The Cariboo Trail Part 3

CHAPTER V

CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS

Like many lowland dwellers, the Overlanders had thought of a pa.s.s as a door opening through a rock wall. What they found was a forested slope flanked on both sides by mighty precipices down which poured cataracts with the sound of the voice of many waters. Huge hemlocks lay criss-crossed on the slope. Above could be seen the green edge of a glacier, and still higher the eternal snows of the far peaks. The tang of ice was in the air; but in the valleys was all the gorgeous bloom of midsummer--the gaudy painter's brush, the shy harebell, the ta.s.selled windflower, and a few belated mountain roses. Long-stemmed, slender cornflowers and bluebells held up their faces to the sun, blue as the sky above them. Everywhere was an odour as of incense, the fragrance of the great hemlocks, of gra.s.ses frost-touched at night and sunburnt by day, of the unpolluted earth-mould of a thousand years.

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Where was the trail? None was visible! The captain led the way, following blazes chipped in the bark of the trees, zigzagging up the slope from right to left, from left to right, hanging to the horse's mane to lift weight from the saddle, with a rest for breathing at each turn as they climbed; and, when the ridge of the foothill was surmounted, a world of peac.o.c.k-blue lakes lay below, fringed by forests. The cataracts looked like wind-blown ribbons of silver.

Instead of dipping down, the trail led to the rolling flank of another great foothill, and yet another, round sharp saddlebacks connecting the mountains. Here, ox-carts were dangerous and had to be abandoned. It was with difficulty that the oxen could be driven along the narrow ledges.

Jasper House, Whitefish Lake, the ruins of Henry House, they saw from the height of the pa.s.s. One foaming stream they forded eight times in three hours, driven from side to side by precipice and windfall; and in places they could advance only by ascending the stream bed. This was risky work on a fractious pony, and some of the riders preferred wading to riding. At noon on the 22nd of August the riders crossed a small stream and set up their tents on the border of a sedgy lake. Then {70} somebody noticed that the lake emptied west, not east; and a wild halloo split the welkin. They had crossed the Divide. They were on the headwaters of the Fraser, where a man could stand astride the stream; and the Fraser led to the Cariboo gold-diggings. They still had four hundred miles to travel. Their boots were in shreds and their clothes in tatters; but what were four hundred miles to men who had tramped almost three thousand?

But their progress had been so slow that the provisions were running short. The first snow of the mountains falls in September, and it was already near the end of August. There was not a moment to lose in resting. What had been a lure of hope now became a goad of desperation. So it is with all life's highest emprises. We plunge in led by hope. We plunge on spurred by fate. When the reward is won, only G.o.d and our own souls know that, even if we would, we could not have done otherwise than go on.

Those travellers who had insisted on bringing oxen had now to kill them for meat. Chipmunks were shot for food. So were many worn-out horses.

Hides were used to resole boots and make mitts. Not far from Moose Lake the last bag of pemmican was eaten. {71} Perhaps it was a good thing at this time that the band of Overlanders began to spread out and scatter along the trail; for hungry men in large groups are a tragic danger to themselves. Those of the advance-party were now some ten days ahead of their companions in the rear. Mrs MacNaughton, whose husband was with the rear party, of which we shall hear more anon, relates the story of a young fellow so ravenous that he fried the deer-thong he had bought for a tump-line back at one of the company's forts. Fortunately, somewhere west of Moose Lake, the travellers came on a band of Shuswap Indians who traded for matches and powder enough salmon and cranberry cakes to stave off actual famine.

Trees with chipped bark pointed the way down the Fraser. For three days the party followed the little stream that had come out of the lake hardly wider than the span of a man's stride. With each mile its waters swelled and grew wilder. On the third day windfall and precipice drove the riders back from the river bed into the heavy hemlock forest, where festoons of Spanish moss overhead almost shut out the light of the sun and all sense of direction. And when they came back to the bank of the stream they saw a {72} wild cataract cutting its way through a dark canyon. There was no mistake. This was the Fraser, and it was living up to its reputation.

And yet the Overlanders were sorely puzzled. There were no more blazes on the trees to point the way; and, if this was the Fraser, it seemed to flow almost due north. Where was Cariboo? Mr M'Micking, who was acting as captain, tried to find out from the Indians. They made him a drawing showing that if he crossed another watershed he would come on a white man's wide pack-road. That must lead to Cariboo; but the snow lay already a foot deep on this road; and unless the Overlanders hastened they would be s...o...b..und for the winter. On the other hand, if the white men continued to follow the wild river canyon north, it would bring them to Fort George on the main Fraser in ten days. There was no time to waste on chance travelling. The Overlanders knew that somewhere south from Moose Lake must lie the headwaters of the Thompson, which would bring them to Kamloops. Was that what the Indians meant by their drawings of a white man's road? If that were true, between Moose Lake and the Thompson must lie the land of their desire, {73} Cariboo; but to cross another unknown divide in winter seemed risky. To follow the bend of the Fraser north might be the long way round, but it was sure.

It was decided to let the party separate. Let those with provisions still remaining try to push overland to Cariboo. If they failed to find it, they could build cabins and winter on their pack animals.

Twenty men joined this group. The rest decided to stick to the river.

Behind were straggling a score more of the travellers, who were left to follow as they could. Mrs Shubert with her children joined the band going overland to find the Thompson.

The Indians traded canoes for horses and showed the Overlanders how to put rafts together to run the Fraser. Axes had been worn almost to the haft. Cutting the huge trees and splitting them into suitable timbers was slow work. It was September before the rafts were ready to be launched. There were four. Each had a heavy railing round it like that of a ferry, with some flat stones on which fires could be lighted to cook meals without pausing to land. When we recall the experiences of Mackenzie and Fraser on this river, it seems almost incredible that these landsmen made {74} the descent on rafts with their few remaining ponies and oxen tied to the railings; yet so they did. If we imagine rafts, with horses and oxen tied to the railings, trying to run the whirlpool below Niagara, we shall have some conception of what this meant.

The canoes sheered out of the way and the rafts were unmoored. The Scarborough raft, with men from Whitby and Scarborough, near Toronto, swirled out to midstream on the afternoon of the 1st of September.

'Poor, poor white men,' sighed the Indians; 'no more see white men'; but the men in the canoes rapped the gunnels with their paddles and uttered rousing cheers. Then the _Ottawa_ and the _Niagara_ and the _Huntingdon_ rafts slipped out on the current. All went well for four days. Sweeps made of trees with the branch ends turned down and long, slim poles kept the rafts in mid-current. Meals were cooked as the unwieldy craft glided along the river-bank. Two or three men kept guard at night, so that the rafts were delayed for only a few hours during the darkest part of the night. The sun shone hot at midday and there were hard frosts at night; but the rest in this sort of travel was wonderfully refreshing after four months of toil across prairie and {75} mountain. But on the afternoon of the 5th of September the rafts began to bounce and swirl. The banks raced to the rear, and before the crews realized it, a noise as of breaking seas filled the air, and the _Scarborough_ was riding her first rapid. Luckily, the water was deep and the rocks well submerged. The _Scarborough_ ran the rapid without mishap and the other rafts followed. On the next day, however, the waters 'collected' and began running in leaps and throwing back spume.

Some one shouted 'Breakers! head ash.o.r.e!' and the galloping rafts b.u.mped on the bank of the river. The banks here were steep for portaging; and the Scarborough boys, brought up on the lake-front, east of Toronto, decided, come what might, to run the rapids. They let go the mooring-rope and went churning into a whirlpool of yeasty spray.

All hands bent their strength to the poles. The raft dipped out of sight, but was presently seen riding safely and calmly below the rapids.

Those watching the _Scarborough_ from the bank breathed freely again and plucked up heart; but the worst was yet ahead. The oily calm below the first rapid dropped into another maelstrom of angry waters. Into this the _Scarborough_ was drawn by the terrible undertow. For a moment the watchers on the bank could see nothing but the horns of the bellowing, frightened oxen tied to the railing. Then the raft was mounting the waves again. The seaworthiness of a raft is, of course, well known. It may dip under water, or even split, but it seldom upsets and never swamps or sinks. Before the other rafts ran the rapids, two of them were first lightened of their loads. The men preferred to pack their provisions over the precipices rather than take the risk of losing them in the rapid. Nor was the packing child's play. There was a narrow portage-trail along the ledges of the rocks, and where the slabs of granite had split off Indians had laid rickety poles across. Over these frail bridges the packers, with great difficulty, carried the loads of the two rafts. Fortunately most of them had long since discarded boots for moccasins.

All the rafts came through safely. The canoes were not so fortunate.

When the _Scarborough_ reached a sand-bar at the foot of the rapids, the men were surprised to find three of their Toronto friends, who had gone ahead in a canoe, now stranded high and dry. The canoe had sidled to the waves, swamped, and sunk with everything the Toronto men {77} owned, including their coats, tents, and boots. For two days they had been awaiting the coming of the rafts. They were almost dead from exposure and hunger.

Nine canoes in all were wrecked at this spot. One split on the reef.

Another was caught in the backwater. Others sank in the whirlpool below the rapids. Others went under at the first leap into the cataract. Two of the canoes had foolishly been lashed abreast. They sidled, shipped a billow, and sank. All the men clung to the gunnels; but one who was a powerful swimmer struck out for the sh.o.r.e. The canoes stranded on the sh.o.r.e below and the clinging men saved themselves. When they looked for their friend who had struck out for the sh.o.r.e, he was no longer to be seen. These men were all from G.o.derich, brought up on the banks of Lake Huron.

A similar fate befell a crew of four men from Toronto. Two of them undertook to portage provisions along the bank of the canyon, while the other two, named Carpenter and Alexander, tried to run the canoe down the rapids. The episode has some interest for students of psychology.

Carpenter walked down the bank of the canyon a short distance to reconnoitre the different channels of the {78} rapids. He was seen to take out his notebook and write an entry. He then put the note-book in the inner pocket of his coat, took off the coat, and slung it in a tree on the bank. When he came back to the canoe, he seemed preoccupied.

The canoe ripped on a rock in midstream, flattened, and sank.

Carpenter went down insensible as though his head had struck and he had been stunned. Alexander was washed ash.o.r.e. He found himself on the side of the bank opposite the rest of the party. Going below to calmer waters, he swam across. Carpenter's coat hung on the trees. In the pocket was the note-book, in which Alexander read the astounding words: 'Arrived at Grand Canyon. Ran the canyon and was drowned.' Carpenter left a wife and child in Toronto, for whom, evidently, he had written the message. But if he was of sound mind, desiring to live, and so certain of death that he was able to write his own fate in the past tense, why did he attempt the rapids? His friends had no explanation of the curious incident.

There is another gruesome story of a sand-bar in the very middle of this raging canyon. It will be remembered that some of the Overlanders had straggled far to the rear. Some {79} time before spring a party of them attempted to run this canyon. They were never again seen alive.

Some treasure-seekers who came over the trail in spring stranded on this sand-bar. They found the bodies of the missing men. All but one had been torn and partly devoured. It need not be told here that no wild beast could have stemmed the rapids from either side. Unless wolves or cougars had accidentally been washed to the sand-bar, and washed away again, the wild solitude must have witnessed a horror too terrible to be told; for the body of the man who had apparently died last was fully clothed and unmolested. As absolutely nothing more is known of what happened than has been set down here, it seems well that there is no record of the names of these castaways.

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CHAPTER VI

QUESNEL AND KAMLOOPS

The walls of the river lowered and widened, the current slackened, and the surviving canoes and rafts were presently gliding peacefully down a smooth stream. That night the Overlanders slept dead with weariness; but a fearful depression rested on the company. Gold had begun to collect its toll, and the price appalled every soul. Who would be the next? How soon would the unknown river turn west and south? Where was Fort George? What perils yet lay between the fort and the gold camp?

As the heavy mists lifted at daybreak, the travellers observed that the river was narrowing again and that the wooded banks had begun to fly past very swiftly. There was no mistaking the signs. They were approaching more rapids. But the trick of guiding the craft down rapids had now been learned; so the flotilla rode the furious waters unharmed for fifteen miles.

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It was almost dark when canoes and rafts swung round a curve in the river and saw a flag waving above the little walled fur-post of Fort George. The tired wanderers were welcomed in by clerks too amazed to speak, while a howling chorus of husky-dogs set up their serenade. A young Englishman, who had joined the Overlanders at St Paul, died from the effects of exposure a few minutes after being carried into the fort. Next morning the body was rolled in blankets, placed in a canoe, and buried under a rude wooden cross, with stones piled above the grave to prevent the ravaging of huskies and wolves.

The chief factor was away, but the young clerks in charge sent Indians along to pilot the Overlanders through the rapids below Fort George, known as the most dangerous on the Fraser. These rapids, it will be recalled, had wrecked Alexander Mackenzie and had almost cost Simon Fraser his life. But the treasure-seekers did not have to go as far south as Alexandria, where Mackenzie had turned back. With guides who knew the waters, they ran the rapids below Fort George safely, and moored at Quesnel, the entrance to Cariboo, on the 11th of September--four months after they had left Canada.

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Quesnel was at this time a rude settlement of perhaps a dozen log shacks--chiefly bunkhouses and provision-stores. North of Yale the Cariboo Road had not yet been opened, and all provisions had been brought in from the lower Fraser by pack-horse and dog-train at enormous cost and risk. Food sold at extortionate prices. A meal cost two dollars and fifty cents, for beans, bacon, and coffee. Salmon, of course, was cheap. Fortunately, there was little whisky; so, though tattered miners were everywhere in the woods, order was maintained without vigilance committees. On one spectacle the far-travelled ragged Overlanders feasted their tired eyes. They saw miners everywhere along the banks of creeks washing gold. But there were more gold-seekers than claims, and those without claims were full of complaints and fears for the winter. They declared the country was over-rated and a humbug. The question was how 'to get out' to Victoria. Overlanders, who had tramped across the breadth of a continent, did not relish the prospect, as one Yankee miner described it, of 'hoofing it five hundred miles farther.' Some of the disappointed Overlanders floated on down to Alexandria, where they sold their rafts and took jobs on the {83} government road which was being constructed along the canyon. This ensured them safety from starvation for the winter at least.

Other Overlanders followed these first pioneers 'the plains across.'

And we have seen that some of those who had crossed the prairie with the first party had fallen behind. These stragglers did not reach Yellowhead Pa.s.s till the first week of September. They were entirely out of food; but they had matches, and each box of fifty bought a huge salmon from the Shuswaps.

Some of the men pushed ahead, built a raft, and launched it on the Fraser. The raft ripped on a rock in midstream and stuck there at an angle of forty-five degrees. Money, tools, food, and clothing slithered into the tow of the rapids, while the men clung in desperation to the upper railing of the wreck. One man let go and dropped into the water. Swimming and drifting and rolling over and over, he gained the sh.o.r.e, and hurried back to the pa.s.s with word of the accident. Friends, accompanied by Indians, came in canoes to the rescue, and, by means of ropes, every man was brought off the wrecked raft alive.

But the party now stood in a more desperate predicament than ever, for lack of food and {84} clothing. The Shuswaps saved the whites from starvation. They took the white men to a pool in the Fraser, where salmon, exhausted from the long run up the river, could be speared or clubbed by the boat-load. And while some of the men chopped down trees to build dugout canoes, others speared, cleaned, and dried the salmon.

Night and day they worked, and forgot sleep in their desperate haste.

At length they launched their craft on the Fraser. On the way down the dangerous canyon they saw the wrecked canoes of those who had gone before. The tenth day after leaving Yellowhead Pa.s.s they reached Fort George. Their story has been told by Mrs MacNaughton, whose husband was of the party. They arrived at Fort George mostly barefoot, coatless, and trousers and shirts in tatters. Their hair and beards were long and unkempt. It is supposed that they must have lost the salmon in some of the rapids, or else the supply was insufficient; for they were so weak from hunger that they had to be carried into the fort. They arrived at Quesnel a month after the first Overlanders, when the snow was too deep in the mountains for prospecting or mining.

The majority of this party also took work on the government road.

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Meanwhile, how had fared that band of the Overlanders who had gone over the hills south from the pa.s.s in search of the upper branches of the Thompson? A Shuswap accompanied them as guide, and for a few days there was a well-defined game-trail. Then the trail meandered off into a dense forest of hemlock and windfall, which had to be cut almost every mile of the way. They did not average six miles a day; but they finally came to the steep bank of a wild river flowing south which they judged must be a branch of the Thompson. The mountains were so steep that it was impossible to proceed farther with horses and oxen; so they abandoned these in the woods, and cut trees for rafts. For seven days they ran rapid after rapid. One of the rafts stranded on a rock and remained for two days before companions came to the rescue. At another point a canoe was smashed in midstream. The crew struggled to a slippery rock and hung to the ledge. A man named Strachan attempted to swim ash.o.r.e to signal distress to those above. They saw him ride the waves. Then a roll of angry waters swept over him and he pa.s.sed out of sight. His companions clung to the rock till another canoe came shooting down-stream, when lines {86} were hoisted to the castaways, and they were hauled ash.o.r.e.

Where the Clearwater comes into the Thompson they found the fur-trader's horse-trail and tramped the remaining hundred miles overland south to Kamloops. On the last lap of their terrible march all were so exhausted they could scarcely drag themselves forward.

Some would lie down and sleep, then creep on a few miles. About twenty miles from the mouth of the Thompson they came to a field of potatoes planted by some rancher of Kamloops. The starving Overlanders could scarcely credit their eyes. No one occupied the windowless log cabin; but there was the potato patch--an oasis of food in a desert of starvation. They paused long enough at the cabin to boil a great kettleful and to feast ravenously. This gave them strength to tramp on to Kamloops. We saw that the Irish mother, Mrs Shubert, with her two children, accompanied this party. The day after reaching Kamloops she gave birth to a child.

Did the Overlanders find the gold which each man's rainbow hopes had dreamed? They had followed the rainbow over the ends of earth. Was the pot of gold at the end of {87} the rainbow? You will find an occasional Overlander pa.s.sing the sunset of his days in quiet retreat at Yale or Hope or Quesnel or Barkerville. He does not wear evidence of great earthly possessions, though he may refer wistfully to the golden age of those long-past adventurous days. The leaders who survived became honoured citizens of British Columbia. Few came back to the East. They pa.s.sed their lives in the wild, free, new land that had given them such harsh experiences.

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CHAPTER VII

LIFE AT THE MINES