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Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov 1942–43

Waffen-SS Soldier
VERSUS
Soviet Rifleman
Chris McNab
Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov 1942–43

Waffen-SS Soldier
Soviet Rifleman
Chris McNab

Illustrated by Johnny Shumate

INTRODUCTION 4
THE OPPOSING SIDES 10
Ideology and recruitment • Training and tactics • Weapons

ROSTOV-ON-DON 31
20–25 July 1942

THE THIRD BATTLE OF KHARKOV 43

1 February–18 March 1943

THE FOURTH BATTLE OF KHARKOV 58

6–11 August 1943

ANALYSIS 69
Waffen-SS – ‘fire brigade’ forces • Soviet forces – evolving tactics

AFTERMATH 74
UNIT ORGANIZATIONS 78
BIBLIOGRAPHY 79
INDEX 80
 Introduction
On 22 June 1941, some 3.8 million Axis military personnel, along with
more than 6,500 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 600,000 motor
vehicles, 600,000 horses, tens of thousands of artillery pieces and mortars
Kharkov in ruins in the middle
years of the Great Patriotic
and more than 3,000 combat aircraft surged across the borders of the Soviet
War. (AirSeaLand/Cody Union. It was a wave of steel and fire the likes of which history had never
Images) witnessed. It was also, of course, the beginning of Operation Barbarossa,

4
Hitler’s hubristic gamble to achieve the Lebensraum (‘living space’) that he Waffen-SS troops engage in
saw as the teleological, geographical and racial destiny of the German people. street fighting on the Eastern
Front. Note the very light
Within the mass of the Operation Barbarossa movement were a handful amounts of equipment they
of divisions and regiments from the Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Schutzstaffel carry with them into battle;
(SS; Protection Squads) umbrella under which the Waffen-SS fell began life as they would generally leave
a small bodyguard force around emerging political rebel Adolf Hitler and the heavier packs in rear areas or
on vehicles, focusing mainly
nascent Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National on weapons and ammunition.
Socialist German Workers’ Party) in the mid-1920s, but by 1941 – and (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)
especially under the leadership of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler – it
had become a virtual state within a state. The SS was a fanatically aligned
instrument of Nazi power and control, with effective domination over the
police and intelligence services, running a growing business empire through
its control of the concentration camps, and increasingly providing an elite
combat arm, the Waffen-SS. The Waffen-SS (it actually acquired the name
in 1940) consequently became distinguished from the Allgemeine-SS
(General-SS), which was composed of the administrative, security and
concentration-camp branches of the SS.
By the time of Operation Barbarossa, the combat elements of the SS had
already seen action in Poland in 1939, France and the Netherlands in 1940
and the Balkans in 1941. These early actions began forging the Waffen-SS’s
formidable reputation for combat daring and Nazi loyalty, with regimental or
divisional honorifics such as Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), Totenkopf,
Wiking, Deutschland, Germania and Der Führer being trumpeted loud in Nazi
propaganda while earning an inverse notoriety among the Allies – acts of
massacre and indiscriminate cruelty eventually became intrinsic to the SS
‘brand’, although the culpability for war atrocities could vary considerably

5
 Soviet riflemen taking a according to unit and commander. From mid-1941 onwards, however,
rest. Two men have PPSh-41 it was the war on the Eastern Front that became, in a sense, the arena in
SMGs, the man on guard at
top has a DP LMG, while the
which the Waffen-SS was truly destined to fight; the theatre in which Hitler’s
soldier on the right has an grotesque, titanic view of racial and ideological struggle would play out on
AVS-36 selective-fire rifle. its greatest scale.
(AirSeaLand/Cody Images) The Waffen-SS was a rather marginal component of Operation Barbarossa,
certainly compared to the mighty Heer (Army). The Oberkommando der
Werhmacht (OKW; High Command of the Armed Forces) allocated almost
150 divisions to the invasion of the Soviet Union, but of these the Waffen-SS
contributed only six divisions, one motorized regiment (LSSAH, which became
a full division in July 1942) and three independent brigades. The Waffen-SS,
however, was destined to grow massively during the remaining years of
World War II, so that by the end of the conflict c.900,000 men had served in
its ranks in 38 divisions. This figure was still a drop in the ocean compared
to the 13 million soldiers who passed through the ranks of the wartime Heer
(although it should be noted that the Waffen-SS Panzer divisions eventually
constituted 25 per cent of the Wehrmacht’s tank strength), but the Waffen-SS
had an impact beyond its numbers. Its ideological drive, rigorous training,
combat skills and elite status meant that it was often at the forefront of major
offensive and defensive battles, as we shall see in the great street and field
battles in and around Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov in 1942–43. As the tide
of war turned against Germany, Waffen-SS formations were often famously
deployed in ‘fire-fighter’ roles, rushed to parts of the front where dependably
obdurate resistance or tactical flair was needed. In this context, the Waffen-SS’s

6
official commitment to ‘obedience unto death’ was fully tested, especially as Armour and infantry of the
its ranks were progressively opened up to non-German membership (see ‘The SS-Panzerkorps advance into
Kharkov in early 1943, the
Opposing Sides’). tank commanders making
On the Eastern Front, the Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiere (the principal focus of careful study of the ground
this study) came up against a very different type of enemy: the Soviet rifleman. ahead of them. Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS forged its reputation partly on prowess and elite exclusivity. The tank commanders were
encouraged to stand up in
Soviet riflemen, by contrast, were primarily about mass. The Soviet rifleman was their open turret hatches
a single drop in a mostly conscript sea, often inadequately trained and equipped, during attacks to achieve
sometimes poorly led, tactically governed by a centralized command structure better battlefield awareness –
rather than the Waffen-SS’s modern emphasis on devolved small-unit initiative. a policy that resulted in heavy
casualties. (AirSeaLand/Cody
We can make, and support, a general claim that the Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiere Images)
were the superior soldiers tactically on a man-for-man basis, at least in terms
of professional skills. We can also recognize that Stalin’s axiom ‘Quantity has
a quality of its own’ had a profound ring of truth on the Eastern Front. It
is not right, however, to present the Soviet rifleman as nothing more than a
crude battering-ram in a numbers game. Like his Waffen-SS opponent, he often
had a thick seam of ideological indoctrination running through his character,
reinforced by the compelling motivation that each soldier was fighting for his
own country. His tactical skills, from individual to formation levels, also grew
with experience and with some eventual doctrinal shifts. By 1942–43, the
soldiers of the Waffen-SS might still have been ideologically contemptuous of
their enemy, but they could no longer dismiss his fighting abilities.

7
 Fall Blau, summer 1942
The purpose behind Fall Blau (Case Blue) was to make a deep in history, while Heeresgruppe A pushed some 500km into
penetration in the south of the Soviet Union, occupying a the Caucasus, taking many of the desired oilfields. As history
defensive line along the Don River from Voronezh to the bend of reveals, however, there were deep fault lines in Hitler’s
the Volga River at Stalingrad, and swing down into the northern core plan and also in his decision, on 17 July, to divert
Caucasus to capture its extensive oilfields. This great sweep the 4. Panzerarmee from the push on Stalingrad to assist
would be performed by two Axis army groups: Heeresgruppe B Heeresgruppe A’s southerly advance along the Don River – a
as the northern arm heading for Stalingrad – portentously, decision that slowed and weakened the northern advance on
Hitler subsequently decided that the army group had to capture Stalingrad, and set the scene for a future catastrophe for the
Stalingrad itself – and Heeresgruppe A making the swinging Axis. Furthermore, ferocious resistance by the Soviet Caucasus
drive south into the Caucasus. Front and the Trans-Caucasus Front meant that although
Fall Blau was launched on 28 June 1942. For a time, it Heeresgruppe A had advanced 500km into the Caucasus by
brought back memories of the euphoric German advances of November, it still fell short of the Batumi–Baku line that was the
1941. Heeresgruppe B would reach Stalingrad by September original objective.
1942, there to begin what is surely the greatest city battle

In this book, we will explore examples in which the Waffen-SS and the
This image of Soviet Red Army rifleman clashed in combat, and what those instances say about
infantrymen on the march their respective approaches to making war. The focus is upon the operations
shows kit and equipment of 1942–43, specifically to three actions from the battle for Rostov-on-Don
to good effect. Note how
many of the men have their
in July 1942 through to what is now called the Fourth Battle of Kharkov in
plasch-palatka cape/shelter- August 1943. During this period, the ultimate outcome of World War II hung
half carried in the traditional in the balance. Illusions of German supremacy had been dispelled by defeats
way – rolled up and hung such as those at Stalingrad and Kursk, but the capacity of the Red Army
over one shoulder, with the
opposite ends tied at the hip
to drive all the way through to Germany by no means seemed inevitable.
to form a horseshoe shape. The two sides in these battles could not have been more different; what they
(AirSeaLand/Cody Images) shared was their unwavering commitment to victory.

8
 XXXX XXXXX

2 Livny Voronezh
XXXX
WEICHS/SALMUTH GOLIKOV
2
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JANY
4
Glukonov Kursk
a HOTH Voronezh
Desn

Konotop Svoboda
Sumy
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Do
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6 Belgorod
KUZNETSOV

Oskol
Kiev PAULUS
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Veluiki
Rossosh 21
Kharkov
Lubny DANILOV
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Serafimovich
Volg

Cherkassy Poliava Krasnograd

XXXXX

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Izyum Stalingrad
Kremenchung

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1 XXXX
Ch Kalach
KLEIST ir 62 Stalingrad
XXXXX

XX
Kirovo Kamensk- XXXX
KOLPAKCHY

XX
B Dnepropetrovsk Shakhtinski 1
XXXX
Voroshilovgrad Morozovsk
BOCK/WEICHS XXXX 64 MOSKALENKO
U KRA INE Zaporozhye 17 XXXX
CHUIKOV
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Tsymlanskaya 57
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Krivoi RUOFF
a

XXXX Kotelnikova
Rog Don TOLBUKHIN
3 XXXX

Mius
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Mariupol Taganrog KOLOMIETS

Dn
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Melitopol GRECHKO
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Salsk Astrakhan
Perekop Elista
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Sea of Azov
Southern
Tikhoretsk
XXXX MALINOVSKY
11 XXXXX
Kerch
North
MANSTEIN Kuban Caucasus
Front line, 7 May 1942 Taman Krasnodar BUDENNY
Armavir
Front line, 23 July 1942 Kuma
Novorossisk Caspian Sea
German units Black Sea
Sevastopol Maikop
Soviet units N

Hungarian units
0 100 miles
ek

Romanian units
Ter

0 100km Mozdok

Grozny

9
 The Opposing Sides
IDEOLOGY AND RECRUITMENT
Waffen-SS soldier
While ideology of one form or another is sewn through any armed force, as
the thread that binds individuals together in unit cohesion, on the Eastern
Front the war between Nazism and Communism was almost mythically
explicit, and any assessment of the clash between the Waffen-SS and the Red
Army’s riflemen must explore the motivating factors on each side.
Rapid insight into Waffen-SS ideology comes via the oath that all SS men
took upon joining the ranks of Hitler’s elite: ‘I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, as
Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich, my loyalty and bravery. I pledge
obedience unto death to you and to your appointed leaders. So help me God.’
The implications of this oath are more apparent when we set it against the
oath pledged, from March 1935, by the millions of men who entered the
wider Wehrmacht:

I swear to God this holy oath,

that I shall give my unconditional obedience
to the Leader of the German Reich and people,
Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces,
and that as a brave soldier I shall always be ready
to risk my life for this oath.

In the Wehrmacht oath, the soldier makes the declaration to God as the
supreme authority, but devolves spiritual obedience onto the earthly person
of Adolf Hitler, particularly in relation to his state leadership functions and
his role as the overarching Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht (Supreme
Commander of the Armed Forces). This oath brings a commitment to make

10
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the ultimate sacrifice in battle, or at least be ‘prepared’ to do so. The Waffen-SS, ABOVE LEFT
oath, by contrast, places Hitler far more centre stage. The Waffen-SS soldier In improvised snow
camouflage typical of that
is there to serve the Führer above all things, temporal and spiritual; God is worn during the winter of
there merely to ‘help’ the soldier fulfil his commitment. A crucial sentence is 1941–42, a soldier of the
‘I pledge obedience unto death to you and those you appoint to lead’. Strictly SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment
taken, the phrasing implies that the soldier’s life will be given in a state of Der Führer (SS-Division Reich)
studies the battlefield with
subjugation to Hitler and, crucially, to senior unit commanders. There is a binoculars. His left collar tab
death-drive at the heart of the Waffen-SS oath, the soldier sacrificing his life insignia indicates that he
on the altar of Nazism. is an SS-Unterscharführer,
Who were the men who took this oath, and what was their motivation a junior squad leader. Note
the way he has laid two
for doing so? We can start by looking at the baselines established by the Stielhandgranaten across the
beginning of World War II. Crucially, Waffen-SS soldiers were volunteers, tops of his rifle magazines.
not conscripts. They had to have a high degree of physical fitness (Waffen-SS (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)
physical training demands were typically higher than those of Heer training),
ABOVE RIGHT
perfect teeth and eyesight, a minimum height of 1.70m for most infantry Soldiers of the SS-Totenkopf-
units and between 17 and 25 years of age for infantry, armoured and signal Division on the Eastern Front
units (older soldiers could be recruited for other branches of the Waffen-SS). in the summer of 1942.
There were variations in these policies within the ranks of the organization. The man at the front is SS-
Untersturmführer August
For example, LSSAH recruited men of 1.78m minimum height and 25–35 Zingel, who was awarded
years of age, while in mountain SS units the minimum height could be as the Knight’s Cross of the Iron
low as 1.67m (low-down traction was advantageous in mountainous terrain). Cross in 1942. He has MP 40
Regardless of their physical attributes, every Waffen-SS soldier had to prove he magazine pouches worn
over his camouflage jacket.
was of ‘pure Aryan ancestry’ (i.e. with no trace of Jewish blood) back to 1800, (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)
a good citizen (no criminal record) and a committed Nazi in ideology. The
enlistment period was 25 years for officers, 12 years for NCOs and 4½ years

11
 SS-Rottenführer, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Der Führer

13

This soldier’s rank, an NCO rank roughly

equivalent to corporal in the Western
5 Allied armies, is denoted by his left
collar tab. The SS-Rottenführer typically
acted as an assistant squad leader,
although he might lead a squad in the
absence (through casualties or manpower
6 shortages) of an SS-Unterscharführer
(junior squad leader). Waffen-SS squad
leaders were typically armed with SMGs.
The soldier is in his early twenties, and a
veteran of the Eastern Front having served
there since June 1941.

12
The Fourth Battle of Kharkov, August 1943

11

10

12

Weapons, dress and equipment

This Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier has armed himself with a Soviet camouflaging foliage. Other items of dress include M42 trousers (4)
7.62mm PPSh-41 SMG (1). The Waffen-SS had no cultural problem tucked into M37 gaiters (5), the latter enclosing the tops of the M37
with using enemy weapons; indeed, the adoption of foreign-made Schürschuhe ankle boots (6), a more practical alternative to the older
weapons had been a procurement necessity during the formative calf-length Marschstiefel (marching boots).
years of the Waffen-SS. In terms of equipment, the Waffen-SS tended to go into combat
Head protection is provided by an M42 helmet with Type II Oak B very light, leaving heavy bags and equipment either in vehicles or at
cover (2). His main outer garment is an M42 Type II reversible a storage location. His Y-straps (7) and belt (8) support a gas-mask
camouflage smock with Plane Tree camouflage pattern (3). This container (9), often used to store personal items rather than the gas
garment was one of a diverse series of camouflage smocks produced mask itself, an M42 canteen (10), M42 mess kit (11) and a bread bag
for or adopted by the Waffen-SS, and by 1942–43 they had become (12), which was a useful piece of kit for carrying multiple grenades.
something of a signature feature of Waffen-SS combat troops. Note The only non-standard piece of kit is the canvas PPSh-41 drum
the loops sewn onto the shoulder and chest; these were used to affix magazine pouch (13). 13
 for other ranks. Officers had to have served for two years in the ranks or have
an equivalent experience in the Heer.
The motivation to volunteer for the Waffen-SS, at least in the 1930s and
the early 1940s, was undoubtedly helped by the organization’s public image.
Clad in distinctive black uniforms, wrapped in concepts of brotherhood and
service, and infused with the Nazi warrior spirit, the Waffen-SS had a certain
appeal to young men seeking adventure, status and personal power. The
Waffen-SS also had an interesting demographic profile. It proportionately
attracted more men from rural backgrounds than the Heer, which generally
resulted in higher levels of physical fitness and instinctive field craft but lower
levels of education (Quarrie 1993: 18).
By 1942–43, the Waffen-SS had undergone a profound change in its
recruitment policy through the swelling admission of non-German soldiers
into its ranks, primarily as a way to man units depleted by combat losses
and compensate for the greater recruiting power of the Heer. The practice
actually began in 1940 when Himmler, with Hitler’s blessing, looked to
recruit soldiers of Aryan ‘related stock’ from conquered nations, forming
them initially into ‘legions’ that over time often achieved full divisional
status. What began with an influx of Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes and
Finns eventually expanded to include peoples from almost every corner of
the expanded Reich and its allies, including Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians,
Hungarians, Italians, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Croatians, even a
smattering of British. A formation of particular relevance to this study is the
SS-Division Wiking, created from early international volunteer units from
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Although the foreign Waffen-SS units were mostly led by German officers,
their dramatic expansion certainly diluted the ideals of the specifically German
elite that were part of the Waffen-SS’s pre-war and early-war identity. Some
of the foreign divisions fought competently and even skilfully, but others did
not cover themselves in glory, particularly in the years 1943–45, when more
and more Waffen-SS divisions were desperately packaged together in response
to the endlessly mounting losses of a falling Reich. There was a psychological
division, therefore, between the elite ‘old guard’ Waffen-SS divisions formed
prior to 1943 and those that came later (with some notable exceptions,
such as the 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend), which included execrable
formations such as SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger’s 36. Waffen-
Grenadier-Division der SS (also known as the Dirlewanger Brigade), with
ranks composed of murderers, rapists and other criminals – such units were
poles apart from the original standards set for the Waffen-SS. A key point to
bear in mind, however, is that the Waffen-SS units and formations studied
in this book were still of the elite mindset, and were exclusively loyal to their
divisional and regimental identity, seeing the unit as the ultimate horizon for
their lives and deaths.

Soviet rifleman
When we turn our attention to the Soviet rifleman, we step into a very
different world. Although there were certainly many Red Army volunteers,
particularly in the first months of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), most

14
of the frontoviki (‘front fighters’) were drawn into the ranks via conscription. Two Red Army riflemen fight
By 1942, the conscription age for Soviet soldiers was 18 for those without a for the ruins of a hamlet in
the Voronezh sector in 1942.
secondary education and 19 for those with such an education. The latter were Both are armed with the
in the minority, however; the literacy and numeracy levels of Soviet riflemen SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle.
were often pitifully low, especially as men with higher levels of education It was initially intended that
were often creamed off for political service in the Naródnyy Komissariát about one-third of Red Army
rifle-division soldiers would
Vnútrennikh Del (NKVD; People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). be armed with SVTs, but by
Soviet soldiers came from all walks of life, but the front-line infantryman 1942 the production focus had
predominantly hailed from the urban or rural working class, individuals often shifted forward to SMGs and
familiar with poverty and hardship, which goes a long way to explaining backward to Mosin-Nagant
M1891/30 bolt-action rifles.
their tremendous fortitude in military service. As with the Waffen-SS, social (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)
origins could make a practical difference in combat; again, soldiers with
rural upbringings had inbuilt advantages in terms of life on campaign – in
creating convincing camouflage, for example. In peacetime, the terms of
military service for private soldiers were two years on active duty, three years
on furlough (during which period he could be recalled immediately) and
reserve status until 50 years old. In wartime, the concept of terms of service
largely collapsed: the soldier would serve until he was either wounded, killed,
released for special reasons or the war ended.
As a window into the ideology and motivations of the Soviet rifleman,
the oath of the Soviet soldier stands in useful contrast to that of the
Waffen-SS soldier:

I______, a citizen of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, entering into the
ranks of the Red Army of the Workers and Peasants, take this oath and solemnly
promise to be an honest, brave, disciplined, vigilant fighter, staunchly to protect
military and state secrets, and unquestioningly to obey all military regulations and
orders of commanders and superiors.

15
 Krasnoarmeyets, 112th Motorized Regiment

This krasnoarmeyets (private), a soldier

of the 112th Tank Brigade, is typical of
the lightly armed and equipped Soviet
10
rifleman during the battle for Kharkov.
He has just taken a shot from his Mosin-
Nagant rifle, cycling the bolt back to eject
the spent cartridge case. Soviet soldiers
were trained to fire on the move during
assaults, not least because the Red Army
did not effectively embed the tactic of
supporting fire-and-manoeuvre between 5
squads and larger units. Given that this
soldier is already in combat in August
1943, his chances of surviving until the
end of the war are low if he is kept in
front-line combat, with many Red Army
rifle units suffering more than 100 per
cent casualty rates in the course of a
prolonged combat campaign.

16
The Fourth Battle of Kharkov, August 1943

9 8

Weapons, dress and equipment

The 7.62mm Mosin-Nagant M1891/30 rifle (1) was the standard- straps with the raspberry piping to denote infantry (infantry uniforms
issue Soviet rifle of World War II. Although it was intended to be had no unit identification), matched with the M41 summer breeches
operated as standard with its long spike bayonet, this item was often (4) tucked into black leather marching boots (5).
omitted by soldiers in combat, particularly those fighting in urban or Ammunition stripper clips for his rifle are held in the four leather
close-quarters terrain. pouches (6) on the enlisted man’s belt. Other items of kit are the M39
His head protection is the SSh-40 steel helmet (2), identified by the canvas backpack (7), a water flask (8) and entrenching tool (9), plus
lower position of the shell rivets compared with the earlier SSh-39. the SM-1 gas-mask bag (10), which like the German practice was
He wears the M43 summer tunic (3), which displays simple shoulder often used to carry grenades. 17
 I promise conscientiously to study military affairs, in every way to protect
state secrets and state property, and to my last breath to be faithful to the people,
the Soviet Motherland, and the Workers-Peasants’ Government. I am always
prepared on order of the Workers and Peasants Government to rise to the defence
of my Motherland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and as a fighting
man of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants, I promise to defend it bravely,
skilfully, with dignity and honour, sparing neither my blood nor my life itself for
the achievement of total victory over our enemies.
If by evil intent I should violate this, my solemn oath, then let the severe
punishment of Soviet law and the total hatred and contempt of the working classes
befall me. (Rottman 2007: 11–12)

Obviously, this oath is considerably longer than that of the Waffen-SS, and
it is interesting to explore the differences. Like the German oath, the Soviet
version is ideologically aligned, although it disconnects the communist
ideology from a single authoritarian figurehead – the Soviet soldier is loyal
to the nation, state government and, implicitly, the overarching principles
of socialism. The last paragraph truly hammers home the moral and judicial
consequences of disobedience; in the absence of references to God (another
key distinction from German oaths), failure to obey the socialist vision results
in an atheistic equivalent of being damned to hell.
There is a clear focus on unquestioning obedience to superiors, and this is
not mere authoritarianism. The Red Army was an entity seemingly without
horizons. By war’s end, an estimated 34 million men had passed through
Soviet wartime military service. About 75 per cent of the Red Army consisted
of rifle (infantry) divisions. Governing this mass of manpower would be
difficult enough in peacetime, but under wartime conditions it became an
exercise in chaos management, not least because of the scale of the losses –
4 million Soviet casualties in the first six months of fighting – and the deep
German occupation of western Soviet territories.
The Soviet rifleman’s oath had to embrace and govern a wide range of
ethnic diversity. At this time, the Soviet Union contained more than 100
ethnic groups, albeit weighted heavily (85 per cent) towards the Slavic peoples
of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia (modern-day Belarus). In most cases,
multiple ethnicities were incorporated into individual units in a process of
sliianie (‘blending’), with some non-ethnic exceptions (such as Cossack units).
Sliianie ensured that potential nationalistic alignments were fragmented and
controlled in the armed forces, but it also meant that unit commanders had to
handle units with mixed languages (although Russian was the official military
language) and diverse social and cultural backgrounds, compounded by the
poor levels of education noted above. Partly for this reason, and partly from
the state’s political paranoia, the Soviet rifleman was built to be a creature of
unswerving obedience, as the oath reflects.
In the Waffen-SS, political ideals were often born from enthusiastic
political conversion to National Socialism, encouraged by Joseph Goebbels’
propaganda machine. In the Red Army, by contrast, ideological commitment
to the ideals of Soviet communism was generally ingrained through long-
standing and far-reaching indoctrination from infancy through adulthood.
Until roughly half-way through our period of study in this book, political

18
komissars (commissars) – aided by legions of embedded seksot’ (‘secret ABOVE LEFT
collaborators’, i.e. informers) – kept invasive watch over the political reliability Every Red Army rifle regiment
had two reconnaissance
of both commanders and men, the commissars embedded in the command platoons (one mounted, one
structure down to battalion level, and having equal authority with the unit on foot). The men within
commanders. In 1941–42 the commissars progressively lost their authority them were trained to higher
over tactical decision-making and were made subordinate to military standards in field craft and
small-unit combat, and often
commanding officers, as it was finally recognized that political interference had a leading role in helping
could often compromise military effectiveness. Thus the commissar was to decide lines of attack. The
redesignated as politruk (deputy commander for political affairs), although man at the front is armed
officers and men still had to maintain deep compliance with the Communist with a PPD-40 SMG, which
was replaced by the more
Party line. economical PPSh-41 in 1941.
Ultimately, the Soviet rifleman was likely more motivated to fight, and (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)
fight very hard, by the simple fact that the war on the Eastern Front was
an existential one: Hitler’s forces intended to destroy the Soviet state and, ABOVE RIGHT
at a literal level, enslave or exterminate its people, whom it classified as This Soviet rifleman is wearing
Untermenschen (subhumans, inferior people). The fire-hardened Nazism of heavy winter clothing, including
the thick felt overboots, the
the Waffen-SS was the embodiment of this outlook. In the ranks of the Soviet vatnie sharovari padded
riflemen, by contrast, there were doubtless many committed communists, but trousers and the telogreika
it is often difficult to separate them out from the mass of soldiers whose lives padded jacket, topped by the
were simply soaked through with the compliance of living in a communist defining shapka-ushanka fur
hat. Note the way he uses
dictatorship. What united them all, however, was a general contempt for the his left hand to form a stable
fashistkii (fascists), who through their oath they committed to drive from shooting base for his PPSh-41.
their lands. (AirSeaLand/Cody Images)

19
 TRAINING AND TACTICS
Waffen-SS soldier
Looking through the prism of training gives a deeper understanding of the
fundamental differences in battlefield performance between the Waffen-SS
soldier and the Red Army rifleman. The Waffen-SS prided itself on inculcating
very high levels of physical fitness and tactical initiative. The length of training
varied considerably during the war years, especially during the second half of
the conflict, and also had contrasts between the divisions, but typically it lasted
about 4–6 months. Physical fitness and mental courage were merged into
one training package. The Waffen-SS recruit underwent bruising unarmed-
combat instruction in which blows were landed with intent and ferocity,
including with weapons such as rifle stocks and sheathed bayonets. Boxing,
Waffen-SS grenadiers ride on wrestling and ju-jitsu were standard elements of the training curriculum, as
an assortment of PzKpfw III were frequent assault courses and route marches in full kit. Small-unit ‘battles’
and IV medium tanks as they
prepare to counter-attack
were regularly conducted, both testing and developing tactical initiative down
in Ukraine during 1943. The to individual soldier level. There was a particularly high premium placed on
tanks would help the infantry weapon handling, with the soldiers spending many hours sending rounds
by engaging enemy armour down-range and in exercises that enhanced both their marksmanship and
and providing long-range
direct fire support against
tactical intelligence, such as understanding the optimal configurations of
enemy strongpoints; the machine-gun and mortar support fire for an infantry assault.
infantry would protect the Most distinctively, the Waffen-SS prided itself on the heavy use of
armour from enemy infantry live ammunition during tactical exercises. This practice was somewhat
anti-tank teams and had
better visual awareness of
controversial, as the inevitable accidents produced a constant trickle of
the terrain. (AirSeaLand/Cody injuries and fatalities. In the Waffen-SS mindset, however, the risk was worth
Images) the reward. The brutality of the training bred hard men (or unmasked those

20
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 CHAPTER XXXI
NEL-TE QUALIFIES AS A BRANCH PILOT

Although disappointed of their guide, there was nothing for the

sledge party to do but push on and trust to their own good
judgment to carry them safely to the end of their journey. So as
much of the moose meat as could be loaded on a sledge, or several
hundred pounds in all, was prepared and frozen that evening. Both
then and in the morning the dogs were given all they could eat—so
much, in fact, that they were greatly disinclined to travel during
most of the following day.
The latest addition to the party, after being rudely awakened from
the slumber into which Jalap Coombs’s singing had lulled him, called
pitifully for his mother, and, refusing to be comforted, finally sobbed
himself to sleep on Phil’s bear-skin in front of the fire. Here he spent
the night, tucked warmly in a rabbit-skin robe, nestled between Phil
and Serge with all his sorrows forgotten for the time being. In the
early morning he was a very sober little lad, with a grievance that
was not to be banished even by the sight of his beloved “doggies,”
while the advances of his human friends were met by a dignified
silence. He was too hungry to refuse the food offered him by Serge;
but he ate it with a strictly business-like air, in which there was
nothing of unbending nor forgiveness. To Phil’s attempts at
conversation he turned a deaf ear, nor would he even so much as
smile when Jalap Coombs made faces at him, or got down on hands
and knees and growled for his special benefit. He was evidently not
to be won by any such foolishness.
He was roused to an exhibition of slight interest by the tinkling
music of Musky’s bells when the dogs were harnessed; and when,
everything being ready for a start, Phil lifted him on the foremost
sledge, and tucked him into a spare sleeping-bag that was securely
lashed to it, he murmured: “Mamma, Nel-te go mamma.”
The loads having been redistributed to provide for the
accommodation of the young passenger, this foremost sledge bore,
besides Nel-te, only the Forty Mile mail, the sleeping equipment of
the party, and their extra fur clothing, the chynik, in which was
stored the small quantity of tea still remaining, what was left of the
pemmican, and an axe. As, with its load, it did not weigh over two
hundred pounds, its team was reduced to three dogs, Musky,
Luvtuk, and big Amook. Serge still drove seven dogs, and his sledge
bore the entire camp equipment and stock of provisions, except the
recently acquired moose meat. This was loaded on the last sledge,
which was drawn by five dogs, and driven by Jalap Coombs
according to his own peculiar fashion.
As soon as the sledges were in motion, and Nel-te conceived the
idea that he was going home, his spirits revived to such an extent
that he chirruped cheerfully to the dogs, and even smiled
occasionally at Phil, who strode alongside.
They crossed Fox Lake, passed up the stream that connected it
with Indian Trail Lake, and finally went into camp on the edge of the
forest at the head of the latter earlier than usual, because they could
not see their way to the making of any further progress. Although
they felt certain that there must be some stream flowing into the
lake by which they could leave it, they could discover no sign of its
opening. So they made camp, and, leaving Jalap Coombs to care for
it, Phil and Serge departed in opposite directions to scan every foot
of the shore in search of a place of exit.
On reaching this camping-place Nel-te looked about him
inquiringly and with evident disappointment, but he said nothing,
and only gazed wistfully after the two lads when they set forth on
their search. For a time he hung about the camp-fire watching Jalap
Coombs, who was too busily engaged in cooking supper and
preparing for the night to pay much attention to him. At length the
little chap strolled over to the sledges, and engaged in a romp with
the three dogs who dragged his particular conveyance. Every now
and then his shrill laughter came to Jalap’s ears, and assured the
latter that the child was safe.
After a while the explorers returned, both completely discouraged
and perplexed.
“I don’t believe there is any inlet to this wretched lake!” cried Phil,
flinging himself down on a pile of robes. “I’ve searched every foot of
coast on my side, and am willing to swear that there isn’t an
opening big enough for a rabbit to squeeze through, so far as I
went.”
“Nor could I find a sign of one,” affirmed Serge, “though perhaps
in the morning—”
“Hello! Where’s Nel-te?” interrupted Phil, springing to his feet and
gazing about him anxiously.
“He were about here jest as you boys kim in,” replied Jalap
Coombs, suspending operations at the fire, and gazing about him
with a startled expression. “I heered him playing with the dogs not
more’n a minute ago.”
“Well, he isn’t in sight now,” said Phil, in a voice whose tone
betrayed his alarm, “and if we don’t find him in a hurry there’s a
chance of our not doing it at all, for it will be dark in fifteen minutes
more.”
As he spoke, Phil hastily replaced the snow-shoes that he had just
laid aside. Serge did the same thing, and then they began to circle
about the camp with heads bent low in search of the tiny trail. At
short intervals they called aloud the name of the missing one, but
only the mocking forest echoes answered them.
Suddenly Serge uttered a joyful shout. He had found the prints of
small snow-shoes crossed and recrossed by those of dogs. In a
moment Phil joined him, and the two followed the trail together. It
led for a short distance along the border of the lake in the direction
previously taken by Phil, and then, making a sharp bend to the right,
struck directly into the forest.
When the boys reached the edge of the timber they found a low
opening so overhung by bushes as to be effectually concealed from
careless observation. The curtaining growth was so bent down with
a weight of snow that even Nel-te must have stooped to pass under
it. That he had gone that way was shown by the trail still dimly
visible in the growing dusk, and the lads did not hesitate to follow.
Forcing a path through the bushes, which extended only a few yards
back from the lake, they found themselves in an open highway,
evidently the frozen surface of a stream.
“Hurrah!” shouted Phil, who was the first to gain it. “I believe this
is the very creek we have been searching for. It must be, and the
little chap has found it for us.”
“Yes,” replied Serge. “It begins to look as though Cree Jim’s son
had taken Cree Jim’s place as guide.”
Now the boys pushed forward with increased speed. At length
they heard the barking of dogs, and began to shout, but received no
answer. They had gone a full quarter of a mile from the lake ere they
caught sight of the little fur-clad figure plodding steadily forward on
what he fondly hoped to be his way towards home and the mother
for whom his baby heart so longed. Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook
were his companions, and not until he was caught up in Phil’s arms
did the child so much as turn his head or pay the slightest heed to
those who followed his trail.
As he was borne back in triumph towards camp his lower lip
quivered, and two big tears rolled down his chubby cheeks, but he
did not cry nor utter a complaint; nor from that time on did he make
further effort to regain his lost home. The boys had hardly begun to
retrace their steps when another figure loomed out of the shadows
and came rapidly towards them. It looked huge in the dim light, and
advanced with gigantic strides.
 “Hello!” cried Phil, as he recognized the new-comer. “Where are
you bound?”
“Bound to get lost along with the rest of the crew,” replied Jalap
Coombs, stoutly. “Didn’t I tell ye I wouldn’t put up with your gettin’
lost alone ag’in?”
“That’s so; but you see I forgot,” laughed Phil. “Now that we are
all found, though, let’s get back to the supper that you were cooking
before you decided to get lost. By the way, Mr. Coombs, do you
realize that this is the very stream for which we have been hunting?
What do you think of our young pilot now?”
“Think of him!” exclaimed Jalap Coombs. “I think he’s jest the
same as all in the piloting business—pernicketty. Knows a heap
more’n he’ll ever tell, and won’t ever p’int out a channel till you’re
just about to run aground. Then he’ll do it kinder keerless and
onconsarned, same as the kid done jest now. Oh, he’s a regular
branch pilot, he is, and up to all the tricks of the trade.”
Bright and early the following morning, thanks to Nel-te’s pilotage,
the sledges were speeding up the creek on their way to Lost Lake.
By nightfall they had crossed it, three other small lakes, descended
an outlet of the last to Little Salmon River, and after a run of five
miles down that stream found themselves once more amid the ice
hummocks of the Yukon, one hundred and twenty miles above the
mouth of the Pelly. Of this distance they had saved about one-third
by their adventurous cut-off.
The end of another week found them one hundred and fifty miles
farther up the Yukon and at the mouth of the Tahkeena. It had been
a week of the roughest kind of travel, and its hard work was telling
severely on the dogs.
As they made their last camp on the mighty river they were to
leave for good on the morrow, they were both glad and sorry. Glad
to leave its rough ice and escape the savage difficulties that it
offered in the shape of cañons and roaring rapids only a few miles
above, and sorry to desert its well-marked course for the little-
known Tahkeena.
Still, their dogs could not hold out for another week on the Yukon,
while over the smooth going of the tributary stream they might
survive the hardships of the journey to its very end; and without
these faithful servants our travellers would indeed be in a sorry
plight. So, while they reminisced before their roaring camp-fire of
the many adventures they had encountered since entering Yukon
mouth, two thousand miles away, they looked hopefully forward to
their journey’s end, now less than as many hundred miles from that
point. To the dangers of the lofty mountain range they had yet to
cross they gave but little thought, for the mountains were still one
hundred miles away.
 CHAPTER XXXII
THE FUR-SEAL’S TOOTH CREATES A

SENSATION

One evening late in March the smoke of a lonely camp-fire curled

above a fringe of stunted spruces forming the timber-line high up on
the northern slope of the Alaskan coast range. Kotusk, the natives
call these mountains. Far below lay the spotless sheet of Takh Lake,
from which the Tahkeena winds for one hundred miles down its
rugged valley to swell the Yukon flood. From the foot of the
mountains the unbroken solitude of the vast northern wilderness
swept away in ice-bound silence to the polar sea. Far to the
westward St. Elias and Wrangel, the great northern sentinels of the
Rocky Mountain system, reared their massive heads nearly twenty
thousand feet above the Pacific. From them the mighty range of
snow-clad peaks follows the coast line eastward, gathering with icy
fingers the mist clouds ever rising from the warm ocean waters,
converting them with frigid breath into the grandest glaciers of the
continent, and sending these slowly grinding their resistless way
back to the sea.
On one side of this stupendous barrier our sledge party from the
Yukon was now halted. On the other lay the frontier of civilization,
safety, and their journey’s end. Between the two points rose the
mountains, calmly contemptuous of human efforts to penetrate their
secrets of avalanche and glacier, icy precipice and snow-filled gorge,
fierce blizzard and ice-laden whirlwind, desolation and death. It is no
wonder that, face to face with such things, the little group, gathered
about the last camp-fire they might see for days or perhaps forever,
should be unusually quiet and thoughtful.
 Still clad in their well-worn garments of fur, they were engaged in
characteristic occupations. Phil, looking anxious and careworn, was
standing close to the fire warming and cleaning his rifle. Serge was
making a stew of the last of their moose meat, which would
afterwards be frozen and taken with them into untimbered regions
where camp-fires would be unknown. Jalap Coombs was
thoughtfully mending a broken snow-shoe, and at the same time
finding his task sadly interrupted by Nel-te, who, nestled between
his knees, was trying to attract the sailor-man’s undivided attention.
The little chap, with his great sorrow forgotten, was now the life
and pet of the party. So firmly was his place established among
them that they wondered how they had ever borne the loneliness of
a camp without his cheery presence, and could hardly realize that he
had only recently come into their lives. Now, too, half the anxiety
with which they regarded the perilous way before them was on his
account.
“I’m worrying most about the dogs,” said Phil, continuing a
conversation begun some time before, “and I am afraid some of
them will give out before we reach the summit.”
“Yes,” agreed Serge; “to-day’s pull up from the lake has told
terribly on them, and Amook’s feet have been badly cut by the crust
ever since he ate his boots.”
“Poor old dog!” said Phil. “It was awfully careless of me to forget
and leave them on him all night. I don’t wonder a bit at his eating
them, though, considering the short rations he’s been fed on lately.”
The dogs were indeed having a hard time. Worn by months of
sledge-pulling over weary leagues of snow and ice, their trials only
increased as the tedious journey progressed. The days were now so
long that each offered a full twelve hours of sunlight, while the snow
was so softened by the growing warmth that in the middle of the
day it seriously clogged both snow-shoes and sledges. Then a crust
would form, through which the poor dogs would break for an hour
or more, until it stiffened sufficiently to bear their weight. Added to
these tribulations was such a scarcity of food that half-rations had
become the rule for every one, men as well as dogs, excepting Nel-
te, who had not yet been allowed to suffer on that account. Of the
many dogs that had been connected with the expedition at different
times only nine were now left, and some of these would evidently
not go much farther.
As the boys talked of the condition of these trusty servants, and
exchanged anxious forebodings concerning the crossing of the
mountains, their attention was attracted by an exclamation from
Jalap Coombs. Nel-te had been so insistent in demanding his
attention that the sailor-man was finally obliged to lay aside his work
and lift the child to his knees, saying,
“Waal, Cap’n Kid, what’s the orders now, sir?”
“Cap’n Kid” was the name he had given to the little fellow on the
occasion of the latter’s début as pilot; for, as he said, “Every branch
pilot answers to the hail of cap’n, and this one being a kid becomes
‘Cap’n Kid’ by rights.”
For answer to his question the child held out a small fur-booted
foot, and intimated that the boot should be pulled off.
“Bad foot, hurt Nel-te,” he said.
“So! something gone wrong with your running rigging, eh?”
queried Jalap Coombs, as he pulled off the offending boot. Before he
could investigate it the little chap reached forward, and, thrusting a
chubby hand down to its very toe, drew forth in triumph the object
that had been annoying him. As he made a motion to fling it out into
the snow, Jalap Coombs, out of curiosity to see what had worried
the child, caught his hand. The next moment he uttered the half-
terrified exclamation that attracted the attention of Phil and Serge.
As they looked they saw him holding to the firelight between
thumb and finger, and beyond reach of Nel-te, who was striving to
regain it, an object so strange and yet so familiar that for a moment
they regarded it in speechless amazement.
 “The fur-seal’s tooth!” cried Phil. “How can it be?”

THE FUR-SEAL’S TOOTH CREATES A SENSATION

“It can’t be our fur-seal’s tooth,” objected Serge, in a tone of

mingled incredulity and awe. “There must be several of them.”
“I should think so myself,” replied Phil, who had taken the object
in question from Jalap Coombs for a closer examination, “if it were
not for a private mark that I scratched on it when it was in our
possession at St. Michaels. See, here it is, and so the identity of the
tooth is established beyond a doubt. But how it ever got here I
cannot conceive. There is actually something supernatural about the
whole thing. Where did you say you found it, Mr. Coombs?”
“In Cap’n Kid’s boot,” replied the mate, who had just restored that
article to the child’s foot. “But blow me for a porpus ef I kin
understand how ever it got there. Last time I seen it ’twas back to
Forty Mile.”
 “Yes,” said Serge, “Judge Riley had it.”
“I remember seeing him put it into a vest-pocket,” added Phil,
“and meant to ask him for it, but forgot to do so. Now to have it
appear from the boot of that child, who has never been to Forty
Mile, or certainly not since we left there, is simply miraculous. It
beats any trick of spiritualism or conjuring I ever heard of. The
mystery of the tooth’s appearing at St. Michaels after my father lost
it, only a short time before at Oonalaska, was strange enough; but
that was nothing to this.”
“There must be magic in it,” said Serge, who from early
associations was inclined to be superstitious. “I don’t care, though, if
there is,” he added, stoutly. “I believe the tooth has come to us at
this time of our despondency as an omen of good-fortune, and now
I feel certain that we shall pull through all right. You remember, Phil,
the saying that goes with it: ‘He who receives it as a gift receives
good-luck.’”
“Who has received it as a gift this time?” inquired the Yankee lad.
“We all have, though it seems to have been especially sent to Nel-
te, and you know he is the one we were most anxious about.”
“That’s so,” assented Phil, “and from this time on Nel-te shall wear
it as a charm, though I suppose it won’t stay with him any longer
than suits its convenience. I never had a superstition in my life, and
haven’t believed in such things, but I must confess that my unbelief
is shaken by this affair. There isn’t any possible way, that I can see,
for this tooth to have got here except by magic of some kind.”
“It beats the Flying Dutchman and merrymaids,” said Jalap
Coombs, solemnly, as he lighted his pipe for a quieting smoke. “D’ye
know, lads, I’m coming to think as how it were all on account of this
’ere curio being aboard the steamer Norsk that she stopped and
picked you up in Bering Sea that night.”
“Nonsense!” cried Phil. “That is impossible.”
 Thus purely through ignorance this lad, who was usually so
sensible and level-headed, declared with one breath his belief in an
impossibility, and with the next his disbelief of a fact. All of which
serves to illustrate the folly of making assertions concerning subjects
about which we are ignorant. There is nothing so mysterious that it
cannot be explained, and nothing more foolish than to declare a
thing impossible simply because we are too ignorant to understand
it.
In the present case Serge and Jalap Coombs, and even Phil, who
should have known better, were ready to believe that the fur-seal’s
tooth had come to them through some supernatural agency,
because, in their ignorance, they could not imagine how it could
have come in any other way. We laugh at their simplicity because of
our wisdom. We saw Mr. Platt Riley drop the tooth into one of their
sleeping-bags at Forty Mile. Knowing this, it is easy to understand
how that same sleeping-bag, which happened to be the extra one
acquired by the turning over to Jalap Coombs of Strengel’s stolen
property, should be selected as Nel-te’s travelling-bag, and lashed to
a sledge for his occupancy in the daytime. In his restlessness he had
kicked the tooth about until it finally worked its way into one of his
little fur boots, and that is all there was to the mystery.
Still, it afforded a fertile topic for conversation around that lonely
mountain-side camp-fire long after Phil had strung it on a buckskin
thong and hung it about the child’s neck, at the same time taking
the precaution to tuck it snugly inside his little fur parka. All agreed
that they were glad to have the fur-seal’s tooth in their possession
once more; and on account of its presence among them they were
ready to face the difficulties that would confront them on the
morrow with a cheerful confidence.
 CHAPTER XXXIII
LOST IN A MOUNTAIN BLIZZARD

Tired as were the occupants of that lonely camp after a day of

exhausting climbing up through the timber, their slumbers were
broken and restless. The uncertainties of the morrow, the peculiar
nature of the road they had yet to travel, and the excitement
consequent upon nearing the end of their journey, which none of
them believed to be over fifty miles away, all combined to render
them wakeful and uneasy. So they were up by the first sign of
daylight, and off before sunrise.
As there were now but three dogs to a sledge, the load of the one
driven by Serge was divided between it and the one that brought up
the rear in charge of Jalap Coombs. A few sticks of dry wood were
also placed on each sledge, so that in crossing the upper ice-fields
they might at least be able to melt snow for drinking purposes.
“Now for it!” cried Phil, cheerfully, as they emerged from the
scanty timber, and shivered in the chill blast that swept down from
the towering peaks above them. Between two of these was a
saddle-like depression that they took to be the pass, and to it the
young leader determined to guide his little party.
“Up you go, Musky!” he shouted. “Pull, Luvtuk, my pigeon!
Amook, you old rascal, show what you are good for! A little more
work, a little more hunger, and then rest, with plenty to eat. So stir
yourselves and climb!”
With this the long whip-lash whistled through the frosty air and
cracked with a resounding report that would have done credit to the
most expert of Eskimo drivers, for our Phil was no longer a novice in
its use, and with a yelp the dogs sprang forward.
 Up, up, up they climbed, until, as Phil remarked, it didn’t seem as
though the top of the world could be very far away. The sun rose
and flooded the snowfields with such dazzling radiance that but for
their protecting goggles our travellers must have been completely
blinded by the glare. The deep gulch whose windings they followed
held in summer-time a roaring torrent; but now it was filled with
solidly packed snow from twenty-five to one hundred feet deep.
As they advanced the gulch grew more and more shallow, until at
length it was merged in a broad, uniform slope so steep and slippery
that they were obliged to cut footholds in the snow, and at frequent
intervals carve out little benches two feet wide. From one of these to
another they dragged the sledges, one at a time, with rawhide
ropes. Even the dogs had to be assisted up the glassy incline, on
which they could gain no hold. So arduous was this labor that three
hours were spent in overcoming the last five hundred feet of the
ascent. Thus it was long past noon when, breathless and exhausted,
the party reached the summit, or rather a slope so gentle that the
dogs could once more drag the sledges.
Here, at an elevation of nearly five thousand feet above the sea,
they paused for breath, for a bite of lunch, and for a last look back
over the way they had come. From this elevation their view
embraced a sweep of over one hundred miles of mountain and plain,
river and forest. It was so far-reaching and boundless that it even
seemed as if they could take in the whole vast Yukon Valley, and
locate points that common-sense told them were a thousand miles
beyond their range of vision. Grand as was the prospect, they did
not care to look at it long. Time was precious; the air, in spite of its
sunlight, was bitterly chill, and, after all, the mighty wilderness now
behind them held too many memories of hardship, suffering, and
danger to render it attractive.
So, “Hurrah for the coast!” cried Phil.
“Hurrah for Sitka!” echoed Serge.
 “Hooray for salt water! Now, bullies, up and at ’em!” roared Jalap
Coombs, expressing a sentiment and an order to his sailor-bred dogs
in a breath.
In a few moments more the wonderful view had disappeared, and
the sledges were threading their way amid a chaos of gigantic
bowlders and snow-covered landslides from the peaks that rose on
both sides. There was no sharp descent from the summit, such as
they had hoped to find, but instead a lofty plateau piled thick with
obstructions. About them no green thing was to be seen, no sign of
life; only snow, ice, and precipitous cliffs of bare rock. The all-
pervading and absolute silence was awful. There was no trail that
might be followed, for the hardiest of natives dared not attempt that
crossing in the winter. Even if they had, their trail would have been
obliterated almost as soon as made by the fierce storms of those
altitudes. So their only guide was that of general direction, which
they knew to be south, and to this course Phil endeavored to hold.
That night they made a chill camp in the lee of a great bowlder;
that is, in as much of a lee as could be had, where the icy blast
swept in circles and eddies from all directions at once. They started
a fire, but its feeble flame was so blown hither and thither that by
the time a kettle of snow was melted and the ice was thawed from
their stew, their supply of wood was so depleted that they dared not
use more. So they ate their scanty supper without tea, fed the dogs
on frozen porridge, and, huddling together for warmth during the
long hours of bleak darkness, were thankful enough to welcome the
gray dawn that brought them to an end.
For three days more they toiled over the terrible plateau, driven to
long détours by insurmountable obstacles, buffeted and lashed by
fierce snow-squalls and ice-laden gales, but ever pushing onward
with unabated courage, expecting with each hour to find themselves
descending into the valley of the Chilkat River. Two of the dogs
driven by Serge broke down so completely that they were mercifully
shot. The third dog was added to Jalap Coombs’s team, and the load
was divided between the remaining sledges, while the now useless
one was used as firewood. After that Phil plodded on in advance,
and Serge drove the leading team.
The fourth day of this terrible work was one of leaden clouds and
bitter winds. The members of the little party were growing desperate
with cold, exhaustion, and hunger. Their wanderings had not
brought them to a timber-line, and as poor Phil faced the blast with
bowed head and chattering teeth it seemed to him that to be once
more thoroughly warm would be the perfection of human happiness.
It was already growing dusk, and he was anxiously casting about
for the sorry shelter of some bowlder behind which they might
shiver away the hours of darkness, when he came to the verge of a
steep declivity. His heart leaped as he glanced down its precipitous
face; for, far below, he saw a dark mass that he knew must be
timber. They could not descend at that point; but he thought he saw
one that appeared more favorable a little farther on, and hastened in
that direction. He was already some distance ahead of the slow-
moving sledges, and meant to wait for them as soon as he
discovered a place from which the descent could be made.
Suddenly a whirling, blinding cloud of snow swept down on him
with such fury that to face it and breathe was impossible. Thinking it
but a squall, he turned his back and stood motionless, waiting for it
to pass over. Instead of so doing, it momentarily increased in
violence and density. A sudden darkness came with the storm, and
as he anxiously started back to meet the sledges he could not see
one rod before him. He began to shout, and in a few minutes had
the satisfaction of hearing an answering cry. Directly afterwards
Serge loomed through the driving cloud, urging on his reluctant dogs
with voice and whip. The moment they were allowed to stop, Musky,
Luvtuk, and big Amook lay down as though completely exhausted.
“We can’t go a step farther, Phil! We must make camp at once,”
panted Serge. “This storm is a regular poorga, and will probably last
all night.”
 “But where can we camp?” asked Phil, in dismay. “There is timber
down below, but it looks miles away, and we can’t get to it now.”
“No,” replied Serge; “we must stay where we are, and burrow a
hole in this drift big enough to hold us. We’ve got to do it in a hurry,
too.”
So saying, Serge drew his knife, for the outside of the drift close
to which they were halted was so hard packed as to render cutting
necessary, and outlined a low opening. From this he removed an
unbroken slab, and then began to dig furiously in the soft snow
beyond.
In the meantime Phil was wondering why Jalap Coombs did not
appear, for he had supposed him to be close behind Serge; but now
his repeated shoutings gained no reply.
“He was not more than one hundred feet behind me when the
storm began,” said Serge, whose anxiety caused him to pause in his
labor, though it was for the preservation of their lives.
“He must be in some trouble,” said Phil, “and I am going back to
find him.”
“You can’t go alone!” said Serge. “If you are to get lost I must go
with you.”
“No. One of us must stay here with Nel-te, and it is my duty to go;
but do you shout every few seconds, and I promise not to go
beyond sound of your voice.”
Thus saying, Phil started back, and was instantly swallowed in the
vortex of the blizzard. Faithfully did Serge shout, and faithfully did
Phil answer, for nearly fifteen minutes. Then the latter came
staggering back, with horror-stricken face and voice.
“I can’t find him, Serge! Oh, I can’t find him!” he cried. “I am
afraid he has gone over the precipice. If he has, it is my fault, and I
shall never forgive myself, for I had no business to go so far ahead
and let the party get scattered.”
 Serge answered not a word, but fell with desperate energy to the
excavating of his snow-house. His heart was near breaking with the
sorrow that had overtaken them, but he was determined that no
other lives should be lost if his efforts could save them. The
excavation was soon so large that Phil could work with him, but with
all their furious digging they secured a shelter from the pitiless
poorga none too soon. The sledge was already buried from sight,
and poor little Nel-te was wellnigh smothered ere they lifted him
from it and pulled him into the burrow.
 CHAPTER XXXIV
COASTING FIVE MILES IN FIVE MINUTES

In spite of their faintness and weakness from hunger and

exhaustion, Phil and Serge were so stimulated by the emergency
that within half an hour they had dug a cavity in the great drift
sufficiently large to hold the three dogs as well as themselves. The
excavation was driven straight for a few feet, and then turned to one
side, where it was so enlarged that they could either lie down or sit
up. Into this diminutive chamber they dragged their robes and
sleeping-bags. The shivering dogs crept in and curled up at their
feet. The sledge was left outside, and the opening was closed as
well as might be by the slab of compacted snow that had been cut
from it.
Poor little Nel-te, who was numbed and whimpering with cold and
hunger, was rubbed into a glow, comforted, and petted, until at
length he fell asleep, nestled between the lads, and then they found
time to talk over their situation. For a while they had no thought
save for the dear friend and trusty comrade who, alive or dead, was
still out in that terrible storm, and, as they believed, lost to them
forever.
“I don’t suppose there is the faintest hope of ever seeing him
again,” said Phil. “If he went over the precipice he must have been
killed, and is buried deep in the snow by this time. Even if he did
not, and is still wandering somewhere in this vicinity, he must perish
before morning. Oh, Serge, can’t we do anything for him? It makes
me feel like a cowardly traitor to be sitting here in comfort while the
dear old chap may be close at hand, and perishing for want of our
help. And it is my fault, too! The fault of my inexcusable
carelessness. It seems, old man, as if I should go crazy with thinking
of it.”
“But you mustn’t think of it in that way, Phil,” answered Serge,
soothingly. “As leader of the party it was your duty to go ahead and
pick out the road, while it was ours to keep you in sight. If either of
us is to blame for what has happened, I am the one. I should have
looked back oftener, and made sure that he was still close behind
me. Now there is nothing we can do except wait for daylight and the
end of the storm. We have our parents, this child, and ourselves to
think of first. Nor could we accomplish anything even if we tried. The
storm has doubled in fury since we halted. A foot of snow must
already have fallen, and to venture a single rod outside of this place
would serve to lose us as certainly as though we went a mile. We
mustn’t give up all hope, though. Mr. Coombs is very strong, and
well used to exposure. Of course, if he has gone over the precipice
there is little chance that we shall ever see him again; but if he
escaped it, and has made a burrow for himself like this one, he will
pull through all right, and we shall find him in the morning.”
“Why haven’t we dug places like this before?” asked Phil. “It is
actually getting warm and comfortable in here. We might have had
just such a warm cave every night that we have been in the
mountains and spent so miserably.”
“Of course we might,” agreed Serge, “and we would have had but
for my stupidity in not thinking of it sooner. While I never took
refuge in one before, I have often heard of them, and ought to have
remembered. I didn’t, though, until this storm struck us, and I knew
that without shelter we must certainly perish.”
“If you hadn’t thought of a snow-burrow,” said Phil, “it is certain I
never should. It is snug, though, and if only poor Jalap were with us,
and we had food and a light of some kind, I wouldn’t ask for a
better shelter. I can understand now how an Eskimo stone lamp,
with seal-oil for fuel and a wick of moss, can give out all the heat
that is needed in one of their snow-huts, and I only wish we had
brought one with us.”
 After this the boys grew drowsy, their conversation slackened, and
soon all their troubles were forgotten in sleep. Outside, through the
long hours, the gale roared and shrieked with impotent rage at their
escape from its clutches. It hurled its snow legions against their
place of refuge until it was deep buried, and then in a frenzy tore
away and scattered the drifted accumulation, until it could once
more beat directly upon their slender wall of defence. But its wiles
and its furious attacks were alike in vain, and at length its fierce
ravings sank into whispers. The poorga spent its force with the
darkness, and at daylight had swept on to inland fields, leaving only
an added burden of a million tons of snow to mark its passage
across the mountains.
When the boys awoke a soft white light was filtering through one
side of their spotless chamber, and they knew that day had come.
They expected to dig their way to the outer air through a great mass
of snow, and were agreeably surprised to find only a small drift
against the doorway. As they emerged from it they were for a few
minutes blinded by the marvellous brilliancy of their sunlit
surroundings. Gradually becoming accustomed to the intense light,
they gazed eagerly about for some sign of their missing comrade,
but there was none. They followed back for a mile over the way they
had come the evening before, shouting and firing their guns, but
without avail.
No answering shout came back to their straining ears, and there
was nothing to indicate the fate of the lost man. Sadly and soberly
the lads retraced their steps, and prepared to resume their journey.
To remain longer in that place meant starvation and death. To save
themselves they must push on.
They shuddered at the precipice they had escaped, and over
which they feared their comrade had plunged. At its foot lay a valley,
which, though it trended westward, and so away from their course,
Phil determined to follow; for, far below their lofty perch, and still
miles away from where they stood, it held the dark mass he had
seen the night before, and knew to be timber. Besides, his sole
desire at that moment was to escape from those awful heights and
reach the coast at some point; he hardly cared whether it were
inhabited or not.
So the sledge was dug from its bed of snow, reloaded, and the
dogs were harnessed. Poor little Nel-te, crying with hunger, was
slipped into his fur travelling-bag, and a start was made to search
for some point of descent. At length they found a place where the
slope reached to the very top of the cliff, but so sharply that it was
like the steep roof of a house several miles in length.
“I hate the looks of it,” said Phil, “but as there doesn’t seem to be
any other way, I suppose we’ve got to try it. I should say that for at
least three miles it is as steep as the steepest part of a toboggan-
slide, though, and I’m pretty certain we sha’n’t care to try it more
than once.”
“I guess we can do it all right,” replied Serge, “but there’s only one
way, and that is to sit on a snow-shoe and slide. We couldn’t keep
on our feet a single second.”
They lifted Nel-te, fur bag and all, from the sledge, tightened the
lashings of its load, which included the guns and extra snow-shoes,
and started it over the verge. It flashed down the declivity like a
rocket, and the last they saw of it it was rolling over and over.
“Looks cheerful, doesn’t it?” said Phil, grimly. “Now I’ll go; then do
you start the dogs down, and come yourself as quick as you please.”
Thus saying, the plucky lad seated himself on a snow-shoe, took
Nel-te, still in the fur bag, in his lap, and launched himself over the
edge of the cliff. For a moment the sensation, which was that of
falling from a great height, was sickening, and a thick mist seemed
to obscure his vision. Then it cleared away, and was followed by a
feeling of the wildest exhilaration as he heard the whistling
backward rush of air, and realized the tremendous speed at which he
was whizzing through space. Ere it seemed possible that he could
have gone half-way to the timber-line, trees began to fly past him,
and he knew that the worst was over. In another minute he was
floundering in a drift of soft snow, into which he had plunged up to
his neck, and the perilous feat was accomplished.
Poor Serge arrived at the same point shortly afterwards, head
first, and dove out of sight in the drift; but fortunately Phil was in a
position to extricate him before he smothered. The dogs appeared a
moment later, with somewhat less velocity, but badly demoralized,
and evidently feeling that they had been sadly ill-treated. So the
sledge party had safely descended in five minutes a distance equal
to that which they had spent half a day and infinite toil in ascending
on the other side of the mountains.
When Nel-te was released from the fur bag and set on his feet he
was as calm and self-possessed as though nothing out of the usual
had happened, and immediately demanded something to eat.
After a long search they discovered the sledge, with only one rail
broken and its load intact.
“Now for a fire and breakfast!” cried Phil, heading towards the
timber as soon as the original order of things was restored. “After
that we will make one more effort to find some trace of poor Jalap,
though I don’t believe there is the slightest chance of success.”
They entered the forest of wide-spreading but stunted evergreens,
and Phil, axe in hand, was vigorously attacking a dead spruce, when
an exclamation from his companion caused him to pause in his labor
and look around.
“What can that be?” asked Serge, pointing to a thick hemlock that
stood but a few yards from them. The lower ends of its drooping
branches were deep buried in snow, but such part as was still visible
was in a strange state of agitation.
“It must be a bear,” replied Phil, dropping his axe and springing to
the sledge for his rifle. “His winter den is in there, and we have
disturbed him. Get out your gun—quick! We can’t afford to lose him.
Meat’s too scarce in camp just now.”
 Even as he spoke, and before the guns could be taken from their
moose-skin cases, the motion of the branches increased, there came
a violent upheaval of the snow that weighted them down, and the
boys caught a glimpse of some huge shaggy animal issuing from the
powdered whiteness.
“Hurry!” cried Phil. “No, look out! We’re too late! What? Great
Scott! It can’t be! Yes, it is! Hurrah! Glory, hallelujah! I knew he’d
pull through all right, and I believe I’m the very happiest fellow in all
the world at this minute.”
“Mebbe you be, son,” remarked Jalap Coombs, “and then again
mebbe there’s others as is equally joyful. As my old friend Kite
Roberson useter say, ‘A receiver’s as good as a thief,’ and I sartainly
received a heap of pleasure through hearing you holler jest now.”
 CHAPTER XXXV
HOW JALAP COOMBS MADE PORT

The things on which we are apt to set the highest value in this
world are those that we have lost, and even our friends are as a rule
most highly appreciated after they have been taken from us. Thus,
in the present instance, Phil and Serge had so sincerely mourned the
loss of their quaint but loyal comrade that his restoration to them
alive and well, “hearty and hungry,” as he himself expressed it, filled
them with unbounded joy. They hung about him, and lovingly
brushed the snow from his fur clothing, and plied him with
questions, and made so much of him that he finally exclaimed:
“Avast, lads, and let up! Ye make me feel like I were reading my
own obituary in print, which my old friend Kite Roberson were the
only mortal man ever I knowed as had that onhappy pleasure. It
happened when he were lost at sea, with his ship and all hands, in
latitood 24.06 nothe, and longitood 140.15 west, ’cording to the
noosepapers; while, ’cording to Kite’s log, he were cutting in of a fin-
back and having the best of luck at that very place and hour.
Anyway, whether he were drownded or no, he kim back in time to
enjoy the mortification of reading the notice of his own taking off,
which he said it made him feel ashamed to be alive, seeing as he
were a so much better man after he were dead. Them’s about the
size of my feelings at the present hour of observation. So ef you
boys don’t let up I reckon I’ll have to crawl back in the snow and
stay there.”
Even Nel-te showed delight at the return of his playmate by
cuddling up to him, and stroking his weather-beaten cheeks, and
confiding to him how very hungry he was.
 “Me, too, Cap’n Kid!” exclaimed Jalap Coombs; “and I must say
you’re a mighty tempting mossel to a man as nigh starved as I be.
Jest about broiling age, plump and tender. Cap’n Kid, look out, for
I’m mighty inclined to stow ye away.”
“Try this instead,” laughed Phil, holding out a chunk of frozen
pemmican that he had just chopped off. “We’re in the biggest kind of
luck to-day,” he continued. “I didn’t know there was a mouthful of
anything to eat on this sledge, and here I’ve just found about five
pounds of pemmican. It does seem to me the very best pemmican
that ever was put up, too, and I only wonder that we didn’t eat it
long ago. I’m going to get my aunt Ruth to make me a lot of it just
as soon as ever I get home.”
By this time the fire was blazing merrily, and the chynik was
beginning to sing. Musky, Luvtuk, and big Amook had each received
a portion of the precious pemmican, swallowed it at a gulp, and
were wagging their bushy tails in anxious expectation of more, while
the spirits of the whole party were at the top-notch of contentment.
As they sat before the fire on a tree felled and stripped of its
branches for the purpose, and munched frozen pemmican, and took
turns in sipping strong unsweetened tea from the only cup now left
to them, Jalap Coombs described his thrilling experiences of the
preceding night.
According to his story, one of his dogs gave out, and he stopped
to unharness it with the hope that it would still have strength to
follow the sledge. While he was thus engaged the storm broke, the
blinding rush of snow swept over the mountains, and as he looked
up he found to his dismay that the other sledge was already lost to
view. He at once started to overtake it, urging on the reluctant dogs
by every means in his power; but after a few minutes of struggle
against the furious gale, they lay down and refused to move. After
cutting their traces that they might follow him if they chose, the man
set forth alone, with bowed head and uncertain steps, on a hopeless
quest for his comrades. He did not find them, as we know, though
once he heard a faint cry from off to one side. Heading in that
direction, the next thing he knew he had plunged over the precipice,
and found himself sliding, rolling, and bounding downward with
incredible velocity.
“The trip must have lasted an hour or more,” said Jalap Coombs,
soberly, in describing it, “and when I finally brung up all standing, I
couldn’t make out for quite a spell whether I were still on top of the
earth or had gone plumb through to the other side. I knowed every
rib and timber of my framing were broke, and every plank started;
but somehow I managed to keep my head above water, and struck
out for shore. I made port under a tree, and went to sleep. When I
woke at the end of the watch, I found all hatches closed and
battened down. So I were jest turning over again when I heerd a
hail, and knowed I were wanted on deck. And, boys, I’ve had happy
moments in my life, but I reckon the happiest of ’em all were when I
broke out and seen you two, with the kid, standing quiet and
respectful, and heerd ye saying, ‘Good morning, sir, and hoping
you’ve passed a quiet night,’ like I were a full-rigged cap’n.”
“As you certainly deserve to be, Mr. Coombs,” laughed Phil, “and
as I believe you will be before long, for I don’t think we can be very
far from salt water at this moment.”
“It’s been seeming to me that I could smell it!” exclaimed the
sailor-man, eagerly sniffing the air as he spoke. “And, ef you’re
agreeable, sir, I moves that we set sail for it at once. My hull’s pretty
well battered and stove in, but top works is solid, standing and
running rigging all right, and I reckon by steady pumping we can
navigate the old craft to port yet.”
“All aboard, then! Up anchor, and let’s be off!” shouted Phil, so
excited at the prospect of a speedy termination to their journey that
he could not bear a moment’s longer delay in attaining it. At present
he cared little that they had evidently wandered far from the Chilkat
trail, as was shown by the westward trend of the valley in which
they now found themselves. That it still descended sharply, and by
following it they must eventually reach the ocean, was enough.
 So they set merrily and hopefully forth, and followed the windings
of the valley, keeping just beyond the forest edge. In summer-time
they would have found it filled with impassable obstacles—huge
bowlders, landslides, a net-work of logs and fallen trees, and a
roaring torrent; but now it was packed with snow to such an
incredible depth that all these things lay far beneath their feet, and
the way was made easy.
By nightfall they had reached the mouth of the valley, and saw,
opening before them, one so much wider that it reminded them of
the broad expanse of the frozen Yukon. The course of this new
valley was almost north and south, and they felt certain that it must
lead to the sea. In spite of their anxiety to follow it, darkness
compelled them to seek a camping-place in the timber. That evening
they ate all that remained of their pemmican, excepting a small bit
that was reserved for Nel-te’s breakfast.
They made up, as far as possible, for their lack of food by building
the most gorgeous camp-fire of the entire journey. They felled
several green trees close together, and built it on them so that it
should not melt its way down out of sight through the deep snow.
Then they felled dead trees and cut them into logs. These, together
with dead branches, they piled up, until they had a structure forty
feet long by ten feet high. They set fire to it with the last match in
their possession, and as the flames gathered headway and roared
and leaped to the very tops of the surrounding trees, even Phil was
obliged to acknowledge that at last he was thoroughly and
uncomfortably warm. The contrast between that night and the
previous one, passed in a snow burrow high up on the mountains,
amid the howlings of a furious gale, without food, fire, or hope, was
so wonderful that all declared they had lived months since that
dreadful time instead of only a few hours.
The following morning poor Jalap was so stiff and lame that his
face was contorted with pain when he attempted to rise.
“Never mind,” he cried, cheerily, as he noted Phil’s anxious
expression, “I’ll fetch it. Just give me a few minutes’ leeway.”
 And, sure enough, in a few minutes he was on his feet rubbing his
legs, stretching his arms, and twisting his body “to limber up the
j’ints.” Although in a torment of pain, he soon declared himself ready
for the day’s tramp, and they set forth. Ere they had gone half a
mile, however, it was evident that he could walk no farther. The pain
of the effort was too great even for his sturdy determination, and
when he finally sank down with a groan, the boys helped him on the
sledge, and attached themselves to its pulling-bar with long thongs
of rawhide.
The two stalwart young fellows, together with three dogs, made a
strong team, but the snow was so soft, and their load so heavy, that
by noon they had not made more than ten miles. They had,
however, reached the end of their second valley, and come upon a
most extraordinary scene. As far as the eye could reach on either
side stretched a vast plain of frozen whiteness. On its farther border,
directly in front of them, but some ten miles away, rose a chain of
mountains bisected by a deep, wide cut like a gateway.
“It must be an arm of the sea, frozen over and covered with
snow,” said Phil.
“But,” objected Serge, “on this coast no such body of salt water
stays frozen so late in the season; for we are well into April now, you
know.”
“Then it is a great lake.”
“I never heard of any lake on this side of the mountains.”
“I don’t reckon it’s the sea; but salt water’s mighty nigh,” said
Jalap Coombs, sniffing the air as eagerly as a hound on the scent of
game.
“Whatever it is,” said Phil, “we’ve got to cross it, and I am going to
head straight for that opening.”
So they again bent to their traces, and a few hours later had
crossed the great white plain, and were skirting the base of a
mountain that rose on their left. Its splintered crags showed the dull
red of iron rust wherever they were bare of snow, and only thin
fringes of snow were to be seen in its more sheltered gorges.
Suddenly Phil halted, his face paled, and his lips quivered with
emotion. “The sea!” he gasped. “Over there, Serge!”
Jalap Coombs caught the words and was on his feet in an instant,
all his pains forgotten in a desire to once more catch a glimpse of his
beloved salt water.
“Yes,” replied Serge, after a long look. “It certainly is a narrow bay.
How I wish we knew what one! But, Phil! what is that down there
near the foot of the cliffs? Is it—can it be—a house?”
“Where?” cried Phil. “Yes, I see! I do believe it is! Yes, it certainly
is a house.”
 CHAPTER XXXVI
THE MOST FAMOUS ALASKAN GLACIER

That little house nestling at the base of a precipitous mountain,

and still nearly a mile away, was just then a more fascinating sight to
our half-starved, toil-worn travellers than even the sea itself, and,
filled with a hopeful excitement, they hastened towards it. The way
led down a steep incline, and along a shallow, treeless valley, shut
off from the water on their right by a ridge a hundred feet or so in
height. From this depression the house was hidden until they were
directly upon it; but the knowledge that it was there filled them with
cheerful anticipations of food, warmth, rest, and a hearty welcome
from people of their own race. It was probably a salmon cannery or
saltery, or a trading-post. At any rate, the one house they had
discovered was that of a white man; for it had a chimney, and none
of the Tlingits or natives of southern Alaska build chimneys.
While Phil and Jalap Coombs were full of confidence that a few
minutes more would find them in a settlement of white men, Serge
was greatly puzzled, and, though he said little, kept up a deal of
thinking as he tugged at the rawhide sledge-trace. He felt that he
ought to know the place, for he did not believe they were more than
one hundred miles from Sitka; but he could not remember having
heard of any white settlement on that part of the coast, except at
the Chilkat cannery, and this place did not correspond in any
particular with what he had heard of that.
At length they rounded the last low spur of the ridge, and came
upon the house only a few rods away. For a few moments they
stood motionless, regarding it in silence, and with a bitter
disappointment. It was roughly but substantially constructed of
sawed lumber, had a shingled roof, two glass windows, a heavy door,
and a great outside chimney of rough stone. But it was closed and
deserted. No hospitable smoke curled from its chimney, there was
no voice of welcome nor sign of human presence. Nor was there
another building of any kind in sight. The little cabin in the now
distant wilderness from which Phil had taken Nel-te had not been
more lonely than this one.
“I suppose we may as well keep on and examine the interior now
that we’ve come so far,” said Phil, in a disgusted tone that readily
betrayed his feelings. “There doesn’t seem to be any one around to
prevent us. I only wish there was.”
So they pushed open the door, which was fastened but not locked,
and stepped inside. The cabin contained but a single large room
furnished with several sleeping-bunks, a stout table, and a number
of seats, all home-made from unplaned lumber. Much rubbish,
including empty bottles and tin cans, was scattered about; but it was
evident that everything of value had been removed by the last
occupants. The chief feature of the room was an immense and
rudely artistic fireplace at its farther end. Above this hung a smooth
board skilfully decorated with charcoal sketches, and bearing the
legend “Camp Muir.”
As Serge caught sight of this he uttered an exclamation. “Now I
know where we are!” he cried. “Come with me, Phil, and I will show
you one of the grand sights of the world.”
With this he dashed out of the door, and ran towards the beach
ridge behind which the cabin stood. Phil followed, wondering
curiously what his friend could mean. As they reached the low crest
of the ridge he understood; for outspread before him, bathed in a
rosy light by the setting sun, was a spectacle that tourists travel
from all parts of the world to gaze upon.
A precipitous line of ice-cliffs of marble whiteness or heavenly
blue, two miles long and hundreds of feet in height, carved into
spires, pinnacles, minarets, and a thousand other fantastic shapes,
rose in frozen majesty at the head of a little bay whose waters
washed the beach at their feet. Ere either of the boys could find
words to express his delight and wonder, a huge mass of the lofty
wall broke away and plunged into the sea, with a thunderous roar
that echoed and re-echoed from the enclosing mountains. For a
moment it disappeared in a milky cloud of foam and spray. Then it
shot up from the depths like some stupendous submarine monster,
and, with torrents of water streaming from it in glittering cascades,
floated on the heaving surface a new-born iceberg.
“It must be a glacier,” said Phil, in an awe-stricken tone.
“It is a glacier,” answered Serge, triumphantly, “and one of the
most famous in the world, for it is the Muir, which is larger and
contains more ice than all the eleven hundred glaciers of Switzerland
put together. That cabin is the one occupied by John Muir and his
companions when they explored it in 1890. To think that we should
have come down one of its branches, and even crossed the great
glacier itself, without knowing what it was! I believe we would have
known it, though, if the snow hadn’t been so deep as to alter the
whole character of its surface.”
“If this is the Muir Glacier,” reflected Phil, “I don’t see but what we
are in a box. We must be to the westward of Chilkat.”
“Yes,” said Serge. “It lies to the eastward of those mountains.”
“Which don’t look as though they would be very easy even for us
to climb, while I know we couldn’t get Jalap and Nel-te over them. I
don’t suppose any tourist steamers will be visiting this place for
some time, either.”
“Not for two months at least,” replied Serge.
“Which is longer than we can afford to wait without provisions or
supplies of any kind. So we shall have to get away, somehow, and
pretty quickly too. It doesn’t look as though we could follow the
coast any farther, though; for just below here the cliffs seem to rise
sheer from the water.”
 “No,” said Serge, “we can’t. We can only get out by boat or by
scaling the mountains.”
“In which case we shall starve to death before we have a chance
to do either,” retorted Phil, gloomily, “for we are pretty nearly starved
now. In fact, old man, it looks as though the good-fortune that has
stood by us during the whole of this journey had deserted us at its
very end.”
By this time the boys had strolled back to the cabin, which was
left by the setting sun in a dark shadow. As they turned its corner
they came upon Nel-te standing outside clapping his chubby hands,
and gazing upward in an ecstasy of delight. Following the child’s
glance Phil uttered a startled exclamation, and sprang through the
doorway. A moment later he emerged, rifle in hand.
High up on a shoulder of the mountain, hundreds of feet above
the cabin, sharply outlined against the sky, and bathed in the full
glory of the setting sun, a mountain goat, with immensely thick hair
of snowy white, and sharp black horns, stood as motionless as
though carved from marble. Blinded by the sunlight, and believing
himself to be surrounded by a solitude untenanted by enemies, he
saw not the quietly moving figures in the dim shadows beneath him.
Twice did Phil raise his rifle and twice did he lower it, so tremulous
was he with excitement and a knowledge that four human lives
depended on the result of his shot. The third time he took a quick
aim and fired. As the report echoed sharply from the beetling cliffs,
the stricken animal gave a mighty leap straight out into space, and
came whirling downward like a great white bird with broken wings.
He struck twice, but bounded off each time, and finally lay
motionless, buried in the snow at the very foot of the mountain that
had been his home.
“Hurrah!” shouted Phil. “No starvation this time! Luck is still with
us, after all. That is, Nel-te is still with us, and he seems to carry
good luck; for we certainly should not have seen that fellow but for
the little chap. So, hurrah, old man!”
 But Serge needed no urging this time to shout as loudly as Phil,
though while he shouted he got the sledge ready for bringing in
their game.
“Seeing as how we hain’t got no fire nor no matches, I reckon
we’ll eat our meat raw, like the Huskies,” said Jalap Coombs, dryly, a
little later, as they began to skin and cut up the goat.
“Whew!” ejaculated Phil. “I never thought of that. But I know how
to make a fire with the powder from a cartridge, if one of you can
furnish a bit of cotton cloth.”
“It seems a pity to waste a cartridge,” said Serge, “when we
haven’t but three or four left, and a single one has just done so
much for us. I think I can get fire in a much more economical way.”
“How?” queried Phil.
“Ye won’t find no brimstone nor yet feathers here,” suggested
Jalap Coombs, with a shake of his head.
“Never mind,” laughed Serge; “you two keep on cutting up the
goat, and by the time your job is completed I think I can promise
that mine will be.” So saying, Serge entered the cabin and closed the
door.
In a pile of rubbish he had noticed several small pieces of wood
and a quantity of very dry botanical specimens, some of which bore
fluffy seed-vessels that could be used as tinder. He selected a bit of
soft pine, and worked a small hole in it with the point of his knife.
Next he whittled out a thick pencil of the hardest wood he could
find, sharpened one end and rounded the other. In a block of hard
wood he dug a cavity, into which the rounded top of the pencil
would fit. He found a section of barrel hoop, and strung it very
loosely with a length of rawhide from a dog harness, so as to make
a small bow. Finally he took a turn of the bow-string about the
pencil, fitted the point into the soft pine that rested on the floor, and
the other end into the hard-wood block, on which he leaned his
breast.
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