The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1899-09-21
AN ALASKAN ADVENTURE.

I'LL IudI Ll6uI. JOSGpn L. CdSIu6F, "
the Fourth United States infantry, was
a member of a military exploring ex-
petition in Alaska, had persisted of
cold and starvation.
With two private soldiers Of the
Fourteenth Infantry, Bitch and Nc
Gregor by name, Mr.. Cashier left the
commander of the main expedition,
Capt. Glenn, near the Tanana river, in
the summer of 1898, in an attempt to
follow up the Volkmar river to the
headwaters of Birch creek, and follow
that stream down to Circle City. He
found that the maps indicating the
| possibility of such a trip were griev-
ously wrong.
He lost his mules in rafting them
across the Tanana, or within a short
time after this passage, but the three
men went on afoot. They travelled n
hundred miles over a country which
was all mountains or marshes. They
pressed on farther and farther, their
provisions rapidly giving out and their
clothes being tori from their backs
by thorns. On Sept. Is they found
they had provisions for n day only,
and then they attempted to find their
way back.
Cashier climbed a lofty hill, and saw
only range after range of snow-capped
mountains. The next morning the
three breakfasted off their last scrap
of bacon. For several days." Mr..
Cashier says, our rations had run so
low that the privilege of licking the
frying pan was one which we almost
fought for. That afternoon I managed
to shoot two small ducks. We ate
them, bones and all.
Next day we heard the bowls of an
old she-wolf across the canon. Looking
up, we saw her standing in front of two
half-grown cubs. She was bowling to
call the attention of a third, which was
out of sight down the canon, but which
presently came into view within easy
range.
zone of the men fired and missed.
He fired five times before he killed 1t,
of sheer curiosity, till it fell dead fifty
yards from the slayer. 1t had never
seen a human being before. We got
the skin off that wolf in double-quick
time, and found the flesh delicious"
They hoped t o live on little birds till
they could get back to the carcass Of
the last mule they had killed. They
built a raft, tearing up their last
blankets for flashing lines,and launched
out on the rapid mountain torrent
called the Volkmar.
They shot rapids after rapids, get
ting soaked to the skin. Presently the
raft wa sucked under a og-jam; the
three men chung to the logs for their
lives, and their raft and everything
on it was swept away. Their guns and
ammunition and their shoes were gone
They could shoot no more game.
Barefooted and wet, they kept on
their way, leaving tracks of blood on
the snow, which had now, toward the
end of September, begun to fall. By
and by they reached the carcass Of
their lost mule, but wolves and carrioT
birds had picked it's bones clean.
There we're a few berries here ant
there, and on these the travellers LIVED
for the next six days. Here ant
there" says Lieut.. Cashier, "a cram
b%erry-bush would be found, and arount
it we would gather for breakfast. Nh
red seed-pods on the rose-bushes wer'
plentiful, and I believe they saved on
lives, for they were almost all we coulC
find to eat. They had been bitten b,
he frost and had a sweet taste-a
5 least, so it seemed to u famishe'
? stomachs."
At the end Of the sixth day, whel
r their feet were so sore that every ste
S was torture, and when they were read,
to lie down and die, they heard tn
sound Of an axe. Seeking it, the
found a party of Indians, who receive
them Hospitality and fed them o.
moose-meat. In a few days they ha
= recovered strength sufficient to enabl
. them to start out again.
Eventually they reached-fn Novem
:. berthe military post at Rampant, an
> they started with a dog-team on
G thirteen-hundred-mile journey to Skae
x way. They arrived there Feb. "a, 1879