This being settled, all four loaded themselves with venison and followed Kooga’s lead to the place where he had made his lonely and cheerless camp, and where his bidarkie was carefully hauled up on the beach beyond high-water mark. His shelter was a tiny A tent, supported by paddles and spears, and pitched in the lee of a huge bowlder. A quantity of moss heaped within it had formed for him a bed similar to that of our castaways. He had not, however, been able to make a fire, his supply of tinder being wet, and he not having had the good-fortune to discover an eider-duck’s nest.
The bidarkie excited Phil’s curiosity to such an extent that it seemed as though he would never weary of examining it. It was one of the two-holed craft, and after it had been carefully launched and laden the Yankee lad asked Serge if he thought Kooga would allow him to occupy its vacant hatch for the short cruise.
When Serge made the request the young native looked dubious, and shook his head. He had seen too many self-confident white men spilled into the icy waters of that coast from those ticklish craft; but as Phil insisted, he finally yielded a reluctant consent. He, of course, did not know that the white lad had been considered the most expert canoeman in New London, or that his own canoe was a tiny-decked affair of cedar every whit as crank as this bidarkie. His eyes therefore opened wide with surprise as his new companion stepped lightly into the canoe and settled himself in its forward hatch, with all the confidence of one who had always been accustomed to such things. When, in addition to this, Phil seized a double-bladed paddle and began to wield it with the practised skill of an old canoeman, the young Aleut actually laughed aloud with gratified amazement.
As under the influence of its two well-handled paddles the light craft shot away up the strait, Jalap Coombs and Serge watched it with a feeling of pride that their companion should thus prove himself the equal of a native in one of his own especial lines of business. The mate was especially outspoken in his admiration of this feat, which would have been as impossible to him as the navigating of a balloon. “I don’t believe even old Kite Roberson hisself could have done it any handier,” he said, as he resumed his burden of venison, and started with it along-shore in the direction of the barrabkie.