Chapter 3

Before our young trail-makers now lay the expanse of one of those little mountain lakes which sometimes are forgotten by the map-makers. The ground immediately about the edge of the lake was low, flat, and overgrown. Only a gentle ripple crossed the surface of the lake, for almost no air at all was stirring. Out of a near-by cove a flock of young wild geese, scarcely able to fly, started off, honking in excitement; and here and there a wild duck broke the surface into a series of ripples; or again a fish sprang into the air, as it went about its own breakfast operations for the day. It was an inspiring scene for all, and for the time the Young Alaskans paused, taking in its beauty.

"_Il fait beau, ce matin_," said Moise, in the French which made half or more of his speech. "She'll been fine morning this day, what?"

"Couldn't be better," assented Alex, who stood knee-deep at the edge of the lake, and who now calmly removed his moccasins and spread them on the thwart of the boat before he stepped lightly in to take his place at the stern of the _Jaybird_. The boys noticed that when he stepped aboard he hardly caused the boat to dip to one side or the other. This he managed by placing his paddle on the farther side of the boat from him and putting part of his weight on it, as it rested on the bottom at the other side of the boat. All the boys, observing the methods of this skilled canoeman, sought to imitate his example. Presently they were all aboard, Rob in the bow of the _Mary Ann_, John taking that place for the _Jaybird_, with Jesse cuddled up amidships.

"Well," said Alex, "here's where we start. For me, I don't care whether we go to the Pacific or the Arctic!"

"Nor me no more," added Moise. "Only I'll rather go downheel as upheel, me--always I'll rather ron the rapeed than track the boat up the rapeed on the bank. Well, _en roulant_, eh, M'sieu Alex?"

"_Roulant!_" answered Alex, briefly. Moise, setting his paddle into the water with a great sweep, began once more the old canoe song.

"Le fils du roi s'en va chassant _En roulant, ma boule!_ Avec son grand fusil d'argent _En roulant, ma boule!_"

So they fared on merrily, the strong arms of the two skilled boatmen pushing the light canoes rapidly through the rippling water. Moise, a strong and skilful paddler, was more disposed to sudden bursts of energy than was the soberer and quieter Alex, who, none the less, came along not far in the rear with slow and easy strokes which seemed to require little exertion on his part, although they drove the boat straight and true as an arrow. The boys at the bow paddles felt the light craft spring under them, but each did his best to work his own passage, and this much to the approval of the older men, who gave them instructions in the art of paddling.

"You'll see, M'sieu Rob," said Moise, "these paddle she'll be all same like fin of those feesh. You'll pull square with heem till she'll get behind you, then she'll turn on her edge just a little bit--so. That way, you paddle all time on one side. The paddle when she'll come out of water, she'll keep the boat running straight."

The distance from their point of embarkation to the eastern edge of the little lake could not have been more than a couple of miles, for the entire distance from the western to the eastern edge was not over three miles. In what seemed no more than a few moments the boats pulled up at the western end of what was to be their first portage.

"Now," said Moise, "we'll show those boy how a Companee man make the portage." He busied himself arranging his packs, first calling for the tent, on which he placed one package after another. Then he turned in the ends of the canvas and folded over the sides, rolling all up into a big bundle of very mixed contents which, none the less, he fastened by means of the strap which now served him as support for it all.

"I know how you did that," said Rob--"I watched you put the strap down inside of the roll."

"Yes," said Moise, smiling, "she'll been what Injun call tump-strap. White man he'll carry on hees shoulder, but Injun an' _voyageur_, she'll put the tump-band on her head, what? That's best way for much load."

Moise now proceeded to prove the virtue of his remarks. He was a very powerful man, and he now swung up the great pack to his shoulders, although it must have weighed much over a hundred and fifty pounds and included almost the full cargo of the foremost boat.

"Throw something on top of her," said Moise. "She'll been too light! I'm afraid I'll ron off, me."

"Well, look at that man," said Jesse, admiringly. "I didn't know any man was so strong."

"Those Companee man, she'll have to be strong like hox!" said Moise, laughing. "You'll ought to seen heem. Me, I'm not ver' strong. Two, three hondred pounds, she'll make me tire."

"Well, trot on over, Moise," said Alex, "and I'll bring the boat. Young gentlemen, each of you will take what he can conveniently carry. Don't strain yourselves, but each of you do his part. That's the way we act on the trail."

The boys now shouldered their small knapsacks and, each carrying his rifle and rod, started after the two stalwart men who now went on rapidly across the portage.

Moise did not set down his pack at all, but trotted steadily across, and Alex followed, although he turned at the summit and motioned to Rob to pause.

"You'd hardly know it," said Rob, turning to John and Jesse, who now put down their packs, "but here we are at the top of this portage trail and the top of the Peace River pass. Here was where old Sir Alexander really turned toward the west, just as we now are turning toward the east. It's fine, isn't it?"

"I'm glad I came," remarked John.

"And so am I," added Jesse; "I believe we're going to have a good time. I like those two men awfully well--they're just as kind, and my! how strong!"

Presently they all met again at the eastern edge of the dim trail. "I stepped it myself," said John, proudly. "Both Sir Alexander and old Simon Fraser were wrong--she's just six hundred and ninety-three paces!"

"Maybe they had longer legs than you," smiled Alex. "At any rate, there's no doubt about the trail itself. We're precisely where they were."

"What made them call that river the Parsnip River?" demanded Jesse of Alex, to whom he went for all sorts of information.

"I'll show you," said Alex, quietly, reaching down and breaking off the top of a green herb which grew near by. "It was because of the wild parsnips--this is one. You'll find where Sir Alexander mentions seeing a great many of these plants. They used the tops in their pemmican. You see, the north men have to eat so much meat that they're glad to get anything green to go with it once in a while."

"What's pemmican?" asked Jesse, curiously.

"We used to make it out of buffalo meat, or moose or caribou," said Alex. "The buffalo are all gone now, and, in fact, we don't get much pemmican any more. It's made by drying meat and pounding it up fine with a stone, then putting it in a hide sack and pouring grease in on top of it. That used to be the trail food of the _voyageurs_, because a little of it would go a good way. Do you think you could make any of it for the boys, Moise?"

"I don' know," grinned Moise. "Those squaw, she'll make pemmican--not the honter. Besides, we'll not got meat. Maybe so if we'll get moose deer we could make some, if we stop long tam in camp. But always squaw make pemmican--not man."

"Well, we'll have to give some kind of imitation of the old ways once in a while," commented Alex, "for though they are changed and gone, our young friends here want to know how the fur-traders used to travel."

"One thing," said John, feeling at his ankle. "I'll be awfully glad when we get out of the devil's club country."

"Do you have those up in Alaska?" asked Alex.

"Have them?--I should say we have! They're the meanest thing you can run across out of doors. If you step on one of those long, snaky branches, it'll turn around and hit you, no matter where you are, and whenever it hits those little thorns stick in and stay."

"I know," nodded Alex. "I struck plenty of them on the trail up north from the railroad. They went right through my moccasins. We'll not be troubled by these, however, when we get east of the divide--that's a plant which belongs in the wet country of the western slope."

All this time Moise was busy rearranging the cargoes in the first boat, leaving on the shore, however, such parcels as did not belong in the _Mary Ann_. Having finished this to his liking, he turned before they made the second trip on the _Jaybird_ and her cargo.

"Don't we catch any of those feesh?" he asked Alex, nodding back at the lake.

"Fish?" asked John. "I didn't see any fish."

"Plenty trout," said Moise. "I s'pose we'll better catch some while we can."

"Yes," said Alex, "I think that might be a good idea. Now, if we had a net such as Sir Alexander and old Simon Fraser always took along, we'd have no trouble. Moise saw what I also saw, and which you young gentlemen did not notice--a long bar of gravel where the trout were feeding."

"We'll not need any net," said Rob. "Here are our fly-rods and our reels. If there are any trout rising, we can soon catch plenty of them."

"Very well. We'd better take the rods back, then, when we go for the second boat."

When they got to the shore of the middle lake, the boys saw that the keener eyes of the old _voyageurs_ had noted what they had missed--a series of ripples made by feeding fish not far from the point where they had landed.

"Look at that!" cried Jesse. "I see them now, myself."

"Better you'll take piece pork for those feesh," said Moise.

"I don't think we'll need it," replied Rob. "We've plenty of flies, and these trout won't be very wild up here, for no one fishes for them. Anyhow, we'll try it--you'll push us out, won't you, Moise?"

Carefully taking their places now in the _Jaybird_, whose cargo was placed temporarily on the bank, the three boys and Moise now pushed out. As Rob had predicted, the fish were feeding freely, and there was no difficulty in catching three or four dozen of them, some of very good weight. The bottom of the canoe was pretty well covered with fish when at length, after an hour or so of this sport, Moise thought it was time to return to shore, where Alex, quietly smoking all the time, had sat awaiting them.

"Now we'll have plenty for eat quite a while," said Moise.

"That's all right," said John. "I'm getting mighty hungry. How long is it going to be before we have something to eat?"

"Why, John," said Rob, laughingly, "the morning isn't half gone yet, and we've just had breakfast."

VI

FOLLOWING MACKENZIE

"Well," said Alex, "now we've got all these fish, we'll have to take care of them. Come ahead and let's clean them, Moise."

The boys all fell to and assisted the men at this work, Moise showing them how to prepare the fish.

"How are we going to keep them?" asked John, who always seemed to be afraid there would not be enough to eat.

"Well," explained Alex, "we'll put them in between some green willow boughs and keep them that way till night. Then I suppose we'll have to smoke them a little--hang them up by the tail the way the Injuns do. That's the way we do whitefish in the north. If it weren't for the fish which we catch in these northern waters, we'd all starve to death in the winter, and so would our dogs, all through the fur country."

"By the time we're done this trip," ventured Rob, "we'll begin to be _voyageurs_ ourselves, and will know how to make our living in the country."

"That's the talk!" said Alex, admiringly. "The main thing is to learn to do things right. Each country has its own ways, and usually they are the most useful ways. An Injun never wants to do work that he doesn't have to do. So, you'll pretty much always see that the Injun ways of keeping camp aren't bad to follow as an example, after all.

"But now," said he at length, after they had finished cleaning and washing off their trout, "we'll have to get on across to the other lake."

As before, Moise now took the heavier pack on his own broad shoulders, and Alex once more picked up the canoe.

"She's a little lighter than the other boat, I believe," said he, "but they're both good boats, as sure's you're born--you can't beat a Peterborough model in the woods!"

The other boys noticed now that when he carried his canoe, he did so by placing a paddle on each side, threaded under and above the thwarts so as to form a support on each side, which rested on his shoulders. His head would have been covered entirely by the boat as he stood, were it not that he let it drop backward a little, so that he could see the trail ahead of him. Rob pointed out to Jesse all these different things, with which their training in connection with the big Alaskan sea-going dugouts had not made them familiar.

"Have we got everything now, fellows?" asked Rob, making a last search before they left the scene of their disembarkation.

"All set!" said John. "Here we go!"

It required now but a few moments to make the second traverse of the portage, and soon the boats again were loaded. They found this most easterly of the three lakes on the summit to be of about the same size as the one which they had just left. It was rather longer than it was wide, and they could see at its eastern side the depression where the outlet made off toward the east. Again taking their places at the paddles in the order established at the start of the day, they rapidly pushed on across. They found now that this lake discharged through a little creek which rapidly became deep and clear.

"It's going to be just the way," said Rob, "that Sir Alexander tells. I say, fellows, we could take that boat and come through here in the dark, no matter what Simon Fraser said about Sir Alexander."

They found the course down this little waterway not troublesome, and fared on down the winding stream until at length they heard the sound of running water just beyond.

"That's the Parsnip now, no doubt," said Alex, quietly, to his young charges. Already Moise had pushed the _Mary Ann_ over the last remaining portion of the stream, and she was floating fair and free on the current of the second stream, not much larger than the one from which they now emerged.

"_Voila!_" Moise exclaimed. "She'll been the Peace River--or what those _voyageur_ call the Parsneep. Now, I'll think we make fast ride, yes."

Jesse, leaning back against his bed-roll, looked a little serious.

"Boys," said he, "I don't like the looks of this. This water sounds dangerous to me, and you can't tell me but what these mountains are pretty steep."

"Pshaw! It's just a little creek," scoffed John.

"That's all right, but a little creek gets to be a big river mighty fast up in this country--we've seen them up in Alaska many a time. Look at the snow-fields back in those mountains!"

"Don't be alarmed, Mr. Jess," said Alex; "most of the snow has gone down in the June rise. The water is about as low now as it is at any time of the year. Now, if we were here on high water, as Simon Fraser was, and going the other way, we might have our own troubles--I expect he found all this country under water where we are now, and the current must have been something pretty stiff to climb against."

"In any case," Rob added, "we're just in the same shape that Sir Alexander and old Simon were when they were here. We wouldn't care to turn back, and we've got to go through. If they did it, so can we. I don't believe this stream's as bad, anyhow, as the Fraser or the Columbia, because the traders must have used it for a regular route long ago."

"I was reading," said John, "in Simon Fraser's travels, about how they did in the rapids of the Fraser River. Why, it was a wonder they ever got through at all. But they didn't seem to make much fuss about it. Those men didn't know where they were going, either--they just got in their boat and turned loose, not knowing what there was on ahead! That's what I call nerve. Pshaw! Jess, we're only tenderfeet compared to those chaps!"

"That's the talk!" commented Alex, once more lighting his pipe and smiling. "We'll go through like a bird, I'm pretty sure."

"Yes," said Moise, "we'll show those boy how the _voyageur_ ron the rapeed."

"One thing I want to say to you young gentlemen," resumed Alex, "not to alarm you, but to teach you how to travel. If by any accident the boat should upset, hang to the boat and don't try to swim. The current will be very apt to sweep you on through to some place where you can get a footing. But all these mountain waters are very strong and very cold. Whatever you do, hang to the boat!"

"Yes!" said Rob, "'don't give up the ship,' as Lawrence said. Sir Alexander tells how he got wrecked on the Bad River with his whole crew. But they hung to the canoe and got her out at the foot of the rapids, after all, and not one of them was hurt."

"He didn't lose a man on the whole trip, for that matter," John added.

"Well, now, let's see about the rapids," said Rob again, spreading out his map and opening one of his books which he always kept close at hand. "Simon Fraser tells as day by day what he did when he was going west. They got into that lake we've just left, about noon. They must have poked up the creek some time, and very early that same morning. That was June thirtieth, and on the same day they passed another river coming in from the west side--which must be between here and the outlet from McLeod Lake."

"What does the map say about the other side of the stream?" asked John, peering over Rob's shoulder.

"Well, on the twenty-eighth, as they were coming up they passed two rivers coming in from the east. That can't be very far below here, and the first stream on the west side must be pretty close, from all I can learn. Below there, on the twenty-seventh, there was another river which they passed coming in from the east, and Simon says near its mouth there was a rapid. He doesn't seem to mention any rapids between there and here--probably it had to be a pretty big one for him to take any notice of it. That's two or three days down-stream, according to his journal, and, as Alex says, it was high water, and they made slow time coming up--not as fast as Sir Alexander did, in fact."

"Plenty good water," said Moise, looking out over the rapid little stream with professional approval. "She's easy river."

"Then we ought to make some sort of voyage," said Rob. "You see, Sir Alexander took thirty-four days coming up to this point from the place where he started, far east of the Rockies, but going downhill it only took him six days."

"That was going some," nodded John, emphatically, if not elegantly.

"But not faster than we'll be going," answered Rob. "You see, it took him a sixth of the time to go east which it needed to come west. Then, what they did in three days coming up, we ought to run in a half-day or less going down."

Alex nodded approvingly. "I think it would figure out something like that way," said he.

"So if we started now, or a little after noon," resumed Rob, "and ran a full half-day we ought to pass all these rivers which Simon mentions, and get down to the first big rapid of which he speaks. They were good and tired coming up-stream, but we won't have to work at all going down."

"Well, don't we eat any place at all?" began John again, amid general laughter.

"Sure," said Moise, "we'll stop at the first little beach and make boil the kettle. I'm hongree, too, me."

They did as Moise said, and spent perhaps an hour, discussing, from time to time, the features of the country and the probable time it would take them to make the trip.

"The boat goes very fast on a stream like this," said Alex. "We could make fifty or sixty miles a day without the least trouble, if we did not have to portage. I should think the current was four to six miles an hour, at least, and you know we could add to that speed if we cared to paddle."

"Well, we don't want to go too fast," said Jesse. "We have all summer for this trip."

This remark from the youngest of the party caused the old _voyageur_ to look at him approvingly. "That's right," said he, "we'll not hurry."

Moise was by this time examining the load of the _Mary Ann_, arranging the packs so that she would trim just to suit his notion when Rob was in place at the bow. Alex paid similar care to the _Jaybird_. The boats now ran practically on an even keel, which would give them the greatest bearing on the water and enable them to travel over the shallowest water possible.

"_En roulant?_" said Moise, looking at Alex inquiringly.

Alex nodded, and the boys being now in their proper places in the boats, he himself stepped in and gave a light push from the beach with his paddle.

"So long, fellows," called out Rob over his shoulder as he put his paddle to work. "I'm going to beat you all through--if I'm bow paddle in the first boat I'll be ahead of everybody else. _En roulant, ma boule!_"

The _Mary Ann_, swinging fully into the current, went off dipping and gliding down the gentle incline of the stream. "Don't go too fast, Moise," called out Alex. "We want to keep in sight of the cook-boat."

"All right!" sang out Moise. "We'll go plenty slow."

"Now," said Alex to John and Jess as he paddled along slowly and steadily; "I want to tell you something about running strange waters in a canoe. Riding in a canoe is something like riding a horse. You must keep your balance. Keep your weight over the middle line of the canoe, which is in the center of the boat when she's going straight, of course. You'll have to ease off a little if she tilts--you ride her a little as you would a horse over a jump. Now, look at this little rough place we're coming to--there, we're through it already--you see, there's a sort of a long V of smooth water running down into the rapid. Below that there's a long ridge or series of broken water. This rapid will do for a model of most of the others, although it's a tame one.

"In this work the main thing is to keep absolutely cool. Never try a bad rapid which is strange to you without first going out and getting the map of it in your mind. Figure out the course you're going to take, and then hang to it, and don't get scared. When I call to you to go to the right, Mr. John, pull the boat over by drawing it to your paddle on that side--don't try to push it over from the left side. You can haul it over stronger by pulling the paddle against the water. Of course I do the reverse on the stern. We can make her travel sidewise, or straight ahead, or backward, about as we please. All of us canoemen must keep cool and not lose our nerve.

"Well, I'll go on--usually we follow the V down into the head of a rapid. Below that the highest wave is apt to roll back. If it is too high, and curls over too far up-stream, it would swamp our boat to head straight into it. Where should we go then? Of course, we would have to get a little to one side of that long, rolling ridge of white water. But not too far. Sometimes it may be safer to take that big wave, and all the other waves, right down the white ridge of the stream, than it is to go to one side."

"I don't see why that would be," said Jesse. "I should think there would be the most dangerous place for a canoe."