Chapter 12

"That's cheaper than Peterboroughs," said Rob, smiling. "Anyhow, we've got to have it, because you can't buy canoes in shops here on the Peace River. You tell these two men, Moise, to go down there in the morning and have the old man, whoever he is, bring his canoe up as soon as he can to the port. We'll meet, I should say, about noon to-morrow, if all goes well. And as we're now through the worst of it and seem to have pretty fair weather yet, I shall be surprised if we don't get quite a bit farther east inside of the next twenty-four hours."

"Then hurrah for Uncle Dick!" said John. "He's somewhere down this river, and maybe it won't be so very long before we run across him."

"Hurrah! for all those boy also!" smiled Moise. "Pretty lucky, _hein_?"

XXIII

THE LAND OF PLENTY

Rob's plans were approved by Alex and Moise, and worked out so well that by noon of the next day the entire party had reassembled at the rendezvous. The _Jaybird_ was the first boat to be loaded, the men getting her down the steep bank with small delay and taking a rapid run of a couple of miles or so down the river soon thereafter. After a little time they concluded to wait for the other men who had gone down the river-bank to secure the dugout of an old Indian, who, it seems, was known as Picheu, or the Lynx.

"I don't know about a dugout, Moise," said Rob. "There may be bad water below here."

"No, not very bad water," said Moise. "I'll ron heem on steamboat many tam! But those dugout she'll been good boat, too. I s'pose she'll been twenty foot long an' carry thousand pound all right."

"Well," Rob answered, "that will do us as well as a steamboat. I wonder why the old _voyageurs_ never used the dugout instead of the birch-bark--they wouldn't have had to mend it so often, even if they couldn't carry it so easily."

"I'll tell you, fellows," said Jesse, who was rather proud of his overland trip by himself, "the fur trade isn't what it used to be. At those posts you don't see just furs and traps, and men in blanket-coats, and dog-trains. In the post here they had groceries, and axes, and calico dresses, and hats, just like they have in a country store. I peeked in through the windows."

Alex smiled at them. "You see," said he, "you've been looking at pictures which were made some time ago perhaps. Or perhaps they were made in the winter-time, and not in the summer. At this season all the fur packets have gone down the trail, and they don't need dog-trains and blanket-coats. You ought to come up here in the winter-time to get a glimpse of the old scenes. I'll admit, though, that the fur-posts aren't what they were when I was a boy. You can get anything you like now, from an umbrella to a stick of toffy."

"Where?" asked John, suddenly, amid general laughter.

"The toffy? I'm sure we'll find some at Peace River Landing, along with plows and axes and sewing-machines, and all that sort of thing!"

"But the people pay for them all with their furs?" inquired Rob.

"For the most part, yes. Always in this part of the country the people have lived well. Farther north the marten have longer fur, but not finer than you will find here, so that they bring just as good prices. This has always been a meat country--you'll remember how many buffalo and elk Mackenzie saw. Now, if the lynx and the marten should disappear, and if we had to go to farming, it still would be the 'Land of Plenty,' I'm thinking--that's what we used to call it. If we should go up to the top of these high banks and explore back south a little bit, on this side of the Smoky, you'd see some of the prettiest prairies that ever lay out of doors, all ready for the plow. I suppose my people some time will have to use the plow too."

"Yes," assented Rob, "I remember Mackenzie's story, how very beautiful he found this country soon after he started west on his trip."

"My people, the Crees, took this country from others long ago," said Alex, rather proudly. "They came up the old war-trail from Little Slave Lake to the mouth of the Smoky, where the Peace River Landing is now. They fought the Beavers and the Stoneys clear to the edges of the Rockies, where we are now. They've held the land ever since, and managed to make a living on it, with or without the white man's help. Some of us will change, but men like At-tick, the old Indian who brought Jess across the trail, and like old Picheu, below here, aren't apt to change very much."

John was once more puzzling at the map which the boys had made for themselves, following the old Mackenzie records. "I can't figure out just where Mackenzie started from on his trip, but he says it was longitude 117° 35' 15", latitude 56° 09'. Now, that doesn't check up with our map at all. That would make his start not very far from the fort, or what they call the Peace River Landing to-day, I should think. But he only mentions a 'small stream coming from the east,' although Moise says the Smoky is quite a river."

"Most people think Mackenzie started from Fort Chippewayan," said Alex, "but as a matter of fact, he wintered far southwest of there, on the Peace River, somewhere between three hundred and four hundred miles south and west of Fort Vermilion, as I gather from the length of time it took him to get to the edge of the Rockies, where we are now. He mentions the banks getting higher as he went south and west. When you get a couple of hundred miles north of the Landing the banks begin to get low, although at the Landing they're still almost a thousand feet high above the water-level, at least eight hundred feet, I should say."

"Well," said Rob, "we know something about this country ourselves now, and we'll make a map of it some time, perhaps--a better one than we have now."

"Yes," said Jesse, "but who can draw in that horse-trail from Hudson's Hope to the head of the steamboat transport? I'd like to see that trail!"

"I suppose we could get on the steamboat some time before long if we wanted to," said John.

"No," said Alex, "hardly again this summer, for she's made her last trip with supplies up to Fort St. John by now."

"We don't want any steamboat, nor anything else," said Rob, "except to go on down on our own hook, the way we started. Let's be as wild as we can!"

"We're apt to see more game from here down than we have any place on the trip," said Alex. "You know, I told you this was the Land of Plenty."

"Bimeby plenty bear," said Moise. "This boy Billy, he'll tol' me ol' Picheu he'll keel two bear this last week, an' he'll say plenty bear now all on river, on the willows."

"Well, at any rate," said Alex, "old Picheu himself is coming."

"How do you know?" asked Jesse.

"I hear the setting-pole."

Presently, as Alex had said, the dugout showed its nose around the bend. At-tick and Billy, Jesse's two friends, were on the tracking line, and in the stern of the dugout, doing most of the labor of getting up-stream, was an old, wrinkle-faced, gray-haired and gray-bearded man, old Picheu himself, in his time one of the most famous among the hunters of the Crees, as the boys later learned. He spoke no English, but stood like some old Japanese war-god on the bank, looking intently from one to the other as they now finished their preparations for re-embarking. He seemed glad to take the money which Rob paid him for the dugout and shook hands pleasantly all around, to show his satisfaction.

The boys saw that what Moise had said about the dugout was quite true. It was a long craft, hewed out of a single log, which looked at first crankier than it really was. It had great carrying capacity, and the boys put a good part of the load in it, which seemed only to steady it the more. It was determined that Rob and Moise should go ahead in this boat, as they previously had done in the _Mary Ann_, the others to follow with the _Jaybird_.

Soon all the camp equipment was stowed aboard, and the men stood at the edge of the water ready to start. Their old friends made no comment and expressed little concern one way or the other, but as Rob turned when he was on the point of stepping into the leading boat he saw Billy standing at the edge of the water. He spoke some brief word to Alex.

"He wants to say to Mr. Jess," interpreted Alex, "that he would like to make him a present of this pair of moccasins, if he would take them from him."

"Would I take them!" exclaimed Jesse; "I should say I would, and thank him for them very much. I'd like to give him something of mine, this handkerchief, maybe, for him to remember me by."

"He says," continued Alex, "that when you get home he wishes you would write to him in care of the priest at St. John. He says he hopes you'll have plenty of shooting down the river. He says he would like to go to the States when he gets rich. He says his people will talk about you all around the camp-fire, a great many times, telling how you crossed the mountains, where so few white men ever have been."

"I'll tell you what, boys," said Rob, "let's line up and give them all a cheer."

So the three boys stood in a row at the waterside, after they had shaken hands once more with the friends they were leaving, and gave them three cheers and a tiger, waving their hats in salutation. Even old Picheu smiled happily at this. Then the boys sprang aboard, and the boats pushed out into the current.

XXIV

THE WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY

They were passing now between very high banks, broken now and then by rock faces. The currents averaged extremely strong, and there were at times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before. The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very tractable, and made a splendid boat for this sort of travel.

"You'd think from the look of this country," said John to Alex, "that we were the first ever to cross it."

"No," said the old hunter, "I wish we were; but that is far from the truth to-day. This spring, before I started west to meet you, there were a dozen wagons passed through the Landing on one day--every one of them with a plow lashed to the wagon-box. The farmers are coming. If you should stop at Dunvegan you'd hardly know you were in Mackenzie's old country, I'm afraid. And now the buffalo and the elk are all gone, where there used to be so many. It is coming now to be the white man's country."

"You'll have to come up to Alaska, where we live, Alex," said John. "We've got plenty of wild country back inside of Alaska yet. But even there the outside hunters are killing off the bear and moose mighty fast."

"Yes," said Alex, "for sport, for their heads, and not for the meat! My people kill for meat alone, and they could live here forever and the game would still be as thick as ever it was. It's the whites who destroy the new countries."

"I'm beginning to like this country more and more," said Jesse, frankly. "Back in the mountains sometimes I was pretty badly scared, the water roared so much all the time. But here the country looks easier, and the water isn't so strong. I think we'll have the best part of our trip now."

At that instant the sound of a rifle-shot rang out from some point below them on the river. The dugout had just swung out of sight around the bend. "That's Rob's rifle!" exclaimed John.

"Very likely," said Alex. "Bear, I suppose."

The crew of the _Jaybird_ bent to their paddles and presently passed in turn about the sharp bend and came up alongside the dugout, which lay along shore in some slack water. Rob was looking a trifle shamefaced.

"Did you miss him?" asked John, excitedly.

"Well," said Rob, "I suppose you'd call it a miss--he was running up the bank there about half a mile away. You can see him going yet, for that matter."

Sure enough, they could, the animal by this time seeming not larger than a dog as it scrambled up among the bushes on the top of the steep precipice which lined the bank of the river.

"He must have been feeding somewhere below," said Rob, "and I suppose heard us talking. He ran up that bank pretty fast. I didn't know it was so hard to shoot from a moving boat. Anyhow, I didn't get him."

"He'll was too far off," said Moise. "But those boy she'll shoot right on his foot all the time. I think she'll hit him there."

"Never mind, Mr. Rob," said Alex. "We've got plenty of river below us, and we're sure to see more bear. This river is one of the best countries for black bear there is this side of the Hay or the Liard."

Both boats proceeded at a leisurely pace for the remainder of this stage, no one being anxious to complete the journey to the Peace River Landing any earlier than was necessary, for the journey down the river was of itself interesting and pleasant. All the landscape continued green, although it was late in the summer. The water, however, was now less brilliant and clear than it had been in the mountains, and had taken on a brownish stain.

They encamped that night at a little beach which came down to the river and offered an ideal place for their bivouac. Tall pines stood all about, and there was little undergrowth to harbor mosquitoes, although by this time, indeed, that pest of the Northland was pretty much gone. The feeling of depression they sometimes had known in the big mountains had now left the minds of our young travelers, and they were disposed, since they found themselves well within reach of their goal, to take their time and enjoy themselves.

"Moise, tell us another story," demanded Jesse, after they had finished their evening meal.

"What kind of story you'll want?" inquired Moise.

"I think we'd rather have something about your own country, about animals, the same as you told us back in the mountains, perhaps."

"Well," said Moise, "I'll told you the story of how the ermine he'll got the end of his tail black."

XXV

HOW THE ERMINE GOT HIS TAIL BLACK

"Long tam 'go," said Moise, "before my onkle he'll been born, all peoples lived in the woods, and there was no Companee here for trade. In those day there was no tobacco an' no rifle--those was long tam 'go--I don' know how long.

"In those tam all the people he'll talk with Wiesacajac, an' Wiesacajac he'll be friendly all tam with these peoples. All the animal that'll live in the wood he'll do all right, too. Only one animal he was bad animal, and those was what you call wissel (weasel). This wissel is what you call ermine some tam. He'll be mighty smart animal. In summer-tam, when grass an' rock is brown, he'll go aroun' brown, sam as the rock an' the leaf. In summer-tam the wissel he'll caught the hare an' the partridge, an' he'll live pretty good, heem.

"Now, in the winter-tam most all the animals in the wood he'll go white. Those hare, he'll get white just same color as the snow. Those _picheu_, those lynx, he'll get gray, almost white. The ptarmigan, he'll get white, too, so those owl won' see heem on the snow; an' the owl he'll get white, so nothing will see heem when he goes on the snow. Some tam up north the wolf he'll be white all over, an' some fox he'll also be white all same as the snow.

"But the _Cigous_, or wissel, he'll stay brown, with white streak on his neck, same like he'll been in the summer-tam. When he'll go on the hont, those rabbeet, she'll saw _Cigous_ come, an' he'll ron off, so _Cigous_ he'll go hongree.

"Now, _Cigous_ he'll get this on his min', an' he'll sit down one tam an' he'll make a pray to Kitchai-Manitou, an' also to Wiesacajac, an' he'll pray that some tam he'll be white in the winter-tam, the same as the snow, the same as those other animal, so he'll catch the meat an' not go hongree.

"'Oh, Wiesacajac,' he'll pray, 'what for you'll make me dark this a-way, when I'll been hongree? Have pity on me!'

"Well, Wiesacajac, he'll been kin' in his heart, an' he'll hear those _Cigous_ pray, an' he'll say, 'My frien', I s'pose you'll not got any meat, an' you'll ask me to take pity on you. The reason why I'll not make you white like other animal is, you'll been such thief! Oh, _Cigous_, s'pose you'll go live two week all right, an' not steal, an' not tell any lie to me, then I'll make you white, all same like other animals.'

"'Oh, Wiesacajac,' say _Cigous_, 'it's ver' hard to be good for two week an' not steal, an' not tell lie. But I'll try to do this thing, me!'

"Now, in two week all the family of _Cigous_ he'll not got anything to eat, an' he'll almost starve, an' he'll come in out of the woods an' sit aroun' on the village where the people live. But all the people can see _Cigous_ an' his family because he'll all be brown, an' he'll show on the snow, plain.

"Now, _Cigous_ he'll got very hongree, an' he'll got under the blanket in the lodge where the people live. Bimeby he'll smell something cook on the fire. Then he'll go out in the bush, an' he'll pray again to Wiesacajac, an' he'll say, 'Oh, Wiesacajac, I'm almost white now, so I can get meat. But it's ver' hard tam for me!'

"Wiesacajac, he'll tol' heem to go back in an' not lie an' not steal, an' then see what he'll got.

"_Cigous_, he'll been happy this tam, an' he'll go back on the lodge an' smell that cooking some more. He'll not know it, but by this tam Wiesacajac has made heem all white, tail an' all. But _Cigous_ he'll smell something cook in the pot, an' he'll say, 'I wonder what is cook in that pot on the fire.'

"He'll couldn't stan' up high to reach his foots in the pot, so he say, 'Ah, ha! My tail he's longer than my foots. I'll stick my tail in the pot, an' see what is cook that smells so good.'

"Now, _Cigous_ not know his tail is all white then. But Wiesacajac, he'll see _Cigous_ all the tam, an' he'll turn the meat in the pot into pitch, and make it boil strong; so _Cigous_ when he'll stick his tail in the pot, he'll stick it in the pitch, an' when he'll pull out the end of his tail, the end of it will be all black!

"Then _Cigous_ he'll go out on the snow, an' he'll look aroun', an' bimeby Wiesacajac he'll seen heem an' he'll say, 'Ah, _Cigous_, what's on your tail, because I'll see it is all black on the end?'

"_Cigous_ he'll turn aroun' an' ron aroun' an' aroun' on a reeng, but all the tam he'll see the black spot on his tail, an' it won't come off.

"'Now, _Cigous_,' says Wiesacajac, 'I'll been good spirit, else surely I'll punish you plenty for stealing when you tol' me you'll be good animal. Already I'll made you white, all but your tail. Now that the people may always know you for a thief, you an' all your family must have black spot on tail in the winter-tam. I would make you black all over, _Cigous_, but I have take pity on your family, who must not starve. Maybe so you could caught meat, but all the tam your tail will mark you for a thief!'

"From that time," said Moise, concluding, "the ermine, _Cigous_, has always been a good honter. But always he's brown in the summer-tam, an' in the winter-tam he isn't not quite white. That is because he is such thief. I know this is so, because my onkle she'll tol' me. I have finish."

XXVI

TRAILING THE BEAR

"I'll tell you what," said John, in the morning, as they still lingered at their pleasant camp; "we're not apt to have a much nicer stopping place than this, so why not make a little hunt, and come back here to-night?"

"Not a bad idea," said Alex.

"What's the best way to plan it out?" asked John. "Ought we to go by boats down the river, and then come back here?"

"I would suggest that Moise and Rob take the dugout and go down the river a little way," replied Alex, "and that you and I and Jess climb to the top of the bank, taking our time, to see if we could find any moose sign, or maybe a bear trail in the country back from the river. In that way we could cover both the top and bottom of the valley. We might find a grizzly higher up, although we are out of the grizzly country here by rights."

This plan suggested by Alex was followed out, and at no very late hour in the morning camp was deserted by our travelers, whose hunting spirit seemed still unabated. They did not meet again until almost dusk. Alex and his companions found no fresh game trails on the heights above, and, in short, concluded their hunt rather early in the afternoon and returned to camp, where they remained for some hours before at length they saw the dugout, which the boys had christened _The Plug_, slowly making its way up the river.

John and Jesse, themselves pretty tired from their long walk, summoned up energy enough to go down to the beach and peer into the dugout. They saw no sign of any game. They did not, however, ask any questions, for they were learning the dignity of Indian hunters. Alex looked at Moise, but asked him no question. He noticed that Moise was whistling, and apparently not very unhappy, as after a time he went about making his evening fire.

"So you didn't get any bear, Mr. Rob?" said Alex at last.

"No, not quite," said Rob, "but I ought to have got one--I had a pretty fair shot, although it was rather dark where the bear was standing."

Alex spoke a few words to Moise in the Cree language.

"Never mind," said he to Rob at length. "We'll get him to-morrow very easily."

"So Moise said to me; but I don't see how he knows. The bear started off as though he weren't hit at all. He came down to the edge of the wood at a high bank and looked right at us when we were pulling the boat up the stream. You know, the canoe is rather teetery, but I shot as well as I could, and thought I hit him. He turned around, and I shot at him again. But he didn't stop. Moise thought we had better come on in because it was so late."

"Sure," said Moise, "I'll tol' those boy he'll shoot those bear two tam, once in the front an' once in the back. With those rifle, he'll not go far. To-morrow we'll catch heem easy."

"He was a big bear, too," said Rob, "although not as big as our grizzly--just a black bear, that's all. I don't like to cripple any animal and then lose it."

"I don't think we'll lose this one," said Alex, reassuringly.

The judgment of the old hunters proved to be correct, for on the next day, when all hands dropped down the river to the point where Rob had shot at the bear, it was not five minutes before they found the trail where a considerable amount of blood showed that the bear had been badly wounded. At once they began to follow this trail back into the high country away from the river.

Alex did not ask any questions, and there was little talk between him and Moise. Moise, however, took the lead on the trail. Alex did not even carry his rifle, but loitered along, picking berries and enjoying himself, after his own fashion.

"Keep close up to Moise, young gentlemen," he said. "This bear, although only a black bear, is apt to be very ugly if you find him still alive. If he comes for you, kill him quick. I doubt, however, very much whether he will be alive when we come up with him."

"How do you know about that, Alex?" demanded John.

"It's our business to know about such things," answered Alex, smiling.

All the boys now could see where the bear had scrambled up the bank, and where it had gone through the bushes on its way to the forest, leaving a plain blood trail on the ground.

"Moise will lead on the trail," said Alex. "He's more Injun than I am. In some ways I can beat him, in others he can beat me. He is one of the best trailers on the river."

Moise now was a different man from the talkative companion of the camp. He was very silent, and advanced cautiously along the trail, his eyes studying every record of the ground and cover which had been left by the wounded animal. Once in a while he pointed silently to a broken bush or to a drop of blood. After a while he stopped and pointed to a tree whose bark was ripped off.

"Heem awful mad," whispered Moise. "S'pose you'll seen heem here, he'll fight sure. He'll bite all the tree an' fight the bush."

After a while Alex showed them a deep excavation in the soft dirt.