Chapter 11

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 Dick'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 passengers, 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 ashore 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 shore, "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 passed into the wide space, six or eight hundred yards in extent, described as lying above the cañon entrance, where the river, falling through a narrow passageway 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 pass 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.

The boys looked at each other in astonishment. "I didn't know anybody ever killed that many moose in all the world," said John.

"Many people have killed more than I have," replied Alex. "You see, at times we have to hunt for a living, and if we don't get a moose or something of the kind we don't eat."

"And how many bear have you ever killed, Alex?"

"Twenty-odd grizzlies I have killed or helped kill," said Alex. "We rarely hunt them alone. Of black bear I don't know how many--we don't count them at all, there are so many of them in this country. But now I suppose pretty soon we will have to go over on the Hay River, or the Liard, farther north, to get good hunting. The farms are bringing in mowing-machines and threshing-machines into this country now. The game can't last forever at this rate."

"Well, I'm glad we made our trip this year," said Rob.

"We haven't made it yet!" smiled Alex. "But I think to-morrow we'll see what we can do."

They made an early start in the morning, their first task being that of trying to get the _Jaybird_ up the steep face of the bluff which rose back of the camp, on top of which the trail, such as it was, made off through the shoulders of the mountains in a general course toward the east, the river sweeping in a wide elbow, thirty miles around, through its wild and impassable gorge, far to the south of them.

Taking a boat, even a little one, overland is no easy task, especially up so steep an ascent as this. Powerful as was the old hunter, it was hard enough to make much progress, and at times they seemed to lose as much as they gained. None the less, Alex was something of a general in work of this sort, and when they had gained an inch of progress he usually managed to hold it by means of snubbing the boat's line around the nearest stump or rock.

"That's awfully strong line, isn't it?" said Rob. "You brought that over with you--we didn't have that in our country. We use rope. I was noticing how thin the line was which those two breeds had on their dugout yesterday."

"That's the sort they use all through the trade in the North," answered Alex. "It has to be thin, or it would get too waterlogged and heavy. You'll see how long it needs to be in order that the men on shore can get it over all the rocks and stumps and still leave the steersman headway on the boat. It has been figured out as the right thing through many years, and I have seen it used without change all my life."

"Well, it hasn't broken yet," said Rob. "But I think we had better piece it out by doubling it the best we can. We don't want to break it up at this work."

Little by little, Alex lifting the main portion of the weight, and the boys shoving at the stern the best they could, they did edge the _Jaybird_ at last clear to the top of the bank, where finally she sat on level keel on a little piece of green among the trees.

While they were resting John idly passed a little way to one side among the trees, when, much to his surprise, he almost stepped into the middle of a bunch of spruce-grouse. These foolish birds, although perhaps they had hardly seen a white man in all their lives, did no more than to fly up in the low branches of the trees. Alex called out in a low tone to John to come back. Then he fumbled in his pockets until he found a short length of copper wire, out of which he made a noose, fastening it to the end of a long stick.

"Now, Mr. John," said he, "there's lunch and supper both if you can get it. Let's see how good you are at snaring grouse."

John cautiously stepped up under the tree, expecting every minute that the birds would fly. Yet to his amazement they sat there stupidly looking down at him. Cautiously he raised the pole among the lower branches of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession--a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very fond of good things to eat.

They left the birds at the top of the bank, and, turning, brought up in a trip or so all the remainder of their scanty amount of baggage from the waterside below.

"I suppose it might be a good plan, now, to make a trip over to the east," said Alex, "and see what we can see."

They found after a long investigation that the trail, as nearly as they could trace it, soon swung away quite a distance from the course of the stream, rising steadily for three miles to a sort of high bench. It held this for several miles, finally approaching a steep slope and dropping sharply toward the level of the water, which was much lower than at the head of the cañon.

They discovered the eastern end of the portage to be close at the foot of a high and precipitous bank back of which grew scattered clumps of poplar-trees. This journey, which only Alex made throughout, took them several miles from the place where they had left the _Jaybird_, and they were tired enough by the time they had returned to their supplies. They made no further progress on that day. Alex told them they would find water at only one place on the portage, so they must camp here in any case for the night.

XXI

THE PORTAGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

"We might just as well do what we can toward getting across," said Alex the next day, "because now we know what there is ahead of us. I'd just as soon portage the boat a little way, at least, because it will only have to be done when Moise and the two breeds come to help us. Come ahead, then."

He swung the _Jaybird_ up on his broad shoulders, and started off up a trail none too good at best. The boys, one on each side of the stern of the boat, helped all they could, and thus they made considerable progress, resting and carrying again and again, so that by noon the _Jaybird_ was high and dry, and far enough indeed from the stream which had brought her on so long a journey.

In short, they kept at this work, doubling back to portage the cargo, and making a mid-way camp at the water, but always edging both their boat and their baggage farther on over the trail, until in the course of three days they actually finished the difficult portage, twelve miles in length, alone, one man and two boys! This feat would have been impossible for any man less powerful and determined than Alex, and even he admitted himself to be very weary when at length they paused not far from the scattered buildings of the old port of Hudson's Hope.

They were now on the eastern side of the Rockies, and the river which they had been following here took on yet a different character. It had dropped down rapidly in the thirty miles of the cañon, and ran in a wide flood, some hundreds of yards across, rapid and indeed violent, but still steady in current, between banks which rose sharply to a thousand feet in height on either side. It was easy to be seen why the earlier traders thought they were among mountains, even before they reached the Rockies, because from the river they really could not see out over the country at all.

At the top of the steep bank above the river they left their boat and most of their supplies, with the intention of waiting until the arrival of the rest of their party. Meantime they paid a visit to the half-abandoned trading-post. There were only two or three log houses, where small stocks of goods sometimes were kept. There really were two posts here, that of the Hudson Bay Company and of Revillon Frères, but it seemed that only the Hudson Bay post was occupied in the summer-time. Whether or not the trader in charge had any family or any associate they could not tell, but on the door of the log building they found a written notice saying that he was gone out bear hunting, and did not know when he would return.

"Well, this isn't much of a settlement, young gentlemen," said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. "But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble the Company at all."

"I always thought there was a good trail from here to St. John," said Rob. "At least, it's marked on the map."

"Not much of a trail!" said Alex. "I worked with the Mounted Police making trail from St. John as far as Half Way River. But the trail cuts across the corner there, and goes on up to Fort Grahame, on the Finlay River. The real highway here is the river yonder--it's easy water now all the way to St. John--that is, it will be if we can get a boat. I don't see any chance of one here, and can only hope that Moise and his 'cousins' can find that dugout down below here somewhere."

"If we were on the river down there, you wouldn't know there was any post here at all," said Jesse. "You can't see any buildings."

"No," said Alex; "they're too high up on this bench. You can see the buildings at St. John as you go by, because they are close to the river, and so you can at Dunvegan. I don't imagine, however, we'll want to stop anywhere except in camp this side of Peace River Landing. It'll be fine from here down."

"My!" said John, "that certainly was hard work, portaging over that twelve miles there. They ought to have horses and carts, I should say."

"Hard to use 'em in here," smiled Alex. "As it is, it's better than trying to run the cañon. No one ever did get through there, so far as ever I heard."

"Yes," said Rob, "Sir Alexander Mackenzie must have come up through the cañon, according to his story. That is, he must have followed the big bend around, although, of course, he had to take his boat out and carry it through the roughest kind of country. That was worse than our portage here, and no man can tell how they made it through, from all you can learn through his story about it. You see, they didn't know this country then, and had to learn it as they went. If they had hit that cañon a month later on their journey the men wouldn't have stood it--they'd have mutinied and killed Mackenzie, or have left him and started home."

Not caring yet to undertake their embarkment below the portage, they now strolled around here and there, intending to wait until their friends caught up with them. Off to the east they could see, from among the short, choppy hills, a country which seemed for the most part covered with continuous growth of poplars, sometimes broken with glades, or open spaces.

"I've never been west of the Half Way River," said Alex after a time, "but I know right where we are. We could almost throw our boat on the deck of the steamboat from this bank if we were as far east as St. John."

"No steamboat for ours until we get to Peace River Landing," said Rob.

"That's right," John assented. "We've come through this far, and we can finish the way we started--that is, if the other fellows catch up with us all right, and we get another boat. How long since we left them? I've sort of lost track of the time."

"Fifth day," said Rob. "It's about time they were coming."

His prediction was fulfilled that evening, when, as they were preparing the camp-fire for their supper, they heard a loud shout from the trail back of them.

"Who's that, Alex?" demanded John.

But even as he asked he had his answer. Such excited gesticulations, such cries of welcome, could come from no one but Moise.

XXII

EAST OF THE ROCKIES

The two boys ran rapidly to meet Moise, and overwhelmed him with questions asked all at once.

"How's everything?" demanded Rob, "and where's Jesse?"

"Oh, those boy, she'll been all right," said Moise. "She'll be on camp seex, h'eight mile below here, up above, maybe so. My cousins Billy and At-tick, come through with us--they'll portage half-way to-day.

"But, _mes amis_," broke out Moise; "there's your boat! How you'll got her through? S'pose you take wings an' fly over those rock, _hein_? _Mon Dieu!_"

"We couldn't wait any longer, Moise," said Rob, "and we thought we had better be busy than idle. It was hard work, but Alex carried her over, and we didn't have much left to pack except our rifles and ourselves."

"Then you'll not need any mans for help on the portage? All right. We'll get some boat below."

"How far is it back to your camp, Moise?" demanded John.

"Maybe five, seex mile, maybe more--I'll not keep track of heem."

"Can we go back there to-night with you? I'd like to see Jess. May we go, Alex?"

"If you like," answered the old hunter, quietly. "I'll stay here and sleep, and if you care to, you can sleep there. I don't doubt you will be glad to see your friend again, and he'll be glad to see you."

Tired as the boys had been, they were now so excited that they forgot their fatigue, and trotted along close to Moise as he now turned and struck a steady pace back on the portage trail. It was quite dark when at last they came out on a high bank above a level, at which a camp-fire was glowing. John and Rob put their hands to their mouths and gave a loud "Halloo!" They saw the smaller of the three figures at the fire jump to his feet. Then came the answering "Halloo!" of Jesse, who came scrambling up to meet them as they hurried down.

"You're safe, then," said Jesse. "Oh, but I'm glad you got here all right."

"We're glad to meet you safe and sound, too," said Rob. "Yes, we finished the trip--we even carried our boat through by ourselves, and she's there now on the bank of the stream, ready to go on down."

"That's fine," said Jess. "These two men, the cousins of Moise, have been as nice as you please. They said they could fix up the _Mary Ann_, and they were very glad to have her--there she is, all in a bundle. They are taking her across in sections. It was hard work getting up the river, for it was all dirty and high. But we made it--I think we worked eighteen hours a day all the way round. Moise is a hustler, all right, besides being a cook."

"So is Alex a hustler, you may depend," rejoined Rob. "We couldn't have two better men. Well, here we are, together once more, safe and sound."

"What's the programme now, Rob?" asked John.

"We're to sleep here to-night--although it doesn't seem as though we'd have very many blankets," answered Rob. "And then in the morning I suppose Moise would better go and help Alex get the boat down to the river. But where's the other dugout we were to have, Moise?"

Moise talked awhile further with the two reticent breeds.

"My cousin Billy, he'll say there's old man about five, seex mile below there, an' he'll got dugout," he said at last. "He'll say twenty dollar for dugout."