The Young Alaskans on the Trail Part 22

The two breeds expressed wonder at the lightness of the boats which they now saw, and rapidly asked in their language how the party had managed to get so far across the mountains with such little craft. But they alternately laughed and expressed surprise when they lifted the fragments of the _Mary Ann_ and pointed out the nature of the injury she had sustained.

"Those man'll been my cousin, too," said Moise, pointing to the new-comers. "She'll been glad to see us, both of her. Her name is Billy and Richard. Ole Richard, his Injun name was been At-tick--'The Reindeer.' Also she'll say," he added, "she'll ain't got some tea nor sugar. _Allons!_ I think maybe we'll eat some dish of tea."

Soon they were seated on the ground, once more eating tea and bannock, piecing out their meal, which, by the way, was the third during the day, with some of the dried caribou meat which they had brought from far above.

"They'll ask me, my cousin," said Moise at last, his mouth full, "what we'll take for those busted canoe."

"What do you say, Mr. Rob?" asked Alex.

"I don't see how it's going to be worth anything to us," said Rob, "and it will take us a long time to patch her up at best. Tell them we'll give them what there is left of the _Mary Ann_ if they'll take good care of Jess on the way around on the trail. And we'll pay them two dollars a day each besides."

When Moise had interpreted this speech, the older of the two breeds, who did not speak any English, rose and gravely shook each of the boys by the hand, then not saying anything further, he rose, took his big buffalo knife from its sheath, and proceeded to finish the distribution of the unfortunate _Mary Ann_, it being his plan evidently not to float her again, but to reduce her to a portable package which could be taken away in their other canoe, the dugout, on the beach below.

"Well, there goes the _Mary Ann_," said John, sadly. "He is evidently going to make some kindling wood for himself."

"My cousin she'll say this boat must be took up to camp, where womans can work on heem," explained Moise. "He'll say he'll patch up those boat fine, for all the ribs she'll be bent all right an' not bust, and he'll make new keel an' new side rails--oh, you wait! Maybe so nex'

year you'll come here you'll see those boat _Marie H'Ann_ just so fine like she never was."

Whatever might have been the future plans for the _Mary Ann_, she soon resembled nothing so little as a Peterborough canoe. The old man calmly proceeded to separate the framework at bow and stern, so that he could crush the two sides of the canoe together after removing the ribs, which also he proceeded to do, one by one. Finally he had a pile of ribs and some broken splints which he laid carefully on the beach.

Then he doubled back the splintered skin of the canoe, throwing away very little indeed of the fractured woodwork. At last he grunted some rapid words to the younger man, who seemed to be his son or a member of his family.

"My cousin she'll say he can took those boat in dugout all right down the river," said Moise. "She'll said to me also we'll go on Hudson's Hope with heem." Moise pointed to Jesse. Alex nodded and explained further the plan which had roughly been sketched out before that time by Rob and himself. In a little time the younger Cree had returned and poled the big dugout around the bend up to the place where they were now in camp. With some excited talk on the part of both, they now took the wreck of the _Mary Ann_ and carried it up the bank to await their return. In different places along the great cottonwood dugout they added such supplies as Moise thought was right. The other supplies they then _cached_, and put over all the robe of the big grizzly, flesh side out, and heavily salted, weighting the edges down with heavy stones.

The freeboard of the dugout was very slight when Jesse took his place, but seemed quite enough to satisfy the requirements of these _voyageurs_. The old man sprang into the stern of the dugout and motioned to Jesse to find a seat amidships. Meantime Moise was fixing up a towing collar, which he attached to the line. It became apparent that the plan was for him and the younger breed to double on the tracking line, the old man remaining astern to do the steering.

"That's the way we get up a river in this country," said Alex to Rob, who was watching all this with interest. "I would bet they would do twenty-five miles a day with that rig they've got there--they go almost at a trot whenever there's an open bit of beach. When there is none, they pole or paddle."

"I don't see how they do it," said Rob. "None of them have got anything on their feet but moccasins, and those men there have only pieces of moccasins at that. I should think the rocks would cut their feet in bits!"

"Well, you know, Moise and his 'cousins' are all 'same like dog,' as he would say," smiled Alex. "Your feet get used to it in time. These men have never known anything better, so they have got adjusted to the way they have to make their living. I doubt if they would wear hard-soled shoes if they had them, because they would say the soles would slip on the rocks. They're in the water about as much as they are out of it when they are tracking a boat up-stream. That's the way this country was conquered for the white men--by the paddle, pole, and tracking line."

"You forget Uncle d.i.c.k's way," chimed in John.

"How do you mean?"

"Railroads."

"Yes," said Alex, sighing, "they're coming some day, that's sure. But even the surveyors and engineers had to travel this way, and I think you will find even in the country where the wagons are it's quite a way from here to home."

"Well, here we go," said Rob, after a time. "We mustn't waste daylight, you know."

By this time Jesse was looking very serious. Naturally he relied very much upon Moise, but he disliked to leave his friends, and especially to say good-by to Alex, on whom they all seemed to depend very much.

"It's the right thing to do, Jess," said John, after a time. "So far as that is concerned, you'll have it just as safe and a good deal easier than we will, in all probability. We'll meet you in a week or so at most."

"So long, then!" said Jesse, bravely waving his hand.

"So long!" said Rob and John. They waved their caps to one another, as each boat now began its way, the _Jaybird_ carrying three pa.s.sengers, and the long dugout, under the tracking line, taking what remained of the expedition of our _voyageurs_, who now separated for the time to take different directions on the stream they had followed thus far.

XX

THE GORGE OF THE MOUNTAINS

For a time after the boats parted the crew of the _Jaybird_ said very little as they pursued their way down-stream. The accident to the _Mary Ann_ made them all thoughtful, and Rob was very careful in his position as bow paddler for the remaining boat. As the craft was pretty well loaded, Alex also was cautious. They took their time when they struck the head of any fast water, went ash.o.r.e and prospected, and once in awhile lined down the boat instead of undertaking to run a fast chute. In spite of their additional caution, they ran mile after mile of the great river, until finally they felt themselves approaching the great eastern gate of the Rockies, whence there breaks out upon the lower country of the great Peace River the Unjingah, or Unjigab, as the natives formerly called it.

"Now," said Alex, at last, as he steered in along sh.o.r.e, "I think we'll stop and take a look around."

They had been expecting the entrance to the actual gorge of the river now for the last three or four miles, for they had pa.s.sed into the wide s.p.a.ce, six or eight hundred yards in extent, described as lying above the canon entrance, where the river, falling through a narrow pa.s.sageway in the rocks, is condensed to a quarter of its average width.

The fatigue of the steady travel of the trip now began to show its effect upon them all, and the boys were quite ready to go into camp.

Rob and John undertook to prepare the supper, and soon were busy arranging a little fireplace of stone, while Alex climbed up the bank to do some prospecting farther on.

"How does it look, Alex?" inquired Rob, when he finally returned. Alex waved a hand as a sign of his ignorance. "Hills and woods," said he.

"Not so much spruce, but some pine and poplars, and plenty of 'bois picard'--what you call 'devil's club' on your side of the Rockies. I didn't know it grew this far east. I don't see how Mackenzie's men got up from below with a thirty-foot birch-bark," he added, after a time.

"They must have come through something on this course, because they could not have taken the water very much below here, that's sure."

"Is there any trail at all, Alex?" asked John.

"We've landed almost at the trail--just enough to call a trail for a foot man. It isn't used much to-day, that's sure. Pretty steep. Sandy farther up."

"Could we carry the boat through, do you think?" Rob looked anxiously up at the lofty bank which rose above them. Perhaps there was a little trace of stubbornness in Rob's make-up, and certainly he had no wish to abandon the project at this stage.

"We might edge her up the bank a little at a time," said Alex, "snubbing her up by the line. I suppose we could pa.s.s it from stump to stump, the same as _voyageurs_ had to with their big birch-barks sometimes."

"We'll get her up somehow to-morrow," said Rob, "if you say it's possible."

"Then there'll be some more hills," smiled Alex; "eight or ten or twelve miles of rough country, I suppose."

"Time enough to trouble about that to-morrow, Alex. Sit down and have a cup of tea."

They still had one or two of their smoke-dried trout and a bit of the half-dried caribou which they had brought down with them. On the whole they made a very fair meal.

"Try some of my biscuits, Alex," suggested John. "I baked them in the spider--mixed the dough all by myself in the sack, the way Moise does.

Aren't they fine?"

"You're quite a cook, Mr. John. But I'm sorry we're so nearly out of meat," said Alex. "You can't travel far on flour and tea."

"Won't there be any game in the river below the Rockies?" asked Rob.

"Oh yes, certainly; plenty of bear and moose, and this side of the Peace River Landing, wherever there are any prairies, plenty of grouse too; but I don't think we'll get back to the prairies--the valley is over a thousand feet deep east of the mountains."

"Alex, how many moose have you ever killed in all your life?" asked Rob, curiously.

"Three hundred and eighty-seven," answered Alex, quietly.