The Young Alaskans on the Trail Part 13

"I have finish."

"That certainly is a good story," said Jesse. "I like those stories you tell up here, for I've never heard any just like them. It makes you feel like you were out of doors, doesn't it, fellows?"

"Yes," said Rob, "but I'd like to ask you, Alex, do you really believe in all those stories about spirits--the Indian spirits? You know, you were telling me that you went to church."

"Yes," said Alex, "I do. The Company likes to have us go to church, and when we're around the post we do. My mother was baptized, although she was an Indian woman. My father taught me to read the Bible. I believe a great deal as you do. But somewhere in me I'm part Injun."

XI

LESSONS IN WILD LIFE

"Well, Alex," said John, the morning after the sheep hunt, as they sat about the fire after breakfast, "it doesn't look as though we'd saved much weight."

"How do you mean, Mr. John?"

"Well, you said we couldn't kill any grizzlies because the skins were too heavy. It seems to me that sheep heads are just as heavy as grizzly heads."

"That's so," said Alex, "but the sheep were good to eat, and we couldn't leave the heads in the hills after we had killed them. We'll try to get them down in the canoe somehow. The sheep meat has been very useful, and I wish we had more of it. We'll eat it almost all up in this camp, I'm thinking."

"I suppose we'd better. That reminds me of a story my Uncle d.i.c.k told me," ventured Jesse. "He said he was out fishing with a friend one time, and they wanted some gra.s.shoppers for bait, and hadn't any way to carry them. They had a jar of marmalade, so they sat down and ate all the marmalade, and then they had a good place to keep their gra.s.shoppers. I suppose if we eat all the meat up, we'll have a place for the heads."

They all laughed at Jesse's story, but John admitted he would be sorry when all the bighorn mutton was gone, declaring it to be the best meat he had ever eaten. Rob expressed wonder at the way the meat was disappearing.

"I remember, though," said he, "that Sir Alexander Mackenzie tells how much meat his men would eat in camp. They had a party of ten men and a dog one day, and they brought in two hundred and fifty pounds of elk meat. They had had a hearty meal at one o'clock that afternoon, but they put on the kettles and boiled and ate meat that night, and roasted the rest on sticks, and by ten o'clock the next day they didn't have any meat in camp! What do you think about that?"

"Maybe so to-night, maybe so to-morrow no more sheep!" grinned Moise, with his mouth still full.

"We'll have to hunt as we go on down," said Alex. "We'll be in good game country almost all the way."

Under the instructions of Alex the boys now finished the preparation of the sheep heads and scalps, paring off all the meat they could from the bones, and cleaning the scalps, which they spread out to dry after salting them carefully.

"I was out with a naturalist one trip," said Alex, "and he collected all sorts of little animals and snakes, and that sort of thing. When we wanted to clean the skeleton of a mouse or a snake, we used to put it in an ant-hill. There were many ants, and in a couple of weeks they'd picked the bones white and clean, as if they'd been sand-papered. I suppose we haven't time for that sort of thing now, though."

"Why couldn't we boil the meat off?" suggested Rob.

"A very good plan for a skull," said Alex, "excepting for a bear skull. You see, if you put the head of a bear in boiling water, the tusks will always split open later on. With the bones of the sheep's head, it will not make so much difference. But we couldn't get the horns off yet awhile--they'll have to dry out before they will slip from the pith, and the best way is not to take them off at all. If we keep on sc.r.a.ping and salting we'll keep our heads, all right."

"How about the hides?" asked John, somewhat anxiously.

"Well, sheep hides were never very much valued among our people,"

replied Alex. "In the mountain tribes below here the women used to make very white, soft leather for their dresses out of sheep hides.

The hair is coa.r.s.e and brittle, however, and although it will do for a little while as a bed, I'm afraid you young gentlemen will throw away the hides when you finish the trip."

"Well, all right," said John. "We won't throw them away just yet.

Let's spread them out and tan them. What's the best way to do that?"

"The Injuns always stake out a hide, on the ground or on a frame, flesh side up," said Alex. "Then they take one of their little sc.r.a.pers and pare all the meat off. That's the main thing, and that is the slowest work. When you get down to the real hide, it soon dries out and doesn't spoil. You can tan a light hide with softsoap, or salt and alum. Indeed, the Injuns had nothing of that sort in their tanning--they'd sc.r.a.pe a hide and dry it, then spread some brains on it, work in the brains and dry it and rub it, and last of all, smoke it. In that way they got their hides very soft, and after they were smoked they would always work soft in case they got wet, which isn't the case with white man's leather, which is tanned by means of acids and things of that kind."

"I have tanned little squirrel hides, and ground-hog hides, and wildcat skins," said Rob, "many a time. It isn't any trouble if you once get the meat all sc.r.a.ped off. That seems to be what spoils a hide."

"In keeping all our valuable furs," said Alex, "we never touch them with salt or alum. We just stretch them flesh side out, and let them dry in the shade, not close to a fire. This keeps the life all in the fur. Alum makes the hair brittle and takes away the l.u.s.ter. For a big bear hide, if I were far back in the mountains, I would put lots of salt on it and fold it up, and let it stay away for a day. Then I would unroll it and drain it off, and salt it all over again; tamp salt down into the ears, nose, eyes, and feet, then roll it up again and tie it tight, with the fur side out. Bear hides will keep all right that way if you haven't sunshine enough to dry them. The best way to keep a hide, though, is simply to sc.r.a.pe it clean and dry it in the sun, and after that fold it. It will never spoil then."

"Alex," ventured Moise, laughing, "you'll talk just like my old woman about tan hides. Those business is not for mans."

"That's true," said Alex, smiling. "In the old times, when we had buffalo, the women always tanned the hides. Hard work enough it was, too, with so heavy and coa.r.s.e a hide. Now they tan the moose hides.

I'll show you, young gentlemen, lower down this river near the camping places on the sh.o.r.e spruce-trees cut into three-cornered shape. You might not know what that was for. It was done so that the women could rub their moose hides around these angles and corners while they were making them soft. They make fine moose leather, too--although I suppose we'd have to wait a good while before we could get Moise to tan one in that way!"

"What makes them use brains in tanning the hide?" asked Jesse.

"Only for the grease there is in them," said Alex. "It takes some sort of grease to soften up a hide after it has been dried. The Injuns always said they could tan a hide with the brains of the animal.

Sometimes in tanning a buffalo hide, however, they would have marrow and grease and sc.r.a.ps thrown into a kettle with the brains. I think the main secret of the Injun tanning was the amount of hard work put in on rubbing the hide. That breaks up the fiber and makes it soft.

"But now, Moise," resumed Alex, getting up and filling his pipe, "I think it is about time we went down and had a look at those rapids below the camp. We've got to get through there somehow before long."

"I don't like this water in here at all," said Jesse, looking troubled. "I could hardly sleep last night on account of the noises it made--it sounded just like gla.s.s was being splintered up under the water."

"That's gravel, or small rocks, slipping along on the bottom in the current, I suppose," said Alex, "but after all this is not nearly so bad a river as the Fraser or the Columbia--you ought to see the old Columbia in high water! I'm thinking we'd have our own troubles getting down there in boats as small as these. In a deep river which is very fast, and which has a rough bottom, all sorts of unaccountable waves and swells will come up from below, just when you don't expect them."

"These rapeed in here, she'll been all right," said Moise. "No trouble to ron heem."

"Well, we'll not take any chances," said Alex, "and we'll in no case do anything to alarm our young friends."

He turned now, and, followed by Moise, crossed the neck of the bend and pa.s.sed on down the river some distance. The boys, following more slowly around the curve of the beach, finally saw both Alex and Moise poised on some high rocks and pointing at the wild water which stretched below them for the distance of two or three hundred yards.

Moise, who seemed to be more savage than Alex, made a wild figure as he stood gesticulating, a red handkerchief bound over his long, black hair, and his red sash holding in place the ragged remnants of his trousers. To the boys it seemed sure that the boats could not get through such water at all, but to their surprise the two men seemed not in the least concerned when at length they returned to the camp.

"It's a little rough," said Alex, "but there seems to be a good channel out in the middle, plenty of water. We'll run the boats through all right without any trouble. We'll go through light, and then portage the camp stuff across the bend after we get the boats below the rapids. Come on then, young gentlemen, and help us get ready. It may be interesting to you to see your first piece of real white water, although it isn't very bad.

"As I figure it, then, Mr. Rob," continued Alex, "we ought to have rather better water below here for a little while. What does your map say about that?"

"Well," answered Rob, "it's pretty hard to tell exactly, but taking the stories of Fraser and Mackenzie together, we ought to be here about one hundred and fifty miles above the mouth of the Finlay. By to-morrow night, if we hurry, we ought to be at or below the McLeod Lake outlet. Dr. Macoun says in his government report that it is easy running in the late season from McLeod to the Finlay, about eighty miles; and I saw a letter once from Mr. Hussey, a friend of Uncle d.i.c.k's, who made this trip lately, and he said there was not much bad water between the lake and the mouth of the Finlay. Below there--look out, that's all!

"It took the Mackenzie party six or eight days' plugging to get from there up to the carrying place," he added, "but we're going downhill instead of uphill. I should think we would have alternate stretches of quiet water here and there, but no very rough water from here on down for a while. With our small boats we probably cannot go so fast for a while now as they did with their big canoes. They could run bang through a big rapid where we'd have to portage."

"Well," said Alex, "I suggest that we spend the rest of this day in camp here, run the two canoes through, sleep here to-night, then portage below the rapids to-morrow morning and make a straight run from there down. We don't want to take too many chances."

"That's all right," said Rob, "and we'll help you pack the canoes."

The men did not put very heavy loads in the canoes, but they took the sheep heads, and most of the heavier camp supplies, putting about half of these each in the _Mary Ann_ and the _Jaybird_, themselves taking the _Mary Ann_ for their first trip through the rapids.

While they were busy finishing their loading, the boys ran on down around the bend and got ready to see the first canoe take the rapids.

When Jesse got fully within the sound and sight of the rolling, noisy water which now lay before them, he was very pale.

"What would we do, Rob," asked he, "if the boat should be lost out there--we couldn't ever get out of here alive."