Chapter 10

Alex said nothing, but kicked over the edge of the bank the big rolled hide of the grizzly; after which, silently and with proper dignity, all the hunters, old and young, advanced down the bank and across the beach toward the fire. No one said anything until after the rifles were all lined up against the blanket rolls and the pipes of the men had been filled once more. Moise at length could be dignified no more, and broke out into a loud series of French, English, and Cree terms, all meant to express his delight and approval at the success of the hunt. The three breeds also smiled broadly and nodded approvingly, once in a while saying a word in their own tongue to one another. They did not, however, seem to ask any questions regarding the hunt as yet. Alex spoke a word or so to Moise.

"She's been my cousin," said Moise, pointing indifferently to all three of the new-comers. He also pointed to their means of locomotion, a long and risky looking dugout which lay at the beach.

"He'll gone on up the river," said Moise, "from Hudson's Hope."

"Well, when they go," said Alex, "I suppose you'll have to give them something to eat, as you seem to be doing now. Only please don't part with quite all our supplies--we're going to need a little tea and flour for ourselves before we get out of here. You can tell these men there's plenty of game in this part of the country, so they can easily make a hunt if they like."

"Sure," said Moise, "I'll dream last night you'll catch grizzly this time. But how we'll go to put heem in boat, _hein_? S'pose we put that hide in canoe, she'll sink unless we eat up all the grub pile."

Alex told Moise to unroll the bear hide so that it might dry as much as possible. He then set all of them at fleshing the hide, a task none of them seemed to relish. Afterward, he also added some sort of counsel in the Cree language which presently resulted in the three visitors tightening up their belts, taking their solitary rifle, and passing out of sight in the bush at the top of the bank.

"Where are they going?" asked John, curiously, of Moise.

"She'll say she'll go after bear meat," said Moise. "Not got much meat, for she'll ain't seen much moose yet."

"Well, they're welcome to that grizzly meat," grinned Alex. "I didn't think they'd eat it. They must be starving. Make them up a little package of tinned stuff, Moise, and put it in their boat. I think we'll need about all the bacon we've got, and they can use the fat of the bear better than we can. Give them some tea, and a little flour too. What do they say about the river below here at the big cañon?"

"Says bad water," said Moise. "She'll rose perhaps four, three, two inches to-day, maybe so, here, and that's all same so many foots in the cañon. She'll say best way to do is to take portage trail and leave those boat on west end of those cañon."

"Yes, but we want to get our boats through," said Alex, "although it must be a dozen miles anyhow by way of the carrying trail, and not too good at that."

"He'll say," resumed Moise, "s'pose we take those boat through to the big mountain--through big water, ver' wide, with many islands--we'll come on a place where boats can go up the bank, if plenty men carry them up. Then she'll been ten mile, eight mile, to some place below the mountain. All the tam she'll say best way is to go by horse, on the north side of the river, on the police trail from Fort St. John, s'pose we'll could find that trail, an' s'pose we'll had some horse."

"What do you say, Mr. Rob?" asked Alex. "We ought to get our boats down. Shall we haul out at the west end, or try for Hudson's Hope?"

"I'd be in favor of getting down as far as we can," said Rob. "We can reach the head of the mountain in a couple of days. I'm for moving on down and taking a chance on the rest of it! Of course we'll have to portage the cañon somehow."

"That suits me," said John. And even Jesse, the youngest of the three, was all for continuing the journey as originally planned.

"All right," said Alex, "I'm with you. We're learning the game now, certainly, and I don't think we'll find this part of the river any worse than it has been up above. There isn't anything bad marked on the map, anyhow, for quite a way."

At about this time, as they were all busied about the camping place, the boys noticed Alex and Moise step a little apart and begin to converse in low tones. From their looks and gestures, the boys gathered that the men were speaking of something in which they themselves were concerned, in just what way they could not tell. Presently Moise smiled and nodded vigorously. Approaching the camp-fire, he took up his short-handled ax and slung it at his back by a bit of thong. Then he stepped over to the tallest and straightest pine-tree which grew close to the water's edge thereabout. Active as a cat, he soon had climbed the lower branches, where, without pausing, he began to hack off, close to the trunk, every branch within his reach. Having done so, he climbed yet higher up and repeated the operation, as though it were his purpose to cut off nearly all the branches to the top of the tree. At first the boys thought he was gathering boughs for the beds, but as they were almost ready to break camp they could not understand this.

"Let's go up and help him, fellows!" exclaimed John.

Alex restrained them. "No, you mustn't do that." John stopped rather abashed.

"You see," explained the old hunter, "you are concerned in this, so you must not help."

"I don't understand--" began John.

"Well, the truth is, we are going to give you a celebration. In short, we are making a monument for you young gentlemen, all of you."

Rob broke into the conversation. "A monument? But we're not dead, and aren't going to be soon!"

"This is a monument of the Far North. It is not necessary to die. We are making you what we call a 'lob-stick,' or 'lop-stick.'"

"I never heard of anything like that."

"Very likely not. Nor do I suppose there is one this far to the west, although there are some which we may see down the Peace River. Had Mackenzie and Fraser got their dues, each of them would have had a 'lob-stick' somewhere in here. Probably they were too busy in those days. But if either of them had had a 'lob-stick' made for him it would very likely be standing to-day. In that case every man who went past on the river would know why it had been given."

The boys were very much excited over this and demanded of Alex that he should explain more precisely these matters.

"Well," said the old hunter, kindly, "each country has its own ways. When I was in London with General Kitchener I went to Westminster Cathedral, and saw there engraved in brass the names of men who had done deeds worth commemorating. It is our way in this country also to perpetuate the memory of deeds of goodness or of bravery, anything which is remarkable and worth remembering. Here and there along the Peace River, and far to the north on the Athabasca, you will see a tree trimmed like this, different from the others, and noticeable to all passers-by. Perhaps one tells where a man has saved the life of another man, or where a party have divided their food until all starved, or where some great deed was done, such as a fight with some animal. Any great event in our history we may keep in mind in this way. When the men go by on the river they think of that. We believe it may make their hearts stronger, or make them more disposed to do good or brave things themselves. It is our custom."

"But what have we done to deserve this?" demanded Rob.

"Moise and I and those other men who were here have the right to decide in regard to that," said Alex. "We would not be foolish enough to leave a 'lob-stick' for any light reason. To us it seemed that you were brave, considering your years, in facing the grizzly this morning as you did; also, that you are brave to undertake this trip, young as you are, and with us whom you did not know, across this wild country, which daunted even Mackenzie and Fraser in the old days. Having met in council, Moise and I have determined to do this. We think there is no other 'lob-stick' on the river above here, and that there is not apt to be."

By this time Moise had lopped off all the branches of the tree except the top ones, which stood out like an umbrella. Descending from stub to stub, he now trimmed off all the remaining branches clear to the ground. As Alex had said, the tree stood straight and unmistakable, so that any _voyageur_ on the river must notice it.

Rob took off his hat, and the others did the same. "We do not know how to thank you for this honor, Alex and Moise," said he, "but we will try never to do anything which shall make you ashamed of us. If we do, you may come and cut down this tree."

"I believe it will stand," smiled Alex. "Not many men pass here in these days, but by and by every man who does come here will know where this tree stands and why it was made a 'lob-stick.' They will measure distances by it on the river. And always when the _voyageurs_ pass, or when they camp here near the tree, they will know your story. That is the way history is made in this country. I think that a hundred years from now, perhaps, men will know your story as well as you do that of Mackenzie and Fraser, although theirs was written in books. This is our custom. If it pleases you, we are very glad."

Hats still in hand, the boys now stepped up one by one and shook hands with Alex and Moise. When they left this camp they looked back for a long time, and they could see their commemorative tree standing out tall, slender, and quite distinct from all the others. No doubt it stands there to-day just as it was left in the honor of our young _voyageurs_.

XVIII

BAD LUCK WITH THE "MARY ANN"

Alex now went down to the boats and began to rearrange the cargo, from which the boys saw that in his belief it was best to continue the journey that evening, although it now was growing rather late. Evidently he was for running down ahead of the flood-water if any such should come, although it seemed to all of them that after all they need have no great fear, for the river had risen little if any since morning.

They determined to put the big bear hide in the _Mary Ann_, and shifted some of the burden of that boat to the _Jaybird_, folding up the long hide and putting it at the bottom of the canoe under the thwarts, so that the weight would come as low as possible. When the _Mary Ann_ had received the rest of her necessary cargo she showed most of her bundles and packages above the gunwale, and Alex looked at the two boats a little dubiously, even after Moise had carried down to the dugout of his cousins such of the joint supplies as even his liberality thought proper.

"We'll try her, anyhow," said Alex, taking a look up the river, which came rolling down, tawny now, and not white and green in its colors. So saying, they pushed off.

They must, at this camp, have been somewhere between twelve and twenty miles east of the mouth of the Parle Pas rapids, and they had made perhaps a dozen miles more that evening when they began to come to a place where again the mountains approached the stream closely. Here they could not see out at all from their place at the foot of the high banks which hedged them in. At nightfall they encamped in a wild region which seemingly never had known the foot of man. The continuous rush of the waters and the gloom of the overhanging forests now had once more that depressing effect which sometimes is not unknown even to seasoned _voyageurs_. Had they been asked, the young travelers must truthfully have replied that they would be glad when at last the mountains were passed and the prairie country to the eastward reached.

On the next day they continued among the high hills for several hours, although at length the river expanded into a wide reach which gave them a little free paddling. In such contractions of the stream as they met it seemed to them that the rocks were larger, the water deeper, and each hour becoming more powerful than it had been. Advancing cautiously, they perhaps had covered thirty miles when they came to a part of the stream not more than three hundred yards wide, where the current was very smooth but of considerable velocity. Below this the mountains crowded still closer in to the stream, seeming to rise almost directly from the edge of the banks and to tower nearly two thousand feet in height.

"We must be getting close to the big portage now," said Rob to Moise, as they reached this part of the river.

"Yes," said Moise, "pretty soon no more water we'll could ron."

Moise's speech was almost prophetic. In less than half an hour after that moment they met with the first really serious accident of the entire journey, and one which easily might have resulted disastrously to life as well as to property.

They were running a piece of water where a flat rapid dropped down without much disturbance toward a deep bend where the current swung sharply to the right. A little island was at one side, on which there had been imbedded the roots of a big tree, which had come down as driftwood. The submerged branch of this tree, swinging up and down in the violent current, made one of the dangerous "sweepers" which canoemen dread. Both Rob and Moise thought there was plenty of room to get by, but just as they cleared the basin-like foot of the rapid the _Mary Ann_ suddenly came to a stop, hard and fast amidships, on a naked limb of the tree which had been hidden in the discolored waters at the time.

As is usual in all such accidents, matters happened very quickly. The first thing they knew the boat was lifted almost bodily from the water. There was the cracking noise of splintering wood, and an instant later, even as the white arm of the tree sunk once more into the water, the _Mary Ann_ sunk down, weak and shattered, her back broken square across, although she still was afloat and free.

Rob gave a sudden shout of excitement and began to paddle swiftly to the left, where the bank was not far away. Moise joined him, and they reached the shore none too soon, their craft half full of water, for not only had the keel to the lower ribs of the boat been shattered by the weight thus suspended amidships, but the sheathing had been ripped and torn across, so that when they dragged the poor _Mary Ann_ up the beach she was little more than the remnant of herself.

The others, coming down the head of the rapid a couple of hundred yards to the rear, saw this accident, and now paddled swiftly over to join the shipwrecked mariners, who luckily had made the shore.

"It's bad, boys," said Rob, hurrying down to catch the prow of the _Jaybird_ as she came alongside. "Just look at that!"

They all got out now and discharged the cargo of the _Mary Ann_, including the heavy grizzly hide, which very likely was the main cause of the accident, its weight having served to fracture the stout fabric of the plucky little boat. When they turned her over the case looked rather hopeless.

"She's smashed almost to her rail," said Rob, "and we've broken that already. It's that old grizzly hide that did it, I'm sure. We lit fair on top of that 'sweeper,' and our whole weight was almost out of the water when it came up below us. Talk about the power of water, I should say you could see it there, all right--it's ripped our whole ship almost in two! I don't see how we can fix it up this time."

Moise by this time had lighted his pipe, yet he did not laugh, as he usually did, but, on the contrary, shook his head at Alex.

"Maybe so we'll could fix heem," was all he would venture.

"Well, one thing certain," said Rob, "we'll have to go into camp right here, even if it isn't late."

"Did you have any fun in the other rapids above here?" asked John of Rob.

"No," said Rob; "it was all easy. We've run a dozen or twenty a lot worse than this one. Not even the Parle Pas hurt us. Then I come in here, head paddler, and I run my boat on a 'sweeper' in a little bit of an easy drop like this. It makes me feel pretty bad, I'll tell you that!"

They walked about the boat with hands in pockets, looking gloomy, for they were a little bit doubtful, since Moise did not know, whether they could repair the _Mary Ann_ into anything like working shape again.

Alex, as usual, made little comment and took things quietly. They noticed him standing and looking intently down the river across the near-by bend.

"I see it too," said Rob. "Smoke!"

The old hunter nodded, and presently walked on down the beach to have a look at the country below, leaving Moise to do what he could with the broken boat. The boys joined Alex.

Presently they saw, not far around the bend, a long dugout canoe pulled up on the beach. Near by was a little fire, at which sat two persons, an old man and a younger one. They did not rise as the visitors approached, but answered quietly when Alex spoke to them in Cree.

XIX

NEW PLANS

"These men say," interpreted Alex, as he turned to the boys, "that it's sixteen to twenty miles from here to the end of the portage out of the hills, across the north bank, which cuts off the thirty miles of cañon that nobody ever tries to run. They say for a little way the river is wide, with many islands, but below that it narrows down and gets very bad. They're tracking stuff up-stream from the portage to a surveyors' camp which depends on their supplies. They say they will not sell their canoe, because they couldn't get up-stream, but that if we can get east of the portage there's a man, a sort of farmer, somewhere below there, who has a boat which perhaps he would sell."

"What good would that do us?" demanded John. "A boat twenty or thirty miles east of here across the mountains isn't going to help us very much. What we want is a boat now, and I don't see how we can get along without it. Won't they sell their canoe?"

"No, they don't want to sell it," said Alex; "they say they're under employment, and must get through to the camp from Hudson's Hope on time. We couldn't portage a dugout, anyhow. But they say that we can go on up there with them if we like, and then come back and go around by the portage. What do you say, Mr. Rob?"

Rob answered really by his silence and his tight-shut jaw. "Well," said he, "at least I don't much care about turning back on a trail. But we'll have to split here, I think, unless we all go into camp. But part of us can go on through by the river, and the rest come on later. Maybe we can _cache_ some of our luggage here, and have it brought on across by these men, if they're going back to Hudson's Hope."

"That sounds reasonable," said Alex, nodding. "I believe we can work it out."

He turned and spoke rapidly in Cree to the two travelers, with many gestures, pointing both up and down the stream, all of them talking eagerly and at times vehemently.

"They say," said Alex at last, "there's a place at the foot of the high bank above the cañon head where two or three men might be able to get a boat up to the carrying trail, although the landing is little used to-day. But they say if we could get across to the east end of the cañon they could send men down by the trail after that other boat. They don't think we can get our boat across. They say they'll find us in a few days, they think, somewhere on the portage. They ask us if they can have what's left of our canoe. They say they'll take two dollars a day and grub if we want them to work for us. They don't say that no man could make the portage below here, but don't think we could do it with our crew. Well, what do you say now, Mr. Rob?"

"Why, it's all as easy as a fiddle-string," said Rob. "I'll tell you how we'll fix it. Jess, you and Moise go with these men on up to the surveyors' camp, and back down to Hudson's Hope--you can take enough grub to last you around, and you know that water is easy now. Alex and John and I will still have enough grub to last us through to the east side of the Rockies--we're almost through now. It might be rather hard work for Jess. The best way for him is to keep with Moise, who'll take good care of him, and it's more fun to travel than to loaf in camp. For the rest of us, I say we ought to go through, because we started to go through. We all know where we are now. Moise will bring the men and supplies around to meet us at the east side. Even if we didn't meet," he said to Jesse, "and if you and Moise got left alone, it would be perfectly simple for you to go on through to Peace River Landing, two or three hundred miles, to where you will get word of Uncle Dick. There are wagon-trails and steamboats and all sorts of things when you once get east of the mountains, so there's no danger at all. In fact, our trip is almost done right where we stand here--the hardest part is behind us. Now, Jess, if you don't feel hard about being asked to go back up the river, or to stay here till these men come back down-stream, that's the way it seems best to me."

"I'm not so anxious as all that to go on down this river," grinned Jesse. "It isn't getting any better. Look at what it did to the old _Mary Ann_ up there."

"Well, the main thing is not to get lonesome," said Rob, "and to be sure there's no danger. We'll get through, some time or somewhere. Only don't get uneasy, that's all. You ought to get around to us in a couple of days after you start on the back trail. How does it look to you, Alex?"

The old hunter nodded his approval. "Yes," said he; "I think the three of us will take the _Jaybird_ loaded light and run down to the head of the mountain without much trouble. I don't hear of anything particularly nasty down below here until you get nearly to the gorge. I think we had better hire these two breeds for a time, put them on pay from the time they start up the river with Moise and Mr. Jess. They say they would like to go with Mr. Jess for their 'bourgeois'--that's 'boss,' you know. They also say," he added, smiling, "that they would very much like to have some sugar and tea."

After a time Alex rose, beckoned to the two breeds, and they all went back up the beach to the place where Moise by this time was building his camp-fire and spreading out the cargo of the _Mary Ann_ to dry.

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."