same old gray ulster and Scotch cap! It was the last place in the +world I would have looked for him. But he was not stampeding to the +Klondyke. His being there at that time was really an accident. In +company with two other eminent "tree-men" he had been spending the +summer in the study of the forests of Canada and the three were +"climaxing," as they said, in the forests of Alaska. + +Five pleasurable days we had together on board _The Queen_. Muir was +vastly amused by the motley crowd of excited men, their various outfits, +their queer equipment, their ridiculous notions of camping and life in +the wilderness. "A nest of ants," he called them, "taken to a strange +country and stirred up with a stick." + +As our steamboat touched at Port Townsend, Muir received a long telegram +from a San Francisco newspaper, offering him a large sum if he would go +over the mountains and down the Yukon to the Klondyke, and write them +letters about conditions there. He brought the telegram to me, laughing +heartily at the absurdity of anybody making him such a proposition. + +"Do they think I'm daft," he asked, "like a' the lave o' thae puir +bodies? When I go into that wild it will not be in a crowd like this or +on such a sordid mission. Ah! my old friend, they'll be spoiling our +grand Alaska." + +He offered to secure for me the reporter's job tendered to him. I +refused, urging my lack of training for such work and my more important +and responsible position. + +"Why, that same paper has a host of reporters on the way to the Klondyke +now," I said. "There is ----" (naming a noted poet and author of the +Coast). "He must be half-way down to Dawson by this time." + +"---- doesn't count," replied Muir, "for the patent reason that +everybody knows he can't tell the truth. The poor fellow is not to blame +for it. He was just made that way. Everybody will read with delight his +wonderful tales of the trail, but nobody will believe him. We all know +him too well." + +Muir contracted a hard cold the first night out from Seattle. The hot, +close stateroom and a cold blast through the narrow window were the +cause. A distressing cough racked his whole frame. When he refused to go +to a physician who was on the boat I brought the doctor to him. After +the usual examination the physician asked, "What do you generally do for +a cold?" + +"Oh," said Muir, "I shiver it away." + +"Explain yourself," said the puzzled doctor. + +"We-ll," drawled Muir, "two or three years ago I camped by the Muir +Glacier for a week. I had caught just such a cold as this from the same +cause--a stuffy stateroom. So I made me a little sled out of spruce +boughs, put a blanket and some sea biscuit on it and set out up the +glacier. I got into a labyrinth of crevasses and a driving snowstorm, +and had to spend the night on the ice ten miles from land. I sat on the +sled all night or thrashed about it, and had a dickens of a time; I +shivered so hard I shook the sled to pieces. When morning came my cold +was all gone. That is my prescription, Doctor. You are welcome to use it +in your practice." + +"Well," laughed the doctor, "if I had such patients as you in such a +country as this I might try your heroic remedy, but I am afraid it would +hardly serve in general practice." + +Muir and I made the most of these few days together, and walked the +decks till late each night, for he had much to tell me. He had at last +written his story of Stickeen; and was working on books treating of the +Big Trees, the National Parks and the glaciers of Alaska. + +At Wrangell, as we went ashore, we were greeted by joyful exclamations +from the little company of old Stickeen Indians we found on the dock. +That sharp intaking of the breath which is the Thlinget's note of +surprise and delight, and the words _Nuknate Ankow ka Glate Ankow_ +(Priest Chief and Ice Chief) passed along the line. Death had made many +gaps in the old circle of friends, both white and native, but the +welcome from those who remained warmed our hearts. + +From Wrangell northward the steamboat followed the route of our canoe +voyage of 1880 through Wrangell Narrows into Prince Frederick Sound, +past Norris Glacier and Holkham Bay into Stevens Passage, past Taku Bay +to Juneau and on to Lynn Canal--then on the track of our voyage of 1879 +up to Haines and beyond fifteen miles to that new, chaotic camp in the +woods called Skagway. + +The two or three days which it took _The Queen_ to discharge her load of +passengers and cargo of their outfits were spent by Muir and his +scientific companions in roaming the forests and mountains about Skagway +and examining the flora of that region. They kept mostly off the trail +of the struggling, straggling army of _Cheechakoes_ (newcomers) who +were blunderingly trying to get their goods and themselves across the +rugged, jagged mountains on their way to the promised land of gold; but +Muir found time to spend some hours with me in my camp under a hemlock, +where he ate again of my cooking over a camp-fire. + +"You are going on a strange journey this time, my friend," he admonished +me. "I don't envy you. You'll have a hard time keeping your heart light +and simple in the midst of this crowd of madmen. Instead of the music of +the wind among the spruce-tops and the tinkling of the waterfalls, your +ears will be filled with the oaths and groans of these poor, deluded, +self-burdened men. Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself; and break +clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the +woods. Wash your spirit clean from the earth-stains of this sordid, +gold-seeking crowd in God's pure air. It will help you in your efforts +to bring to these men something better than gold. Don't lose your +freedom and your love of the Earth as God made it." + +In 1899 it was my good fortune to have one more Alaska day with John +Muir at Skagway. After a year in the Klondyke I had spent the winter of +1898-99 in the Eastern States arousing the Christian public to the needs +of this newly discovered Empire of the North; and was returning with +other ministers to interior and western Alaska. The White Pass Railroad +was completed only to the summit; and it was a laborious task, requiring +a month of very hard work, to get our goods from Skagway over the thirty +miles of mountains to Lake Bennett, where we could load them on our +open boat for the voyage of two thousand miles down the Yukon. + +While I was engaged in this task there came to Skagway the steamship +_George W. Elder_, carrying one of the most remarkable companies of +scientific men ever gathered together in one expedition. Mr. Harriman, +the great railroad magnate, had chartered the steamer, and had invited +as his guests many men of world reputation in various branches of +natural science. Among them were John Burroughs, Drs. Merriam and Dahl +of the Smithsonian Institute, and, not least, John Muir. Indeed he was +called the Nestor of the expedition and his advice followed as that of +no other. + +The enticing proposition was made me by Muir, and backed by Mr. +Harriman's personal invitation, that I should join this distinguished +company, share Muir's stateroom and spend the summer cruising along the +southern and western coasts of Alaska. However, the new mining camps +were calling with a still more imperative voice, and I had to turn my +back to the Coast and face the great, sun-bathed Interior. But what a +joy and inspiration it would have been to climb Muir, Geicke and Taylor +glaciers again with Muir, note the rapid progress God was making in His +work of landscape gardening by means of these great tools, make at last +our deferred visits to Lituya and Yakutat bays and the fine glaciers of +Prince William's Sound, and renew my studies of this good world under my +great Master. + +A letter from Muir about his summer's cruise, written in November, 1899, +reached me at Nome in June, 1900; for those of us who had reached that +bleak, exposed northwestern coast and wintered there did not get any +mail for six months. We were fifteen hundred miles from a post-office. + +In his letter Muir wrote: "The voyage was a grand one, and I saw much +that was new to me and packed full of interest and instruction. But, do +you know, I longed to break away from the steamboat and its splendid +company, get a dugout canoe and a crew of Indians, and, with you as my +companion, poke into the nooks and crannies of the mountains and +glaciers which we could not reach from the steamer. What great days we +have had together, you and I!" + +This day at Skagway, in 1899, was the last of my Alaska days with John +Muir, except as I bring them back and live them over in my thoughts. How +often in my long voyages, by canoe or steamer, among the thousand +islands of southeastern Alaska, the intricate channels of Prince +William's Sound, the great rivers, and multitudinous lakes of the +Interior, and the treeless, windswept coasts of Bering Sea and the +Arctic Ocean; or in my tramps in the summer over the mountains and +plains of Alaska, or in the winter with my dogs over the frozen +wilderness fighting the great battle with the fierce cold or spellbound +under the magic of the Aurora--how often have I longed for the presence +of Muir to heighten my enjoyment by his higher ecstasy, or reveal to me +what I was too dull to see or understand. I have had inspiring +companions, and my life has been blessed by many friendships inestimably +precious and rich; but for me the World has produced but one John Muir; +and to no other man do I feel that I owe so much; for I was blind and +he made me see! + +Only once since 1899 did I meet him, and then but for an hour at his +temporary home in Los Angeles in 1910. He was putting the finishing +touches on his rich volume, "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth." I +submitted for his review and correction the article which forms the +first two chapters of this book. With that nice regard for absolute +verity which always characterized him he pointed out two or three +passages in which his recollection clashed with mine, and I at once made +the changes he suggested. + +Muir never grew old. After he was sixty years of age (as men count age) +some of his most daring feats of mountain climbing and some of his +longest journeys into the wilds were undertaken. When he was past +seventy he was still tramping and camping in the forests and among the +hills. When he was seventy-three he made long trips to South America and +Africa, and to the very end he was exploring, studying, working and +enjoying. + +All his writings exult with the spirit of immortal youth. There is in +his books an intimate companionship with the trees, the mountains, the +flowers and the animals, that is altogether fine. Surely no such books +of mountains and forests were ever written as his "Mountains of +California," "My First Summer in the Sierra," "The Yosemite" and "Our +National Parks." His brooks and trees are the abode of dryads and +hamadryads--they live and talk. + +And when he writes of the animals he has met in his rambles, without any +attempt to put into their characters anything that does not belong to +them, without "manufacturing his data," he somehow manages to do much +more than introduce them to you; he makes you their intimate and +admiring friends, as he was. His ouzel bobs you a cheery good morning +and sprays you with its "ripple of song"; his Douglas squirrel scolds +and swears at you with rough good-nature; and his big-horn gazes at you +with frank and friendly eyes and challenges you to follow to its +splendid heights, not as a hunter but as a companion. You love them all, +as Muir did. + +As an instance of this power in his writings, when I returned from the +Klondyke in 1898 the story of Stickeen had been published in a magazine +a few months before. I met in New York a daughter of the great Field +family, who when a child had heard me tell of Muir's exploit in rescuing +me from the mountain top, and who had shouted with delight when I told +of our sliding down the mountain in the moraine gravel. She asked me +eagerly if I was the Mr. Young mentioned in Muir's story. When I said +that I was she called to her companions and introduced me as the Owner +of Stickeen; and I was content to have as my claim to an earthly +immortality my ownership of an immortalized dog. + +I cannot think of John Muir as dead, or as much changed from the man +with whom I canoed and camped. He was too much a part of nature--too +natural--to be separated from his mountains, trees and glaciers. +Somewhere, I am sure, he is making other explorations, solving other +natural problems, using that brilliant, inventive genius to good effect; +and some time again I shall hear him unfold anew, with still clearer +insight and more eloquent words, fresh secrets of his "mountains of +God." + +The Thlingets have a Happy Hunting Ground in the Spirit Land for dogs as +well as for men; and Muir used to contend that they were right--that the +so-called lower animals have as much right to a Heaven as humans. I +wonder if he has found a still more beautiful--a glorified--Stickeen; +and if the little fellow still follows and frisks about him as in those +old days. I like to think so; and when I too cross the Great Divide--and +it can't be long now--I shall look eagerly for them both to be my +companions in fresh adventures. In the meantime I am lonely for them and +think of them often, and say, with _The Harvester_, "What a dog!--and +what a MAN!!" + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber’s note: + +The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been +faithfully preserved. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR*** + + +******* This file should be named 30697-8.txt or 30697-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/6/9/30697 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Alaska Days with John Muir + + +Author: Samuel Hall Young + + + +Release Date: December 17, 2009 [eBook #30697] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR*** + + +E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Chris Curnow, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital +material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 30697-h.htm or 30697-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30697/30697-h/30697-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30697/30697-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/alaskadayswithjo00younuoft + + + + + +ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR + +[Illustration: JOHN MUIR WITH ALASKA SPRUCE CONES] + + +ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR + +by + +S. HALL YOUNG + +Illustrated + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York Chicago Toronto +Fleming H. Revell Company +London and Edinburgh + +Copyright, 1915, by +Fleming H. Revell Company + +New York: 158 Fifth Avenue +Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. +Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. +London: 21 Paternoster Square +Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE MOUNTAIN 11 + + II THE RESCUE 37 + + III THE VOYAGE 59 + + IV THE DISCOVERY 95 + + V THE LOST GLACIER 125 + + VI THE DOG AND THE MAN 163 + + VII THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE 201 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING + PAGE + + John Muir with Alaska Spruce Cones _Title_ + + Fort Wrangell 12 + + The Mountain 24 + + One of the Marvelous Array of Lakes 40 + + Glacier--Stickeen Valley 54 + + Chilcat Woman Weaving a Blanket 82 + + Muir Glacier 114 + + Davidson Glacier 128 + + Taku Glacier 150 + + The Front of Muir Glacier 168 + + Glacial Crevasses 186 + + John Muir in Later Life 200 + + + Map 70 + (Voyages of Muir and Young) + + + + + THE MOUNTAIN + + + + +THUNDER BAY + + + Deep calm from God enfolds the land; + Light on the mountain top I stand; + How peaceful all, but ah, how grand! + + Low lies the bay beneath my feet; + The bergs sail out, a white-winged fleet, + To where the sky and ocean meet. + + Their glacier mother sleeps between + Her granite walls. The mountains lean + Above her, trailing skirts of green. + + Each ancient brow is raised to heaven: + The snow streams always, tempest-driven, + Like hoary locks, o'er chasms riven + + By throes of Earth. But, still as sleep, + No storm disturbs the quiet deep + Where mirrored forms their silence keep. + + A heaven of light beneath the sea! + A dream of worlds from shadow free! + A pictured, bright eternity! + + The azure domes above, below + (A crystal casket), hold and show, + As precious jewels, gems of snow, + + Dark emerald islets, amethyst + Of far horizon, pearls of mist + In pendant clouds, clear icebergs, kissed + + By wavelets,--sparkling diamonds rare + Quick flashing through the ambient air. + A ring of mountains, graven fair + + In lines of grace, encircles all, + Save where the purple splendors fall + On sky and ocean's bridal-hall. + + The yellow river, broad and fleet, + Winds through its velvet meadows sweet-- + A chain of gold for jewels meet. + + Pours over all the sun's broad ray; + Power, beauty, peace, in one array! + My God, I thank Thee for this day. + + + + +I + +THE MOUNTAIN + + +In the summer of 1879 I was stationed at Fort Wrangell in southeastern +Alaska, whence I had come the year before, a green young student fresh +from college and seminary--very green and very fresh--to do what I could +towards establishing the white man's civilization among the Thlinget +Indians. I had very many things to learn and many more to unlearn. + +Thither came by the monthly mail steamboat in July to aid and counsel me +in my work three men of national reputation--Dr. Henry Kendall of New +York; Dr. Aaron L. Lindsley of Portland, Oregon, and Dr. Sheldon Jackson +of Denver and the West. Their wives accompanied them and they were to +spend a month with us. + +Standing a little apart from them as the steamboat drew to the dock, his +peering blue eyes already eagerly scanning the islands and mountains, +was a lean, sinewy man of forty, with waving, reddish-brown hair and +beard, and shoulders slightly stooped. He wore a Scotch cap and a long, +gray tweed ulster, which I have always since associated with him, and +which seemed the same garment, unsoiled and unchanged, that he wore +later on his northern trips. He was introduced as Professor Muir, the +Naturalist. A hearty grip of the hand, and we seemed to coalesce at once +in a friendship which, to me at least, has been one of the very best +things I have known in a life full of blessings. From the first he was +the strongest and most attractive of these four fine personalities to +me, and I began to recognize him as my Master who was to lead me into +enchanting regions of beauty and mystery, which without his aid must +forever have remained unseen by the eyes of my soul. I sat at his feet; +and at the feet of his spirit I still sit, a student, absorbed, +surrendered, as this "priest of Nature's inmost shrine" unfolds to me +the secrets of his "mountains of God." + +[Illustration: FORT WRANGELL + +Near the mouth of the Stickeen--the starting point of the expeditions] + +Minor excursions culminated in the chartering of the little steamer +_Cassiar_, on which our party, augmented by two or three friends, +steamed between the tremendous glaciers and through the columned canyons +of the swift Stickeen River through the narrow strip of Alaska's +cup-handle to Glenora, in British Columbia, one hundred and fifty miles +from the river's mouth. Our captain was Nat. Lane, a grandson of the +famous Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon. Stocky, broad-shouldered, +muscular, given somewhat to strange oaths and strong liquids, and eying +askance our group as we struck the bargain, he was withal a genial, +good-natured man, and a splendid river pilot. + +Dropping down from Telegraph Creek (so named because it was a principal +station of the great projected trans-American and trans-Siberian line of +the Western Union, that bubble pricked by Cyrus Field's cable), we tied +up at Glenora about noon of a cloudless day. + +"Amuse yourselves," said Captain Lane at lunch. "Here we stay till two +o'clock to-morrow morning. This gale, blowing from the sea, makes safe +steering through the Canyon impossible, unless we take the morning's +calm." + +I saw Muir's eyes light up with a peculiar meaning as he glanced +quickly at me across the table. He knew the leading strings I was in; +how those well-meaning D.D.s and their motherly wives thought they had a +special mission to suppress all my self-destructive proclivities toward +dangerous adventure, and especially to protect me from "that wild Muir" +and his hare-brained schemes of mountain climbing. + +"Where is it?" I asked, as we met behind the pilot house a moment later. + +He pointed to a little group of jagged peaks rising right up from where +we stood--a pulpit in the center of a vast rotunda of magnificent +mountains. "One of the finest viewpoints in the world," he said. + +"How far to the highest point?" + +"About ten miles." + +"How high?" + +"Seven or eight thousand feet." + +That was enough. I caught the D.D.s with guile. There were Stickeen +Indians there catching salmon, and among them Chief Shakes, who our +interpreter said was "The youngest but the headest Chief of all." Last +night's palaver had whetted the appetites of both sides for more. On the +part of the Indians, a talk with these "Great White Chiefs from +Washington" offered unlimited possibilities for material favor; and to +the good divines the "simple faith and childlike docility" of these +children of the forest were a constant delight. And then how well their +high-flown compliments and flowery metaphors would sound in article and +speech to the wondering East! So I sent Stickeen Johnny, the +interpreter, to call the natives to another _hyou wawa_ (big talk) and, +note-book in hand, the doctors "went gayly to the fray." I set the +speeches a-going, and then slipped out to join the impatient Muir. + +"Take off your coat," he commanded, "and here's your supper." + +Pocketing two hardtacks apiece we were off, keeping in shelter of house +and bush till out of sight of the council-house and the flower-picking +ladies. Then we broke out. What a matchless climate! What sweet, +lung-filling air! Sunshine that had no weakness in it--as if we were +springing plants. Our sinews like steel springs, muscles like India +rubber, feet soled with iron to grip the rocks. Ten miles? Eight +thousand feet? Why, I felt equal to forty miles and the Matterhorn! + +"Eh, mon!" said Muir, lapsing into the broad Scotch he was so fond of +using when enjoying himself, "ye'll see the sicht o' yer life the day. +Ye'll get that'll be o' mair use till ye than a' the gowd o' Cassiar." + +From the first, it was a hard climb. Fallen timber at the mountain's +foot covered with thick brush swallowed us up and plucked us back. +Beyond, on the steeper slopes, grew dwarf evergreens, five or six feet +high--the same fir that towers a hundred feet with a diameter of three +or four on the river banks, but here stunted by icy mountain winds. The +curious blasting of the branches on the side next to the mountain gave +them the appearance of long-armed, humpbacked, hairy gnomes, bristling +with anger, stretching forbidding arms downwards to bar our passage to +their sacred heights. Sometimes an inviting vista through the branches +would lure us in, when it would narrow, and at its upper angle we would +find a solid phalanx of these grumpy dwarfs. Then we had to attack +boldly, scrambling over the obstinate, elastic arms and against the +clusters of stiff needles, till we gained the upper side and found +another green slope. + +Muir led, of course, picking with sure instinct the easiest way. Three +hours of steady work brought us suddenly beyond the timber-line, and the +real joy of the day began. Nowhere else have I see anything approaching +the luxuriance and variety of delicate blossoms shown by these high, +mountain pastures of the North. "You scarce could see the grass for +flowers." Everything that was marvelous in form, fair in color, or sweet +in fragrance seemed to be represented there, from daisies and campanulas +to Muir's favorite, the cassiope, with its exquisite little pink-white +bells shaped like lilies-of-the-valley and its subtle perfume. Muir at +once went wild when we reached this fairyland. From cluster to cluster +of flowers he ran, falling on his knees, babbling in unknown tongues, +prattling a curious mixture of scientific lingo and baby talk, +worshiping his little blue-and-pink goddesses. + +"Ah! my blue-eyed darlin', little did I think to see you here. How did +you stray away from Shasta?" + +"Well, well! Who'd 'a' thought that you'd have left that niche in the +Merced mountains to come here!" + +"And who might you be, now, with your wonder look? Is it possible that +you can be (two Latin polysyllables)? You're lost, my dear; you belong +in Tennessee." + +"Ah! I thought I'd find you, my homely little sweetheart," and so on +unceasingly. + +So absorbed was he in this amatory botany that he seemed to forget my +existence. While I, as glad as he, tagged along, running up and down +with him, asking now and then a question, learning something of plant +life, but far more of that spiritual insight into Nature's lore which is +granted only to those who love and woo her in her great outdoor palaces. +But how I anathematized my short-sighted foolishness for having as a +student at old Wooster shirked botany for the "more important" studies +of language and metaphysics. For here was a man whose natural science +had a thorough technical basis, while the superstructure was built of +"lively stones," and was itself a living temple of love! + +With all his boyish enthusiasm, Muir was a most painstaking student; and +any unsolved question lay upon his mind like a personal grievance until +it was settled to his full understanding. One plant after another, with +its sand-covered roots, went into his pockets, his handkerchief and the +"full" of his shirt, until he was bulbing and sprouting all over, and +could carry no more. He was taking them to the boat to analyze and +compare at leisure. Then he began to requisition my receptacles. I stood +it while he stuffed my pockets, but rebelled when he tried to poke the +prickly, scratchy things inside my shirt. I had not yet attained that +sublime indifference to physical comfort, that Nirvana of passivity, +that Muir had found. + +Hours had passed in this entrancing work and we were progressing upwards +but slowly. We were on the southeastern slope of the mountain, and the +sun was still staring at us from a cloudless sky. Suddenly we were in +the shadow as we worked around a spur of rock. Muir looked up, startled. +Then he jammed home his last handful of plants, and hastened up to +where I stood. + +"Man!" he said, "I was forgetting. We'll have to hurry now or we'll miss +it, we'll miss it." + +"Miss what?" I asked. + +"The jewel of the day," he answered; "the sight of the sunset from the +top." + +Then Muir began to _slide_ up that mountain. I had been with mountain +climbers before, but never one like him. A deer-lope over the smoother +slopes, a sure instinct for the easiest way into a rocky fortress, an +instant and unerring attack, a serpent-glide up the steep; eye, hand and +foot all connected dynamically; with no appearance of weight to his +body--as though he had Stockton's negative gravity machine strapped on +his back. + +Fifteen years of enthusiastic study among the Sierras had given him the +same pre-eminence over the ordinary climber as the Big Horn of the +Rockies shows over the Cotswold. It was only by exerting myself to the +limit of my strength that I was able to keep near him. His example was +at the same time my inspiration and despair. I longed for him to stop +and rest, but would not have suggested it for the world. I would at +least be game, and furnish no hint as to how tired I was, no matter how +chokingly my heart thumped. Muir's spirit was in me, and my "chief end," +just then, was to win that peak with him. The impending calamity of +being beaten by the sun was not to be contemplated without horror. The +loss of a fortune would be as nothing to that! + +[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN + +He pointed to a little group of jagged peaks rising right up from where +we stood--a pulpit in the center of a vast rotunda of magnificent +mountains] + +We were now beyond the flower garden of the gods, in a land of rocks +and cliffs, with patches of short grass, caribou moss and lichens +between. Along a narrowing arm of the mountain, a deep canyon flumed a +rushing torrent of icy water from a small glacier on our right. Then +came moraine matter, rounded pebbles and boulders, and beyond them the +glacier. Once a giant, it is nothing but a baby now, but the ice is +still blue and clear, and the crevasses many and deep. And that day it +had to be crossed, which was a ticklish task. A misstep or slip might +land us at once fairly into the heart of the glacier, there to be +preserved in cold storage for the wonderment of future generations. But +glaciers were Muir's special pets, his intimate companions, with whom he +held sweet communion. Their voices were plain language to his ears, +their work, as God's landscape gardeners, of the wisest and best that +Nature could offer. + +No Swiss guide was ever wiser in the habits of glaciers than Muir, or +proved to be a better pilot across their deathly crevasses. Half a mile +of careful walking and jumping and we were on the ground again, at the +base of the great cliff of metamorphic slate that crowned the summit. +Muir's aneroid barometer showed a height of about seven thousand feet, +and the wall of rock towered threateningly above us, leaning out in +places, a thousand feet or so above the glacier. But the earth-fires +that had melted and heaved it, the ice mass that chiseled and shaped it, +the wind and rain that corroded and crumbled it, had left plenty of +bricks out of that battlement, had covered its face with knobs and +horns, had ploughed ledges and cleaved fissures and fastened crags and +pinnacles upon it, so that, while its surface was full of man-traps and +blind ways, the human spider might still find some hold for his claws. + +The shadows were dark upon us, but the lofty, icy peaks of the main +range still lay bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun. There was +no time to be lost. A quick glance to the right and left, and Muir, who +had steered his course wisely across the glacier, attacked the cliff, +simply saying, "We must climb cautiously here." + +Now came the most wonderful display of his mountain-craft. Had I been +alone at the feet of these crags I should have said, "It can't be done," +and have turned back down the mountain. But Muir was my "control," as +the Spiritists say, and I never thought of doing anything else but +following him. He thought he could climb up there and that settled it. +He would do what he thought he could. And such climbing! There was never +an instant when both feet and hands were not in play, and often elbows, +knees, thighs, upper arms, and even chin must grip and hold. Clambering +up a steep slope, crawling under an overhanging rock, spreading out like +a flying squirrel and edging along an inch-wide projection while fingers +clasped knobs above the head, bending about sharp angles, pulling up +smooth rock-faces by sheer strength of arm and chinning over the edge, +leaping fissures, sliding flat around a dangerous rock-breast, testing +crumbly spurs before risking his weight, always going up, up, no +hesitation, no pause--that was Muir! My task was the lighter one; he did +the head-work, I had but to imitate. The thin fragment of projecting +slate that stood the weight of his one hundred and fifty pounds would +surely sustain my hundred and thirty. As far as possible I did as he +did, took his hand-holds, and stepped in his steps. + +But I was handicapped in a way that Muir was ignorant of, and I would +not tell him for fear of his veto upon my climbing. My legs were all +right--hard and sinewy; my body light and supple, my wind good, my +nerves steady (heights did not make me dizzy); but my arms--there lay +the trouble. Ten years before I had been fond of breaking colts--till +the colts broke me. On successive summers in West Virginia, two colts +had fallen with me and dislocated first my left shoulder, then my right. +Since that both arms had been out of joint more than once. My left was +especially weak. It would not sustain my weight, and I had to favor it +constantly. Now and again, as I pulled myself up some difficult reach I +could feel the head of the humerus move from its socket. + +Muir climbed so fast that his movements were almost like flying, legs +and arms moving with perfect precision and unfailing judgment. I must +keep close behind him or I would fail to see his points of vantage. But +the pace was a killing one for me. As we neared the summit my strength +began to fail, my breath to come in gasps, my muscles to twitch. The +overwhelming fear of losing sight of my guide, of being left behind and +failing to see that sunset, grew upon me, and I hurled myself blindly at +every fresh obstacle, determined to keep up. At length we climbed upon a +little shelf, a foot or two wide, that corkscrewed to the left. Here we +paused a moment to take breath and look around us. We had ascended the +cliff some nine hundred and fifty feet from the glacier, and were within +forty or fifty feet of the top. + +Among the much-prized gifts of this good world one of the very richest +was given to me in that hour. It is securely locked in the safe of my +memory and nobody can rob me of it--an imperishable treasure. Standing +out on the rounded neck of the cliff and facing the southwest, we could +see on three sides of us. The view was much the finest of all my +experience. We seemed to stand on a high rostrum in the center of the +greatest amphitheater in the world. The sky was cloudless, the level sun +flooding all the landscape with golden light. From the base of the +mountain on which we stood stretched the rolling upland. Striking boldly +across our front was the deep valley of the Stickeen, a line of foliage, +light green cottonwoods and darker alders, sprinkled with black fir and +spruce, through which the river gleamed with a silvery sheen, now +spreading wide among its islands, now foaming white through narrow +canyons. Beyond, among the undulating hills, was a marvelous array of +lakes. There must have been thirty or forty of them, from the pond of an +acre to the wide sheet two or three miles across. The strangely +elongated and rounded hills had the appearance of giants in bed, wrapped +in many-colored blankets, while the lakes were their deep, blue eyes, +lashed with dark evergreens, gazing steadfastly heavenward. Look long at +these recumbent forms and you will see the heaving of their breasts. + +The whole landscape was alert, expectant of glory. Around this great +camp of prostrate Cyclops there stood an unbroken semicircle of mighty +peaks in solemn grandeur, some hoary-headed, some with locks of brown, +but all wearing white glacier collars. The taller peaks seemed almost +sharp enough to be the helmets and spears of watchful sentinels. And +the colors! Great stretches of crimson fireweed, acres and acres of +them, smaller patches of dark blue lupins, and hills of shaded yellow, +red, and brown, the many-shaded green of the woods, the amethyst and +purple of the far horizon--who can tell it? We did not stand there more +than two or three minutes, but the whole wonderful scene is deeply +etched on the tablet of my memory, a photogravure never to be effaced. + + + + + THE RESCUE + + + + +THE MOUNTAIN'S FAITH + + + At eventide, upon a dreary sea, + I watched a mountain rear its hoary head + To look with steady gaze in the near heaven. + The earth was cold and still. No sound was heard + But the dream-voices of the sleeping sea. + The mountain drew its gray cloud-mantle close, + Like Roman senator, erect and old, + Raising aloft an earnest brow and calm, + With upward look intent of steadfast faith. + The sky was dim; no glory-light shone forth + To crown the mountain's faith; which faltered not, + But, ever hopeful, waited patiently. + + At morn I looked again. Expectance sat + Of immanent glory on the mountain's brow. + And, in a moment, lo! the glory _came!_ + An angel's hand rolled back a crimson cloud. + Deep, rose-red light of wondrous tone and power-- + A crown of matchless splendor--graced its head, + Majestic, kingly, pure as Heaven, yet warm + With earthward love. A motion, like a heart + With rich blood beating, seemed to sway and pulse, + With might of ecstasy, the granite peak. + A poem grand it was of Love Divine-- + An anthem, sweet and strong, of praise to God-- + A victory-peal from barren fields of death. + Its gaze was heavenward still, but earthward too-- + For Love seeks not her own, and joy is full, + Only when freest given. The sun shone forth, + And now the mountain doffed its ruby crown + For one of diamonds. Still the light streamed down; + No longer chill and bleak, the morning glowed + With warmth and light, and clouds of fiery hue + Mantled the crystal glacier's chilly stream, + And all the landscape throbbed with sudden joy. + + + + +II + +THE RESCUE + + +Muir was the first to awake from his trance. Like Schiller's king in +"The Diver," "Nothing could slake his wild thirst of desire." + +"The sunset," he cried; "we must have the whole horizon." + +Then he started running along the ledge like a mountain goat, working to +get around the vertical cliff above us to find an ascent on the other +side. He was soon out of sight, although I followed as fast as I could. +I heard him shout something, but could not make out his words. I know +now he was warning me of a dangerous place. Then I came to a sharp-cut +fissure which lay across my path--a gash in the rock, as if one of the +Cyclops had struck it with his axe. It sloped very steeply for some +twelve feet below, opening on the face of the precipice above the +glacier, and was filled to within about four feet of the surface with +flat, slaty gravel. It was only four or five feet across, and I could +easily have leaped it had I not been so tired. But a rock the size of my +head projected from the slippery stream of gravel. In my haste to +overtake Muir I did not stop to make sure this stone was part of the +cliff, but stepped with springing force upon it to cross the fissure. +Instantly the stone melted away beneath my feet, and I shot with it down +towards the precipice. With my peril sharp upon me I cried out as I +whirled on my face, and struck out both hands to grasp the rock on +either side. + +Falling forward hard, my hands struck the walls of the chasm, my arms +were twisted behind me, and instantly both shoulders were dislocated. +With my paralyzed arms flopping helplessly above my head, I slid swiftly +down the narrow chasm. Instinctively I flattened down on the sliding +gravel, digging my chin and toes into it to check my descent; but not +until my feet hung out over the edge of the cliff did I feel that I had +stopped. Even then I dared not breathe or stir, so precarious was my +hold on that treacherous shale. Every moment I seemed to be slipping +inch by inch to the point when all would give way and I would go +whirling down to the glacier. + +After the first wild moment of panic when I felt myself falling, I do +not remember any sense of fear. But I know what it is to have a thousand +thoughts flash through the brain in a single instant--an anguished +thought of my young wife at Wrangell, with her immanent motherhood; an +indignant thought of the insurance companies that refused me policies on +my life; a thought of wonder as to what would become of my poor flocks +of Indians among the islands; recollections of events far and near in +time, important and trivial; but each thought printed upon my memory by +the instantaneous photography of deadly peril. I had no hope of escape +at all. The gravel was rattling past me and piling up against my head. +The jar of a little rock, and all would be over. The situation was too +desperate for actual fear. Dull wonder as to how long I would be in the +air, and the hope that death would be instant--that was all. Then came +the wish that Muir would come before I fell, and take a message to my +wife. + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE MARVELOUS ARRAY OF LAKES] + +Suddenly I heard his voice right above me. "My God!" he cried. Then he +added, "Grab that rock, man, just by your right hand." + +I gurgled from my throat, not daring to inflate my lungs, "My arms are +out." + +There was a pause. Then his voice rang again, cheery, confident, +unexcited, "Hold fast; I'm going to get you out of this. I can't get to +you on this side; the rock is sheer. I'll have to leave you now and +cross the rift high up and come down to you on the other side by which +we came. Keep cool." + +Then I heard him going away, whistling "The Blue Bells of Scotland," +singing snatches of Scotch songs, calling to me, his voice now receding, +as the rocks intervened, then sounding louder as he came out on the face +of the cliff. But in me hope surged at full tide. I entertained no more +thoughts of last messages. I did not see how he could possibly do it, +but he was John Muir, and I had seen his wonderful rock-work. So I +determined not to fall and made myself as flat and heavy as possible, +not daring to twitch a muscle or wink an eyelid, for I still felt myself +slipping, slipping down the greasy slate. And now a new peril +threatened. A chill ran through me of cold and nervousness, and I slid +an inch. I suppressed the growing shivers with all my will. I would keep +perfectly quiet till Muir came back. The sickening pain in my shoulders +increased till it was torture, and I could not ease it. + +It seemed like hours, but it was really only about ten minutes before he +got back to me. By that time I hung so far over the edge of the +precipice that it seemed impossible that I could last another second. +Now I heard Muir's voice, low and steady, close to me, and it seemed a +little below. + +"Hold steady," he said. "I'll have to swing you out over the cliff." + +Then I felt a careful hand on my back, fumbling with the waistband of my +pants, my vest and shirt, gathering all in a firm grip. I could see only +with one eye and that looked upon but a foot or two of gravel on the +other side. + +"Now!" he said, and I slid out of the cleft with a rattling shower of +stones and gravel. My head swung down, my impotent arms dangling, and I +stared straight at the glacier, a thousand feet below. Then my feet came +against the cliff. + +"Work downwards with your feet." + +I obeyed. He drew me close to him by crooking his arm and as my head +came up past his level he caught me by my collar with his teeth! My +feet struck the little two-inch shelf on which he was standing, and I +could see Muir, flattened against the face of the rock and facing it, +his right hand stretched up and clasping a little spur, his left holding +me with an iron grip, his head bent sideways, as my weight drew it. I +felt as alert and cool as he. + +"I've got to let go of you," he hissed through his clenched teeth. "I +need both hands here. Climb upward with your feet." + +How he did it, I know not. The miracle grows as I ponder it. The wall +was almost perpendicular and smooth. My weight on his jaws dragged him +outwards. And yet, holding me by his teeth as a panther her cub and +clinging like a squirrel to a tree, he climbed with me straight up ten +or twelve feet, with only the help of my iron-shod feet scrambling on +the rock. It was utterly impossible, yet he did it! + +When he landed me on the little shelf along which we had come, my nerve +gave way and I trembled all over. I sank down exhausted, Muir only less +tired, but supporting me. + +The sun had set; the air was icy cold and we had no coats. We would soon +chill through. Muir's task of rescue had only begun and no time was to +be lost. In a minute he was up again, examining my shoulders. The right +one had an upward dislocation, the ball of the humerus resting on the +process of the scapula, the rim of the cup. I told him how, and he soon +snapped the bone into its socket. But the left was a harder proposition. +The luxation was downward and forward, and the strong, nervous reaction +of the muscles had pulled the head of the bone deep into my armpit. +There was no room to work on that narrow ledge. All that could be done +was to make a rude sling with one of my suspenders and our +handkerchiefs, so as to both support the elbow and keep the arm from +swinging. + +Then came the task to get down that terrible wall to the glacier, by the +only practicable way down the mountain that Muir, after a careful +search, could find. Again I am at loss to know how he accomplished it. +For an unencumbered man to descend it in the deepening dusk was a most +difficult task; but to get a tottery, nerve-shaken, pain-wracked cripple +down was a feat of positive wonder. My right arm, though in place, was +almost helpless. I could only move my forearm; the muscles of the upper +part simply refusing to obey my will. Muir would let himself down to a +lower shelf, brace himself, and I would get my right hand against him, +crawl my fingers over his shoulder until the arm hung in front of him, +and falling against him, would be eased down to his standing ground. +Sometimes he would pack me a short distance on his back. Again, taking +me by the wrist, he would swing me down to a lower shelf, before +descending himself. My right shoulder came out three times that night, +and had to be reset. + +It was dark when we reached the base; there was no moon and it was very +cold. The glacier provided an operating table, and I lay on the ice for +an hour while Muir, having slit the sleeve of my shirt to the collar, +tugged and twisted at my left arm in a vain attempt to set it. But the +ball was too deep in its false socket, and all his pulling only bruised +and made it swell. So he had to do up the arm again, and tie it tight to +my body. It must have been near midnight when we left the foot of the +cliff and started down the mountain. We had ten hard miles to go, and no +supper, for the hardtack had disappeared ere we were half-way up the +mountain. Muir dared not take me across the glacier in the dark; I was +too weak to jump the crevasses. So we skirted it and came, after a mile, +to the head of a great slide of gravel, the fine moraine matter of the +receding glacier. Muir sat down on the gravel; I sat against him with my +feet on either side and my arm over his shoulder. Then he began to hitch +and kick, and presently we were sliding at great speed in a cloud of +dust. A full half-mile we flew, and were almost buried when we reached +the bottom of the slide. It was the easiest part of our trip. + +Now we found ourselves in the canyon, down which tumbled the glacial +stream, and far beneath the ridge along which we had ascended. The +sides of the canyon were sheer cliffs. + +"We'll try it," said Muir. "Sometimes these canyons are passable." + +But the way grew rougher as we descended. The rapids became falls and we +often had to retrace our steps to find a way around them. After we +reached the timber-line, some four miles from the summit, the going was +still harder, for we had a thicket of alders and willows to fight. Here +Muir offered to make a fire and leave me while he went forward for +assistance, but I refused. "No," I said, "I'm going to make it to the +boat." + +All that night this man of steel and lightning worked, never resting a +minute, doing the work of three men, helping me along the slopes, easing +me down the rocks, pulling me up cliffs, dashing water on me when I grew +faint with the pain; and always cheery, full of talk and anecdote, +cracking jokes with me, infusing me with his own indomitable spirit. He +was eyes, hands, feet, and heart to me--my caretaker, in whom I trusted +absolutely. My eyes brim with tears even now when I think of his utter +self-abandon as he ministered to my infirmities. + +About four o'clock in the morning we came to a fall that we could not +compass, sheer a hundred feet or more. So we had to attack the steep +walls of the canyon. After a hard struggle we were on the mountain +ridges again, traversing the flower pastures, creeping through openings +in the brush, scrambling over the dwarf fir, then down through the +fallen timber. It was half-past seven o'clock when we descended the last +slope and found the path to Glenora. Here we met a straggling party of +whites and Indians just starting out to search the mountain for us. + +As I was coming wearily up the teetering gang-plank, feeling as if I +couldn't keep up another minute, Dr. Kendall stepped upon its end, +barring my passage, bent his bushy white brows upon me from his six feet +of height, and began to scold: + +"See here, young man; give an account of yourself. Do you know you've +kept us waiting----" + +Just then Captain Lane jumped forward to help me, digging the old Doctor +of Divinity with his elbow in the stomach and nearly knocking him off +the boat. + +"Oh, hell!" he roared. "Can't you see the man's hurt?" + +Mrs. Kendall was a very tall, thin, severe-looking old lady, with face +lined with grief by the loss of her children. She never smiled. She had +not gone to bed at all that night, but walked the deck and would not let +her husband or the others sleep. Soon after daylight she began to lash +the men with the whip of her tongue for their "cowardice and inhumanity" +in not starting at once to search for me. + +"Mr. Young is undoubtedly lying mangled at the foot of a cliff, or else +one of those terrible bears has wounded him; and you are lolling around +here instead of starting to his rescue. For shame!" + +When they objected that they did not know where we had gone, she +snapped: "Go everywhere until you find him." + +Her fierce energy started the men we met. When I came on board she at +once took charge and issued her orders, which everybody jumped to obey. +She had blankets spread on the floor of the cabin and laid me on them. +She obtained some whisky from the captain, some water, porridge and +coffee from the steward. She was sitting on the floor with my head in +her lap, feeding me coffee with a spoon, when Dr. Kendall came in and +began on me again: + +"Suppose you had fallen down that precipice, what would your poor wife +have done? What would have become of your Indians and your new church?" + +Then Mrs. Kendall turned and thrust her spoon like a sword at him. +"Henry Kendall," she blazed, "shut right up and leave this room. Have +you no sense? Go instantly, I say!" And the good Doctor went. + +My recollections of that day are not very clear. The shoulder was in a +bad condition--swollen, bruised, very painful. I had to be strengthened +with food and rest, and Muir called from his sleep of exhaustion, so +that with four other men he could pull and twist that poor arm of mine +for an hour. They got it into its socket, but scarcely had Muir got to +sleep again before the strong, nervous twitching of the shoulder +dislocated it a second time and seemingly placed it in a worse condition +than before. Captain Lane was now summoned, and with Muir to direct, +they worked for two or three hours. Whisky was poured down my throat to +relax my stubborn, pain-convulsed muscles. Then they went at it with two +men pulling at the towel knotted about my wrist, two others pulling +against them, foot braced to foot, Muir manipulating my shoulder with +his sinewy hands, and the stocky Captain, strong and compact as a bear, +with his heel against the yarn ball in my armpit, takes me by the elbow +and says, "I'll set it or pull the arm off!" + +[Illustration: GLACIER--STICKEEN VALLEY + +Muir, fresh and enthusiastic as ever, was the pilot of the party across +the moraine and upon the great ice mountain] + +Well, he almost does the latter. I am conscious of a frightful strain, +a spasm of anguish in my side as his heel slips from the ball and kicks +in two of my ribs, a snap as the head of the bone slips into the +cup--then kindly oblivion. + +I was awakened about five o'clock in the afternoon by the return of the +whole party from an excursion to the Great Glacier at the Boundary Line. +Muir, fresh and enthusiastic as ever, had been the pilot across the +moraine and upon the great ice mountain; and I, wrapped like a mummy in +linen strips, was able to join in his laughter as he told of the big +D.D.'s heroics, when, in the middle of an acre of alder brush, he asked +indignantly, in response to the hurry-up calls: "Do you think I'm going +to leave my wife in this forest?" + +One overpowering regret--one only--abides in my heart as I think back +upon that golden day with John Muir. He could, and did, go back to +Glenora on the return trip of the _Cassiar_, ascend the mountain again, +see the sunset from its top, make charming sketches, stay all night and +see the sunrise, filling his cup of joy so full that he could pour out +entrancing descriptions for days. While I--well, with entreating arms +about one's neck and pleading, tearful eyes looking into one's own, what +could one do but promise to climb no more? But my lifelong lamentation +over a treasure forever lost, is this: "I never saw the sunset from that +peak." + + + + + THE VOYAGE + + + + +TOW-A-ATT + + + You are a child, old Friend--a child! + As light of heart, as free, as wild; + As credulous of fairy tale; + As simple in your faith, as frail + In reason; jealous, petulant; + As crude in manner; ignorant, + Yet wise in love; as rough, as mild-- + You are a child! + + You are a man, old Friend--a man! + Ah, sure in richer tide ne'er ran + The blood of earth's nobility, + Than through your veins; intrepid, free; + In counsel, prudent; proud and tall; + Of passions full, yet ruling all; + No stauncher friend since time began; + You are a MAN! + + + + +III + +THE VOYAGE + + +The summer and fall of 1879 Muir always referred to as the most +interesting period of his adventurous life. From about the tenth of July +to the twentieth of November he was in southeastern Alaska. Very little +of this time did he spend indoors. Until steamboat navigation of the +Stickeen River was closed by the forming ice, he made frequent trips to +the Great Glacier--thirty miles up the river, to the Hot Springs, the +Mud Glacier and the interior lakes, ranges, forests and flower pastures. +Always upon his return (for my house was his home the most of that time) +he would be full to intoxication of what he had seen, and dinners would +grow cold and lamps burn out while he held us entranced with his +impassioned stories. Although his books are all masterpieces of lucid +and glowing English, Muir was one of those rare souls who talk better +than they write; and he made the trees, the animals, and especially the +glaciers, live before us. Somehow a glacier never seemed cold when John +Muir was talking about it. + +On September nineteenth a little stranger whose expected advent was +keeping me at home arrived in the person of our first-born daughter. For +two or three weeks preceding and following this event Muir was busy +writing his summer notes and finishing his pencil sketches, and also +studying the flora of the islands. It was a season of constant rains +when the _saanah_, the southeast rain-wind, blew a gale. But these +stormy days and nights, which kept ordinary people indoors, always +lured him out into the woods or up the mountains. + +One wild night, dark as Erebus, the rain dashing in sheets and the wind +blowing a hurricane, Muir came from his room into ours about ten o'clock +with his long, gray overcoat and his Scotch cap on. + +"Where now?" I asked. + +"Oh, to the top of the mountain," he replied. "It is a rare chance to +study this fine storm." + +My expostulations were in vain. He rejected with scorn the proffered +lantern: "It would spoil the effect." I retired at my usual time, for I +had long since learned not to worry about Muir. At two o'clock in the +morning there came a hammering at the front door. I opened it and there +stood a group of our Indians, rain-soaked and trembling--Chief +Tow-a-att, Moses, Aaron, Matthew, Thomas. + +"Why, men," I cried, "what's wrong? What brings you here?" + +"We want you play (pray)," answered Matthew. + +I brought them into the house, and, putting on my clothes and lighting +the lamp, I set about to find out the trouble. It was not easy. They +were greatly excited and frightened. + +"We scare. All Stickeen scare; plenty cly. We want you play God; plenty +play." + +By dint of much questioning I gathered at last that the whole tribe were +frightened by a mysterious light waving and flickering from the top of +the little mountain that overlooked Wrangell; and they wished me to pray +to the white man's God and avert dire calamity. + +"Some miner has camped there," I ventured. + +An eager chorus protested; it was not like the light of a camp-fire in +the least; it waved in the air like the wings of a spirit. Besides, +there was no gold on the top of a hill like that; and no human being +would be so foolish as to camp up there on such a night, when there were +plenty of comfortable houses at the foot of the hill. It was a spirit, a +malignant spirit. + +Suddenly the true explanation flashed into my brain, and I shocked my +Indians by bursting into a roar of laughter. In imagination I could see +him so plainly--John Muir, wet but happy, feeding his fire with spruce +sticks, studying and enjoying the storm! But I explained to my natives, +who ever afterwards eyed Muir askance, as a mysterious being whose ways +and motives were beyond all conjecture. + +"Why does this strange man go into the wet woods and up the mountains on +stormy nights?" they asked. "Why does he wander alone on barren peaks +or on dangerous ice-mountains? There is no gold up there and he never +takes a gun with him or a pick. _Icta mamook_--what make? Why--why?" + +The first week in October saw the culmination of plans long and eagerly +discussed. Almost the whole of the Alexandrian Archipelago, that great +group of eleven hundred wooded islands that forms the southeastern +cup-handle of Alaska, was at that time a _terra incognita_. The only +seaman's chart of the region in existence was that made by the great +English navigator, Vancouver, in 1807. It was a wonderful chart, +considering what an absurd little sailing vessel he had in which to +explore those intricate waters with their treacherous winds and tides. + +But Vancouver's chart was hastily made, after all, in a land of fog and +rain and snow. He had not the modern surveyor's instruments, boats or +other helps. And, besides, this region was changing more rapidly than, +perhaps, any other part of the globe. Volcanic islands were being born +out of the depths of the ocean; landslides were filling up channels +between the islands; tides and rivers were opening new passages and +closing old ones; and, more than all, those mightiest tools of the great +Engineer, the glaciers, were furrowing valleys, dumping millions of tons +of silt into the sea, forming islands, promontories and isthmuses, and +by their recession letting the sea into deep and long fiords, forming +great bays, inlets and passages, many of which did not exist in +Vancouver's time. In certain localities the living glacier stream was +breaking off bergs so fast that the resultant bays were lengthening a +mile or more each year. Where Vancouver saw only a great crystal wall +across the sea, we were to paddle for days up a long and sinuous fiord; +and where he saw one glacier, we were to find a dozen. + +My mission in the proposed voyage of discovery was to locate and visit +the tribes and villages of Thlingets to the north and west of Wrangell, +to take their census, confer with their chiefs and report upon their +condition, with a view to establishing schools and churches among them. +The most of these tribes had never had a visit from a missionary, and I +felt the eager zeal an Eliot or a Martin at the prospect of telling them +for the first time the Good News. Muir's mission was to find and study +the forests, mountains and glaciers. I also was eager to see these and +learn about them, and Muir was glad to study the natives with me--so +our plans fitted into each other well. + +"We are going to write some history, my boy," Muir would say to me. +"Think of the honor! We have been chosen to put some interesting people +and some of Nature's grandest scenes on the page of human record and on +the map. Hurry! We are daily losing the most important news of all the +world." + +In many respects we were most congenial companions. We both loved the +same poets and could repeat, verse about, many poems of Tennyson, Keats, +Shelley and Burns. He took with him a volume of Thoreau, and I one of +Emerson, and we enjoyed them together. I had my printed Bible with me, +and he had his in his head--the result of a Scotch father's discipline. +Our studies supplemented each other and our tastes were similar. We had +both lived clean lives and our conversation together was sweet and +high, while we both had a sense of humor and a large fund of stories. + +But Muir's knowledge of Nature and his insight into her plans and +methods were so far beyond mine that, while I was organizer and +commander of the expedition, he was my teacher and guide into the inner +recesses and meanings of the islands, bays and mountains we explored +together. + +Our ship for this voyage of discovery, while not so large as +Vancouver's, was much more shapely and manageable--a _kladushu etlan_ +(six fathom) red-cedar canoe. It belonged to our captain, old Chief +Tow-a-att, a chief who had lately embraced Christianity with his whole +heart--one of the simplest, most faithful, dignified and brave souls I +ever knew. He fully expected to meet a martyr's death among his heathen +enemies of the northern islands; yet he did not shrink from the voyage +on that account. + +His crew numbered three. First in importance was Kadishan, also a chief +of the Stickeens, chosen because of his powers of oratory, his kinship +with Chief Shathitch of the Chilcat tribe, and his friendly relations +with other chiefs. He was a born courtier, learned in Indian lore, songs +and customs, and able to instruct me in the proper Thlinget etiquette to +suit all occasions. The other two were sturdy young men--Stickeen John, +our interpreter, and Sitka Charley. They were to act as cooks, +camp-makers, oarsmen, hunters and general utility men. + +We stowed our baggage, which was not burdensome, in one end of the +canoe, taking a simple store of provisions--flour, beans, bacon, sugar, +salt and a little dried fruit. We were to depend upon our guns, +fishhooks, spears and clamsticks for other diet. As a preliminary to our +palaver with the natives we followed the old Hudson Bay custom, then +firmly established in the North. We took materials for a +_potlatch_,--leaf-tobacco, rice and sugar. Our Indian crew laid in their +own stock of provisions, chiefly dried salmon and seal-grease, while our +table was to be separate, set out with the white man's viands. + +We did not get off without trouble. Kadishan's mother, who looked but +little older than himself, strongly objected to my taking her son on so +perilous a voyage and so late in the fall, and when her scoldings and +entreaties did not avail she said: "If anything happens to my son, I +will take your baby as mine in payment." + +[Illustration: VOYAGES OF MUIR AND YOUNG 1879 and 1880 IN SOUTHEASTERN +ALASKA] + +One sunny October day we set our prow to the unknown northwest. Our +hearts beat high with anticipation. Every passage between the islands +was a corridor leading into a new and more enchanting room of Nature's +great gallery. The lapping waves whispered enticing secrets, while the +seabirds screaming overhead and the eagles shrilling from the sky +promised wonderful adventures. + +The voyage naturally divides itself into the human interest and the +study of nature; yet the two constantly blended throughout the whole +voyage. I can only select a few instances from that trip of six weeks +whose every hour was new and strange. + +Our captain, taciturn and self-reliant, commanded Muir's admiration from +the first. His paddle was sure in the stern, his knowledge of the wind +and tide unfailing. Whenever we landed the crew would begin to dispute +concerning the best place to make camp. But old Tow-a-att, with the mast +in his hand, would march straight as an arrow to the likeliest spot of +all, stick down his mast as a tent-pole and begin to set up the tent, +the others invariably acquiescing in his decision as the best possible +choice. + +At our first meal Muir's sense of humor cost us one-third of a roll of +butter. We invited our captain to take dinner with us. I got out the +bread and other viands, and set the two-pound roll of butter beside the +bread and placed both by Tow-a-att. He glanced at the roll of butter and +at the three who were to eat, measured with his eye one-third of the +roll, cut it off with his hunting knife and began to cut it into squares +and eat it with great gusto. I was about to interfere and show him the +use we made of butter, but Muir stopped me with a wink. The old chief +calmly devoured his third of the roll, and rubbing his stomach with +great satisfaction pronounced it "_hyas klosh_ (very good) glease." + +Of necessity we had chosen the rainiest season of the year in that +dampest climate of North America, where there are two hundred and +twenty-five rainy days out of the three hundred and sixty-five. During +our voyage it did not rain every day, but the periods of sunshine were +so rare as to make us hail them with joyous acclamation. + +We steered our course due westward for forty miles, then through a +sinuous, island-studded passage called Rocky Strait, stopping one day to +lay in a supply of venison before sailing on to the village of the Kake +Indians. My habit throughout the voyage, when coming to a native town, +was to find where the head chief lived, feed him with rice and regale +him with tobacco, and then induce him to call all his chiefs and head +men together for a council. When they were all assembled I would give +small presents of tobacco to each, and then open the floodgate of talk, +proclaiming my mission and telling them in simplest terms the Great New +Story. Muir would generally follow me, unfolding in turn some of the +wonders of God's handiwork and the beauty of clean, pure living; and +then in turn, beginning with the head chief, each Indian would make his +speech. We were received with joy everywhere, and if there was suspicion +at first old Tow-a-att's tearful pleadings and Kadishan's oratory +speedily brought about peace and unity. + +These palavers often lasted a whole day and far into the night, and +usually ended with our being feasted in turn by the chief in whose house +we had held the council. I took the census of each village, getting the +heads of the families to count their relatives with the aid of +beans,--the large brown beans representing men, the large white ones, +women, and the small Boston beans, children. In this manner the first +census of southeastern Alaska was taken. + +Before starting on the voyage, we heard that there was a Harvard +graduate, bearing an honored New England name, living among the Kake +Indians on Kouyou Island. On arriving at the chief town of that tribe we +inquired for the white man and were told that he was camping with the +family of a sub-chief at the mouth of a salmon stream. We set off to +find him. As we neared the shore we saw a circular group of natives +around a fire on the beach, sitting on their heels in the stoical Indian +way. We landed and came up to them. Not one of them deigned to rise or +show any excitement at our coming. The eight or nine men who formed the +group were all dressed in colored four-dollar blankets, with the +exception of one, who had on a ragged fragment of a filthy, two-dollar, +Hudson Bay blanket. The back of this man was towards us, and after +speaking to the chief, Muir and I crossed to the other side of the fire, +and saw his face. It was the white man, and the ragged blanket was all +the clothing he had upon him! An effort to open conversation with him +proved futile. He answered only with grunts and mumbled monosyllables. +Thus the most filthy, degraded, hopelessly lost savage that we found in +this whole voyage was a college graduate of great New England stock! + +"Lift a stone to mountain height and let it fall," said Muir, "and it +will sink the deeper into the mud." + +At Angoon, one of the towns of the Hootz-noo tribe, occurred an incident +of another type. We found this village hilariously drunk. There was a +very stringent prohibition law over Alaska at that time, which +absolutely forbade the importation of any spirituous liquors into the +Territory. But the law was deficient in one vital respect--it did not +prohibit the importation of molasses; and a soldier during the military +occupancy of the Territory had instructed the natives in the art of +making rum. The method was simple. A five-gallon oil can was taken and +partly filled with molasses as a base; into that alcohol was placed (if +it were obtainable), dried apples, berries, potatoes, flour, anything +that would rot and ferment; then, to give it the proper tang, ginger, +cayenne pepper and mustard were added. This mixture was then set in a +warm place to ferment. Another oil can was cut up into long strips, the +solder melted out and used to make a pipe, with two or three turns +through cool water,--forming the worm, and the still. Talk about your +forty-rod whiskey--I have seen this "hooch," as it was called because +these same Hootz-noo natives first made it, kill at more than forty +rods, for it generally made the natives _fighting_ drunk. + +Through the large company of screaming, dancing and singing natives we +made our way to the chief's house. By some miracle this majestic-looking +savage was sober. Perhaps he felt it incumbent upon him as host not to +partake himself of the luxuries with which he regaled his guests. He +took us hospitably into his great community house of split cedar planks +with carved totem poles for corner posts, and called his young men to +take care of our canoe and to bring wood for a fire that he might feast +us. The wife of this chief was one of the finest looking Indian women I +have ever met,--tall, straight, lithe and dignified. But, crawling about +on the floor on all fours, was the most piteous travesty of the human +form I have ever seen. It was an idiot boy, sixteen years of age. He had +neither the comeliness of a beast nor the intellect of a man. His name +was _Hootz-too_ (Bear Heart), and indeed all his motions were those of a +bear rather than of a human being. Crossing the floor with the swinging +gait of a bear, he would crouch back on his haunches and resume his +constant occupation of sucking his wrist, into which he had thus formed +a livid hole. When disturbed at this horrid task he would strike with +the claw-like fingers of the other hand, snarling and grunting. Yet the +beautiful chieftainess was his mother, and she _loved_ him. For sixteen +years she had cared for this monster, feeding him with her choicest +food, putting him to sleep always in her arms, taking him with her and +guarding him day and night. When, a short time before our visit, the +medicine men, accusing him of causing the illness of some of the head +men of the village, proclaimed him a witch, and the whole tribe came to +take and torture him to death, she fought them like a lioness, not +counting her own life dear unto her, and saved her boy. + +When I said to her thoughtlessly, "Oh, would you not be relieved at the +death of this poor idiot boy?" she saw in my words a threat, and I shall +never forget the pathetic, hunted look with which she said: + +"Oh, no, it must not be; he shall not die. Is he not my son, +_uh-yeet-kutsku_ (my dear little son)?" + +If our voyage had yielded me nothing but this wonderful instance of +mother-love, I should have counted myself richly repaid. + +One more human story before I come to Muir's part. It was during the +latter half of the voyage, and after our discovery of Glacier Bay. The +climax of the trip, so far as the missionary interests were concerned, +was our visit to the Chilcat and Chilcoot natives on Lynn Canal, the +most northern tribes of the Alexandrian Archipelago. Here reigned the +proudest and worst old savage of Alaska, Chief Shathitch. His wealth +was very great in Indian treasures, and he was reputed to have cached +away in different places several houses full of blankets, guns, boxes of +beads, ancient carved pipes, spears, knives and other valued heirlooms. +He was said to have stored away over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat +blankets woven by hand from the hair of the mountain goat. His tribe was +rich and unscrupulous. Its members were the middle-men between the +whites and the Indians of the Interior. They did not allow these Indians +to come to the coast, but took over the mountains articles purchased +from the whites--guns, ammunition, blankets, knives and so forth--and +bartered them for furs. It was said that they claimed to be the +manufacturers of these wares and so charged for them what prices they +pleased. They had these Indians of the Interior in a bondage of fear, +and would not allow them to trade directly with the white men. Thus they +carried out literally the story told of Hudson Bay traffic,--piling +beaver skins to the height of a ten-dollar Hudson Bay musket as the +_price_ of the musket. They were the most quarrelsome and warlike of the +tribes of Alaska, and their villages were full of slaves procured by +forays upon the coasts of Vancouver Island, Puget Sound, and as far +south as the mouth of the Columbia River. I was eager to visit these +large and untaught tribes, and establish a mission among them. + +[Illustration: CHILCAT WOMAN WEAVING A BLANKET + +Chief Shathitch was said to have over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat +blankets, woven by hand, from the hair of the mountain goat] + +About the first of November we came in sight of the long, low-built +village of Yin-des-tuk-ki. As we paddled up the winding channel of the +Chilcat River we saw great excitement in the town. We had hoisted the +American flag, as was our custom, and had put on our best apparel for +the occasion. When we got within long musket-shot of the village we saw +the native men come rushing from their houses with their guns in their +hands and mass in front of the largest house upon the beach. Then we +were greeted by what seemed rather too warm a reception--a shower of +bullets falling unpleasantly around us. Instinctively Muir and I ceased +to paddle, but Tow-a-att commanded, "_Ut-ha, ut-ha!_--pull, pull!" and +slowly, amid the dropping bullets, we zigzagged our way up the channel +towards the village. As we drew near the shore a line of runners +extended down the beach to us, keeping within shouting distance of each +other. Then came the questions like bullets--"_Gusu-wa-eh?_--Who are +you? Whence do you come? What is your business here?" And Stickeen John +shouted back the reply: + +"A great preacher-chief and a great ice-chief have come to bring you a +good message." + +The answer was shouted back along the line, and then returned a message +of greeting and welcome. We were to be the guests of the chief of +Yin-des-tuk-ki, old Don-na-wuk (Silver Eye), so called because he was in +the habit of wearing on all state occasions a huge pair of silver-bowed +spectacles which a Russian officer had given him. He confessed he could +not see through them, but thought they lent dignity to his countenance. +We paddled slowly up to the village, and Muir and I, watching with +interest, saw the warriors all disappear. As our prow touched the sand, +however, here they came, forty or fifty of them, without their guns this +time, but charging down upon us with war-cries, "_Hoo-hooh, hoo-hooh_," +as if they were going to take us prisoners. Dashing into the water they +ranged themselves along each side of the canoe; then lifting up our +canoe with us in it they rushed with excited cries up the bank to the +chief's house and set us down at his door. It was the Thlinget way of +paying us honor as great guests. + +Then we were solemnly ushered into the presence of Don-na-wuk. His house +was large, covering about fifty by sixty feet of ground. The interior +was built in the usual fashion of a chief's house--carved corner posts, +a square of gravel in the center of the room for the fire surrounded by +great hewn cedar planks set on edge; a platform of some six feet in +width running clear around the room; then other planks on edge and a +high platform, where the chieftain's household goods were stowed and +where the family took their repose. A brisk fire was burning in the +middle of the room; and after a short palaver, with gifts of tobacco and +rice to the chief, it was announced that he would pay us the +distinguished honor of feasting us first. + +It was a never-to-be-forgotten banquet. We were seated on the lower +platform with our feet towards the fire, and before Muir and me were +placed huge washbowls of blue Hudson Bay ware. Before each of our native +attendants was placed a great carved wooden trough, holding about as +much as the washbowls. We had learned enough Indian etiquette to know +that at each course our respective vessels were to be filled full of +food, and we were expected to carry off what we could not devour. It was +indeed a "feast of fat things." The first course was what, for the +Indian, takes the place of bread among the whites,--dried salmon. It +was served, a whole washbowlful for each of us, with a dressing of +seal-grease. Muir and I adroitly manoeuvred so as to get our salmon +and seal-grease served separately; for our stomachs had not been +sufficiently trained to endure that rancid grease. This course finished, +what was left was dumped into receptacles in our canoe and guarded from +the dogs by young men especially appointed for that purpose. Our +washbowls were cleansed and the second course brought on. This consisted +of the back fat of the deer, great, long hunks of it, served with a +gravy of seal-grease. The third course was little Russian potatoes about +the size of walnuts, dished out to us, a washbowlful, with a dressing of +seal-grease. The final course was the only berry then in season, the +long fleshy apple of the wild rose mellowed with frost, served to us in +the usual quantity with the invariable sauce of seal-grease. + +"Mon, mon!" said Muir aside to me, "I'm fashed we'll be floppin' aboot +i' the sea, whiles, wi' flippers an' forked tails." + +When we had partaken of as much of this feast of fat things as our +civilized stomachs would stand, it was suddenly announced that we were +about to receive a visit from the great chief of the Chilcats and the +Chilcoots, old Chief Shathitch (Hard-to-Kill). In order to properly +receive His Majesty, Muir and I and our two chiefs were each given a +whole bale of Hudson Bay blankets for a couch. Shathitch made us wait a +long time, doubtless to impress us with his dignity as supreme chief. + +The heat of the fire after the wind and cold of the day made us very +drowsy. We fought off sleep, however, and at last in came stalking the +biggest chief of all Alaska, clothed in his robe of state, which was an +elegant chinchilla blanket; and upon its yellow surface, as the chief +slowly turned about to show us what was written thereon, we were +astonished to see printed in black letters these words, "To Chief +Shathitch, from his friend, William H. Seward!" We learned afterwards +that Seward, in his voyage of investigation, had penetrated to this +far-off town, had been received in royal state by the old chief and on +his return to the States had sent back this token of his appreciation of +the chief's hospitality. Whether Seward was regaled with viands similar +to those offered to us, history does not relate. + +To me the inspiring part of that voyage came next day, when I preached +from early morning until midnight, only occasionally relieved by Muir +and by the responsive speeches of the natives. + +"More, more; tell us more," they would cry. "It is a good talk; we never +heard this story before." And when I would inquire, "Of what do you wish +me now to talk?" they would always say, "Tell us more of the Man from +Heaven who died for us." + +Runners had been sent to the Chilcoot village on the eastern arm of Lynn +Canal, and twenty-five miles up the Chilcat River to Shathitch's town of +Klukwan; and as the day wore away the crowd of Indians had increased so +greatly that there was no room for them in the large house. I heard a +scrambling upon the roof, and looking up I saw a row of black heads +around the great smoke-hole in the center of the roof. After a little a +ripping, tearing sound came from the sides of the building. They were +prying off the planks in order that those outside might hear. When my +voice faltered with long talking Tow-a-att and Kadishan took up the +story, telling what they had learned of the white man's religion; or +Muir told the eager natives wonderful things about what the great one +God, whose name is Love, was doing for them. The all-day meeting was +only interrupted for an hour or two in the afternoon, when we walked +with the chiefs across the narrow isthmus between Pyramid Harbor and the +eastern arm of Lynn Canal, and I selected the harbor, farm and townsite +now occupied by Haines mission and town and Fort William H. Seward. This +was the beginning of the large missions of Haines and Klukwan. + + + + + THE DISCOVERY + + + + +MOONLIGHT IN GLACIER BAY + + + To heaven swells a mighty psalm of praise; + Its music-sheets are glaciers, vast and white. + Sky-piercing peaks the voiceless chorus raise, + To fill with ecstasy the wond'ring night. + + Complete, with every part in sweet accord, + Th' adoring breezes waft it up, on wings + Of beauty-incense, giving to the Lord + The purest sacrifice glad Nature brings. + + The list'ning stars with rapture beat and glow; + The moon forgets her high, eternal calm + To shout her gladness to the sea below, + Whose waves are silver tongues to join the psalm. + + Those everlasting snow-fields are not cold; + This icy solitude no barren waste. + The crystal masses burn with love untold; + The glacier-table spreads a royal feast. + + Fairweather! Crillon! Warders at Heaven's gate! + Hoar-headed priests of Nature's inmost shrine! + Strong seraph forms in robes immaculate! + Draw me from earth; enlighten, change, refine; + + Till I, one little note in this great song, + Who seem a blot upon th' unsullied white, + No discord make--a note high, pure and strong-- + Set in the silent music of the night. + + + + +IV + +THE DISCOVERY + + +The nature-study part of the voyage was woven in with the missionary +trip as intimately as warp with woof. No island, rock, forest, mountain +or glacier which we passed, near or far, was neglected. We went so at +our own sweet will, without any set time or schedule, that we were +constantly finding objects and points of surprise and interest. When we +landed, the algae, which sometimes filled the little harbors, the limpets +and lichens of the rocks, the fucus pods that snapped beneath our feet, +the grasses of the beach, the moss and shrubbery among the trees, and, +more than all, the majestic forests, claimed attention and study. Muir +was one of the most expert foresters this country has ever produced. He +was never at a loss. The luxuriant vegetation of this wet coast filled +him with admiration, and he never took a walk from camp but he had a +whole volume of things to tell me, and he was constantly bringing in +trophies of which he was prouder than any hunter of his antlers. Now it +was a bunch of ferns as high as his head; now a cluster of minute and +wonderfully beautiful moss blossoms; now a curious fungous growth; now a +spruce branch heavy with cones; and again he would call me into the +forest to see a strange and grotesque moss formation on a dead stump, +looking like a tree standing upon its head. Thus, although his objective +was the glaciers, his thorough knowledge of botany and his interest in +that study made every camp just the place he wished to be. He always +claimed that there was more of pure ethics and even of moral evil and +good to be learned in the wilderness than from any book or in any abode +of man. He was fond of quoting Wordsworth's stanza: + + "One impulse from a vernal wood + Will teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good, + Than all the sages can." + +Muir was a devout theist. The Fatherhood of God and the Unity of God, +the immanence of God in nature and His management of all the affairs of +the universe, was his constantly reiterated belief. He saw design in +many things which the ordinary naturalist overlooks, such as the +symmetry of an island, the balancing branches of a tree, the harmony of +colors in a group of flowers, the completion of a fully rounded +landscape. In his view, the Creator of it all saw every beautiful and +sublime thing from every viewpoint, and had thus formed it, not merely +for His own delight, but for the delectation and instruction of His +human children. + +"Look at that, now," he would say, when, on turning a point, a wonderful +vista of island-studded sea between mountains, with one of Alaska's +matchless sunsets at the end, would wheel into sight. "Why, it looks as +if these giants of God's great army had just now marched into their +stations; every one placed just right, just right! What landscape +gardening! What a scheme of things! And to think that He should plan to +bring us feckless creatures here at the right moment, and then flash +such glories at us! Man, we're not worthy of such honor!" + +Thus Muir was always discovering to me things which I would never have +seen myself and opening up to me new avenues of knowledge, delight and +adoration. There was something so intimate in his theism that it +purified, elevated and broadened mine, even when I could not agree with +him. His constant exclamation when a fine landscape would burst upon our +view, or a shaft of light would pierce the clouds and glorify a +mountain, was, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" + +Two or three great adventures stand out prominently in this wonderful +voyage of discovery. Two weeks from home brought us to Icy Straits and +the homes of the Hoonah tribe. Here the knowledge of the way on the part +of our crew ended. We put into the large Hoonah village on Chichagof +Island. After the usual preaching and census-taking, we took aboard a +sub-chief of the Hoonahs, who was a noted seal hunter and, therefore, +able to guide us among the ice-floes of the mysterious Glacier Bay of +which we had heard. Vancouver's chart gave us no intimation of any inlet +whatever; but the natives told of vast masses of floating ice, of a +constant noise of thunder when they crashed from the glaciers into the +sea; and also of fearsome bays and passages full of evil spirits which +made them very perilous to navigate. + +In one bay there was said to be a giant devil-fish with arms as long as +a tree, lurking in malignant patience, awaiting the passage that way of +an unwary canoe, when up would flash those terrible arms with their +thousand suckers and, seizing their prey, would drag down the men to the +bottom of the sea, there to be mangled and devoured by the horrid beak. +Another deep fiord was the abode of _Koosta-kah_, the Otter-man, the +mischievous Puck of Indian lore, who was waiting for voyagers to land +and camp, when he would seize their sleeping forms and transport them a +dozen miles in a moment, or cradle them on the tops of the highest +trees. Again there was a most rapacious and ferocious killer-whale in a +piece of swift water, whose delight it was to take into his great, +tooth-rimmed jaws whole canoes with their crews of men, mangling them +and gulping them down as a single mouthful. Many were these stories of +fear told us at the Hoonah village the night before we started to +explore the icy bay, and our credulous Stickeens gave us rather broad +hints that it was time to turn back. + +"There are no natives up in that region; there is nothing to hunt; +there is no gold there; why do you persist in this _cultus coly_ +(aimless journey)? You are likely to meet death and nothing else if you +go into that dangerous region." + +All these stories made us the more eager to explore the wonders beyond, +and we hastened away from Hoonah with our guide aboard. A day's sail +brought us to a little, heavily wooded island near the mouth of Glacier +Bay. This we named Pleasant Island. + +As we broke camp in the morning our guide said: "We must take on board a +supply of dry wood here, as there is none beyond." + +Leaving this last green island we steered northwest into the great bay, +the country of ice and bare rocks. Muir's excitement was increasing +every moment, and as the majestic arena opened before us and the Muir, +Geicke, Pacific and other great glaciers (all nameless as yet) began to +appear, he could hardly contain himself. He was impatient of any delay, +and was constantly calling to the crew to redouble their efforts and get +close to these wonders. Now the marks of recent glaciation showed +plainly. Here was a conical island of gray granite, whose rounded top +and symmetrical shoulders were worn smooth as a Scotch monument by +grinding glaciers. Here was a great mountain slashed sheer across its +face, showing sharp edge and flat surface as if a slab of mountain size +had been sawed from it. Yonder again loomed a granite range whose huge +breasts were rounded and polished by the resistless sweep of that great +ice mass which Vancouver saw filling the bay. + +Soon the icebergs were charging down upon us with the receding tide and +dressing up in compact phalanx when the tide arose. First would come +the advance guard of smaller bergs, with here and there a house-like +mass of cobalt blue with streaks of white and deeper recesses of +ultra-marine; here we passed an eight-sided, solid figure of +bottle-green ice; there towered an antlered formation like the horns of +a stag. Now we must use all caution and give the larger icebergs a wide +berth. They are treacherous creatures, these icebergs. You may be +paddling along by a peaceful looking berg, sleeping on the water as mild +and harmless as a lamb; when suddenly he will take a notion to turn +over, and up under your canoe will come a spear of ice, impaling it and +lifting it and its occupants skyward; then, turning over, down will go +canoe and men to the depths. + +Our progress up the sixty miles of Glacier Bay was very slow. Three +nights we camped on the bare granite rock before we reached the limit of +the bay. All vegetation had disappeared; hardly a bunch of grass was +seen. The only signs of former life were the sodden and splintered +spruce and fir stumps that projected here and there from the bases of +huge gravel heaps, the moraine matter of the mighty ice mass that had +engulfed them. They told the story of great forests which had once +covered this whole region, until the great sea of ice of the second +glacial period overwhelmed and ground them down, and buried them deep +under its moraine matter. When we landed there were no level spots on +which to pitch our tent and no sandy beaches or gravel beds in which to +sink our tent-poles. I learned from Muir the gentle art of sleeping on a +rock, curled like a squirrel around a boulder. + +We passed by Muir Glacier on the other side of the bay, seeking to +attain the extreme end of the great fiord. We estimated the distance by +the tide and our rate of rowing, tracing the shore-line and islands as +we went along and getting the points of the compass from our little +pocket instrument. + +Rain was falling almost constantly during the week we spent in Glacier +Bay. Now and then the clouds would lift, showing the twin peaks of La +Perouse and the majestic summits of Mts. Fairweather and Crillon. These +mighty summits, twelve thousand, fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand +feet high, respectively, pierced the sky directly above us; sometimes +they seemed to be hanging over us threateningly. Only once did the sky +completely clear; and then was preached to us the wonderful Sermon of +Glacier Bay. + +Early that morning we quitted our camp on a barren rock, steering +towards Mt. Fairweather. A night of sleepless discomfort had ushered in +a bleak gray morning. Our Indians were sullen and silent, their scowling +looks resenting our relentless purpose to attain to the head of the bay. +The air was damp and raw, chilling us to the marrow. The forbidding +granite mountains, showing here and there through the fog, seemed +suddenly to push out threatening fists and shoulders at us. All night +long the ice-guns had bombarded us from four or five directions, when +the great masses of ice from living glaciers toppled into the sea, +crashing and grinding with the noise of thunder. The granite walls +hurled back the sound in reiterated peals, multiplying its volume a +hundredfold. + +There was no Love apparent on that bleak, gray morning: Power was there +in appalling force. Visions of those evergreen forests that had once +clung trustingly to these mountain walls, but had been swept, one and +all, by the relentless forces of the ice and buried deep under mountains +of moraine matter, but added to the present desolation. We could not +enjoy; we could only endure. Death from overturning icebergs, from +charging tides, from mountain avalanche, threatened us. + +Suddenly I heard Muir catch his breath with a fervent ejaculation. "God, +Almighty!" he said. Following his gaze towards Mt. Crillon, I saw the +summit highest of all crowned with glory indeed. It was not sunlight; +there was no appearance of shining; it was as if the Great Artist with +one sweep of His brush had laid upon the king-peak of all a crown of the +most brilliant of all colors--as if a pigment, perfectly made and +thickly spread, too delicate for crimson, too intense for pink, had +leaped in a moment upon the mountain top; "An awful rose of dawn." The +summit nearest Heaven had caught a glimpse of its glory! It was a rose +blooming in ice-fields, a love-song in the midst of a stern epic, a drop +from the heart of Christ upon the icy desolation and barren affections +of a sin-frozen world. It warmed and thrilled us in an instant. We who +had been dull and apathetic a moment before, shivering in our wet +blankets, were glowing and exultant now. Even the Indians ceased their +paddling, gazing with faces of awe upon the wonder. Now, as we watched +that kingly peak, we saw the color leap to one and another and another +of the snowy summits around it. The monarch had a whole family of royal +princes about him to share his glory. Their radiant heads, ruby crowned, +were above the clouds, which seemed to form their silken garments. + +As we looked in ecstatic silence we saw the light creep down the +mountains. It was changing now. The glowing crimson was suffused with +soft, creamy light. If it was less divine, it was more warmly human. +Heaven was coming down to man. The dark recesses of the mountains began +to lighten. They stood forth as at the word of command from the Master +of all; and as the changing mellow light moved downward that wonderful +colosseum appeared clearly with its battlements and peaks and columns, +until the whole majestic landscape was revealed. + +Now we saw the design and purpose of it all. Now the text of this great +sermon was emblazoned across the landscape--"_God is Love_"; and we +understood that these relentless forces that had pushed the molten +mountains heavenward, cooled them into granite peaks, covered them with +snow and ice, dumped the moraine matter into the sea, filling up the +sea, preparing the world for a stronger and better race of men (who +knows?), were all a part of that great "All things" that "work together +for good." + +Our minds cleared with the landscape; our courage rose; our Indians +dipped their paddles silently, steering without fear amidst the +dangerous masses of ice. But there was no profanity in Muir's +exclamation, "We have met with God!" A lifelong devoutness of gratitude +filled us, to think that we were guided into this most wonderful room of +God's great gallery, on perhaps the only day in the year when the skies +were cleared and the sunrise, the atmospheric conditions and the point +of view all prepared for the matchless spectacle. The discomforts of the +voyage, the toil, the cold and rain of the past weeks were a small price +to pay for one glimpse of its surpassing loveliness. Again and again +Muir would break out, after a long silence of blissful memory, with +exclamations: + +"We saw it; we saw it! He sent us to His most glorious exhibition. +Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!" + +Two or three inspiring days followed. Muir must climb the most +accessible of the mountains. My weak shoulders forbade me to ascend more +than two or three thousand feet, but Muir went more than twice as high. +Upon two or three of the glaciers he climbed, although the speed of +these icy streams was so great and their "frozen cataracts" were so +frequent, that it was difficult to ascend them. + +I began to understand Muir's whole new theory, which theory made Tyndall +pronounce him the greatest authority on glacial action the world had +seen. He pointed out to me the mechanical laws that governed those +slow-moving, resistless streams; how they carved their own valleys; how +the lower valley and glacier were often the resultant in size and +velocity of the two or three glaciers that now formed the branches of +the main glaciers; how the harder strata of rock resisted and turned the +masses of ice; how the steely ploughshares were often inserted into +softer leads and a whole mountain split apart as by a wedge. + +Muir would explore all day long, often rising hours before daylight and +disappearing among the mountains, not coming to camp until after night +had fallen. Again and again the Indians said that he was lost; but I had +no fears for him. When he would return to camp he was so full of his +discoveries and of the new facts garnered that he would talk until long +into the night, almost forgetting to eat. + +Returning down the bay, we passed the largest glacier of all, which was +to bear Muir's name. It was then fully a mile and a half in width, and +the perpendicular face of it towered from four to seven hundred feet +above the surface of the water. The ice masses were breaking off so fast +that we were forced to put off far from the face of the glacier. The +great waves threatened constantly to dash us against the sharp points of +the icebergs. We wished to land and scale the glacier from the eastern +side. We rowed our canoe about half a mile from the edge of the glacier, +but, attempting to land, were forced hastily to put off again. A great +wave, formed by the masses of ice breaking off into the water, +threatened to dash our loaded canoe against the boulders on the beach. +Rowing further away, we tried it again and again, with the same result. +As soon as we neared the shore another huge wave would threaten +destruction. We were fully a mile and a half from the edge of the +glacier before we found it safe to land. + +[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER + +Returning down Glacier Bay, we visited the largest glacier of all, which +was to bear Muir's name] + +Muir spent a whole day alone on the glacier, walking over twenty miles +across what he called the glacial lake between two mountains. A cold, +penetrating, mist-like rain was falling, and dark clouds swept up the +bay and clung about the shoulders of the mountains. When night +approached and Muir had not returned, I set the Indians to digging out +from the bases of the gravel hills the frazzled stumps and logs that +remained of the buried forests. These were full of resin and burned +brightly. I made a great fire and cooked a good supper of venison, +beans, biscuit and coffee. When pitchy darkness gathered, and still Muir +did not come, Tow-a-att made some torches of fat spruce, and taking with +him Charley, laden with more wood, he went up the beach a mile and a +half, climbed the base of the mountain and kindled a beacon which +flashed its cheering rays far over the glacier. + +Muir came stumbling into camp with these two Indians a little before +midnight, very tired but very happy. "Ah!" he sighed, "I'm glad to be in +camp. The glacier almost got me this time. If it had not been for the +beacon and old Tow-a-att, I might have had to spend the night on the +ice. The crevasses were so many and so bewildering in their mazy, +crisscross windings that I was actually going farther into the glacier +when I caught the flash of light." + +I brought him to the tent and placed the hot viands before him. He +attacked them ravenously, but presently was talking again: + +"Man, man; you ought to have been with me. You'll never make up what you +have lost to-day. I've been wandering through a thousand rooms of God's +crystal temple. I've been a thousand feet down in the crevasses, with +matchless domes and sculptured figures and carved ice-work all about me. +Solomon's marble and ivory palaces were nothing to it. Such purity, such +color, such delicate beauty! I was tempted to stay there and feast my +soul, and softly freeze, until I would become part of the glacier. What +a great death that would be!" + +Again and again I would have to remind Muir that he was eating his +supper, but it was more than an hour before I could get him to finish +the meal, and two or three hours longer before he stopped talking and +went to sleep. I wish I had taken down his descriptions. What splendid +reading they would make! + +But scurries of snow warned us that winter was coming, and, much to the +relief of our natives, we turned the prow of our canoe towards Chatham +Strait again. Landing our Hoonah guide at his village, we took our route +northward again up Lynn Canal. The beautiful Davison Glacier with its +great snowy fan drew our gaze and excited our admiration for two days; +then the visit to the Chilcats and the return trip commenced. Bowling +down the canal before a strong north wind, we entered Stevens Passage, +and visited the two villages of the Auk Indians, a squalid, miserable +tribe. We camped at the site of what is now Juneau, the capital of +Alaska, and no dream of the millions of gold that were to be taken from +those mountains disturbed us. If we had known, I do not think that we +would have halted a day or staked a claim. Our treasures were richer +than gold and securely laid up in the vaults of our memories. + +An excursion into Taku Bay, that miniature of Glacier Bay, with its then +three living glaciers; a visit to two villages of the Taku Indians; past +Ft. Snettisham, up whose arms we pushed, mapping them; then to Sumdum. +Here the two arms of Holkham Bay, filled with ice, enticed us to +exploration, but the constant rains of the fall had made the ice of the +glaciers more viscid and the glacier streams more rapid; hence the vast +array of icebergs charging down upon us like an army, spreading out in +loose formation and then gathering into a barrier when the tide turned, +made exploration to the end of the bay impossible. Muir would not give +up his quest of the mother glacier until the Indians frankly refused to +go any further; and old Tow-a-att called our interpreter, Johnny, as for +a counsel of state, and carefully set forth to Muir that if he persisted +in his purpose of pushing forward up the bay he would have the blood of +the whole party on his hands. + +Said the old chief: "My life is of no account, and it does not matter +whether I live or die; but you shall not sacrifice the life of my +minister." + +I laughed at Muir's discomfiture and gave the word to retreat. This one +defeat of a victorious expedition so weighed upon Muir's mind that it +brought him back from the California coast next year and from the arms +of his bride to discover and climb upon that glacier. + +On down now through Prince Frederick Sound, past the beautiful Norris +Glacier, then into Le Conte Bay with its living glacier and icebergs, +across the Stickeen flats, and so joyfully home again, Muir to take the +November steamboat back to his sunland. + +I have made many voyages in that great Alexandrian Archipelago since, +traveling by canoe over fifteen thousand miles--not one of them a dull +one--through its intricate passages; but none compared, in the number +and intensity of its thrills, in the variety and excitement of its +incidents and in its lasting impressions of beauty and grandeur, with +this first voyage when we groped our way northward with only Vancouver's +old chart as our guide. + + + + + THE LOST GLACIER + + + + +NIGHT IN A CANOE + + + A dreary world! The constant rain + Beats back to earth blithe fancy's wings; + And life--a sodden garment--clings + About a body numb with pain. + + Imagination ceased with light; + Of Nature's psalm no echo lingers. + The death-cold mist, with ghostly fingers, + Shrouds world and soul in rayless night. + + An inky sea, a sullen crew, + A frail canoe's uncertain motion; + A whispered talk of wind and ocean, + As plotting secret crimes to do! + + The vampire-night sucks all my blood; + Warm home and love seem lost for aye; + From cloud to cloud I steal away, + Like guilty soul o'er Stygian flood. + + Peace, morbid heart! From paddle blade + See the black water flash in light; + And bars of moonbeams streaming white, + Have pearls of ebon raindrops made. + + From darkest sea of deep despair + Gleams Hope, awaked by Action's blow; + And Faith's clear ray, though clouds hang low, + Slants up to heights serene and fair. + + + + +V + +THE LOST GLACIER + + +John Muir was married in the spring of 1880 to Miss Strentzel, the +daughter of a Polish physician who had come out in the great stampede of +1849 to California, but had found his gold in oranges, lemons and +apricots on a great fruit ranch at Martinez, California. A brief letter +from Muir told of his marriage, with just one note in it, the depth of +joy and peace of which I could fathom, knowing him so well. Then no word +of him until the monthly mailboat came in September. As I stood on the +wharf with the rest of the Wrangell population, as was the custom of our +isolation, watching the boat come in, I was overjoyed to see John Muir +on deck, in that same old, long, gray ulster and Scotch cap. He waved +and shouted at me before the boat touched the wharf. + +Springing ashore he said, "When can you be ready?" + +"Aren't you a little fast?" I replied. "What does this mean? Where's +your wife?" + +"Man," he exclaimed, "have you forgotten? Don't you know we lost a +glacier last fall? Do you think I could sleep soundly in my bed this +winter with that hanging on my conscience? My wife could not come, so I +have come alone and you've got to go with me to find the lost. Get your +canoe and crew and let us be off." + +The ten months since Muir had left me had not been spent in idleness at +Wrangell. I had made two long voyages of discovery and missionary work +on my own account,--one in the spring, of four hundred fifty miles +around Prince of Wales Island, visiting the five towns of Hydah Indians +and the three villages of the Hanega tribe of Thlingets. Another in the +summer down the coast to the Cape Fox and Tongass tribes of Thlingets, +and across Dixon entrance to Ft. Simpson, where there was a mission +among the Tsimpheans, and on fifteen miles further to the famous mission +of Father Duncan at Metlakahtla. I had written accounts of these trips +to Muir; but for him the greatest interest was in the glaciers and +mountains of the mainland. + +Our preparations were soon made. Alas! we could not have our noble old +captain, Tow-a-att, this time. On the tenth of January, 1880,--the +darkest day of my life,--this "noblest Roman of them all" fell dead at +my feet with a bullet through his forehead, shot by a member of that +same Hootz-noo tribe where he had preached the gospel of peace so simply +and eloquently a few months before. The Hootz-noos, maddened by the +fiery liquor that bore their name, came to Wrangell, and a preliminary +skirmish led to an attack at daylight of that winter day upon the +Stickeen village. Old Tow-a-att had stood for peace, and rather than +have any bloodshed had offered all his blankets as a peace offering, +although in no physical fear himself; but when the Hootz-noos, +encouraged by the seeming cowardice of the Stickeens, broke into their +houses, and the Christianized tribe, provoked beyond endurance, came out +with their guns, Tow-a-att came forth armed only with his old carved +spear, the emblem of his position as chief, to see if he could not call +his tribe back again. At my instance, as I stood with my hand on his +shoulder, he lifted up his voice to recall his people to their houses, +when, in an instant, the volley commenced on both sides, and this +Christian man, one of the simplest and grandest souls I ever knew, fell +dead at my feet, and the tribe was tumbled back into barbarism; and the +white man, who had taught the Indians the art of making rum, and the +white man's government, which had afforded no safeguard against such +scenes, were responsible. + +[Illustration: DAVIDSON GLACIER + +The beautiful Davidson Glacier, with its great snow-white fan, drew our +gaze and excited our admiration for two days] + +Muir mourned with me the fate of this old chief; but another of my men, +Lot Tyeen, was ready with a swift canoe. Joe, his son-in-law, and Billy +Dickinson, a half-breed boy of seventeen who acted as interpreter, +formed the crew. When we were about to embark I suddenly thought of my +little dog Stickeen and made the resolve to take him along. My wife and +Muir both protested and I almost yielded to their persuasion. I shudder +now to think what the world would have lost had their arguments +prevailed! That little, long-haired, brisk, beautiful, but very +independent dog, in co-ordination with Muir's genius, was to give to the +world one of its greatest dog-classics. Muir's story of "Stickeen" ranks +with "Rab and His Friends," "Bob, Son of Battle," and far above "The +Call of the Wild." Indeed, in subtle analysis of dog character, as well +as beauty of description, I think it outranks all of them. All over the +world men, women and children are reading with laughter, thrills and +tears this exquisite little story. + +I have told Muir that in his book he did not do justice to my puppy's +beauty. I think that he was the handsomest dog I have ever known. His +markings were very much like those of an American Shepherd dog--black, +white and tan; although he was not half the size of one; but his hair +was so silky and so long, his tail so heavily fringed and beautifully +curved, his eyes so deep and expressive and his shape so perfect in its +graceful contours, that I have never seen another dog quite like him; +otherwise Muir's description of him is perfect. + +When Stickeen was only a round ball of silky fur as big as one's fist, +he was given as a wedding present to my bride, two years before this +voyage. I carried him in my overcoat pocket to and from the steamer as +we sailed from Sitka to Wrangell. Soon after we arrived a solemn +delegation of Stickeen Indians came to call on the bride; but as soon as +they saw the puppy they were solemn no longer. His gravely humorous +antics were irresistible. It was Moses who named him Stickeen after +their tribe--an exceptional honor. Thereafter the whole tribe adopted +and protected him, and woe to the Indian dog which molested him. Once +when I was passing the house of this same Lot Tyeen, one of his large +hunting dogs dashed out at Stickeen and began to worry him. Lot rescued +the little fellow, delivered him to me and walked into his house. Soon +he came out with his gun, and before I knew what he was about he had +shot the offending Indian dog--a valuable hunting animal. + +Stickeen lacked the obtrusively affectionate manner of many of his +species, did not like to be fussed over, would even growl when our +babies enmeshed their hands in his long hair; and yet, to a degree I +have never known in another dog, he attracted the attention of +everybody and won all hearts. + +As instances: Dr. Kendall, "The Grand Old Man" of our Church, during his +visit of 1879 used to break away from solemn counsels with the other +D.D.s and the carpenters to run after and shout at Stickeen. And Mrs. +McFarland, the Mother of Protestant missions in Alaska, often begged us +to give her the dog; and, when later he was stolen from her care by an +unscrupulous tourist and so forever lost to us, she could hardly +afterwards speak of him without tears. + +Stickeen was a born aristocrat, dainty and scrupulously clean. From +puppyhood he never cared to play with the Indian dogs, and I was often +amused to see the dignified but decided way in which he repulsed all +attempts at familiarity on the part of the Indian children. He admitted +to his friendship only a few of the natives, choosing those who had +adopted the white man's dress and mode of living, and were devoid of the +rank native odors. His likes and dislikes were very strong and always +evident from the moment of his meeting with a stranger. There was +something almost uncanny about the accuracy of his judgment when "sizing +up" a man. + +It was Stickeen himself who really decided the question whether we +should take him with us on this trip. He listened to the discussion, pro +and con, as he stood with me on the wharf, turning his sharp, expressive +eyes and sensitive ears up to me or down to Muir in the canoe. When the +argument seemed to be going against the dog he suddenly turned, +deliberately walked down the gang-plank to the canoe, picked his steps +carefully to the bow, where my seat with Muir was arranged, and curled +himself down on my coat. The discussion ended abruptly in a general +laugh, and Stickeen went along. + +Then the acute little fellow set about, in the wisest possible way, to +conquer Muir. He was not obtrusive, never "butted in"; never offended by +a too affectionate tongue. He listened silently to discussions on his +merits, those first days; but when Muir's comparisons of the brilliant +dogs of his acquaintance with Stickeen grew too "odious" Stickeen would +rise, yawn openly and retire to a distance, not slinkingly, but with +tail up, and lie down again out of earshot of such calumnies. When we +landed after a day's journey Stickeen was always the first ashore, +exploring for field mice and squirrels; but when we would start to the +woods, the mountains or the glaciers the dog would join us, coming +mysteriously from the forest. When our paths separated, Stickeen, +looking to me for permission, would follow Muir, trotting at first +behind him, but gradually ranging alongside. + +After a few days Muir changed his tone, saying, "There's more in that +wee beastie than I thought"; and before a week passed Stickeen's victory +was complete; he slept at Muir's feet, went with him on all his rambles; +and even among dangerous crevasses or far up the steep slopes of granite +mountains the little dog's splendid tail would be seen ahead of Muir, +waving cheery signals to his new-found human companion. + +Our canoe was light and easily propelled. Our outfit was very simple, +for this was to be a quick voyage and there were not to be so many +missionary visits this time. It was principally a voyage of discovery; +we were in search of the glacier that we had lost. Perched in the high +stern sat our captain, Lot Tyeen, massive and capable, handling his +broad steering paddle with power and skill. In front of him Joe and +Billy pulled oars, Joe, a strong young man, our cook, hunter and best +oarsman; Billy, a lad of seventeen, our interpreter and Joe's assistant. +Towards the bow, just behind the mast, sat Muir and I, each with a +paddle in his hands. Stickeen slumbered at our feet or gazed into our +faces when our conversation interested him. When we began to discuss a +landing place he would climb the high bow and brace himself on the top +of the beak, an animated figure-head, ready to jump into the water when +we were about to camp. + +Our route was different from that of '79. Now we struck through Wrangell +Narrows, that tortuous and narrow passage between Mitkof and Kupreanof +Islands, past Norris Glacier with its far-flung shaft of ice appearing +above the forests as if suspended in air; past the bold Pt. Windham with +its bluff of three thousand feet frowning upon the waters of Prince +Frederick Sound; across Port Houghton, whose deep fiord had no ice in it +and, therefore, was not worthy of an extended visit. We made all haste, +for Muir was, as the Indians said, "always hungry for ice," and this was +more especially his expedition. He was the commander now, as I had been +the year before. He had set for himself the limit of a month and must +return by the October boat. Often we ran until late at night against the +protests of our Indians, whose life of infinite leisure was not +accustomed to such rude interruption. They could not understand Muir at +all, nor in the least comprehend his object in visiting icy bays where +there was no chance of finding gold and nothing to hunt. + +The vision rises before me, as my mind harks back to this second trip of +seven hundred miles, of cold, rainy nights, when, urged by Muir to make +one more point, the natives passed the last favorable camping place and +we blindly groped for hours in pitchy darkness, trying to find a +friendly beach. The intensely phosphorescent water flashed about us, the +only relief to the inky blackness of the night. Occasionally a salmon or +a big halibut, disturbed by our canoe, went streaming like a meteor +through the water, throwing off coruscations of light. As we neared the +shore, the waves breaking upon the rocks furnished us the only +illumination. Sometimes their black tops with waving seaweed, surrounded +by phosphorescent breakers, would have the appearance of mouths set +with gleaming teeth rushing at us out of the dark as if to devour us. +Then would come the landing on a sandy beach, the march through the +seaweed up to the wet woods, a fusillade of exploding fucus pods +accompanying us as if the outraged fairies were bombarding us with tiny +guns. Then would ensue a tedious groping with the lantern for a camping +place and for some dry, fat spruce wood from which to coax a fire; then +the big camp-fire, the bean-pot and coffee-pot, the cheerful song and +story, and the deep, dreamless sleep that only the weary voyageur or +hunter can know. + +Four or five days sufficed to bring us to our first objective--Sumdum or +Holkham Bay, with its three wonderful arms. Here we were to find the +lost glacier. This deep fiord has two great prongs. Neither of them +figured in Vancouver's chart, and so far as records go we were the first +to enter and follow to its end the longest of these, Endicott Arm. We +entered the bay at night, caught again by the darkness, and groped our +way uncertainly. We probably would have spent most of the night trying +to find a landing place had not the gleam of a fire greeted us, flashing +through the trees, disappearing as an island intervened, and again +opening up with its fair ray as we pushed on. An hour's steady paddling +brought us to the camp of some Cassiar miners--my friends. They were +here at the foot of a glacier stream, from the bed of which they had +been sluicing gold. Just now they were in hard luck, as the constant +rains had swelled the glacial stream, burst through their wing-dams, +swept away their sluice-boxes and destroyed the work of the summer. +Strong men of the wilderness as they were, they were not discouraged, +but were discussing plans for prospecting new places and trying it again +here next summer. Hot coffee and fried venison emphasized their welcome, +and we in return could give them a little news from the outside world, +from which they had been shut off completely for months. + +Muir called us before daylight the next morning. He had been up since +two or three o'clock, "studying the night effects," he said, listening +to the roaring and crunching of the charging ice as it came out of +Endicott Arm, spreading out like the skirmish line of an army and +grinding against the rocky point just below us. He had even attempted a +moonlight climb up the sloping face of a high promontory with Stickeen +as his companion, but was unable to get to the top, owing to the +smoothness of the granite rock. It was newly glaciated--this whole +region--and the hard rubbing ice-tools had polished the granite like a +monument. A hasty meal and we were off. + +"We'll find it this time," said Muir. + +A miner crawled out of his blankets and came to see us start. "If it's +scenery you're after," he said, "ten miles up the bay there's the nicest +canyon you ever saw. It has no name that I know of, but it is sure some +scenery." + +The long, straight fiord stretched southeast into the heart of the +granite range, its funnel shape producing tremendous tides. When the +tide was ebbing that charging phalanx of ice was irresistible, storming +down the canyon with race-horse speed; no canoe could stem that current. +We waited until the turn, then getting inside the outer fleet of +icebergs we paddled up with the flood tide. Mile after mile we raced +past those smooth mountain shoulders; higher and higher they towered, +and the ice, closing in upon us, threatened a trap. The only way to +navigate safely that dangerous fiord was to keep ahead of the charging +ice. As we came up towards the end of the bay the narrowing walls of the +fiord compressed the ice until it crowded dangerously around us. Our +captain, Lot, had taken the precaution to put a false bow and stern on +his canoe, cunningly fashioned out of curved branches of trees and +hollowed with his hand-adz to fit the ends of the canoe. These were +lashed to the bow and stern by thongs of deer sinew. They were needed. +It was like penetrating an arctic ice-floe. Sometimes we would have to +skirt the granite rock and with our poles shove out the ice-cakes to +secure a passage. It was fully thirty miles to the head of the bay, but +we made it in half a day, so strong was the current of the rising tide. + +I shall never forget the view that burst upon us as we rounded the last +point. The face of the glacier where it discharged its icebergs was very +narrow in comparison with the giants of Glacier Bay, but the ice cliff +was higher than even the face of Muir Glacier. The narrow canyon of hard +granite had compressed the ice of the great glacier until it had the +appearance of a frozen torrent broken into innumerable crevasses, the +great masses of ice tumbling over one another and bulging out for a few +moments before they came crashing and splashing down into the deep water +of the bay. The fiord was simply a cleft in high mountains, and the +depth of the water could only be conjectured. It must have been hundreds +of feet, perhaps thousands, from the surface of the water to the bottom +of that fissure. Smooth, polished, shining breasts of bright gray +granite crowded above the glacier on every side, seeming to overhang the +ice and the bay. Struggling clumps of evergreens clung to the mountain +sides below the glacier, and up, away up, dizzily to the sky towered the +walls of the canyon. Hundreds of other Alaskan glaciers excel this in +masses of ice and in grandeur of front, but none that I have seen +condense beauty and grandeur to finer results. + +"What a plucky little giant!" was Muir's exclamation as we stood on a +rock-mound in front of this glacier. "To think of his shouldering his +way through the mountain range like this! Samson, pushing down the +pillars of the temple at Gaza, was nothing to this fellow. Hear him roar +and laugh!" + +Without consulting me Muir named this "Young Glacier," and right proud +was I to see that name on the charts for the next ten years or more, for +we mapped Endicott Arm and the other arm of Sumdum Bay as we had Glacier +Bay; but later maps have a different name. Some ambitious young ensign +on a surveying vessel, perhaps, stole my glacier, and later charts give +it the name of Dawes. I have not found in the Alaskan statute books any +penalty attached to the crime of stealing a glacier, but certainly it +ought to be ranked as a felony of the first magnitude, the grandest of +grand larcenies. + +A couple of days and nights spent in the vicinity of Young Glacier were +a period of unmixed pleasure. Muir spent all of these days and part of +the nights climbing the pinnacled mountains to this and that viewpoint, +crossing the deep, narrow and dangerous glacier five thousand feet above +the level of the sea, exploring its tributaries and their side canyons, +making sketches in his note-book for future elaboration. Stickeen by +this time constantly followed Muir, exciting my jealousy by his plainly +expressed preference. Because of my bad shoulder the higher and steeper +ascents of this very rugged region were impossible to me, and I must +content myself with two thousand feet and even lesser climbs. My +favorite perch was on the summit of a sugar-loaf rock which formed the +point of a promontory jutting into the bay directly in front of my +glacier, and distant from its face less than a quarter of a mile. It was +a granite fragment which had evidently been broken off from the +mountain; indeed, there was a niche five thousand feet above into which +it would exactly fit. The sturdy evergreens struggled half-way up its +sides, but the top was bare. + +On this splendid pillar I spent many hours. Generally I could see Muir, +fortunate in having sound arms and legs, scaling the high rock-faces, +now coming out on a jutting spur, now spread like a spider against the +mountain wall. Here he would be botanizing in a patch of green that +relieved the gray of the granite, there he was dodging in and out of the +blue crevasses of the upper glacial falls. Darting before him or +creeping behind was a little black speck which I made out to be +Stickeen, climbing steeps up which a fox would hardly venture. +Occasionally I would see him dancing about at the base of a cliff too +steep for him, up which Muir was climbing, and his piercing howls of +protest at being left behind would come echoing down to me. + +But chiefly I was engrossed in the great drama which was being acted +before me by the glacier itself. It was the battle of gravity with +flinty hardness and strong cohesion. The stage setting was perfect; the +great hall formed by encircling mountains; the side curtains of +dark-green forest, fold on fold; the gray and brown top-curtains of the +mountain heights stretching clear across the glacier, relieved by vivid +moss and flower patches of yellow, magenta, violet and crimson. But the +face of the glacier was so high and rugged and the ice so pure that it +showed a variety of blue and purple tints I have never seen +surpassed--baby-blue, sky-blue, sapphire, turquoise, cobalt, indigo, +peacock, ultra-marine, shading at the top into lilac and amethyst. The +base of the glacier-face, next to the dark-green water of the bay, +resembled a great mass of vitriol, while the top, where it swept out of +the canyon, had the curves and tints and delicate lines of the iris. + +[Illustration: TAKU GLACIER + +There followed an excursion into Taku Bay, that miniature of Glacier +Bay, with its three living glaciers] + +But the glacier front was not still; in form and color it was changing +every minute. The descent was so steep that the glacial rapids above the +bay must have flowed forward eighty or a hundred feet a day. The ice +cliff, towering a thousand feet over the water, would present a slight +incline from the perpendicular inwards toward the canyon, the face being +white from powdered ice, the result of the grinding descent of the ice +masses. Here and there would be little cascades of this fine ice +spraying out as they fell, with glints of prismatic colors when the +sunlight struck them. As I gazed I could see the whole upper part of the +cliff slowly moving forward until the ice-face was vertical. Then, foot +by foot it would be pushed out until the upper edge overhung the water. +Now the outer part, denuded of the ice powder, would present a face of +delicate blue with darker shades where the mountain peaks cast their +shadows. Suddenly from top to bottom of the ice cliff two deep lines of +prussian blue appeared. They were crevasses made by the ice current +flowing more rapidly in the center of the stream. Fascinated, I watched +this great pyramid of blue-veined onyx lean forward until it became a +tower of Pisa, with fragments falling thick and fast from its upper apex +and from the cliffs out of which it had been split. Breathless and +anxious, I awaited the final catastrophe, and its long delay became +almost a greater strain than I could bear. I jumped up and down and +waved my arms and shouted at the glacier to "hurry up." + +Suddenly the climax came in a surprising way. The great tower of crystal +shot up into the air two hundred feet or more, impelled by the pressure +of a hundred fathoms of water, and then, toppling over, came crashing +into the water with a roar as of rending mountains. Its weight of +thousands of tons, falling from such a height, splashed great sheets of +water high into the air, and a rainbow of wondrous brilliance flashed +and vanished. A mighty wave swept majestically down the bay, rocking the +massive bergs like corks, and, breaking against my granite pillar, +tossed its spray half-way up to my lofty perch. Muir's shout of +applause and Stickeen's sharp bark came faintly to my ears when the deep +rumbling of the newly formed icebergs had subsided. + +That night I waited supper long for Muir. It was a good supper--a +mulligan stew of mallard duck, with biscuits and coffee. Stickeen romped +into camp about ten o'clock and his new master soon followed. + +"Ah!" sighed Muir between sips of coffee, "what a Lord's mercy it is +that we lost this glacier last fall, when we were pressed for time, to +find it again in these glorious days that have flashed out of the mists +for our special delectation. This has been a day of days. I have found +four new varieties of moss, and have learned many new and wonderful +facts about world-shaping. And then, the wonder and glory! Why, all the +values of beauty and sublimity--form, color, motion and sound--have +been present to-day at their very best. My friend, we are the richest +men in all the world to-night." + +Charging down the canyon with the charging ice on our return, we kept to +the right-hand shore, on the watch for the mouth of the canyon of "some +scenery." We had not been able to discover it from the other side as we +ascended the fiord. We were almost swept past the mouth of it by the +force of the current. Paddling into an eddy, we were suddenly halted as +if by a strong hand pushed against the bow, for the current was flowing +like a cataract out of the narrow mouth of this side canyon. A rocky +shelf afforded us a landing place. We hastily unloaded the canoe and +pulled it up upon the beach out of reach of the floating ice, and there +we had to wait until the next morning before we could penetrate the +depths of this great canyon. + +We shot through the mouth of the canyon at dangerous speed. Indeed, we +could not do otherwise; we were helpless in the grasp of the torrent. At +certain stages the surging tide forms an actual fall, for the entrance +is so narrow that the water heaps up and pours over. We took the +beginning of the flood tide, and so escaped that danger; but our speed +must have been, at the narrows, twenty miles an hour. Then, suddenly, +the bay widened out, the water ceased to swirl and boil and the current +became gentle. + +When we could lay aside our paddles and look up, one of the most +glorious views of the whole world "smote us in the face," and Muir's +chant arose, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." + +Before entering this bay I had expressed a wish to see Yosemite Valley. +Now Muir said: "There is your Yosemite; only this one is on much the +grander scale. Yonder towers El Capitan, grown to twice his natural +size; there are the Sentinel, and the majestic Dome; and see all the +falls. Those three have some resemblance to Yosemite Falls, Nevada and +Bridal Veil; but the mountain breasts from which they leap are much +higher than in Yosemite, and the sheer drop much greater. And there are +so many more of these and they fall into the sea. We'll call this +Yosemite Bay--a bigger Yosemite, as Alaska is bigger than California." + +Two very beautiful glaciers lay at the head of this canyon. They did not +descend to the water, but the narrow strip of moraine matter without +vegetation upon it between the glaciers and the bay showed that it had +not been long since they were glaciers of the first class, sending out a +stream of icebergs to join those from the Young Glacier. These glaciers +stretched away miles and miles, like two great antennae, from the head of +the bay to the top of the mountain range. But the most striking features +of this scene were the wonderfully rounded and polished granite breasts +of these great heights. In one stretch of about a mile on either side of +the narrow bay parallel mouldings, like massive cornices of gray +granite, five or six thousand feet high, overhung the water. These had +been fluted and rounded and polished by the glacier stream, until they +seemed like the upper walls and Corinthian capitals of a great temple. +The power of the ice stream could be seen in the striated shoulders of +these cliffs. What awful force that tool of steel-like ice must have +possessed, driven by millions of tons of weight, to mould and shape and +scoop out these flinty rock faces, as the carpenter's forming plane +flutes a board! + +When we were half-way up this wonderful bay the sun burst through a rift +of cloud. "Look, look!" exclaimed Muir. "Nature is turning on the +colored lights in her great show house." + +Instantly this severe, bare hall of polished rock was transformed into a +fairy palace. A score of cascades, the most of them invisible before, +leapt into view, falling from the dizzy mountain heights and spraying +into misty veils as they descended; and from all of them flashed +rainbows of marvelous distinctness and brilliance, waving and dancing--a +very riot of color. The tinkling water falling into the bay waked a +thousand echoes, weird, musical and sweet, a riot of sound. It was an +enchanted palace, and we left it with reluctance, remaining only six +hours and going out at the turn of the flood tide to escape the +dangerous rapids. Had there not been any so many things to see beyond, +and so little time in which to see them, I doubt if Muir would have quit +Yosemite Bay for days. + + + + + THE DOG AND THE MAN + + + + +MY FRIENDS + + + Two friends I have, and close akin are they. + For both are free + And wild and proud, full of the ecstasy + Of life untrammeled; living, day by day, + A law unto themselves; yet breaking none + Of Nature's perfect code. + And far afield, remote from man's abode, + They roam the wilds together, two as one. + + Yet, one's a dog--a wisp of silky hair, + Two sharp black eyes, + A face alert, mysterious and wise, + A shadowy tail, a body lithe and fair. + And one's a man--of Nature's work the best, + A heart of gold, + A mind stored full of treasures new and old, + Of men the greatest, strongest, tenderest. + + They love each other--these two friends of mine-- + Yet both agree + In this--with that pure love that's half divine + They both love me. + + + + +VI + +THE DOG AND THE MAN + + +There is no time to tell of all the bays we explored; of Holkham Bay, +Port Snettisham, Tahkou Harbor; all of which we rudely put on the map, +or at least extended the arms beyond what was previously known. Through +Gastineau Channel, now famous for some of the greatest quartz mines and +mills in the world, we pushed, camping on the site of what is now +Juneau, the capital city of Alaska. + +An interesting bit of history is to be recorded here. Pushing across the +flats at the head of the bay at high tide the next morning (for the +narrow, grass-covered flat between Gastineau Channel and Stevens +Passage can only be crossed with canoes at flood tide), we met two old +gold prospectors whom I had frequently seen at Wrangell--Joe Harris and +Joe Juneau. Exchanging greetings and news, they told us they were out +from Sitka on a leisurely hunting and prospecting trip. Asking us about +our last camping place, Harris said to Juneau, "Suppose we camp there +and try the gravel of that creek." + +These men found placer gold and rock "float" at our camp and made quite +a clean-up that fall, returning to Sitka with a "gold-poke" sufficiently +plethoric to start a stampede to the new diggings. Both placer and +quartz locations were made and a brisk "camp" was built the next summer. +This town was first called Harrisburg for one of the prospectors, and +afterwards Juneau for the other. The great Treadwell gold quartz mine +was located three miles from Juneau in 1881, and others subsequently. +The territorial capital was later removed from Sitka to Juneau, and the +city has grown in size and importance, until it is one of the great +mining and commercial centers of the Northwest. + +Through Stevens Passage we paddled, stopping to preach to the Auk +Indians; then down Chatham Strait and into Icy Strait, where the crystal +masses of Muir and Pacific glaciers flashed a greeting from afar. We +needed no Hoonah guide this time, and it was well we did not, for both +Hoonah villages were deserted. The inhabitants had gone to their +hunting, fishing or berry-picking grounds. + +At Pleasant Island we loaded, as on the previous trip, with dry wood for +our voyage into Glacier Bay. We were not to attempt the head of the bay +this time, but to confine our exploration to Muir Glacier, which we had +only touched upon the previous fall. Pleasant Island was the scene of +one of Stickeen's many escapades. The little island fairly teemed with +big field mice and pine squirrels, and Stickeen went wild. We could hear +his shrill bark, now here, now there, from all parts of the island. When +we were ready to leave the next morning he was not to be seen. We got +aboard as usual, thinking that he would follow. A quarter of a mile's +paddling and still no little black head could be discovered in our wake. +Muir, who was becoming very much attached to the little dog, was plainly +worried. + +"Row back," he said. + +So we rowed back and called, but no Stickeen. Around the next point we +rowed and whistled; still no Stickeen. At last, discouraged, I gave the +signal to move off. So we rounded the curving shore and pushed towards +Glacier Bay. At the far point of the island, a mile from our camping +place, we suddenly discovered Stickeen away out in the water, paddling +calmly and confidently towards our canoe. How he had ever got there I +cannot imagine. I think he must have been taking a long swim out on the +bay for the mere pleasure of it. Muir always insisted that he had +listened to our discussion of the route to be taken, and, with an +uncanny intuition that approached clairvoyance, knew just where to head +us off. + +When we took him aboard he went through his usual performance, making +his way, the whole length of the canoe, until he got under Muir's legs, +before shaking himself. No protests or discipline availed, for Muir's +kicks always failed of their pretended mark. To the end of his +acquaintance with Muir, he always chose the vicinity of Muir's legs as +the place to shake himself after a swim. + +At Muir Glacier we spent a week this time, making long trips up the +mountains that overlooked the glacier and across its surface. On one +occasion Muir, with the little dog at his heels, crossed entirely in a +diagonal direction the great glacial lake, a trip of some thirty miles, +starting before daylight in the morning and not appearing at camp until +long after dark. Muir always carried several handkerchiefs in his +pockets, but this time he returned without any, having used them all up +making moccasins for Stickeen, whose feet were cut and bleeding from the +sharp honeycomb ice of the glacial surface. This mass of ice is so vast +and so comparatively still that it has but few crevasses, and Muir's day +for traversing it was a perfect one--warm and sunny. + +[Illustration: THE FRONT OF MUIR GLACIER + +We could understand the constant breaking off and leaping up and +smashing down of the ice, and the formation of the great mass of bergs] + +Another day he and I climbed the mountain that overlooked it and +skirted the mighty ice-field for some distance, then walked across the +face of the glacier just back of the rapids, keeping away from the deep +crevasses. We drove a straight line of stakes across the glacial stream +and visited them each day to watch the deflection and curves of the +stakes, and thus arrive at some conception of the rate at which the ice +mass was moving. In some parts of the glacial stream this ice current +flowed as fast as fifty or sixty feet a day, and we could understand the +constant breaking off and leaping up and smashing down of the ice and +the formation of that great mass of bergs. + +Shortly before we left Muir Glacier, I saw Muir furiously angry for the +first and last time in my acquaintance with him. We had noticed day +after day, whenever the mists admitted a view of the mountain slopes, +bands of mountain goats looking like little white mice against the green +of the high pastures. I said to Joe, the hunter, one morning: "Go up and +get us a kid. It will be a great addition to our larder." + +He took my breech-loading rifle and went. In the afternoon he returned +with a fine young buck on his shoulders. While we were examining it he +said: + +"I picked the fattest and most tender of those that I killed." + +"What!" I exclaimed, "did you kill more than this one?" + +He put up both hands with fingers extended and then one finger: + +"_Tatlum-pe-ict_ (eleven)," he replied. + +Muir's face flushed red, and with an exclamation that was as near to an +oath as he ever came, he started for Joe. Luckily for that Indian he saw +Muir and fled like a deer up the rocks, and would not come down until he +was assured that he would not be hurt. I shared Muir's indignation and +would have enjoyed seeing him administer the richly deserved thrashing. + +Muir had a strong aversion to taking the life of any animal; although he +would eat meat when prepared, he never killed a wild animal; even the +rattlesnakes he did not molest during his rambles in California. Often +his softness of heart was a source of some annoyance and a great deal of +astonishment to our natives; for he would take pleasure in rocking the +canoe when they were trying to get a bead on a flock of ducks or a deer +standing on the shore. + +On leaving the mouth of Glacier Bay we spent a week or more exploring +the inlets and glaciers to the west. These days were rainy and cold. We +groped blindly into unknown, unmapped, fog-hidden fiords and bayous, +exploring them to their ends and often making excursions to the glaciers +above them. + +The climax of the trip, however, was the last glacier we visited, Taylor +Glacier, the scene of Muir's great adventure with Stickeen. We reached +this fine glacier in the afternoon of a very stormy day. We were +approaching the open Pacific, and the _saanah_, the southeast rain-wind, +was howling through the narrow entrance into Cross Sound. For twenty +miles we had been facing strong head winds and tidal waves as we crept +around rocky points and along the bases of dizzy cliffs and +glacier-scored rock-shoulders. We were drenched to the skin; indeed, our +clothing and blankets had been soaking wet for days. For two hours +before we turned the point into the cozy harbor in front of the glacier +we had been exerting every ounce of our strength; Lot in the stern +wielding his big steering paddle, now on this side, now on that, +grunting with each mighty stroke, calling encouragement to his crew, +"_Ut-ha, ut-ha! hlitsin! hlitsin-tin!_ (pull, pull, strong, with +strength!)"; Joe and Billy rising from their seats with every stroke and +throwing their whole weight and force savagely into their oars; Muir and +I in the bow bent forward with heads down, butting into the slashing +rain, paddling for dear life; Stickeen, the only idle one, looking over +the side of the boat as though searching the channel and then around at +us as if he would like to help. All except the dog were exhausted when +we turned into the sheltered cove. + +While the men pitched the tents and made camp Muir and I walked through +the thick grass to the front of the large glacier, which front stretched +from a high, perpendicular rock wall about three miles to a narrow +promontory of moraine boulders next to the ocean. + +"Now, here is something new," exclaimed Muir, as we stood close to the +edge of the ice. "This glacier is the great exception. All the others of +this region are receding; this has been coming forward. See the mighty +ploughshare and its furrow!" + +For the icy mass was heaving up the ground clear across its front, and, +on the side where we stood, had evidently found a softer stratum under +a forest-covered hill, and inserted its shovel point under the hill, +heaved it upon the ice, cracking the rocks into a thousand fragments; +and was carrying the whole hill upon its back towards the sea. The large +trees were leaning at all angles, some of them submerged, splintered and +ground by the crystal torrent, some of the shattered trunks sticking out +of the ice. It was one of the most tremendous examples of glacial power +I have ever seen. + +"I must climb this glacier to-morrow," said Muir. "I shall have a great +day of it; I wish you could come along." + +I sighed, not with resignation, but with a grief that was akin to +despair. The condition of my shoulders was such that it would be madness +to attempt to join Muir on his longer and more perilous climbs. I +should only spoil his day and endanger his life as well as my own. + +That night I baked a good batch of camp bread, boiled a fresh kettle of +beans and roasted a leg of venison ready for Muir's breakfast, fixed the +coffee-pot and prepared dry kindling for the fire. I knew he would be up +and off at daybreak, perhaps long before. + +"Wake me up," I admonished him, "or at least take time to make hot +coffee before you start." For the wind was rising and the rain pouring, +and I knew how imperative the call of such a morning as was promised +would be to him. To traverse a great, new, living, rapidly moving +glacier would be high joy; but to have a tremendous storm added to this +would simply drive Muir wild with desire to be himself a part of the +great drama played on the glacier-stage. + +Several times during the night I was awakened by the flapping of the +tent, the shrieking of the wind in the spruce-tops and the thundering of +the ocean surf on the outer barrier of rocks. The tremulous howling of a +persistent wolf across the bay soothed me to sleep again, and I did not +wake when Muir arose. As I had feared, he was in too big a hurry to take +time for breakfast, but pocketed a small cake of camp bread and hastened +out into the storm-swept woods. I was aroused, however, by the +controversy between him and Stickeen outside of the tent. The little +dog, who always slept with one eye and ear alert for Muir's movements, +had, as usual, quietly left his warm nest and followed his adopted +master. Muir was scolding and expostulating with him as if he were a +boy. I chuckled to myself at the futility of Muir's efforts; Stickeen +would now, as always, do just as he pleased--and he would please to go +along. + +Although I was forced to stay at the camp, this stormy day was a most +interesting one to me. There was an old Hoonah chief camped at the mouth +of the little river which flowed from under Taylor Glacier. He had with +him his three wives and a little company of children and grandchildren. +The many salmon weirs and summer houses at this point showed that it had +been at one time a very important fishing place. + +But the advancing glacier had played havoc with the chief's salmon +stream. The icy mass had been for several years traveling towards the +sea at the rate of at least a mile every year. There were still silver +hordes of fine red salmon swimming in the sea outside of the river's +mouth. But the stream was now so short that the most of these salmon +swam a little ways into the mouth of the river and then out into the +salt water again, bewildered and circling about, doubtless wondering +what had become of their parent stream. + +The old chief came to our camp early, followed by his squaws bearing +gifts of salmon, porpoise meat, clams and crabs; and at his command two +of the girls of his family picked me a basketful of delicious wild +strawberries. He sat motionless by my fire all the forenoon, smoking my +leaf tobacco and pondering deeply. After the noon meal, which I shared +with him, he called Billy, my interpreter, and asked for a big talk. + +With all ceremony I made preparations, gave more presents of leaf +tobacco and hardtack and composed myself for the palaver. After the +usual preliminaries, in which he told me at great length what a great +man I was, how like a father to all the people, comparing me to sun, +moon, stars and all other great things; I broke in upon his stream of +compliments and asked what he wanted. + +Recalled to earth he said: "I wish you to pray to your God." + +"For what do you wish me to pray?" I asked. + +The old man raised his blanketed form to its full height and waved his +hand with a magnificent gesture towards the glacier. "Do you see that +great ice mountain?" + +"Yes." + +"Once," he said, "I had the finest salmon stream upon the coast." +Pointing to a point of rock five or six miles beyond the mouth of the +glacier he continued: "Once the salmon stream extended far beyond that +point of rock. There was a great fall there and a deep pool below it, +and here for years great schools of king salmon came crowding up to the +foot of that fall. To spear them or net them was very easy; they were +the fattest and best salmon among all these islands. My household had +abundance of meat for the winter's need. But the cruel spirit of that +glacier grew angry with me, I know not why, and drove the ice mountain +down towards the sea and spoiled my salmon stream. A year or two more +and it will be blotted out entirely. I have done my best. I have prayed +to my gods. Last spring I sacrificed two of my slaves, members of my +household, my best slaves, a strong man and his wife, to the spirit of +that glacier to make the ice mountain stop; but it comes on, and now I +want you to pray to _your_ God, the God of the white man, to see if He +will make the glacier stop!" + +I wish I could describe the pathetic earnestness of this old Indian, +the simplicity with which he told of the sacrifice of his slaves and the +eager look with which he awaited my answer. When I exclaimed in horror +at his deed of blood he was astonished; he could not understand. + +"Why, they were _my_ slaves," he said, "and the man suggested it +himself. He was glad to go to death to help his chief." + +A few years after this our missionary at Hoonah had the pleasure of +baptizing this old chief into the Christian faith. He had put away his +slaves and his plural wives, had surrendered the implements of his old +superstition, and as a child embraced the new gospel of peace and love. +He could not get rid of his superstition about the glacier, however, and +about eight years afterwards, visiting at Wrangell, he told me as an +item of news which he expected would greatly please me that, doubtless +as a result of my prayers, Taylor Glacier was receding again and the +salmon beginning to come into that stream. + +At intervals during this eventful day I went to the face of the glacier +and even climbed the disintegrating hill that was riding on the +glacier's ploughshare, in an effort to see the bold wanderers; but the +jagged ice peaks of the high glacial rapids blocked my vision, and the +rain driving passionately in horizontal sheets shut out the mountains +and the upper plateau of ice. I could see that it was snowing on the +glacier, and imagined the weariness and peril of dog and man exposed to +the storm in that dangerous region. I could only hope that Muir had not +ventured to face the wind on the glacier, but had contented himself with +tracing its eastern side, and was somewhere in the woods bordering it, +beside a big fire, studying storm and glacier in comparative safety. + +When the shadows of evening were added to those of the storm I had my +men gather materials for a big bonfire, and kindle it well out on the +flat, where it could be seen from mountain and glacier. I placed dry +clothing and blankets in the fly tent facing the camp-fire, and got +ready the best supper at my command: clam chowder, fried porpoise, bacon +and beans, "savory meat" made of mountain kid with potatoes, onions, +rice and curry, camp biscuit and coffee, with dessert of wild +strawberries and condensed milk. + +It grew pitch-dark before seven, and it was after ten when the dear +wanderers staggered into camp out of the dripping forest. Stickeen did +not bounce in ahead with a bark, as was his custom, but crept silently +to his piece of blanket and curled down, too tired to shake himself. +Billy and I laid hands on Muir without a word, and in a trice he was +stripped of his wet garments, rubbed dry, clothed in dry underwear, +wrapped in a blanket and set down on a bed of spruce twigs with a plate +of hot chowder before him. When the chowder disappeared the other hot +dishes followed in quick succession, without a question asked or a word +uttered. Lot kept the fire blazing just right, Joe kept the victuals hot +and baked fresh bread, while Billy and I waited on Muir. + +Not till he came to the coffee and strawberries did Muir break the +silence. "Yon's a brave doggie," he said. Stickeen, who could not yet be +induced to eat, responded by a glance of one eye and a feeble pounding +of the blanket with his heavy tail. + +Then Muir began to talk, and little by little, between sips of coffee, +the story of the day was unfolded. Soon memories crowded for utterance +and I listened till midnight, entranced by a succession of vivid +descriptions the like of which I have never heard before or since. The +fierce music and grandeur of the storm, the expanse of ice with its +bewildering crevasses, its mysterious contortions, its solemn voices +were made to live before me. + +[Illustration: GLACIAL CREVASSES + +"We had to make long, narrow tacks and doublings, tracing the edges of +tremendous transverse and longitudinal crevasses--beautiful and awful"] + +When Muir described his marooning on the narrow island of ice +surrounded by fathomless crevasses, with a knife-edged sliver curving +deeply "like the cable of a suspension bridge" diagonally across it as +the only means of escape, I shuddered at his peril. I held my breath as +he told of the terrible risks he ran as he cut his steps down the wall +of ice to the bridge's end, knocked off the sharp edge of the sliver, +hitched across inch by inch and climbed the still more difficult ascent +on the other side. But when he told of Stickeen's cries of despair at +being left on the other side of the crevasse, of his heroic +determination at last to do or die, of his careful progress across the +sliver as he braced himself against the gusts and dug his little claws +into the ice, and of his passionate revulsion to the heights of +exultation when, intoxicated by his escape, he became a living whirlwind +of joy, flashing about in mad gyrations, shouting and screaming "Saved! +saved!" my tears streamed down my face. Before the close of the story +Stickeen arose, stepped slowly across to Muir and crouched down with his +head on Muir's foot, gazing into his face and murmuring soft canine +words of adoration to his god. + +Not until 1897, seventeen years after the event, did Muir give to the +public his story of Stickeen. How many times he had written and +rewritten it I know not. He told me at the time of its first publication +that he had been thinking of the story all of these years and jotting +down paragraphs and sentences as they occurred to him. He was never +satisfied with a sentence until it balanced well. He had the keenest +sense of melody, as well as of harmony, in his sentence structure, and +this great dog-story of his is a remarkable instance of the growth to +perfection of the great production of a great master. + +The wonderful power of endurance of this man, whom Theodore Roosevelt +has well called a "perfectly natural man," is instanced by the fact +that, although he was gone about seventeen hours on this day of his +adventure with Stickeen, with only a bite of bread to eat, and never +rested a minute of that time, but was battling with the storm all day +and often racing at full speed across the glacier, yet he got up at +daylight the next morning, breakfasted with me and was gone all day +again, with Stickeen at his heels, climbing a high mountain to get a +view of the snow fountains and upper reaches of the glacier; and when he +returned after nightfall he worked for two or three hours at his notes +and sketches. + +The latter part of this voyage was hurried. Muir had a wife waiting for +him at home and he had promised to stay in Alaska only one month. He had +dallied so long with his icy loves, the glaciers, that we were obliged +to make all haste to Sitka, where he expected to take the return +steamer. To miss that would condemn him to Alaska and absence from his +wife for another month. Through a continually pouring rain we sailed by +the then deserted town of Hoonah, ascended with the rising tide a long, +narrow, shallow inlet, dragged our canoe a hundred yards over a little +hill and then descended with the receding tide another long, narrow +passage down to Chatham Strait; and so on to the mouth of Peril Strait +which divided Baranof from Chichagof Island. + +On the other side of Chatham Strait, opposite the mouth of Peril, we +visited again Angoon, the village of the Hootz-noos. From this town the +painted and drunken warriors had come the winter before and attacked the +Stickeens, killing old Tow-a-att, Moses and another of our Christian +Indians. The trouble was not settled yet, and although the two tribes +had exchanged some pledges and promised to fight no more, I feared a +fresh outbreak, and so thought it wise to pay another visit to the +Hootz-noos. As we approached Angoon, however, I heard the war-drums +beating with their peculiar cadence, "tum-tum"--a beat off--"tum-tum, +tum-tum." As we came up to the beach I saw what was seemingly the whole +tribe dancing their war-dances, arrayed in their war-paint with their +fantastic war-gear on. So earnestly engaged were they in their dance +that they at first paid no attention whatever to me. My heart sank into +my boots. "They are going back to Wrangell to attack the Stickeens," I +thought, "and there will be another bloody war." + +Driving our canoe ashore, we hurried up to the head chief of the +Hootz-noos, who was alternately haranguing his people and directing the +dances. + +"Anatlask," I called, "what does this mean? You are going on the +warpath. Tell me what you are about. Are you going back to Stickeen?" + +He looked at me vacantly a little while, and then a grin spread from ear +to ear. It was the same chief in whose house I had seen the idiot boy a +year before. + +"Come with me," he said. + +He led us into his house and across the room to where in state, +surrounded by all kinds of chieftain's gear, Chilcat blankets, totemic +carvings and paintings, chieftain's hats and cunningly woven baskets, +there lay the body of a stalwart young man wrapped in a +button-embroidered blanket. The chief silently removed the blanket from +the face of the dead. The skull was completely crushed on one side as +by a heavy blow. Then the story came out. + +The hootz, or big brown bear of that country, is as large and savage as +the grizzly bear of the Rockies. At certain seasons he is, as the +natives say, "_quonsum-sollex_" (always mad). The natives seldom attack +these bears, confining their attention to the more timid and easily +killed black bears. But this young man with a companion, hunting on +Baranof Island across the Strait, found himself suddenly confronted by +an enormous hootz. The young man rashly shot him with his musket, +wounding him sufficiently to make him furious. The tremendous brute +hurled his thousand pounds of ferocity at the hunter, and one little tap +of that huge paw crushed his skull like an egg-shell. His companion +brought his body home; and now the whole tribe had formally declared +war on that bear, and all this dancing and painting and drumming was in +preparation for a war party, composed of all the men, dogs and guns in +the town. They were going on the warpath to get that bear. Greatly +relieved, I gave them my blessing and sped them on their way. + +We had been rowing all night before this incident, and all the next +night we sailed up the tortuous Peril Strait, going upward with the +flood, one man steering while the other slept, to the meeting place of +the waters; then down with the receding tide through the islands, and so +on to Sitka. Here we met a warm reception from the missionaries, and +also from the captain and officers of the old man-of-war _Jamestown_, +afterwards used as a school ship for the navy in the harbor of San +Francisco. + +Alaska at that time had no vestige of civil government, no means of +punishing crime, no civil officers except the customs collectors, no +magistrate or police,--everyone was a law to himself. The only sign of +authority was this cumbersome sailing vessel with its marines and +sailors. It could not move out of Sitka harbor without first sending by +the monthly mail steamer to San Francisco for a tug to come and tow it +through these intricate channels to the sea where the sails could be +spread. Of course, it was not of much use to this vast territory. The +officers of the _Jamestown_ were supposed to be doing some surveying, +but, lacking the means of travel, what they did amounted to very little. + +They were interested at once in our account of the discovery of Glacier +Bay and of the other unmapped bays and inlets that we had entered. At +their request, from Muir's notes and our estimate of distances by our +rate of sailing, and of directions from observations of our little +compass, we drew a rough map of Glacier Bay. This was sent on to +Washington by these officers and published by the Navy Department. For +six or seven years it was the only sailing chart of Glacier Bay, and two +or three steamers were wrecked, groping their way in these uncharted +passages, before surveying vessels began to make accurate maps. So from +its beginning has Uncle Sam neglected this greatest and richest of all +his possessions. + +Our little company separated at Sitka. Stickeen and our Indian crew were +the first to leave, embarking for a return trip to Wrangell by canoe. +Stickeen had stuck close to Muir, following him everywhere, crouching +at his feet where he sat, sleeping in his room at night. When the time +came for him to leave Muir explained the matter to him fully, talking to +and reasoning with him as if he were human. Billy led him aboard the +canoe by a dog-chain, and the last Muir saw of him he was standing on of +the canoe, howling a sad farewell. + +Muir sailed south on the monthly mail steamer; while I took passage on a +trading steamer for another missionary trip among the northern tribes. + +So ended my canoe voyages with John Muir. Their memory is fresh and +sweet as ever. The flowing stream of years has not washed away nor +dimmed the impressions of those great days we spent together. Nearly all +of them were cold, wet and uncomfortable, if one were merely an animal, +to be depressed or enlivened by physical conditions. But of these +so-called "hardships" Muir made nothing, and I caught his spirit; +therefore, the beauty, the glory, the wonder and the thrills of those +weeks of exploration are with me yet and shall endure--a rustless, +inexhaustible treasure. + + + + + THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE + + + + +JOHN MUIR + + + He lived aloft, exultant, unafraid. + All things were good to him. The mountain old + Stretched gnarled hands to help him climb. The peak + Waved blithe snow-banner greeting; and for him + The rav'ning storm, aprowl for human life, + Purred like the lion at his trainer's feet. + The grizzly met him on the narrow ledge, + Gave gruff "good morning"--and the right of way. + The blue-veined glacier, cold of heart and pale, + Warmed, at his gaze, to amethystine blush, + And murmured deep, fond undertones of love. + + He walked apart from men, yet loved his kind, + And brought them treasures from his larger store. + For them he delved in mines of richer gold. + Earth's messenger he was to human hearts. + The starry moss flower from its dizzy shelf, + The ouzel, shaking forth its spray of song, + The glacial runlet, tinkling its clear bell, + The rose-of-morn, abloom on snowy heights-- + Each sent by him a jewel-word of cheer. + Blind eyes he opened and deaf ears unstopped. + + He lived aloft, apart. He talked with God + In all the myriad tongues of God's sweet world; + But still he came anear and talked with us, + Interpreting for God to listn'ing men. + +[Illustration: JOHN MUIR IN LATER LIFE] + + + + +VII + +THE MAN IN PERSPECTIVE + + +The friendship between John Muir and myself was of that fine sort which +grows and deepens with absence almost as well as with companionship. +Occasional letters passed from one to the other. When I felt like +writing to Muir I obeyed the impulse without asking whether I "owed" him +a letter, and he followed the same rule--or rather lack of rule. +Sometimes answers to these letters came quickly; sometimes they were +long delayed, so long that they were not answers at all. When I sent him +"news of his mountains and glaciers" that contained items really novel +to him his replies were immediate and enthusiastic. When he had found +in his great outdoor museum some peculiar treasure he talked over his +find with me by letter. + +Muir's letters were never commonplace and sometimes they were long and +rich. I preserved them all; and when, a few years ago, an Alaska +steamboat sank to the bottom of the Yukon, carrying with it my library +and all my literary possessions, the loss of these letters from my +friend caused me more sorrow than the loss of almost any other of my +many priceless treasures. + +The summer of 1881, the year following that of our second canoe voyage, +Muir went, as scientific and literary expert, with the U.S. revenue +cutter _Rogers_, which was sent by the Government into the Arctic Ocean +in search of the ill-fated De Long exploring party. His published +articles written on the revenue cutter were of great interest; but in +his more intimate letters to me there was a note of disappointment. + +"There have been no mountains to climb," he wrote, "although I have had +entrancing long-distance views of many. I have not had a chance to visit +any glaciers. There were no trees in those arctic regions, and but few +flowers. Of God's process of modeling the world I saw but +little--nothing for days but that limitless, relentless ice-pack. I was +confined within the narrow prison of the ship; I had no freedom, I went +at the will of other men; not of my own. It was very different from +those glorious canoe voyages with you in your beautiful, fruitful +wilderness." + +A very brief visit at Muir's home near Martinez, California, in the +spring of 1883 found him at what he frankly said was very distasteful +work--managing a large fruit ranch. He was doing the work well and +making his orchards pay large dividends; but his heart was in the hills +and woods. Eagerly he questioned me of my travels and of the "progress" +of the glaciers and woods of Alaska. Beyond a few short mountain trips +he had seen nothing for two years of his beloved wilds. + +Passionately he voiced his discontent: "I am losing the precious days. I +am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing +in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the +mountains to learn the news." + +In 1888 the ten years' limit which I had set for service in Alaska +expired. The educational necessities of my children and the feeling that +was growing upon me like a smothering cloud that if I remained much +longer among the Indians I would lose all power to talk or write good +English, drove me from the Northwest to find a temporary home in +Southern California. + +I had not notified Muir of my coming, but suddenly appeared in his +orchard at Martinez one day in early summer. It was cherry-picking time +and he was out among his trees superintending a large force of workmen. +He saw me as soon as I discovered him, and dropping the basket he was +carrying came running to greet me with both hands outstretched. + +"Ah! my friend," he cried, "I have been longing mightily for you. You +have come to take me on a canoe trip to the countries beyond--to Lituya +and Yakutat bays and Prince William Sound; have you not? My weariness of +this hum-drum, work-a-day life has grown so heavy it is like to crush +me. I'm ready to break away and go with you whenever you say." + +"No," I replied, "I am leaving Alaska." + +"Man, man!" protested Muir, "how can you do it? You'll never carry out +such a notion as that in the world. Your heart will cry every day for +the North like a lost child; and in your sleep the snow-banners of your +white peaks will beckon to you. + +"Why, look at me," he said, "and take warning. I'm a horrible example. +I, who have breathed the mountain air--who have really lived a life of +freedom--condemned to penal servitude with these miserable little +bald-heads!" (holding up a bunch of cherries). "Boxing them up; putting +them in prison! And for money! Man! I'm like to die of the shame of it. + +"And then you're not safe a day in this sordid world of money-grubbing +men. I came near dying a mean, civilized death, the other day. A +Chinaman emptied a bucket of phosphorus over me and almost burned me up. +How different that would have been from a nice white death in the +crevasse of a glacier! + +"Gin it were na for my bairnies I'd rin awa' frae a' this tribble an' +hale ye back north wi' me." + +So Muir would run on, now in English, now in broad Scotch; but through +all his raillery there ran a note of longing for the wilderness. "I want +to see what is going on," he said. "So many great events are happening, +and I'm not there to see them. I'm learning nothing here that will do me +any good." + +I spent the night with him, and we talked till long after midnight, +sailing anew our voyages of enchantment. He had just completed his work +of editing "Picturesque California" and gave me a set of the beautiful +volumes. + +Our paths did not converge again for nine years; but I was to have, +after all, a few more Alaska days with John Muir. The itch of the +wanderlust in my feet had become a wearisome, nervous ache, increasing +with the years, and the call of the wild more imperative, until the +fierce yearning for the North was at times more than I could bear. + +The first of the great northward gold stampedes--that of 1897 to the +Klondyke in Northwestern Canada on the borders of Alaska--afforded me +the opportunity for which I was longing to return to the land of my +heart. The latter part of August saw me on _The Queen_, the largest of +that great fleet of passenger boats that were traversing the thousand +miles of wonder and beauty between Seattle and Skagway. These steamboats +were all laden with gold seekers and their goods. Seattle sprang into +prominence and wealth, doubling her population in a few months. From +every community in the United States, from all Canada and from many +lands across the oceans came that strange mob of lawyers, doctors, +clerks, merchants, farmers, mechanics, engineers, reporters, +sharpers--all gold-struck--all mad with excitement--all rushing +pell-mell into a thousand new and hard experiences. + +As I stood on the upper deck of the vessel, watching the strange scene +on the dock, who should come up the gang-plank but John Muir, wearing +the same old gray ulster and Scotch cap! It was the last place in the +world I would have looked for him. But he was not stampeding to the +Klondyke. His being there at that time was really an accident. In +company with two other eminent "tree-men" he had been spending the +summer in the study of the forests of Canada and the three were +"climaxing," as they said, in the forests of Alaska. + +Five pleasurable days we had together on board _The Queen_. Muir was +vastly amused by the motley crowd of excited men, their various outfits, +their queer equipment, their ridiculous notions of camping and life in +the wilderness. "A nest of ants," he called them, "taken to a strange +country and stirred up with a stick." + +As our steamboat touched at Port Townsend, Muir received a long telegram +from a San Francisco newspaper, offering him a large sum if he would go +over the mountains and down the Yukon to the Klondyke, and write them +letters about conditions there. He brought the telegram to me, laughing +heartily at the absurdity of anybody making him such a proposition. + +"Do they think I'm daft," he asked, "like a' the lave o' thae puir +bodies? When I go into that wild it will not be in a crowd like this or +on such a sordid mission. Ah! my old friend, they'll be spoiling our +grand Alaska." + +He offered to secure for me the reporter's job tendered to him. I +refused, urging my lack of training for such work and my more important +and responsible position. + +"Why, that same paper has a host of reporters on the way to the Klondyke +now," I said. "There is ----" (naming a noted poet and author of the +Coast). "He must be half-way down to Dawson by this time." + +"---- doesn't count," replied Muir, "for the patent reason that +everybody knows he can't tell the truth. The poor fellow is not to blame +for it. He was just made that way. Everybody will read with delight his +wonderful tales of the trail, but nobody will believe him. We all know +him too well." + +Muir contracted a hard cold the first night out from Seattle. The hot, +close stateroom and a cold blast through the narrow window were the +cause. A distressing cough racked his whole frame. When he refused to go +to a physician who was on the boat I brought the doctor to him. After +the usual examination the physician asked, "What do you generally do for +a cold?" + +"Oh," said Muir, "I shiver it away." + +"Explain yourself," said the puzzled doctor. + +"We-ll," drawled Muir, "two or three years ago I camped by the Muir +Glacier for a week. I had caught just such a cold as this from the same +cause--a stuffy stateroom. So I made me a little sled out of spruce +boughs, put a blanket and some sea biscuit on it and set out up the +glacier. I got into a labyrinth of crevasses and a driving snowstorm, +and had to spend the night on the ice ten miles from land. I sat on the +sled all night or thrashed about it, and had a dickens of a time; I +shivered so hard I shook the sled to pieces. When morning came my cold +was all gone. That is my prescription, Doctor. You are welcome to use it +in your practice." + +"Well," laughed the doctor, "if I had such patients as you in such a +country as this I might try your heroic remedy, but I am afraid it would +hardly serve in general practice." + +Muir and I made the most of these few days together, and walked the +decks till late each night, for he had much to tell me. He had at last +written his story of Stickeen; and was working on books treating of the +Big Trees, the National Parks and the glaciers of Alaska. + +At Wrangell, as we went ashore, we were greeted by joyful exclamations +from the little company of old Stickeen Indians we found on the dock. +That sharp intaking of the breath which is the Thlinget's note of +surprise and delight, and the words _Nuknate Ankow ka Glate Ankow_ +(Priest Chief and Ice Chief) passed along the line. Death had made many +gaps in the old circle of friends, both white and native, but the +welcome from those who remained warmed our hearts. + +From Wrangell northward the steamboat followed the route of our canoe +voyage of 1880 through Wrangell Narrows into Prince Frederick Sound, +past Norris Glacier and Holkham Bay into Stevens Passage, past Taku Bay +to Juneau and on to Lynn Canal--then on the track of our voyage of 1879 +up to Haines and beyond fifteen miles to that new, chaotic camp in the +woods called Skagway. + +The two or three days which it took _The Queen_ to discharge her load of +passengers and cargo of their outfits were spent by Muir and his +scientific companions in roaming the forests and mountains about Skagway +and examining the flora of that region. They kept mostly off the trail +of the struggling, straggling army of _Cheechakoes_ (newcomers) who +were blunderingly trying to get their goods and themselves across the +rugged, jagged mountains on their way to the promised land of gold; but +Muir found time to spend some hours with me in my camp under a hemlock, +where he ate again of my cooking over a camp-fire. + +"You are going on a strange journey this time, my friend," he admonished +me. "I don't envy you. You'll have a hard time keeping your heart light +and simple in the midst of this crowd of madmen. Instead of the music of +the wind among the spruce-tops and the tinkling of the waterfalls, your +ears will be filled with the oaths and groans of these poor, deluded, +self-burdened men. Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself; and break +clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the +woods. Wash your spirit clean from the earth-stains of this sordid, +gold-seeking crowd in God's pure air. It will help you in your efforts +to bring to these men something better than gold. Don't lose your +freedom and your love of the Earth as God made it." + +In 1899 it was my good fortune to have one more Alaska day with John +Muir at Skagway. After a year in the Klondyke I had spent the winter of +1898-99 in the Eastern States arousing the Christian public to the needs +of this newly discovered Empire of the North; and was returning with +other ministers to interior and western Alaska. The White Pass Railroad +was completed only to the summit; and it was a laborious task, requiring +a month of very hard work, to get our goods from Skagway over the thirty +miles of mountains to Lake Bennett, where we could load them on our +open boat for the voyage of two thousand miles down the Yukon. + +While I was engaged in this task there came to Skagway the steamship +_George W. Elder_, carrying one of the most remarkable companies of +scientific men ever gathered together in one expedition. Mr. Harriman, +the great railroad magnate, had chartered the steamer, and had invited +as his guests many men of world reputation in various branches of +natural science. Among them were John Burroughs, Drs. Merriam and Dahl +of the Smithsonian Institute, and, not least, John Muir. Indeed he was +called the Nestor of the expedition and his advice followed as that of +no other. + +The enticing proposition was made me by Muir, and backed by Mr. +Harriman's personal invitation, that I should join this distinguished +company, share Muir's stateroom and spend the summer cruising along the +southern and western coasts of Alaska. However, the new mining camps +were calling with a still more imperative voice, and I had to turn my +back to the Coast and face the great, sun-bathed Interior. But what a +joy and inspiration it would have been to climb Muir, Geicke and Taylor +glaciers again with Muir, note the rapid progress God was making in His +work of landscape gardening by means of these great tools, make at last +our deferred visits to Lituya and Yakutat bays and the fine glaciers of +Prince William's Sound, and renew my studies of this good world under my +great Master. + +A letter from Muir about his summer's cruise, written in November, 1899, +reached me at Nome in June, 1900; for those of us who had reached that +bleak, exposed northwestern coast and wintered there did not get any +mail for six months. We were fifteen hundred miles from a post-office. + +In his letter Muir wrote: "The voyage was a grand one, and I saw much +that was new to me and packed full of interest and instruction. But, do +you know, I longed to break away from the steamboat and its splendid +company, get a dugout canoe and a crew of Indians, and, with you as my +companion, poke into the nooks and crannies of the mountains and +glaciers which we could not reach from the steamer. What great days we +have had together, you and I!" + +This day at Skagway, in 1899, was the last of my Alaska days with John +Muir, except as I bring them back and live them over in my thoughts. How +often in my long voyages, by canoe or steamer, among the thousand +islands of southeastern Alaska, the intricate channels of Prince +William's Sound, the great rivers, and multitudinous lakes of the +Interior, and the treeless, windswept coasts of Bering Sea and the +Arctic Ocean; or in my tramps in the summer over the mountains and +plains of Alaska, or in the winter with my dogs over the frozen +wilderness fighting the great battle with the fierce cold or spellbound +under the magic of the Aurora--how often have I longed for the presence +of Muir to heighten my enjoyment by his higher ecstasy, or reveal to me +what I was too dull to see or understand. I have had inspiring +companions, and my life has been blessed by many friendships inestimably +precious and rich; but for me the World has produced but one John Muir; +and to no other man do I feel that I owe so much; for I was blind and +he made me see! + +Only once since 1899 did I meet him, and then but for an hour at his +temporary home in Los Angeles in 1910. He was putting the finishing +touches on his rich volume, "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth." I +submitted for his review and correction the article which forms the +first two chapters of this book. With that nice regard for absolute +verity which always characterized him he pointed out two or three +passages in which his recollection clashed with mine, and I at once made +the changes he suggested. + +Muir never grew old. After he was sixty years of age (as men count age) +some of his most daring feats of mountain climbing and some of his +longest journeys into the wilds were undertaken. When he was past +seventy he was still tramping and camping in the forests and among the +hills. When he was seventy-three he made long trips to South America and +Africa, and to the very end he was exploring, studying, working and +enjoying. + +All his writings exult with the spirit of immortal youth. There is in +his books an intimate companionship with the trees, the mountains, the +flowers and the animals, that is altogether fine. Surely no such books +of mountains and forests were ever written as his "Mountains of +California," "My First Summer in the Sierra," "The Yosemite" and "Our +National Parks." His brooks and trees are the abode of dryads and +hamadryads--they live and talk. + +And when he writes of the animals he has met in his rambles, without any +attempt to put into their characters anything that does not belong to +them, without "manufacturing his data," he somehow manages to do much +more than introduce them to you; he makes you their intimate and +admiring friends, as he was. His ouzel bobs you a cheery good morning +and sprays you with its "ripple of song"; his Douglas squirrel scolds +and swears at you with rough good-nature; and his big-horn gazes at you +with frank and friendly eyes and challenges you to follow to its +splendid heights, not as a hunter but as a companion. You love them all, +as Muir did. + +As an instance of this power in his writings, when I returned from the +Klondyke in 1898 the story of Stickeen had been published in a magazine +a few months before. I met in New York a daughter of the great Field +family, who when a child had heard me tell of Muir's exploit in rescuing +me from the mountain top, and who had shouted with delight when I told +of our sliding down the mountain in the moraine gravel. She asked me +eagerly if I was the Mr. Young mentioned in Muir's story. When I said +that I was she called to her companions and introduced me as the Owner +of Stickeen; and I was content to have as my claim to an earthly +immortality my ownership of an immortalized dog. + +I cannot think of John Muir as dead, or as much changed from the man +with whom I canoed and camped. He was too much a part of nature--too +natural--to be separated from his mountains, trees and glaciers. +Somewhere, I am sure, he is making other explorations, solving other +natural problems, using that brilliant, inventive genius to good effect; +and some time again I shall hear him unfold anew, with still clearer +insight and more eloquent words, fresh secrets of his "mountains of +God." + +The Thlingets have a Happy Hunting Ground in the Spirit Land for dogs as +well as for men; and Muir used to contend that they were right--that the +so-called lower animals have as much right to a Heaven as humans. I +wonder if he has found a still more beautiful--a glorified--Stickeen; +and if the little fellow still follows and frisks about him as in those +old days. I like to think so; and when I too cross the Great Divide--and +it can't be long now--I shall look eagerly for them both to be my +companions in fresh adventures. In the meantime I am lonely for them and +think of them often, and say, with _The Harvester_, "What a dog!--and +what a MAN!!" + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been +faithfully preserved. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR*** + + +******* This file should be named 30697.txt or 30697.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/6/9/30697 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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