Читать книгу Gold Hunting in Alaska онлайн

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At camp that evening we were joined by a native, "Charley." who told us by signs and by what few words he could speak, that he had come part way up the Hunt River behind us, but had left his birch-bark canoe several miles below, roaming off to hunt in the neighboring hills.

He told us that he had shot a bear the day before and had cached it down the river, his boat being too small to take it. He wanted us to go and get it. Sure enough, a few miles down, we found the bear as Charley had said. It was all cut up, the skin being stretched on poles and fastened in a tree. The carcass was also divided and hidden in a pole-box raised high on a slender scaffold. Charley had expected to come on his sled later on and take it home. After loading on this prize we continued down the river, the Indian accompanying us in his canoe. The rapids were furious and many, and we shot them as if we had been behind a locomotive. It took a cool head to steer a boat under these conditions, and Cox did it. At one place the stream had washed under a bank above and trees had fallen over, making a complete set of rafters. The current rushed the boat under a series of these, like city roofs, and it kept us busy to duck our heads.

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