Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 168: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

958 ~Once we heard the sea lions barkin’ all round us an’ was expectin’ to strike a rock any minute, but luck was with us an’ we got through without scrapin’ an’ soon we was outa hearin’ of ’em. ‘Then one day the fog lifted an’ the sun come out; there was land dead ahead. We ran in on it lookin’ fer an anchorage, findin’ it was an island with deep water and high cliffs on the windward side, with no good holdin’ ground, but we coasted along till we rounded a high p’int, findin’ behind it a fine little bay, horseshoe shaped with a sandy beach and as safe as a lake. We dropped our mud hook in about four fathoms an’ two of us went ashore in the dory to take a look at the country.” ‘What was the name of this island that you were so fortunate as to sight after your perilous voyage through the fogs of the Northern Pacific?” inquired the school- master who listened with breathless interest to the account of the perils of the sea. ‘“ Purfesser, ef it has any name I never heerd it mentioned. Ye see we put in there in distress, an’ fer circumstances over which we hed no control we left thar in a hell of a hurry; I’ll say thet ef we was glad when we sighted it we was a heap gladder when we lost sight of it a while later. It ain’t down on any chart I’ve ever seen, an’ I reckon our crew on the ol’ fishin’ smack are the only white men thet ever laid their eyes on it.” Josh paused, then silently helped him- self to a mug of the de-natured cider, a hunk of cheese, two soda crackers and a smoked red herring, after disposing of which slight refreshment he brushed the crumbs from his ragged beard and with a retro- spective look in his eyes resumed his yarn, “From high to low water mark the beach was all messed up with deer an’ bear tracks. I’d seen purty big bear tracks on Kadiak Island an’ round Dutch Harbor, but they was nothin’ but baby cub tracks alongside o’ these, fer they was more’n two foot an’ a half long an’ sunk down deep nm the hard sand beach where our tracks didn’t hardly leave a sign. We did notice a few cub tracks not over a foot long, so we went back an’ got our rifles allowin’ we’d shoot ef we run across the little fellers, an’ hide ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, or run ef we met one o’ them big ones thet made the big tracks. “Wood and fresh water was what we were lookin’ for, so we struck up a dry crik bed at the head o’ the bay an’ found plenty of good water an’ lots of firewood a short way back from the beach. Up the draw a mile further we found placer gold in the crik bed and a quartz ledge showin’ free gold cropped out on the ridge above. We staked out our two diskiverers’ claims accordin’ to miners’ law an’ then started to take a look over the island. Back from the water it was rollin’ country with grassy ridges an’ level stretches of meadow land in between an’ clumps of trees an’ thickets of underbrush scattered over it here an’ thar. “When we first got near the island we seen what looked like some big buildin’s that were half tumbled down an’ we call’ated to go an’ have a look at ‘em, ‘but ez we were crossin’ a flat we seen some holes that looked like one o’ them shell holes that Jed tells of seein’ over in France durin’ the war, only they wasn’t so big ez they were, about three foot deep an’ ten foot across; all round ’em the grass was tromped down with the same big tracks we'd noticed on the beach an’ at fust we reckoned that the bears hed been diggin’ out ground hogs or chipmunks, but we found out different, mighty pronto. ‘“ Ez we was projeckin’ round at the edge o one o’ them holes kinder wantin’ ter kill a big bear an’ at the same time knowin’ thet our rifles was too small bore fer to do it, ez to jedge from the tracks a three inch cannon was what we’d need, then jest ez we’d allowed thet we hadn’t lost no bears that day, all of a sudden something come flyin’ through the air an’ after boundin’ twice on the ground hit my pardner in his breadbasket, knockin’ him flat an’ knockin’ the wind out of him, I let him lay an’ grunt while I picked up the ball thet hed floored him. It was the shape of a baseball, covered with raw seal hide, an’ more or less, ez big ez an undersized punkin’. It didn’t weigh much an’ I reckon it was stuffed with deer hair packed tight. Ez I was handlin’ it an’ wonderin’ whar it hed dropped from another one fell oO COMCOOOKS.ECO