The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska

Chapter 5

To the right the well-known Chilkoot Pass extended up into the mountain fastness, the pass that had been traveled by so many in the early rush for the gold fields. Chilkoot a long distance to the northeast intersects the White Horse Pass. It is a rugged trail, but an easier one to travel than the one chosen by the Pony Rider Boys for the first stage of their journeyings.

The object of Professor Zepplin in choosing the route to the northwest was to take the boys into territory that had been little explored, and to give them their fill of what is really the wildest and most rugged region of the United States.

“By the way,” called Rector after they had gotten well started and had dropped the village behind them, “what became of our friends?”

“The four gold diggers?” asked Butler.

“They must have gone on with the ship,” said Walter.

“Yes, they must have,” agreed Stacy.

“No, they didn’t,” answered Tad. “I saw Dawson in town yesterday. Funny thing, but he seemed not to see me. In fact he tried to avoid me.”

“Did you let him?” questioned Chunky.

“Yes. Why should I wish to force myself on anyone who doesn’t want to see me? Not I. They are queer fellows. It isn’t because they don’t like us, but rather because they are suspicious. They are afraid someone will get a line on where they are going. Wouldn’t it be queer if we were to bump into them somewhere in the interior?”

“No danger of that,” spoke up the Professor. “I heard Mr. Darwood say they were going out the Chilkoot Pass for a short distance, from which they might branch off.”

Tad chuckled softly.

“Why do you laugh?” demanded the Professor.

“Oh, I was just thinking of something funny.”

“Let’s hear it,” begged Stacy.

“I rather think I’ll keep it to myself,” answered Tad, smiling. “Let Stacy tell you one of his funny stories.”

“All right, I’ll tell you one,” agreed Chunky readily.

“Leave the telling until you get to camp,” advised the Professor. “This is a rough trail, and you need to give it your undivided attention.”

“The Professor is right. We would do well to watch out where we are going,” agreed Tad.

“Yes, I dread to think what would happen to our packs were one of those mules, in a moment of forgetfulness, to think he was traveling in a circle at the end of a sweep down in a mine,” said Ned.

The trail they were now following was narrow. In fact, it was a mere gash in the side of the mountain, winding in and out with many a sharp turn, and there was barely room for the ponies to travel in single file. Above them towered the mountains for thousands of feet. Below them was a sheer precipice of fully two hundred feet, getting deeper all the time, as they continued on a gradual ascent.

“I don’t think I should like to be the post rider on this trail,” decided Ned, gazing wide-eyed at the abyss.

“Especially on a dark night,” added Tad.

“Or any other kind of a night,” piped the fat boy.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” answered Walter. “On a dark night you couldn’t see the gorge. What we don’t know doesn’t hurt us, eh?”

“There is some logic in that,” agreed the Professor.

Professor Zepplin was leading the way, dragging one mule after him at the end of a rope. Then came Ned with the second pack mule, followed by Tad and the other two boys. Butler wanted to follow behind the mules so as to keep watch of them, he not feeling any too great confidence in the worn-out old animals.

The Professor halted at a turning-out place, where the rocks had been worn out by the wash of a mountain stream sufficiently wide to enable two horses to meet and pass by a tight pinch.

“Young gentlemen, this is a wonderful country,” he said.

“It’s kind of hilly,” admitted Stacy.

“In the Indian tongue, Alaska means ‘the great country,’” added the Professor.

“Why, I didn’t know you talked Indian,” cried Ned.

“I always suspected the Professor was an Indian. Now I know it,” chuckled Stacy.

“Young men, if you will listen I shall be glad to enlighten you as to some of the marvels of the country we are now in. If my recollection serves me right, the country has an area of about six hundred thousand square miles.”

Chunky uttered a long-drawn whistle of amazement.

“Some territory that, eh, fellows?” he said, nodding.

“If my recollection serves me right, Alaska is bigger than all the Atlantic states combined from Maine to Louisiana.”

“That’s where they have the ’gators,” said Chunky.

“And with half of Texas thrown in,” continued the Professor. “It has a coast line of about twenty-six thousand miles, a greater sea frontage than all the shores of the United States combined.”

“Why one would travel as far as if he were to go around the world in going over all the coast line, then, wouldn’t he, Professor?” wondered Tad.

“Exactly. Furthermore, it extends so far towards Asia that it carries the dominion of our great country as far west of San Francisco as New York is east of it, making California really a central state.”

“Oh, Professor. Will you please repeat that? I didn’t get it,” called the fat boy.

“You must listen if you wish to hear what I am saying. Your mind wanders.”

“I hope it doesn’t do much wandering here. I’ll surely be a dead one if it does,” retorted Stacy, peering down the sheer walls that dropped into the gloomy pass below him.

“To give you another illustration, were you to combine England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy, you still would lack considerable of having enough to make an Alaska. Then, added to this, are the great mountains, thousands of feet high, and one great river–not to speak of the smaller ones–that flows through more than two thousand miles of wonderful country. I have given you a bird’s-eye-view of the country, a small part of which you have started to explore.”

“Yes, a fellow needs a bird’s-eye up here. He has to have or he’s a goner,” declared Chunky.

“And by the way, Professor,” said Tad. “Your pony is yawning with his left hind leg.”

“Haw, haw, haw! That’s a good one,” laughed the fat boy.

“What do you mean?” wondered the Professor.

“He is stretching himself. His left hind foot at this moment is suspended over several hundred feet of space. But don’t startle him for goodness’ sake,” laughed Tad.

The Professor glanced back. Afterwards the boys declared he had gone pale at the sight of that foot held so carelessly over the yawning chasm, but the Professor denied the accusation. He clucked very gently to the pony. The little animal lazily drew the foot in, and, after trying several places, at last found a spot that appeared to suit it and on which it placed the small foot. The boys drew a sigh of relief.

“My, but that was a narrow escape,” derided Ned. “Just think of it, Professor.”

“Gid ap,” commanded Professor Zepplin. “Look sharp that none of you does worse.”

Now and then reaching a spot where they could get an unobstructed view of the distance the boys were fairly thrilled by the sight of the jagged peaks, sparkling in the sunlight, many hidden in the clouds and too high to be seen. It was an awesome sight and at such times stilled the merry voices of the Pony Rider Boys as they gazed off over the array of wonderful heights.

“What are they?” asked Ned when he first caught sight of this vista of mountain peaks.

“The first one should be Mt. Lituya and the next Mt. Fairweather,” Tad replied.

“That is correct, according to the map,” spoke up the Professor. “The former is ten thousand feet high, the latter five thousand, five hundred.”

A series of low wondering whistles were heard from the lips of the boys. It did not seem possible that the distance to the tops of those mountains could be so great.

“I should like to climb one of the highest,” declared Butler.

“You can’t,” answered the Professor sharply.

“Why not, Professor?”

“Because I shall not allow it.”

“And there’s another reason,” announced Stacy. “You can’t because you can’t. But if you did succeed in getting to the top think what sport you could have!”

“How so?” asked Butler.

“You could do a toboggan slide two miles long. I reckon it would land you somewhere over in Asia. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

“I don’t know about that,” reflected Butler.

“You wouldn’t know about it if you were to take the slide, either. But how it would surprise some of those Asiatics to see a Pony Rider Boy suddenly landing in their midst, coming from the nowhere,” chuckled Stacy.

“I rather think it would surprise almost anyone to have a Pony Rider Boy land in his midst,” answered Tad with a smiling nod.

“Is that some kind of joke?” demanded the fat boy.

“No, that’s an axiom,” spoke up Rector.

“An axiom?” reflected Chunky. “Oh, I know what that is. It is something that something else revolves around, isn’t it? That’s the sort of thing the world is supposed to revolve about. I know, for I read it in my geography.”

The boys groaned. The suspicion of a smile played about the corners of Professor Zepplin’s mouth.

“You had better go back to school rather than be traveling with real men,” advised Ned.

“Isn’t that an axiom, Professor?” called Stacy indignantly.

“It is not.”

“Then what is one?”

“You are a living example of one yourself,” was the whimsical reply. Stacy pondered over the Professor’s retort all the rest of that day. But when noon came and passed and no stop was made for a noonday meal, the fat boy began to grow restive.

“Don’t we stop for something to eat?” he demanded.

“I should like to know where?” answered Tad.

“Isn’t there a place wide enough for us, Tad?”

“There is not.”

“But when are we going to find one?”

“You know as much about that as I do. Remember none of us ever has been over this trail. For aught I know we may have to sleep standing up to-night.”

“Well, I reckon I’d just as soon fall off before dark as after. Anyhow, I don’t propose to sleep on this trail as it looks to me now–”

“Hark!”

Tad’s voice was sharp and incisive. He was holding up one hand to impose silence on his companions. Walter Perkins’ face grew pale, the fat boy’s eyes were large and frightened. Professor Zepplin halted his pony sharply and turning in his saddle glanced anxiously back toward his charges.

“What is it?” stammered Rector.

“I don’t know,” answered Tad Butler. “It’s something awful, whatever it is.”

“Have no fear, young men. I know what that sound is. There is no danger here where we are, for–”

The Professor did not complete his sentence. The distant rumbling that had at first attracted their attention suddenly merged into a deafening roar, and the trail quivered under their feet. The ponies snorted and threw up their heads, chafing at the bits.

“Hold fast to your horses!” shouted Tad. His voice was lost in the great roar that now overwhelmed them, sending terror to the hearts of every Pony Rider Boy on that narrow ledge of rock known as the Yakutat trail.