CHAPTER IXTHE SONG OF THE VOYAGEUR
Hardly seeming to move, the deeply laden scows veered more and more into the current, until at last the swift flow of the river began to push them forward. But even before La Biche’s boat, which was ahead and farthest from the shore, was fully in the grasp of a swirling eddy, the bronzed steersman, his pipe firmly set in his teeth, hurled his body on the steering oar and plunged the far end of it against the oily current.
At the same moment Moosetooth dropped his own oar and almost instantly both boats straightened out before the onrushing waters. It was a moment long waited for by Norman and Roy, and at the time no thought was given to any arrangements for comfort. The boys threw themselves on the forward deck, their sweaters close about their throats against the chilling fog and the cool breeze, while Colonel Howell sat muffled in his overcoat on the edge of the deck.
Such events in the history of the Northern rivers were in the old days momentous. Their only ceremony had been the parting “Bon jour” of the policeman.
“In the old days,” suggested Norman, “in the days that our friend Paul would have loved, the voyageurs had a song for a time like this.”
“The riverman’s song of farewell,” spoke up young Zept with animation. “I wish I knew one.”
Almost instantly, those on the fast-receding shore heard from the boat the soft notes of some one in song. Under the conditions, whatever the words and the air, they floated back as many of those left behind had heard the old voyageur take his leave. But this song came from neither of the weatherworn steersmen, nor from the stolid members of their half-breed crew. Count Zept, his hat in his hand and the cool river wind paling his flushed face, had mounted to the top of the cargo and was singing something he had learned in far away lands. The fascinating tenor of his voice carried far over the river.
Even out of the hidden heights on the far side of the current, the strains of the song came back with a melancholy pathos. Perhaps theyoung singer himself was moved. But to those who listened, it wafted over the waters as for two centuries the voyageurs into the unknown north had celebrated the setting out of the long voyage that might have no return. None in the boat spoke to him, but as he went on, repeating the lines, and his voice gradually dropping lower and lower, the boats, lost in the fog and darkness, swept into the great bend, and the stragglers on shore turned and left the river.
Although he did not realize it then, Paul Zept’s impromptu tribute in farewell marked the great turning point in his life.
Three hundred miles of dangerous water lay before the travelers and their valuable outfit. On this part of the voyage the river ran wide and deep. At the suggestion of the steersmen, it was at once decided to make no landing that night but to take advantage of the easy going, as the cold wind would soon sweep the fog away. Strongly touched by the air of Paul’s song, which the singer laughingly explained was a song without words, as he had made it up mainly from snatches of Italian opera, the words of which he could not recall, Norman and Roy got Paul on the rear deck and began to prepare for the night. The assistance of oneof the crew was necessary to prepare the blankets in an expert manner. Before midnight Colonel Howell and the three young men, snugly wrapped in their new “four points,” found no trouble in losing themselves to the world without.
Long before the sun showed itself above the high poplar-crowned hills that lined each bank of the Athabasca, Norman and Roy had slipped out of their blankets. It was their first view of an absolute wilderness. The boats were still drifting silently forward, with no sign of life except in the erect forms of Moosetooth and old La Biche, who were yet standing against their long steering oars as they had stood through the night. Neither of them gave salutation, Moosetooth’s dripping oar following in silence now and then a like sweep of his companion’s blade in the water ahead.
Not arousing their companions, the two boys perched themselves where Paul had sung the night before and, shivering in the new day, began to drink in the scene before them.
What they saw at that moment was a picture repeated for nearly two weeks to come. Although drifting at the rate of four miles an hour, much time was lost while the boats madetheir way back and forth across the river, and although it was but three hundred miles to Fort McMurray, there was constant delay in camps ashore, and at the beginning of the Grand Rapids a week was lost in portaging the entire cargo. Colonel Howell did not welcome another lost outfit and he was quite satisfied when both Moosetooth and La Biche took their empty scows safely through the northern whirlpool.
Rising almost from the water, the hills, little less than mountains in height, ran in terraces. Strata of varicolored rock marked the clifflike heights and where black veins stood out with every suggestion of coal, the young observers got their first impression of the mineral possibilities of the unsettled and unknown land into which they were penetrating.
The first deer which they observed standing plainly in view upon a gravelly reef aroused them to excitement. But when Moosetooth, not speaking, but pointing with a grunt to a dark object scrambling up the rocky shelf on the other side of the river and the boys made out a bear, Roy sprang for his new twenty-two.
“Nothin’ doin’,” called Norman in a low tone. “That’s where we need the .303 and of course that’s knocked down.”
“Well, what’s the use anyway?” retorted Roy, resuming his seat. “I can see there’s going to be plenty of this kind of thing. And besides, you can bet our friend here isn’t going to stop for a bear, dead or alive.”
From that time on, although they did not find animals so close together again, they saw eagles, flocks of wild geese floating ahead of them on the river, and three more deer. And continually the magnificent hills, hanging almost over the river, gave them glimpses of vegetation and objects new to them.
“I’m glad I came,” remarked Norman, “but I wonder how this country looks when winter comes.”
“You know how this river’ll look,” answered Roy. “It’ll be a great, smooth roadway and a lot of people waitin’ now to get back to civilization will make it a path for snowshoes and dog sleds.”
“Some trip up here from Fort McMurray,” suggested Norman.
“You said it,” exclaimed Roy. “But the colonel won’t have to make it on foot this winter—not with the oldGitchie Manitou, and this ice road to guide us.”
He looked with longing at the crates of theairship, the two smaller ones of which took up one side of their own scow, while the others were lashed diagonally on top of the crate in the forward boat. The two boats had kept their relative positions throughout the night.
Just as the sun began to gild the water in their wake, Paul stuck his nose out of the blankets. All had slept in their clothes during the night, Colonel Howell having promised them a chance at their pajamas on the following evening. There was no dressing to be done and when Paul joined his companions all made preparation to souse their faces over the edge of the boat.
“One minute,” exclaimed Norman. He dug among his baggage and in a short time reappeared with the aluminum basin.
“Non! Non!” came from the statuelike figure of old Moosetooth. Then he pointed to the abrupt cut bank of the river a few hundred yards ahead and called something in the Cree language to La Biche. The latter nodded his head and in turn called aloud in the Indian tongue.
Instantly from between the pipes and crates on the forward boat a dozen half-breeds crawled sleepily forth. One of these, with a coil ofrope, sprang into the bow of the forward scow, and another similarly equipped took his place in the rear of La Biche, as if ready to spring on the second scow when opportunity presented. Both boats were headed for the cut bank.
The commotion aroused Colonel Howell, and while he gave a nod of approval, the scows drifted in under the sweep of the steersmen’s oars where the deep water ate into the tree-covered shore.
As La Biche’s boat touched the bank and the second scow ran forward, the two half-breeds scrambled onto the roots of the trees and before the scows could bump away into the stream once more, they had been skillfully snubbed around the trunks of the nearest trees, a third Indian springing from the forward boat onto Moosetooth’s craft and making fast a line thrown him from the shore. Then while the two boats bumped and struggled to turn their free ends into the current, the other Indians, with the skill of long experience, swiftly transferred hawsers from the free ends of the scows to other trees.
“Whew!” shouted Paul, after the first excitement was over. “Whatever we’re going to do, I hope’ll be short and sweet,” and he waved his arms violently about his head.
The close vegetation of the shore was alive with mosquitoes.
“Don’t worry about these,” laughed Roy. “This is the breeding place of the best mosquitoes in the world. Don’t fight ’em—forget ’em.”
Colonel Howell, near by, exclaimed:
“Don’t worry, young men. Mosquito time is about over. You won’t see many of them after the end of July.”
“By the way,” interrupted Norman, “what day is this? Is it July yet?”
“That’s another thing you don’t need to worry about,” went on Colonel Howell with a chuckle. “When the mosquitoes have gone, you’ll know that July is gone, and then we won’t have anything to trouble us till the ice comes.”
“Bum almanac,” commented Roy. “Mostly gaps, I should say.”
“Not so much,” continued the colonel still laughing. “It isn’t as much of a gap between the mosquitoes and ice as you might think. But it’s breakfast time. We’ve got two cooks with us, one for the crew and one for the cabin passengers. You’d better take your morning dip and then, if you like, you can take the canoe and pull over to that gravel reef. You won’t findso many mosquitoes there and you can stretch your legs.”
The boys put off their swimming until they had reached the island, where they had the satisfaction of arousing a young buck from the poplar underbrush, and the mortification of trying to catch it by chasing it toward the mainland in a canoe. An Indian fired at the deer from one of the scows, but it made the river bank in safety and disappeared in the bush.
“There, you see,” announced Roy at once. “The twenty-two would have been all right, but you’ve got to have it with you.”
The colonel’s prediction was true and the three young men had a dip in the shallow water off the island that was certainly bracing. When they returned to the shore they found both cooks in full operation a few hundred yards from the scows and on the open riverbanks.
The difference in the output of the cooks was considerable, but satisfactory to each party served. The colonel’s party was making the best of fresh eggs, fresh butter and new bread and a beefsteak, which would be their only fresh meat for many days. The crew, out of a common pan, helped themselves to boiled potatoes and fried pork, to which each man appeared toadd bannock from his own home supplies. The Indians drank tea.
“Gentlemen,” remarked Colonel Howell, as he lifted a tin of steaming coffee, “here’s to a friend of civilization—delicious coffee. We will know him but a few days longer. He will then give way to the copper kettle and tea.”
“How about fresh eggs and beefsteak?” laughed Paul.
“Eggs, my dear sir, have always been a superfluous luxury patronized mostly by the infirm and aged. As for beefsteak, it cannot compare with a luscious cut of moosemeat, the epicurean delight of the Northwest. It is a thing you may not have at the Waldorf, and a delicacy that not even the gold of the gourmet may lure from the land of its origin.”
“How about bear meat?” asked Roy, recalling with some concern his lost opportunity in the early dawn.
“Rather than starve, I would eat it,” responded Colonel Howell, “and gladly. But to it I prefer rancid salt pork.”
In such badinage, the leisurely stop passed while the boys finished their first meal in the wilderness, topping it off with the luscious red raspberries that were just in perfection all around the camp.
That day the boats drifted fifty miles, luncheon being eaten on the rear deck. A night landing was made on a gravelly island to escape as far as possible the many mosquitoes. Tents were not erected but alongside a good fire the blankets were spread on the soft grass beneath the stunted island trees and with mosquito nets wrapped about their heads all slept comfortably enough.
Where the Indians slept no one seemed to know. When the boys and their patron turned in as dark came on, at eleven o’clock, the half-breeds were still eating and smoking about their removed camp fire. In this manner, with no accidents, but with daily diversions in the way of shooting, venison now being one of the daily items of food, the voyageurs at last reached the Grand Rapids.
From this place, for sixty miles, a tumultuous and almost unnavigable stretch of water reached to the vicinity of Fort McMurray, the end of their journey. The greatest drops in the water and the most menacing perils were encountered at the very beginning of the Rapids, where for half a mile an irregular island of rock divided the stream. On one side of this the river rushed in a whirlpool that no craftcould attempt. On the other side, and the wider, skilled boatmen had a chance of safely conducting light craft through the many perils. Here it was necessary that both boats should be unloaded and the entire outfit be portaged to the far end of the island.
But travel on the river was so important that those concerned in it had, many years before, constructed a crude wooden tramway which, repaired by every newcomer, was available for use in transporting the heavy freight.
Permanent camp was made at the head of the island when this arduous task began. It had taken four days to load the boats and seven days were spent on the island in getting the cargoes of the two boats to the far end. The sixth day fell on a Sunday, when no Indian does any labor. On the afternoon of the next day Moosetooth and La Biche made their spectacular races down the Rapids. Not a boy of the party that did not entreat Colonel Howell to let him go with the first boat, but in his refusal their patron was adamant. The only man to accompany each boat as it started on its flight was an experienced member of the crew who sat on the bow with a canoe practically in his lap. He was ready to launch this any momentto rescue the steersman, but both attempts were engineered by the veteran river men with no other bad results than the shipping of a great deal of water.
Paul posted himself opposite the most dangerous point and made pictures of the tossing boats and their bareheaded pilots as long as they were in sight.
Then came the laborious task of reloading the boats, but under Colonel Howell’s direct attention, this operation now took far less than four days. Within ten hours’ travel from the foot of the Rapids, the boats rounded a bend at three o’clock the next afternoon and came in sight of a lone cabin on the bare and rocky shore of the river.
“Look in the trees behind it,” exclaimed Colonel Howell.
Like a gallows, almost concealed behind a fringe of poplar trees, stood the familiar lines of an oil derrick.
“I’m sorry they haven’t got a flag out,” remarked Colonel Howell, “but that’s the place. All there is of Fort McMurray is just beyond.”
CHAPTER XPAUL AWAKENS TO THE SITUATION
At first Colonel Howell’s camp appeared to be deserted, but as the boats made in toward the shore and the crew began shouting, two men appeared from the cabin. These were Ewen and Miller—Chandler was not in sight.
The new log cabin with its flat tar-paper roof, glistening with its many tin washers, and with a substantial looking chimney built against one end, had a satisfactory look. In addition, several large ricks of cordwood standing at the edge of the clearing gave sign that the men had not been idle during the spring. At the same time, there were many evidences of a lack of thrift to be seen in the debris left from the cabin building.
No arrangements had been made for a boat landing and Colonel Howell’s canoe was lying carelessly against the steep bank. Both Norman and Roy felt somewhat disappointed. While neither was bothered with the romantic ideas usually attached to the woodland cabins of fiction,each had expected a smarter camp. Nor were they very favorably impressed with the two men who appeared on the bank. They were not exactly tidy in appearance and their figures and faces suggested that they had spent a winter of comparative ease among the colonel’s stores.
“Where’s the Englishman?” was Colonel Howell’s salutation, as he and his friends sprang ashore.
“Over at the settlement,” answered Ewen, as he jerked his thumb down the river. “There wasn’t much doing here and he went over there a few days ago to visit some friends.”
“A few days ago,” exclaimed the colonel, as his eyes made a survey of the littered-up clearing. “He might have put in a little time clearin’ out these stumps.”
“We just got through cuttin’ the wood,” broke in Miller as he and Ewen shook hands with their boss, “and we just got the finishin’ touches on the cabin. We didn’t know when to expect you.”
Colonel Howell, followed by his men and the new arrivals, scrambled up the bank and, with no great show of enthusiasm, began a close examination of the new cabin and its surroundings.Nor were the boys any more impressed with the structure, which, inside, showed very little ingenuity. It had been made for the use of four men—seven were going to crowd it. After Colonel Howell had inspected the derrick, he returned and seated himself on a stump.
“When’s Chandler comin’ back?” he asked abruptly. Without waiting for a reply, which neither of his men seemed able to give him, he added: “One of you fellows had better take the canoe and go and get him this afternoon—that is, if he wants to come back.”
There was some irritation in his tone that showed everyone that things were not exactly to his liking.
“It’s only two miles,” remarked Ewen showing some alacrity, “and I’ll go by the trail.”
When he had gone, Colonel Howell turned to Miller, whose unshaven and somewhat bloated face told that he had not lost any flesh during his stay at the camp.
“Miller,” he said, “go down and take hold of these scows. We’ve got to get this stuff up here on the bank and under some protection. I don’t want these Indians on my hands any longer than necessary. Keep ’em at it until midnight, if necessary, and then make up anoutfit for ’em to-morrow and let ’em hit the trail.”
“What are you going to do with the boats?” asked Roy.
“We’re going to use ’em to make a cabin big enough for our new family,” answered the colonel, smiling perfunctorily. “This one’s all right for our cooking and eating, but it doesn’t appeal to me as a bunk house. I think we’ll add another room. The season’s getting away from us and we can’t afford to lose any time.”
The man Miller had already shown signs of great activity when Colonel Howell suddenly called him back.
“On second thought, Miller,” he said, rising and throwing off his coat, “I think you’d better tackle the cabin first. There’s a lot of truck in there that ought to be in a storehouse and it’s got a kind o’ musty smell. Open all the windows and clean out the place. We’ve got to sleep in there to-night. When you’ve done that, get that kitchen stuff and use some river water and sand on it. Looks like an Indian shack in the middle o’ winter. Young men,” he went on, again forcing a smile, “I reckon it’s up to us to get this gang busy.”
There was nothing in this that discouraged Norman and Roy and even Paul seemed interested in the unloading of the boats. Before this was begun, however, Moosetooth spoke in an undertone to Colonel Howell and, shrugging his shoulders, the prospector waved his hand.
“All right,” he exclaimed, “they’ll work the better for it. Feed ’em. Four meals a day—that’s the least that any half-breed demands.”
While Colonel Howell and the crew began getting the two scows broadside along the bank, the Cree cooks unloaded the two cook outfits and the grub boxes. The laborious task of hoisting the crates and boxes of the rest of the cargo up the treacherous bank had hardly begun when the cooks, disdaining the fireplace within the cabin, had their fires going in the open clearing.
Within an hour the Indians were devoting themselves to a filling supper and a little later Colonel Howell and his assistants made a hasty meal of tinned roast mutton, pickles, Indian bannock, and tea. All about was confusion. The personal baggage of the newly arrived had been assembled just without the cabin door and Miller and a couple of the crew were beginningto carry in balsam boughs, on which, in their blankets, the colonel and his friends were to pass the night.
No attempt was made, further than Miller’s crude efforts, to make the inside of the cabin more inviting. A big fire of rotten wood had been started near by, as a mosquito smudge, but all were too busy to give these pests much attention.
While the Indians were at supper, Ewen returned with Chandler.
The latter arrived with much effusiveness, but his greeting by Colonel Howell was rather curt.
“Of course you’ll remember this,” the colonel remarked, “when it comes to settling.”
Chandler changed his attitude instantly. His expression and speech showed that he was not sober.
“I’m ready to settle now,” he retorted, as his eyes swept over the growing heaps of the many boxes, barrels, bags and crates that littered the shore.
“I think I am too,” remarked Colonel Howell, “when it suits me. Meanwhile, you’re off the chuck roll. Get out of camp and when you’re in a proper condition and can show me what you’ve earned, come back!”
The tall and emaciated Englishman drew himself up and glared at Colonel Howell.
“Get out!” exclaimed the latter in a tone that was wholly new to the three boys.
“I’ll go when I get my money!” mumbled Chandler, half defiantly.
Without more words, Colonel Howell shot out his right arm and caught the man by his shoulder. He whirled Chandler and sent him sprawling on the trail.
The man’s defiance was gone. “My pay’s comin’ to me,” he whimpered, “and I’ve worked hard for it.”
“We’ll see about that,” snapped the oil man, “when the time comes.”
As if dismissing the incident from his mind, he turned toward the scows.
“Look out!” exclaimed the three boys, almost together, but their warning was hardly needed. As Colonel Howell turned, the sinewy form of old Moosetooth had thrown itself upon the crouching Englishman. The two men sank to the ground and there was a surge forward by those near by. Then the Indian tore himself from the partly helpless Chandler and struggled to his feet. In his hand he held Chandler’s short double-edged knife. With indistinguishableimprecations and his arms waving in the air, the Englishman disappeared within the fringe of poplar trees.
Excited, but with no excuse for asking questions, the boys turned and, with Colonel Howell, resumed the task of getting their cargo ashore. Old Moosetooth looked at the knife, placed it inside his belt and began cutting a fresh pipe of tobacco.
“Life in the wilds!” remarked Colonel Howell, as he and the boys regained the scows. “A lazy man’s bad enough, but a booze fighter doesn’t belong in this camp.”
“Where could he get anything to drink up here?” asked Norman, a little nervously.
“Tell me!” responded Colonel Howell. “That’s what we all want to know. Anyway,” he went on, “we’ve done our part towards cutting it out. There isn’t a drop of it in this outfit.”
When he could do so without attracting attention, Norman glanced at Paul. The latter as quickly averted his eyes and plunged with greater energy into his share of the work.
These events had taken place just before the “cabin passengers” had been called to supper. Efforts were being made to forget theChandler episode and Colonel Howell especially was talkative and jolly. Paul was just the opposite. At last, when the cook had left them with their tea, the young Austrian seemed to become desperate. Norman and Roy were just about to leave the cabin when Paul stopped them, more and more embarrassed.
“I want to say something, boys,” he began. Then he turned to his host and, the perspiration thick on his face, added suddenly: “Colonel Howell, I don’t know how to say it, but I’ve got to tell you. I lied to you the other night in the hotel at Edmonton. You didn’t ask me to stop drinking, but you talked to me pretty straight, and that’s what I meant to do. Well I didn’t stop—I just put it off, a little. I didn’t do the right thing back at the Landing. I knew it then, but I knew I was going to stop when I came up here and I just put it off a little longer.”
The colonel made a half deprecating motion, as if it embarrassed him to listen to the young man’s confession.
“I thought it was all right,” he said, as if to somewhat relieve Paul’s embarrassment, “and I knew you meant to stop. Of course we knew what you were doing, but you’re pretty young,” concluded the colonel with a laugh.
Norman and Roy each gave signs of an inclination to relieve Paul’s embarrassment and Norman especially showed concern. But he and his friend remained silent.
“We’ll let that all be bygones,” suggested Colonel Howell, “and here’s to the future—we’ll drink to what is to come in Canada’s national beverage—black tea reeking with the smoke of the camp fire.”
A laugh of relief started round, as Paul’s three companions hit the table with their heavy tin cups, but in this the young Count did not join.
“That ain’t it,” he blurted suddenly. “That was bad enough, but I’ve done worse than that.”
The colonel’s face sobered and Norman’s eyes turned toward the heap of personal belongings just outside the cabin door. Paul’s trembling arm motioned toward these boxes and bags.
“I’ve got a case of brandy out there and I’ve got to tell you how I’ve lied to you.”
“Hardly that!” protested Colonel Howell. “You hadn’t spoken to me of it.”
“No, I didn’t,” confessed Paul, his voice trembling, “but I just heard you say we hadn’tanything like that with us and I might as well have lied, because I had it.”
“Did that sergeant of police know this?” broke in Roy. “I thought he examined everything. He certainly said we were all right.”
“Yes, he knew it,” answered Paul, “but he isn’t to blame. Don’t think I’m making that an excuse.”
Colonel Howell sat with downcast eyes and an expression of pain on his face.
“Why did you do it?” he asked in a low tone at last. “Did you mean to hide it from me?”
“No, no,” exclaimed his young guest. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t want it. I’m going to quit all that. That’s why I came up here. You know that, Colonel Howell—don’t you believe me?”
But Colonel Howell’s face now bore a different expression.
“My friend,” he remarked after a few moment’s thought, “I may have done wrong to ask your father to let you come with us. I thought you knew all the conditions. If this is a life that is not going to interest you, you’d better go back. The Indians will be returning to-morrow or the next day and you won’t find it such a hard trip.”
Paul gulped as if choking and then sprang from the table. From the baggage outside he extracted a canvas-bound box, his own name on the side. While his companions sat in silence he hurled it on the floor at their feet and then, with a sweep of his knife, cut the canvas from the package. With a single crush by his heavy boot, he loosened one of the boards of the cover. Carefully packed within were a dozen bottles of expensive brandy. Paul caught one of them and appeared to be about to smash it on the edge of the table. The colonel raised his hand.
“Stop!” ordered his host. “Are you going back or do you want to stay with us?”
“Colonel Howell,” almost sobbed the young man, “I’d give anything I have or can do for you if you’ll let me stay.”
“There’s only one condition,” answered Colonel Howell, and he no longer attempted to conceal his irritation. “If you’re not strong enough to do without that kind of stuff, you’re not welcome here. If you are, you are very welcome.”
“I’ll throw it all in the river,” exclaimed Paul, chokingly.
“Which would prove nothing,” announced Colonel Howell. “Put that bottle back in thebox and nail it up. When you want it again, come and tell me and I’ll give you the case and an escort back to the Landing.”
The episode had become more than embarrassing for Norman and Roy and they arose and left the room. Paul’s face was buried in his hands and his head was low on the table. Fifteen minutes later, the young Count and the oil man made their appearance, both very sober of face.
At midnight when the last of the cargo had been unshipped, when the Indians had been fed again and when the white men had had a late supper of bannock and Nova Scotia butter and fresh tea, and when Colonel Howell and the boys had spread their heavy blankets on the fresh balsam, in Paul’s corner of the cabin lay the box that had brought him so much chagrin. Not once during the evening had the humiliating incident been referred to by those who participated in it.
CHAPTER XIPREPARING CAMP FOR WINTER
Colonel Howell being a far from hard taskmaster, especially in his dealings with the Indians, it was not until the morning of the second day that Moosetooth and La Biche led their men out of camp on the three-hundred mile tramp to Athabasca Landing. But the beginning of work in the camp did not await their departure. Colonel Howell took time to explain his plans so far as they concerned his young friends, and the morning after the arrival of the boats work at once began with the regularity of a factory.
The things to be done included a substantial addition to the present cabin, to be made in the main out of the straight poplar timber. The roof of this was to be of sod and the new bunk house formed a “T” with the old cabin. A clay floor was packed within and on this a board floor was made of some of the inside timber from one of the scows. New timber and poplar posts were used to make the bunks, which, packed heavily with shredded balsam, soon providedclean and fragrant sleeping berths. Colonel Howell had learned of a sheet-iron stove to be had in the McMurray settlement, and this was to be installed before cold weather arrived.
The other cabin was renovated and thoroughly cleaned. A provision storehouse was added in the rear, and the clay fireplace was enlarged and extended into the room. This work under way, Norman and Roy, assisted by Paul, undertook to construct a rough but adequate aerodrome. The open space in front of the cabin was not sufficient for a landing and a large part of the clearing in the rear of the cabin was leveled for the airship shed. To decrease the size of the structure, it was also made in “T” shape, the extension for the tail of the machine reaching back toward the cabin, for the new shelter faced away from the cabin so that there might be no obstacle in starting and landing the machine.
In spite of its simple character, the boys made elaborate sketches for this shed and used in the main small uniform poplar trees easily carried on their shoulders. The entire frame of the building was made of this timber. The front of it was to be made of the colonel’s three enormous tarpaulins. The sides and top being ofheavy hemlock bark, this feature of the work required many days and it was often tiresome.
In the three weeks that this work went on, Colonel Howell appeared to be in no hurry to resume his prospecting. The boys learned that the old Kansas oil men had not been wholly idle in this respect and that they had located several good signs, all of which Colonel Howell took occasion to examine.
The boys also learned that the best prospects were not those found where the derrick had been erected. From their experience, the men who had been left in camp strongly urged another location in a dip of land farther inland.
“It’s as good a surface sign as I ever saw,” Colonel Howell explained to the young men. “It’s a rock cut, but there’s enough tar floating loose to show that there’s oil mighty close. But there’s no use getting excited about it and tapping a gusher. We’d only have to cap it and wait for the tank cars. Everything around here is prospective, of course. All we can do is to cover the field and establish our claim. And I guess that’s a good winter’s job.”
“Ain’t you goin’ to work this derrick?” asked Paul, indicating the one erected near the camp.
“Looks like there might be gas around here,” was the colonel’s laughing response. “We’ll sink a shaft here an’ maybe we can find a flow of natural gas. That’d help some when she gets down to forty below.”
It was surprising how all these preparations consumed time. It was nearly the end of August when these plans had been worked out and with the setting up of theGitchie Manitouin its novel aerodrome and the storing away of its oil and gasoline in a little bark lean-to, the camp appeared to be ready for serious work.
For a week Ewen and Miller had been setting up the wood boiler and engine for operating the derrick. From the night he unceremoniously left camp, Chandler, the Englishman, had not been heard from.
Each Sunday all labor ceased in camp and Ewen and Miller invariably spent the day, long into the night, in Fort McMurray. The boys also visited this settlement, which had in it little of interest. There was no store and nothing to excite their cupidity in the way of purchases. They heard that Chandler had gone down the river, but the information was not definite and, although Colonel Howell left messages for his discharged employee, the man did not reappear and sent no word.
Colonel Howell’s other workmen, Ewen and Miller, were not companionable and did not become comrades of the boys. Now and then, in the month’s work, Norman and Roy had heard Colonel Howell freely criticize them for the method of their work or for some newly omitted thing they had failed to do during the winter.
When the stores and supplies had been compactly arranged in the rear of the living room and the new storehouse, the cabin and its surroundings seemed prepared for comfortable occupancy in the coldest weather.
The only man retained out of the river outfit was a Lac la Biche half-breed, a relative of Moosetooth, who was to serve both as a cook and a hunter. At least once a week, the entire party of young men went with Philip Tremble, the half-breed hunter, for deer or moose. This usually meant an early day’s start, if they were looking for moose, and a long hike over the wooded hills to the upland.
One moose they secured on the second hunt and to the great joy of the boys Philip brought the skin of the animal back to camp. The antlers, being soft, were useless. This episode not only afforded a welcome change in meatwhich, as Colonel Howell had predicted, could not be told from tender beef, but it sadly interfered with the work on the aerodrome.
When the Indian had prepared a frame for dressing the skin and lashed the green hide with heavy cord between the four poplar sides and had produced a shaving knife from somewhere among his private possessions, the boys fought for the opportunity to work upon the hide.
For almost two days, Norman, Roy and Paul, by turns, scraped at the muscle, sinews and fat yet adhering to the skins until at last their first trophy shone as tight and clean in the sunshine as a drumhead. Philip had also brought, from the upland, the animal’s brains tied up in his shirt. In the tanning process he then took charge of the cleaned skin and buried it until the hair had rotted, and in this condition the outside of the skin was also cleaned. Then came a mysterious process of scouring the skin with the long preserved brains.
At Colonel Howell’s suggestion, and with the complete approval of the boys, this part of the process was carried on at some distance from the cabin. Thereafter, when the weather was clear, Philip exposed the skin to the smoke of asmouldering fire, devoting such time as he had to rubbing and twisting the hide while it turned to a soft, odorous yellow.
Before the real winter began, the skin, which is the wealth of the Canadian Indian, began to make its appearance in strong moccasins, which were usually worn around the fireplace and often in bed.
From somewhere in the outfit a calendar had made its appearance, and this had found a lodging place in the front of the fireplace. The morning that Colonel Howell made a mark on September 1, with a bit of charred stick, he remarked:
“Well, boys, the postman seems to have forgotten us. What’s the matter with running up to Athabasca and getting our mail? A piece of beef wouldn’t go bad, either. How about it?”
So intense had the interest of Norman and Roy been in the hundreds of things to be done in camp that the aeroplane, although not out of mind, was not always foremost in their thoughts. No reply was needed to this suggestion. Instantly, the proposition filled the air with airship talk.
This first trip had been discussed manytimes. It required no particular planning now.
“I like to travel about fifty miles an hour,” exclaimed Norman, “and it’s three hundred miles to the Landing. We’ll leave to-morrow morning at five o’clock and land on the heights opposite the town at eleven. One of us’ll go across in the ferry—”
“Both of us,” broke in Roy. “There’s no need to watch the machine—everybody’s honest in this country.”
“Let me go and watch it?” asked Paul, who was now the constant associate of the other boys in their work and pleasures.
“Not this time,” answered Norman. “It isn’t exactly a bus, you know. We can take care of it all right.”
“Then we’ll have dinner at the good old Alberta,” suggested Roy with his features aglow, “do our errands, and start back about three o’clock. It’s a cinch. With the river for our guide, we ought to give you a beefsteak about nine o’clock.”
“And don’t forget a few magazines,” put in Paul.
This flight, which began promptly on time the next morning, after an early breakfast of toasted bannock, bacon and the inevitable tea,which Philip never spoiled with smoke, however, was made with all the ease of the exhibitions at the Stampede.
TheGitchie Manitouwas wheeled out of the hangar for a thorough inspection. Then the boys climbed in and the engines were started. With a wave of the hand they were off.
For a short time after the yellow-winged monoplane had mounted and turned south and westward over the vapory river, the boys had a new sensation. The rising fog started air currents which for a time they did not understand. Perhaps Norman’s hand was a little out of a practice and at times Roy showed nervousness.
When Norman finally guessed the cause, he mounted higher and took a course over the uplands where, as the sunshine cleared the atmosphere, theGitchie Manitoubecame more easily manageable. The line of vapor rising from the river some distance on their left was sufficient guide. This at last disappeared in turn and Norman threw the car back on its old course.
Once again above the river, whose brown, oily surface now shone clearly beneath them, Roy especially busied himself with the manyattractions of the stream. Animal life was plentiful and, despite Norman’s renewed protests, his companion insisted now and then in fruitlessly discharging his rifle at small game.
They made better time than fifty miles and made a safe landing on the heights opposite Athabasca some time before eleven o’clock. What had seemed to them, from Athabasca, to be an uninhabited bluff, was now found to contain several poor cabins. Afraid to leave the car alone near those who would certainly be curious, Norman decided to stay with the monoplane and Roy undertook to visit the town across the river. But dinner at the Alberta was eliminated and Roy, in addition to his mail and meat and magazines, was to bring back luncheon for both the aviators.
Norman accompanied him to the brow of the hill and saw him scramble down the winding road to the ferry landing below. Here, also, he saw him wait nearly a half hour before the cumbersome gravity flatboat put out from the other shore, and then he devoted himself to picking and eating Saskatoon berries, with which the hills were covered.
It was two o’clock when Roy returned, burdened with packages. For an hour Normanhad been asleep in the invigorating hill air. Roy had certainly gone the limit in the matter of meat. He had two roasts and six thick steaks and, what was more to his own taste, he proudly displayed a leg of lamb. His mail, of which there seemed to be a great deal for everyone, he had tied in one end of a flour sack. In the other end he had six loaves of fresh bread. On his back in another bag he had a weight of magazines.
“I thought we’d take what we could,” he began, “and I guess it’s a good thing we came when we did. Somebody’s been pounding telegrams in here for several days for Colonel Howell. I got a half dozen of ’em and I sent all he gave me. I got off some messages to the folks, too, but I wonder what the colonel’s so busy about.”
“This ain’t the only iron he has in the fire,” answered Norman drowsily. “But where’s our own eats?”
Roy dumped his bags and bundles on the grass and then began to explore his own capacious pockets. From one he took a can of salmon and from another a box of sardines.
“And here’s the lemon for ’em,” he explained, producing it from his shirt pocket. “Help yourself to the bread.”
“Is that all?” complained Norman. “I’ll bet a nickel you had dinner at the Alberta!”
“All but this,” went on Roy, and he began unbuttoning the front of his flannel shirt. “It feels kind of soft.”
While Norman watched him, he extracted a greasy bag, flat and crumpled, and tore it open to expose what was left of an originally fine hot raisin pie.
His companion turned up his nose in disgust.
“I fell down on the hill,” explained Roy, “but if you don’t want it, don’t bother. It’s just a little squashed. I’ll eat it all right.”
Norman began to straighten out the crumpled pieces with his finger, when his chum added, with some exultation: “And these.”
Then, from within his unbuttoned shirt, he began to unload a dozen large sugar-coated doughnuts.
As Norman’s mouth began to water, and he turned to the bread bag, a new odor caught his nostrils.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, pulling another greasy bag from among the bread loaves.
“Oh, I forgot,” sputtered Roy, a part of one of the doughnuts already in his mouth; “that’ssome baked ham I found at the butcher shop. I guess that’s some eats.”
“Didn’t you get any pop?” was Norman’s only answer, a look of added disgust spreading over his face.
Roy turned, with a startled look: “I couldn’t carry any more,” he answered a little guiltily, “but I drank a couple o’ bottles myself.”
“I knew I’d get stung if I let you go!” growled his companion.
Norman looked at him with indignation. Then, having already appropriated a doughnut, he mounted quickly on the side of the car and sprang down again with the aluminum basin in his hand.
“Now you go down to the river and get me a drink. You’ve had it soft enough.”
The return trip was almost a duplicate of the morning flight. In this, however, the aviators were able to follow the stream itself, and they flew low, protected from the evening breeze by the river hills. The ride did not seem long, and the boys were particularly interested in another view of the Rapids, which they had been unable to study in the morning flight. Not a single human being, going or coming, had they seen on the long stretch of river.
In Athabasca, Roy had learned that their boat crew had not all returned, but that La Biche and Moosetooth had reached town and that both were already serving as pilots on the new Hudson’s Bay Company steamer that had been launched in their absence and was now making its first trip up the river. They were almost passing the oil camp when the sound of a shot attracted their attention and then, guided by Paul’s worn and faded hat, they banked and landed in the rear of the aerodrome at ten minutes of nine.