The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Part 6

said Rob. "It's cold up in the hills yet, and the snow isn't melting.

This country's just like Alaska in that way."

"That's the way I figure," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I know the regular trail is on this side the Athabasca, but at the same time they do sometimes ford it down below here. We'll go have a look, anyhow."

Accordingly, they started out from their camp near Folding Mountain, not in the direction of Roche Miette, but departing from the trail nearly at right angles. They pulled up at last on the sh.o.r.es of the rushing, muddy Athabasca. Here they found a single cabin, and near it a solitary and silent Indian. What was better, and what caused Uncle d.i.c.k's face to lighten perceptibly, was a rough home-made bateau of boards which lay fastened at the sh.o.r.e.

"How deep?" asked Uncle d.i.c.k, pointing to the swirling waters, here several hundred yards in width.

The Indian grinned and made signs, motioning with his hand at his knees, at his waist, and far above his head.

"Swimming it, eh?" said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Well, that means swimming the horses across. Also it means freighting the packs. Off with the loads, then, boys, and let's get busy."

The Indian and Uncle d.i.c.k now examined the boat and found that it would ferry something like five hundred pounds besides two men acting as oarsmen. As they had something like three-quarters of a ton in the pack-loads, this meant several trips in the boat.

Meantime Moise, singing and laughing as usual, proceeded to build a fire and to make a little midday camp, for he knew they would tarry here for some time.

"We'll wouldn't took all the grub over right way first thing," said he. "Better eat plenty first."

"All right, Moise," said John; "I'm hungry right now, and I'll eat any time you say. But I think we'd better wait until we see how they come out with the boat."

With the first load of supplies in the skiff, Uncle d.i.c.k and the Indian had a good stiff pull of it, for the current of the Athabasca here is at least six or eight miles an hour. But by heading up stream they managed to land nearly opposite the place where they had started.

By the time they had returned for the second load all the packs were off and the horses were ready for the crossing. Uncle d.i.c.k thought that it would be best to cross the horses at once, as any mountain stream is lower in the early part of the day than it is in mid-afternoon, when the daily flood of melting snow is at its height.

The boys had often heard of this way of getting a pack-train across a river too deep to ford, and now they were to see it in actual practice. The Indian, wading out, showed that there was a shallow hard bar extending some distance out and offering good footing. He pushed the boat out some distance from sh.o.r.e and sat there, holding it with an oar thrust into the sand. Uncle d.i.c.k rode his saddle-pony out a little way, and led the white bell-mare, old Betsy, along behind him, pa.s.sing Betsy's rope to the Indian as he sat in the boat. Betsy, as may be supposed, was a sensible and courageous horse, well used to all the hardships of mountain work.

It is the way of all pack-horses to be given to sudden frights, but, still, if they see that another horse has gone ahead they nearly always will try to follow. All the other horses now stood looking out at Betsy. As they did so the others of the party made a sort of rope corral behind them and on each side. All at once Moise and Uncle d.i.c.k began to shout at the horses and crowd them forward toward the water.

Although they plunged and tried to break away, they were afraid of the rope, and, seeing Betsy standing there, one after another they splashed out into the shallow water.

Uncle d.i.c.k sprang on top of his horse, Danny, once more, and headed off those which undertook to come back to the bank. Then, once more riding out to the boat, he sprang off nearly waist-deep into the water and climbed into the boat, leaving Danny to take his chances with the others. Both men now bent to the oars. Old Betsy, seeing her rope fast to the boat for the time, swam toward it so strongly that they were almost afraid she would try to get into it, so at length Uncle d.i.c.k cut off the rope as short as he could and cast everything loose. By that time, as good-fortune would have it, all the horses were swimming, following the white lead-mare, which, seeing the sh.o.r.e on ahead, and not seeing the sh.o.r.e behind, and, moreover, seeing human beings in the boat just ahead, struck out st.u.r.dily for the other side.

The swift icy current of the Athabasca carried the animals far down-stream, and this time Uncle d.i.c.k did not try to keep the boat up-stream, but allowed it to drift with the horses, angling down. It seemed to those left on the hither sh.o.r.e at least half an hour before a call from the other side announced that the boatmen had reached shallow water. Of course it was not so long; but, whether long or short, it certainly was fortunate that the journey had been made so quickly and so safely. For now, one after another, they could see the horses splashing and struggling as they found solid footing under them, so what had lately been a procession of heads and ears became a line of pack-horses straggling up the bank; and a very cold and much-frightened train of pack-horses they were, too, as Uncle d.i.c.k could have told his young companions. But what he did was to give a great shout which announced to them that all was safe.

After that, of course, it was simply a question of freighting over the remainder of the supplies and the others of the party, and of rounding up the scattered horses from the grazing-places in the woods. Moise insisted on having tea before the last trip was made; and by this time the boys realized that at no time in these operations had they been left alone with no one older than themselves to care for them in case of accidents, nor had they been left without supplies close at hand.

"You're a pretty good manager, Uncle d.i.c.k," said John, while they sat on a long log by the fireside before the last trip across the river.

"I'm willing to say that you're a pretty good engineer as well as a pretty good contractor."

"Nothing venture, nothing have," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "You have to use your head on the trail a little bit, as well as your nerve, however.

We'd have had to swim the Athabasca anyhow, and I'd about as soon swim a train over a broad, steady river as to try to cross a rough mountain river with a loaded train, and maybe get a horse swept under a log-jam. Anyway, we can call the river crossed, and jolly glad I am of it, too."

"When do we get any fishing?" asked Jesse. "That water looks too muddy for trout."

"We won't get any fishing for a couple of days yet, probably," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "And as to shooting, you must remember that we are now in Jasper Park, and if we struck a game warden he would seal all our guns for us."

"Well," said Rob, "I see there's a lake over here called Fish Lake."

"Yes. The old traders' trail runs between Fish Lake and Brule Lake, and a great piece of sand it is in there, too--we engineers will have to put blankets on that country to keep it from blowing away when we build the railroad through. But we'll miss all that, and to-morrow we'll stop at Swift's place, on the other side of the river."

"Whose place?" asked John. "I didn't know anybody lived in here."

"It's an odd thing about this country," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "but people do live all over it, and have done so for a hundred years or two, although it, none the less, is the wilderness. Sometimes you will find a settler in the wildest part of the mountains. Now, Swift is an old Yankee that came up here from the States about thirty years ago. He used to trade and trap, perhaps, and of late years he has made him quite a farm. Besides that, he has built himself a mill and makes his own flour. He's quite an ingenious old chap, and one of the features of the country. We engineers found his fresh vegetables pretty good last season. For my part, I hope he makes a fortune out of his land if we locate a town near him. His place isn't so very far from Jasper House. That was the first settlement in this country--the Hudson's Bay's post, more than a hundred years ago."

"Is it still standing?" asked Rob.

"Oh no, and hasn't been for years. We can still see a few logs there, and nothing more. It fell into disuse maybe fifty years ago, and was abandoned altogether twenty-five years back, and since then burned down. It's the only post, so far as I know, called after a man's Christian name. The old posts were called 'houses,' but this one was built by Jasper Hawse. Hardy old chap, old Jasper, I presume; because, he made such good fur returns that the rival company, the old Nor'westers, came in here and built a post, which they called Henry House, on up the river some miles from Jasper House. But the Nor'westers couldn't stand the compet.i.tion, and before long they abandoned their post, and it has been left so ever since. Lastly came the engineers, following the traders, who followed the Indians, who followed the wild-game trails; and behind us will come the railroads.

In two or three years, if you like, you youngsters can come through here on the train a great deal more easily than you are doing it now.

"But now," concluded Uncle d.i.c.k, "we must go across the river and see how old Betsy is getting along with her family."

They made this final trip with the boat without incident, and Uncle d.i.c.k gave the Indian ten dollars for his help, which seemed to please that taciturn person very much.

VIII

IN HIGH ALt.i.tUDES

"Well, I want to shoot something," said John, as they stood in their camp the following morning. "I don't like this park business."

"Nonsense, John," said Rob. "A park is just a place where you raise wild animals; and if there were no parks, pretty soon there wouldn't be any wild animals. Besides, it's such a glorious morning, and this country is so beautiful, that for one I don't much care whether or not we shoot anything for a day or two."

"Well, I like a free country," said John, loudly.

"So do I, but you can say one thing; when a railroad comes into a country and it begins to settle up, you can't have free hunting forever."

"We can have good fishing before long, young gentlemen," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "In fact, I'll show you a lake or two up above here where you shall have all the fun you want. This used to be a great fur country.

I fancy the Stony Indians killed off a good many of the sheep and bears on the east side of the Rockies below here, and of course along the regular trails all game gets to be scarce, but I will show you goat trails up in these hills which look as though they had been made by a pack-train. I don't doubt, if one would go thirty or forty miles from here, he could get into good grizzly country, but you know we put our grizzly shoots off for the other side of the Rockies, and we all agreed just to plug on through until we got to the summit."

"How's the country on ahead?" asked John, dubiously.

"Bad enough," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "but it might be worse. At least, there is a lot of ground on this side the river which is solid, and in fact I wouldn't say there is anything very bad until we get pretty well up the Miette River where the cross-creeks come down. We may find some soft going up there, with the snow just beginning to melt, as it is.

But now let's get into saddle and push on."

They soon were under way once more, pa.s.sing up the wide valley and now entering deeper and deeper into the arms of the great Rockies themselves. Not far from their camp they paused for a moment at the ruins of old Jasper House. It was as Uncle d.i.c.k had said. Nothing remained excepting one cabin, which showed evident marks of being modern.

"It's too bad," said Rob, "that these old historic houses ever were allowed to pa.s.s away. How nice it would be if we could see them now, just the way old Jasper Hawse built them. But log cabins don't stand as well as stone houses, I've noticed."

"I wonder if Mr. Swift is going to build him a stone house when the town comes," said Jesse. "I suppose it's only a log house he's got now."

"Quite right," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "and it's only a little way until we reach it to-day. We'll celebrate our crossing the Athabasca by making a short journey to-day."

So presently they did pull up at the quaint frontier home known all along the trail as "Swift's." They were met by the old man himself, who seemed to be alone--a gaunt and grizzled figure of the old frontier breed. He came out and shook hands with each in turn and helped all to get off their saddles and packs, evidently glad to see them, and still more pleased when Uncle d.i.c.k told him that these boys had come all the way from Alaska.

"Alasky?" said he. "You don't tell me! Now here I be, and I thought I'd come a long way when I come from the States thirty year ago.

Alasky, eh? I've heard there's gold up there. Maybe I'll stroll over there some day."

"It's a good long way, Mr. Swift," said Rob, smiling.