CHAPTER XIX.
Start from St. John’s.—Crossing the ice.—Batiste La Fleur.—Chimeroo.—The last wood-buffalo.—A dangerous weapon.—Our raft collapses.—Across the Half-way River.
Start from St. John’s.—Crossing the ice.—Batiste La Fleur.—Chimeroo.—The last wood-buffalo.—A dangerous weapon.—Our raft collapses.—Across the Half-way River.
The22nd of April had come. For some days we were engaged at St. John’s in preparing supplies for the ascent of the river, and in catching and bringing in from the prairie the horses which were to carry me to the point of embarcation at the west end of the cañon; the snow had nearly all disappeared from the level prairie. The river opposite the fort was partly open, but some distance below a bridge of ice yet remained, and on the 20th we moved our horses across this connecting link to the north shore. The night of the 20th made a serious change in the river, and when the 22nd came, it was doubtful whether we should be able to cross without mishap.
From the fort of St. John’s to the gold mines on the Ominica River was some twenty or thirty days’ travel, and as no supplies were obtainableen route, save such as my gun might afford, it became necessary to carry a considerable quantity of moose pemmican and dry meat, the sole luxuries which St. John’s could boast of.
By the 22nd all preparations were declared complete, and we began to cross the river over the doubtful ice-bridge. First went two men dragging a dog-sled, on which was piled the stores and provisions for the journey; next came old Batiste La Fleur, who was to accompany me as far as the Half-way River, a torrent which we would have to raft across on the second day of our journey.
Batiste carried a long pole, with which he sounded the ice previous to stepping upon it. I brought up the rear, also carrying a pole, and leading by a long line the faithful Cerf-vola. Spanker and his six companions here passed from my hands, and remained at St. John’s to idle through the approaching summer, and then to take their places as Hudson Bay hauling-dogs; but for Cerf-vola there was to be no more hauling, his long and faithful service had at length met its reward, and the untiring Esquimaux was henceforth to lounge through life collarless and comfortable.
Coasting down along the shore-ice we reached the crossing-point, and put out into the mid-river;once on the dangerous part, there was no time to think whether it was safe or not. A Salteaux Indian, dragging the sled, went in, but light and quick as thought he dragged himself from the ice and sped along its yielding surface. Below rumbled the river, and in the open places its dark waters gurgled up and over the crumbling ice. Only a narrow tongue of ice spanned the central current; we crossed it with nothing worse than wet feet and legs, and to me a dislocated thumb, and then we breathed freer on the farther side.
Loading the horses with luggage and provisions, I bade good-bye to my host, and we turned our faces towards the steep north shore. The day was gloriously bright. The hill up which the horses scrambled for a thousand feet was blue with wild anemones; spring was in the earth and in the air. Cerf-vola raced in front, with tail so twisted over his back that it threatened to dislocate his spine in a frantic attempt to get in front of his nose. The earth, bare of snow, gave forth a delicious fragrance, which one drank with infinite delight after the long, long scentless winter; and over the white river below, and the pine forest beyond, summer, dressed in blue sky and golden sunbeam, came moving gently up on the wing of the soft south wind.
We reached the summit. Below lay a long line of frosted river; the little fort, dwarfed by distance, the opposing ridges, the vast solitude, and beyond all, snow-white against the western sky, the peaks and pinnacles of nameless mountains. Through varied prairie and wooded country, and across many a rushing brook, deep hidden in tangled brake and thicket, we held our way on that bright spring afternoon; and evening found us on a bare and lofty ridge, overlooking the valley of the Peace River. Batiste had lived his life in these solitudes, and knew the name of creek and prairie, and the history (for even the wilderness has a history) of each hill or widespread meadow.
The beautiful prairie which lay beneath our camping-place was Chimeroo’s prairie, and the great ridge of rock which frowned above it was also Chimeroo’s; and away there where the cleft appeared in the hills to the north, that was where Chimeroo’s river came out to join the Peace. In fact, Chimeroo played such a conspicuous part in the scenery that one naturally asked, Who was Chimeroo?
“Chimeroo! Oh, he is a Beaver Indian; he lived here for a long time, and he killed the last wood-buffalo in yonder valley, just three years ago.”
The last of his race had wandered down fromthe banks of the Liard, and Chimeroo had struck his trail, and followed him to the death.
When twilight fell, that peculiar orange light of the American wilderness lay long in the west. Against this vivid colour, Chimeroo’s hill stood out in inky profile the perfect image of a colossal face. Forehead, nose, lips, and chin seemed cut in the huge rock, and, like a monstrous sphinx, looked blankly over the solitude.
“It is the head of Chimeroo,” I said to Batiste; “see, he looks over his dominions.” We were perched upon a bare hill-top, many hundred feet above the river. The face rose between us and the west, some three miles distant; the head, thrown slightly back, seemed to look vacantly out on the waste of night and wilderness, while a long beard (the lower part of the ridge) descended into the darkness. Gradually day drew off his orange curtain from the horizon, and ere the darkness had blotted out the huge features of Chimeroo, we slept upon our lonely hill-top.
Pursuing our journey on the morrow, we descended to the river, and held our way over Chimeroo’s prairie, passing beneath the lofty ridge, whose outline had assumed the image of a human face.
About mid-day we reached the banks of Chimeroo’s river, which, being flooded, we forded,and, climbing its steep north shore, halted for dinner. It would not be easy to exaggerate the beauty of the country through which the trail had carried us, or the sensation of rest which came to one as, looking out over the landscape, the fair spring scene stole insensibly on the mind. Everywhere the blue anemone, like a huge primrose, looked up to the bluer sky; butterflies fluttered in the clear, pure air; partridges drummed in the budding thickets. The birch-trees and willows were putting forth their flowers, precursors of the leaves so soon to follow. The long-hushed rippling of the streams fell on the ear like music heard after lapse of time; and from the blue depths of sky at times fell the cry of the wild goose, as with scarce-moving wing he held his way in long wavingw‘s to his summer home. Chimeroo’s prairie was golden with the long grass of the old year. Chimeroo’s hill glistened in the bright sun of the new spring; and winter, driven from the lower earth, had taken refuge in the mountains, where his snow-white flag of surrender floated out from crag and cliff, high above the realm of pines. Such a scene as this, might the first man have beheld when he looked over the virgin earth. It was far too fine a day to work: we would rest. Batiste La Fleur knew of a lake not far off, and we would go to itand spend the evening in hunting beaver and wild ducks; so we put the saddles on and journeyed slowly to Batiste’s paradise.
Through many a devious path and tortuous way did Batiste guide us, until his hunting-ground was gained. On a knoll we made our camp; and while Kalder remained to look after it, Batiste and I sallied forth to hunt.
Batiste’s gun was an excellent weapon, were it not for a tendency to burst about the left barrel. This was made observable by two or more ominous bulges towards the centre of the piece; but Batiste appeared to have unlimited confidence in the integrity of his weapon, and explained that these blemishes were only the result of his having on two or three occasions placed a bullet over a charge of shot, and then directed the united volley against the person of a beaver. When loading this gun, Batiste had a risky method of leaning it against his chest while drawing a charge of shot from his shot-bag. I pointed out to him that this was not a safe method of loading, as it was quite possible the other barrel might explode while the gun thus rested against his side. It was true, he said, for only last year the gun under similar treatment had exploded, carrying away the brim of his hat, and causing no slight alarm to the rest of his person.
Our success that afternoon was not great; ducks and geese but lately arrived from the peopled south were yet wild and wary, and had not learned to look on man in any light save that of an enemy; and altogether Batiste’s hunter’s paradise did not justify his glowing accounts of it. To do him justice, however, it must be stated that the wet ground was literally ploughed up with moose-tracks; and the golden willows lay broken down and bruised by the many animals which had browsed upon them during the winter.
It was mid-day on the 24th of April when we reached the banks of the Half-way River, whose current, swollen by the melting snow, rolled swiftly from the north, between banks piled high with ice-floe. This was the first serious obstacle to the journey, and as soon as dinner was over we set to work to overcome it. From a neighbouring grove of pines Kalder and Batiste got dry trees; half a dozen of these lashed together formed the groundwork of a raft. Three other pine-trees tied on top completed the craft, and with a long pole and a rough paddle, all fashioned by the axe, the preparations were declared finished. This craft was put together in a sheltered part of the river; and when all was completed, the goods and chattels were placed upon it. But one more piece of work remained to be accomplished ere we setsail upon our raft—the horses had to be crossed. By dint of driving and shouting we forced them across the boulders of ice into the water. It was cold as ice, and they stood knee-deep, afraid to venture farther. But Kalder was a very demon when work had to be done. In an instant he was across the ice-floe, and upon the back of one of the horses; then with knees and hands and voice and heels he urged the brute into the flood. The horse reared and snorted and plunged, but Kalder sat him like the half-breed that he was, and in another second, horse and rider plunged wildly into the torrent. Down they went out of sight, and when they reappeared the horse was striking out for the far shore, and Kalder was grappling with the projecting ice. The other horses soon followed their leader, and all four went swimming down the current. Gradually the back eddy near the farther shore caught them, and, touching ground, they disappeared in the forest. Now came our turn to cross. We towed the crazy raft up the bordering ice, and, mooring her for a moment in an eddy, took our places on the upper logs. Scarcely had we put out from the shore than the fastening gave way, and the whole fabric threatened instant collapse. We got her back to the eddy, repaired the damage, and once more put out. Our weight and baggage sunk us down, sothat the body of the raft was quite submerged, and only the three trees on top showed above the water; upon these we crouched. Old Batiste waved a good-bye. Kalder was at the bow with a pole. I worked a paddle on the stern. Once out of the sheltering eddy, the current smote our unwieldy platform, and away we went. Another instant and the pole failed to reach the bottom. With might and main I worked the paddle; down we shot, and across; but ten yards down to every one across. Would we save the eddy? that was the question; for if we missed it, there was nought to stay our wild career. Far as eye could reach, the current ran wild and red. For an anxious minute we rushed down the stream, and then the eddy caught us, and we spun round like a teetotum. “The other side!” roared Kalder; and to the other side went the paddle to keep us in the eddy. Then we headed for the shore; and, ere the current could catch us again, Kalder was breast-deep in the water, holding on with might and main to the raft.
We were across the Half-way River. To unload the raft, build a fire, to dry our wet garments, and shout good-bye to old Batiste, who stood on an ice boulder, anxiously watching our fortunes from the shore we had quitted, took us but a short time.
The horses were captured and saddled, and, ascending through tangled forest into a terraced land of rich-rolling prairies, we pushed on briskly towards the west.
Thus, trotting through a park-like land of wood and glade and meadow, where the jumping deer glanced through the dry grass and trees, we gradually drew near the Rocky Mountains. At times the trail led up the steep face of the outer hill to the plateau above, and then a rich view would lie beneath—a view so vast with the glories of the snowy range, and so filled with nearer river and diamond-shaped island, that many a time I drew rein upon some lofty standpoint to look, as one looks upon things which we would fain carry away into the memory of an after-time.
About the middle of the afternoon of the 25th of April we emerged from a wood of cypress upon an open space, beneath which ran the Peace River. At the opposite side a solitary wooden house gave token of life in the wilderness. The greater part of the river was still fast frozen, but along the nearer shore ran a current of open water. The solitary house was the Hope of Hudson!