Jesse, the youngest of the party, now and then stopped for a moment to catch his breath; and, in fact, he seemed none too happy with some of these hardships of their experience.
"Come on," said Rob; "we'll stop when we get to the thicket just up above there. Jimmy acts as though he was looking for something up there--I don't know what."
They toiled on upward, now and again turning to look at the great expanse of country which lay below them--the wide bay shining in the sunlight, the magnificent panorama of the mountains beyond, and the line of the deep sea beyond the entrance to the bay. They turned as they heard a sudden exclamation from Jimmy, who was prowling at the edge of the alder thicket where they had stopped for the moment. As he pointed down they saw the surface of the ground among the alders ripped up as though by a giant plough.
Jimmy held up three fingers and pointed below toward their camp, the smoke of whose fire they could dimly see. At first they could not understand him, until he made motions as if digging, and swung his head from side to side, grunting in such plain imitation of a bear that they could not mistake. Then they saw that this had probably been the feeding-ground of the three bears which they had killed. Apparently the bears had been living high up in the mountains for a long time, waiting for the salmon run to begin. The country was all torn up where they had dug for roots and bulbs.
"Well, now, what's Jimmy going to do this time?" asked Jesse, interested.
The Aleut, talking to himself in some unknown words, was down on his hands and knees, himself digging in the holes among the alders.
"_Karosha!_" said he, at length, holding up several long, white bulbs about as thick as his finger; and he made a motion as though to eat them.
"Ah, ha!" said Rob. "This is an Aleut potato-patch, it seems. All right, we'll just gather some of these and use them for vegetables. They'll help out the meat and fish, perhaps."
As Jimmy dug the bulbs they put them into the folds of their jackets and sweaters until they had a good supply. After this they made their way down the mountain, splashed through the creek again, and threw down their new discoveries beside the meat scaffold. Jimmy indulged in a broad smile.