The Arctic Prairies Part 12

Bezkya says they are good to eat in this stage; but we had about 700 pounds of good meat so did not try. The velvet on the horns is marked by a series of concentric curved lines of white hair, across the lines of growth; these, I take it, correspond with times of check by chill or hardship.

We loaded our canoe with meat and pushed on toward the Buffalo country for two miles more up the river. Navigation now became very difficult on account of alders in the stream. Bezkya says that only a few hundred yards farther and the river comes from underground.

This did not prove quite correct, for I went half a mile farther by land and found no change.

Here, however, we did find some Buffalo tracks; one went through our camp, and farther on were many, but all dated from the spring and were evidently six weeks old.

There were no recent tracks, which was discouraging, and the air of gloom over our camp grew heavier. The weather had been bad ever since we left Fort Smith, cloudy or showery. This morning for the first time the day dawned with a clear sky, but by noon it was cloudy and soon again raining. Our diet consisted of nothing but Moose meat and tea; we had neither sugar nor salt, and the craving for farinaceous food was strong and growing. We were what the.

natives call "flour hungry"; our three-times-a-day prospect of Moose, Moose, Moose was becoming loathsome. Bezkya was openly rebellious once more, and even my two trusties were very, very glum. Still, the thought of giving up was horrible, so I made a proposition: "Bezkya, you go out scouting on, foot and see if you can locate a band. I'll give you five dollars extra if you show me one Buffalo."

At length he agreed to go provided I would set out for Fort Resolution at once unless he found Buffalo near. This was leaving it all in his hands. While I was considering, Preble said: "I tell you this delay is playing the mischief with our Barren-Ground trip; we should have started for the north ten days ago," which was in truth enough to settle the matter.

I knew perfectly well beforehand what Bezkya's report would be.

At 6.30 he returned to say he found nothing but old tracks. There were no Buffalo nearer than two days' travel on foot, and he should like to return at once to Fort Resolution.

There was no further ground for debate; every one and everything now was against me. Again I had to swallow the nauseating draught of defeat and retreat.

"We start northward first thing in the morning," I said briefly, and our third Buffalo hunt was over.

These, then, were the results so far as Buffalo were concerned: Old tracks as far down as last camp, plenty of old tracks here and westward, but the Buffalo, as before on so many occasions, were two days' travel to the westward.

During all this time I had lost no good opportunity of impressing on the men the sinfulness of leaving a camp-fire burning and of taking life unnecessarily; and now, I learned of fruit from this seeding. That night Bezkya was in a better humour, for obvious reasons; he talked freely and told me how that day he came on a large Blackbear which at once took to a tree. The Indian had his rifle, but thought, "I can kill him, yet I can't stop to skin him or use his meat," so left him in peace.

This is really a remarkable incident, almost unique. I am glad to believe that I had something to do with causing such unusual forbearance.

CHAPTER XX

ON THE NYARLING

All night it rained; in the morning it was dull, foggy, and showery.

Everything was very depressing, especially in view of this second defeat. The steady diet of Moose and tea was debilitating; my legs trembled under me. I fear I should be a poor one to stand starvation, if so slight a brunt should play such havoc with my strength.

We set out early to retrace the course of the Nyarling, which in spite of a.s.sociated annoyances and disappointments will ever shine forth in my memory as the "Beautiful River."

It is hard, indeed, for words to do it justice. The charm of a stream is always within three feet of the surface and ten feet of the bank. The broad Slave, then, by its size wins in majesty but must lose most all its charm; the Buffalo, being fifty feet wide, has some waste water; but the Nyarling, half the size, has its birthright compounded and intensified in manifold degree. The water is clear, two or three feet deep at the edge of the gra.s.sy banks, seven to ten feet in mid-channel, without bars or obstructions except the two log-jambs noted, and these might easily be removed.

The current is about one mile and a half an hour, so that canoes can readily pa.s.s up or down; the scenery varies continually and is always beautiful. Everything that I have said of the Little Buffalo applies to the Nyarling with fourfold force, because of its more varied scenery and greater range of bird and other life. Sometimes, like the larger stream, it presents a long, straight vista of a quarter-mile through a solemn aisle in the forest of mighty spruce trees that tower a hundred feet in height, all black with gloom, green with health, and gray with moss.

Sometimes its channel winds in and out of open gra.s.sy meadows that are dotted with clumps of rounded trees, as in an English park.

Now it narrows to a deep and sinuous bed, through alders so rank and reaching that they meet overhead and form a shade of golden green; and again it widens out into reedy lakes, the summer home of countless Ducks, Geese, Tattlers Terns, Peetweets, Gulls, Rails, Blackbirds, and half a hundred of the lesser tribes. Sometimes the foreground is rounded ma.s.ses of kinnikinnik in snowy flower, or again a far-strung growth of the needle bloom, richest and reddest of its tribe--the Athabaska rose. At times it is skirted by tall poplar woods where the claw-marks on the trunks are witness of the many Blackbears, or some tamarack swamp showing signs and proofs that hereabouts a family of Moose had fed to-day, or by a broad and broken trail that told of a Buffalo band pa.s.sing weeks ago.

And while we gazed at scribbled records, blots, and marks, the loud "slap plong" of a Beaver showed from time to time that the thrifty ones had dived at our approach.

On the way up Jarvis had gone first in the small canoe; he saw 2 Bears, 3 Beaver, and 1 Lynx; I saw nothing but birds. On the way down, being alone, the luck came my way.

At the first camp, after he left, we heard a loud "plong" in the water near the boat. Bezkya glided to the spot; I followed--here was a large Beaver swimming. The Indian fired, the Beaver plunged, and we saw nothing more of it. He told Billy, who told me, that it was dead, because it did not slap with its tail as it went down.

Next night another splashed by our boat.

This morning as we paddled we saw a little stream, very muddy, trickling into the river. Bezkya said, "Beaver at work on his dam there." Now that we were really heading for flour, our Indian showed up well. He was a strong paddler, silent but apparently cheerful, ready at all times to work. As a hunter and guide he was of course first cla.s.s. About 10.30 we came on a large Beaver sunning himself on a perch built of mud just above the water. He looked like a huge chestnut Muskrat. He plunged at once but came up again yards farther down, took another look and dived, to be seen no more.

At noon we reached our old camp, the last where all had been together. Here we put up a monument on a tree, and were mortified to think we had not done so at our farthest camp.

There were numbers of Yellowlegs breeding here; we were surprised to see them resting on trees or flying from one branch to another.

A Great Gray-owl sitting on a stump was a conspicuous feature of our landscape view; his white choker shone like a parson's.

Early in the morning we saw a Kingbird. This was our northernmost record for the species.

We pressed on all day, stopping only for our usual supper of Moose and tea, and about 7 the boys were ready to go on again. They paddled till dark at 10. Camped in the rain, but every one was well pleased, for we had made 40 miles that day and were that much nearer to flour.

This journey had brought us down the Nyarling and 15 miles down the Buffalo.

It rained all night; next morning the sun came out once or twice but gave it up, and clouds with rain sprinklings kept on. We had struck a long spell of wet; it was very trying, and fatal to photographic work.

After a delicious, appetising, and inspiring breakfast of straight Moose, without even salt, and raw tea, we pushed on along the line of least resistance, i.e., toward flour.

A flock of half a dozen Bohemian Waxwings were seen catching flies among the tall spruce tops; probably all were males enjoying a stag party while their wives were home tending eggs or young.

Billy shot a female Bufflehead Duck; she was so small-only 8 inches in slack girth--that she could easily have entered an ordinary Woodp.e.c.k.e.r hole. So that it is likely the species nest in the abandoned holes of the Flicker. A Redtailed Hawk had its nest on a leaning spruce above the water. It was a most striking and picturesque object; doubtless the owner was very well pleased with it, but a pair of Robins militant attacked him whenever he tried to go near it.

A Beaver appeared swimming ahead; Bezkya seized his rifle and removed the top of its head, thereby spoiling a splendid skull but securing a pelt and a new kind of meat. Although I was now paying his wages the Beaver did not belong to me. According to the custom of the country it belonged to Bezkya. He owed me nothing but service as a guide. Next meal we had Beaver tail roasted and boiled; it was very delicious, but rather rich and heavy.

At 3.45 we reached Great Slave Lake, but found the sea so high that it would have been very dangerous to attempt crossing to Fort Resolution, faintly to be seen a dozen miles away.

We waited till 7, then ventured forth; it was only 11 miles across and we could send that canoe at 5 1/2 miles an hour, but the wind and waves against us were so strong that it took 3 1/2 hours to make the pa.s.sage. At 10.30 we landed at Resolution and pitched our tent among 30 teepees with 200 huge dogs that barked, scratched, howled, yelled, and fought around, in, and over the tent-ropes all night long. Oh, how different from the tranquil woods of the Nyarling!

CHAPTER XXI

FORT RESOLUTION AND ITS FOLK

Early next morning Preble called on his old acquaintance, Chief Trader C. Harding, in charge of the post. Whenever we have gone to H. B. Co. officials to do business with them, as officers of the company, we have found them the keenest of the keen; but whenever it is their personal affair, they are hospitality out-hospitalled.

They give without stint; they lavish their kindness on the stranger from the big world. In a few minutes Preble hastened back to say that we were to go to breakfast at once.

That breakfast, presided over by a charming woman and a genial, generous man, was one that will not be forgotten while I live.

Think of it, after the hard scrabble on the Nyarling! We had real porridge and cream, coffee with veritable sugar and milk, and authentic b.u.t.ter, light rolls made of actual flour, unquestionable bacon and potatoes, with jam and toast--the really, truly things--and we had as much as we could eat! We behaved rather badly--intemperately, I fear--we stopped only when forced to do it, and yet both of us came away with appet.i.tes.

It was clear that I must get some larger craft than my canoe to cross the lake from Fort Resolution and take the 1,300 pounds of provisions that had come on the steamer. Harding kindly offered the loan of a York boat, and with the help chiefly of Charlie McLeod the white man, who is interpreter at the fort, I secured a crew to man it. But oh, what worry and annoyance it was! These Great Slave Lake Indians are like a lot of spoiled and petulant children, with the added weakness of adult criminals; they are inconsistent, shiftless, and tricky. Pike, Whitney, Buffalo Jones, and others united many years ago in denouncing them as the most worthless and contemptible of the human race, and since then they have considerably deteriorated. There are exceptions, however, as will be seen by the record.

One difficulty was that it became known that on the Buffalo expedition Bezkya had received three dollars a day, which is government emergency pay. I had agreed to pay the regular maximum, two dollars a day with presents and keep. All came and demanded three dollars.

I told them they could go at once in search of the hottest place ever pictured by a diseased and perfervid human imagination.