TOWERINGTOWERING ABOVE ALL, AND DWARFING ALL RIVALRY, THERE STOOD BEFORE THEM ONE GREAT NOBLE WHITE-TOPPED PEAK—MT. ROBSON
“Many a man has heard of this mountain,” continued Uncle Dick, “and a good many have tried to climb it. One party spent all the season trying to get behind it and find a way up. But Robson doesn’t seem to have any blind side.”
“Why can’t we try it?” said Rob, enthusiastically.
“Some day, perhaps,” smiled Uncle Dick, “but hardly now, as short of grub as we are, and as short of time as well. Mountain climbing is a business of itself, and you need a complete equipment. It would take a year, two years, or three to climb Robson, very likely. So with two or three days at our disposal I’ll have to ask to be excused from the attempt; let us take on something easier for an order.
“Now,” he added, “about all we can do is to take off our hats to the old peak and say good morning as we pass.”
“And thank you very much, Sir Mountain,” said Jesse, gravely, his young face serious as he looked toward the peak, “because you let us see clear all up to the top.”
“It mightn’t happen once in months,” said Uncle Dick. “I’ve passed here several times,and I’ve never had as fine a view as we have right now. She’s thirteen thousand seven hundred feet, our triangulations made it. That’s something of a mountain, to be hid back in here all by itself, isn’t it?
“Up at the foot of the mountain,” he continued, “there’s a fine lake, as lovely as Lake Louise down in the lower Rockies. I do wish we had time to go up in there, for the lake is worth seeing. Some day it will be famous, and visited by thousands. At least we can see the edge of it from where we are, and lucky you are to have so early a look, I can assure you.
“Well, we’ll be going on,” said he, presently, as he gathered up his reins. “We can’t take the time now for fifteen miles of the sort of travel that lies between here and the foot of the mountain. At least we’ve seen Robson, full front and clear all the way to the summit—a most unusual sight. You may always remember now that you saw this mountain before it became common.”
They forded the Grand Fork itself without much difficulty, for it was a flat and shallow stream at this point. Passing on to the westward, they finally encamped in a flat fromwhich they still could see up the valley, it being the wish of all to keep in view as long as possible the great white summit ofYuh-hai-has-kun.
“To-morrow we’ll say good-by to Robson,” said Uncle Dick, “and we’ll camp at the Tête Jaune Cache.”
“
The last day on the trail!” Such was the first word with which the leader of our little party greeted his young friends when they rolled out of their tents in the morning. And soon all hands were busy adjusting the packs ready for the plucky animals which had brought them through so far. Their breakfast was hurried as rapidly as possible.
“Well,” said Rob, “I don’t know whether or not to be glad. We certainly have had a grand trip with the pack-train, hard as it has been sometimes. At least it’s brought us here to the foot of Mount Robson.”
“Our horses will be glad enough to be done with it,” said Uncle Dick. “Down at the Cache they’ll have all the grass they want and nothing to do for all the rest of this summer—unless some of Leo’s children take to riding them too hard.”
“Leo?” inquired John. “He’s the Indian who’s going to take us down the Canoe River, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and a good man, too, Leo. He and Moise will show us how to get along without the horses, eh, Moise?”
That good-natured man grinned and showed his white teeth. “Sometam she’ll ron pretty fast, this river on Columbia valley?” said he.
“Well, at any rate, we turn in our horses with Leo here at the Cache and get them the next time we come through—next year or some other year, perhaps. A horse takes his chance of getting a permanent residence in this part of the world. But our train has come through in fine shape—not a sore back in the lot. That speaks well for your care in packing, young men, and for Moise’s skill in making saddles.”
By this time they all had shaken down into the routine of packing the horses in the morning, and not long after they had finished their breakfast all was in readiness for their last march.
“En avant!” said Uncle Dick. “Mush! Moise, we’ll lunch at the Cache to-day.”
They swung on steadily down the broadenedvalley whose course now changed more to the southwest for five miles or so. The trail was much better, and as they reached the wide eastern end of the valley, which broadens out near the historic Tête Jaune Cache, they made rapid progress, animated by the continually changing scene before them.
For the last five miles they were in a broad, grassy valley where many hoofs had worn a plainly marked trail. On ahead they could see the Fraser swinging in from its southwest bend to meet them. The courses of many other small streams, outlined by green bushes, also could be seen coming in from almost every direction. Farther to the west and south lofty mountains rose, broken by caps which seemed to be of no great altitude. The Selwyns, on the other side of the Fraser, stood behind them, and off on the right gradually rose the high, sweeping hills which climbed to the shoulders of Mount Robson itself. The whole made an extraordinary landscape.
“We’re in the Tête Jaune Valley,” said Uncle Dick, halting at the edge of the grassy expanse which seemed quite flat for five miles or so ahead of them. “We’re coming now to one of the most interesting points in all theRocky Mountains, and one of the least known. Some day, where we are here, there will be a town, perhaps a good one. Yonder is the original pathway of the Fraser—five hundred feet across here already, and a great river before it gets much farther toward the Pacific. We leave it here, so let’s not give it a worse name than we have to, for, take it all in all, it hasn’t harmed us thus far.
“On across the Fraser, to the south, is the North Thompson,” he continued. “Not very much known by any except a few of our explorers. It’s rather rough-looking in there, isn’t it? The Albreda Pass makes up from the Thompson, over yonder where you see the big mountains rising.”
“Is that where we go to get to the Canoe River?” said John. “It’s over in there somewhere.”
“No, the pass to the Canoe River is a wonderful thing in its way for this high country. Look over there to the south twenty miles or so, and you’ll see Cranberry Lake. The McLennan River runs out of that to join the Fraser right here, and that lake is just twenty-one feet above the level of this ground where we stand! You could pole aboat up there if you liked. Just over Cranberry Lake it’s only a mile to where the Canoe River bends in from the west. That country is just made for a pass from the Fraser to the Columbia, and to my mind it’s quite as interesting as any of these great mountain passes. I don’t know of any divide as low as this between two waterways as great as those of the Fraser and the Columbia. It’s only two thousand five hundred and sixty-three feet above sea-level at the summit, and, as I said, is only twenty-one feet above the Fraser.”
“We must have come down quite a way,” said Rob, “since we left the pass.”
“More than a thousand feet. And in that thousand feet the Fraser has grown from a trickle to a great river—in fifty miles downhill.”
“Well, I can see,” said Rob, looking about the pleasant valley which lay before them, “that this is a good place for a town.”
“Certainly,” said the leader of their party. “There’ll be more than one railroad come through here across the Yellowhead Pass, very likely, and already they are making surveysdown the Fraser and Thompson and the Canoe River. Sometime there will be a railroad down the Big Bend of the Columbia below us, and it will have a branch up here, as sure as we’re standing here now. That will open up all this country from the points along the Canadian Pacific. Then all these names—the Thompson, the Fraser, and the Canoe—will be as familiar to the traveling public as the Missouri and the Mississippi. Yet as we stand here and look at that country it is a country as yet unknown and unnamed! I couldn’t map it, John, myself, for, although that country south of us is one of the most interesting of the continent, it is one of the least known. In short, that’s the game country we’ve been heading for, and I’ll promise you a grizzly when we get south of that flat divide.”
“Well,” said John, “that’ll satisfy me, all right. We’ve had mighty little shooting this far.”
“All in good time, all in good time, John, my boy. Maybe we’ll show you as good sport as you’re looking for, at least, what with rapids and grizzly bears.
“But now we must go on and find Leo, ifwe can. I sent word to him last fall for him to meet me here at the Cache this month. We’ll see what luck there is in the wilderness despatch.”
They passed on rapidly along and across the sunlit valley, exulting in a sense of freedom in getting out of the dark and gloomy mountains into an open country where they could see all about them. Soon they saw smoke rising above the tops of the low trees, and discovered it to come from a number of tepees, tall and conical, built with long poles, precisely like the tepees of the tribes east of the Rockies.
“That’s the Shuswap village,” said Uncle Dick. “Leo lives there with his people. Some good canoemen and hunters in there, too. First, let’s go on down to the end of the trail. I want you to see the actual location of the old Tête Jaune Cache.”
When they pulled up at the bank of the Fraser it was on an open flat shut in by low pines and poplars. They could see no building at all; only a few poles and tent-stakes littered the ground.
“This is the Cache,” said Uncle Dick.
“It isn’t so much of a place as I expected,”said John. “Weren’t there any houses here?”
“Over there, no doubt, were some log buildings once upon a time,” said Uncle Dick. “No doubt the old trappers built their cache well and strong, for plenty of good furs came through here—marten and ermine and beaver and otter—for the ladies of Great Britain to wear nearly a hundred years ago. But, you see, in this climate logs rot rather early, and the fires have run all through here, as well. So when the traders left these old trails Nature soon claimed her own and wiped out all traces of them. The cache has gone the way of Jasper House and Henry House.”
“What became of all of those old fellows?” inquired Rob. “We only hear of the ones that wrote books.”
“They are gone and forgotten,” said Uncle Dick. “No one knows even where old Tête Jaune himself—whether he was Iroquois or Swede or plain Injun—lies buried to-day. There is no record of where he laid his bones to rest. He was a brave man, whoever he was, and he lived in a great age of adventure. Think of what he must have seen, spending all his life in a country like this!
“But each to his own day, I suppose. Here we are at the end of our trail. We’ll have to cross the Fraser. I must see Leo, and learn what he has done about the boats—I’ve told him to build a couple of good big boats—bateaux—to take us down the Canoe River over yonder.
“Here, you see, we leave the trail,” he continued. “Yonder is the Fraser trail down to Fort George. Once at Fort George, you know, you can take an automobile down the old Ashcroft trail to the Canadian Pacific.”
“Automobile! What do you know about that!” exclaimed Jesse. “I didn’t know we were within a thousand miles of one.”
“Yes, within two hundred miles. It doesn’t look much like it, does it? You see, we’re living in rather a wonderful age. This country which looks so wild will not be wild very much longer. That’s the only reason I’ve allowed you to take so dangerous a journey as this, this spring, with me. Before long all these things will be common. People will come out here on the cars by thousands, and complain about the sleepers and the dining-car, when they are crossing the Rocky Mountains, very likely. One day they’ll havehorseback trails through here, as they do around Banff, and I suppose even old Mount Robson will get more or less common one time or another. But at least we’ve seen this country before those things happened.
“This is all there is to the old Cache. It’s mostly a memory, but history has written it down as one of the important places in the Rockies. John, you must bring your map up to date here, at the Tête Jaune Cache. And here your trail bends to the south, for now we’re going to follow the Columbia, and not the Fraser, after this, although my railroad goes on down the Fraser.
“We’ll ride over now to the village and see if we can find Leo,” he concluded, as he turned his horse back and started off in the direction of the tepees.
As our party of adventurers approached the Shuswap village, a little bit removed from the bank of the Fraser, they were greeted with a chorus of barking dogs. A number of children who had been playing in the grass fled in fright into the tepees, from the doors of which, none the less, presently appeared many heads alike of young and old.
As the horsemen pulled up in front of the central tepee there came out to meet them a slight but hardy figure, not very tall, but erect and strong, dressed in ordinary western garb, and a wide hat such as is common in that part of the country. His face was dark, and his hair, worn long, was braided, and fell to his shoulders on his neck. Grave and unsmiling like most of his people, none the less his eyes wrinkled a little bit about the corners as now he recognized the leader of the bandof horsemen. Advancing, he extended his hand to Uncle Dick and greeted him very pleasantly.
“How-do,” said he.
The party now dismounted, and their leader turned to his young companions. “This,” said he, “is Leo Tennes, the man I told you would be our guide down the Canoe River. When I tell you that he has run the Big Bend of the Columbia more than once I have said all there is to say about his fitness.”
He now introduced each of his young comrades in turn to Leo, who shook hands with them gravely and with dignity, but looking at them keenly meantime. He was evidently surprised at their youth, and perhaps none too well pleased, although obliged to admit to himself that these boys already had undergone many hardships to get this far on their journey.
Moise himself, usually light-hearted and talkative, now became silent and dignified also as he and Leo stood looking at each other. They shook hands, and each spoke to the other in his own tongue. Then both laughed.
“Me Shuswap!” said Leo.
“Cree!” rejoined Moise—“North Cree, me.”
Then, to the surprise and interest of theothers, these two, unable to converse in any common tongue except English, which neither seemed to fancy at the time, began to employ the singular sign language of the savage tribes, more or less universally known throughout the American continent. Moise put his two forefingers together parallel to show that he and Leo were friends. He pointed back across the mountains, and, placing his head on his hands and raising his fingers several times, signified that he had come, so many sleeps, to this place. He said they had come horseback—straddling his left forefinger with two fingers on his right hand. Then smilingly he pointed to the boys and to his own heart, and made a motion as though trying to break a stout stick, thus saying to Leo that their hearts were strong.
Leo stood looking at him unsmiling, and when he had finished threw out his right hand in front of him, palm down, by which he said: “That is all right. It is good. I am satisfied.”
“Oh, pshaw! Moise,” said Uncle Dick, laughing, “you and Leo can both talk English a great deal better than you let on. I’ll say, Leo, that our man Moise is as good in aboat as you are yourself, so you need not be uneasy. As for the rest of us, we’ll undertake to keep up our end. When will you be ready to start?”
“Maybe-so to-night, maybe-so to-morrow,” said Leo.
“And can you take care of our horses for us as I wrote you last fall?”
“Yes. Horse all right here. You get ’um next year all right.”
“Very well,” said Uncle Dick. “We’ll just unpack and turn them over right here.”
The boys were very regretful at saying good-by to their faithful animals, especially the saddle-ponies which had carried them safely so far. They stood looking at them rather ruefully.
“Never mind,” said Uncle Dick. “Leo has got some hay for them, and they will winter well here. I’ll warrant you they’ll be very glad to trade the trail for this pleasant valley here, where they can live in idleness and get fat for a year.
“Now, about the boat, Leo,” he resumed.
“All right. Got two boats,” said Leo. “I make ’um.” And he led the way to an open spot in the bushes where there stood twonewly completed boats, flat-bottomed and double-ended, with high sides, the material all made of whip-sawed lumber gotten out by Leo and his people.
Uncle Dick walked up to the boats and looked them over carefully. “Pretty heavy, Leo,” said he, “but they’ll do to run downhill all the way.”
“She’s good boat,” said Leo. “Need ’um strong.”
“Yes, about twenty-two feet long each one—that will carry us and our supplies nicely. You and your man will take one boat, and Moise and I the other. I think I’ll put the boys in our boat. What man are you going to get to go with you, Leo?”
“My cousin George; he’s good man. We make hunt last spring down the Canoe River.”
“What were you after?”
“After grizzlum bear.”
“Did you get one?”
“No, not get one.”
“Not one? And I thought that was a good bear country!”
“Not getone,” said Leo. “Get sixteen.”
“Sixteen! That’s something different.That looks as though we might expect some bears ourselves this spring.”
“All right, plenty grizzlum. Maybe-so forty, fifty mile.”
“What does he think about the running on the Canoe River, Uncle Dick?” inquired Rob. “Is it going to be bad water?”
“Not too bad water,” said Leo, turning to Rob. “Snow not too much melt yet on big hills. We take wagon first.”
“A wagon!” exclaimed John. “I didn’t know there was a wagon within a thousand miles.”
“My cousin other side river,” said Leo, proudly, “got wagon. Bring ’um wagon two hunder’ miles from Fort George on canoe. His horses heap kick wagon sometam, but bime-by all right. We get work on railroad bime-by.”
Rob and John stood looking at each other somewhat puzzled. “Well,” said John, “I thought we were coming to a wild country, but it looks as though everybody here was getting ready to be civilized as fast as possible. But even if we have a wagon, where are we going with it?”
“There’s a perfectly good trail up to Cranberry Lake, the summit of this divide, as Itold you,” said Uncle Dick. “I think Leo would rather take one of the boats by wagon. The rest of us can push the other boat up the McLennan, part way at least.”
“Good trail,” said Leo. “Suppose you’ll like, we got horse trail down Canoe River forty mile now. Many people come now. I been to Revelstruck [Revelstoke] three tam, me and my cousin George—part way horse, part way boat. Bime-by go on railroad. That’s why my cousin buy his wagon—work on railroad and get money for ticket to Revelstruck.”
“Well, what do you know about that, Rob?” said John. “This country certainly is full of enterprise. What I don’t understand is, how they got a wagon up the Fraser River in a canoe.”
After a time Leo led them down to the bank of the Fraser and showed them several of the long, dug-out canoes of the Shuswap, with which these people have navigated that wild river for many years. He explained how, by lashing two canoes together, they could carry quite a load without danger of capsizing; and he explained the laborious process of poling such a craft up this rapidriver. The boys listened to all these things in wonder and admiration, feeling that certainly they were in a new and singular country after all. Once all the trade of the Pacific coast had passed this very spot.
“Well now, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “you go get your cousin George, and let us begin to make plans to start out. We’ve got to hurry.”
“Oh, of course we’ve got to hurry!” said John, laughing. “I never saw you when you were not in a hurry, Uncle Dick.”
“S’pose we put boat on Canoe River or Columby River,” said Leo, smiling, “she’ll go plenty hurry, fast enough.”
By and by he brought another Indian of his own age, even darker in color and more taciturn.
“This George,” said he, “my cousin. I am mos’ bes’ grizzlum-hunter at Tête Jaune. George is mos’ bes’ man on boat.”
“And Moise is the most best cook,” said Uncle Dick, laughing. “Well, it looks as though we’d get along all right. But, since you accuse me of always being in too big a hurry, I’ll agree to camp here for the night. Boys, you may unroll the packs. Leo, you may get us that mosquito-tent I left with you last year.”
The boys all had a pleasant time visiting around the Indian village, and enjoyed, moreover, the rest after their long ride on the trail. On the morning of their start from Tête Jaune Cache they went to look once more at the boats which were now to make their means of transportation.
“I think they’ll be all right,” said Rob. “They’re heavier than the ones we had on the Peace River, and the sides are higher. You could put a ton in one of these boats and she’d ride pretty safe in rather rough water, I should say.”
“I’ll bet we’ll think they weigh a ton when we try to carry them down to the river,” said Jesse. “But I suppose there’ll be plenty of men to help do that.”
“Now, we’ll be leaving this place pretty soon,” continued John. “I hate to go awayand leave my pony, Jim. This morning he came up and rubbed his nose on my arm as if he was trying to say something.”
“He’d just as well say good-by,” smiled Rob, “for, big as our boats are, we couldn’t carry a pack-train along in them, and I think the swimming will be pretty rough over yonder.”
“These are pretty heavy paddles,” said Jesse, picking up one of the rough contrivances Leo had made. “They look more like sweeps. But they’re not oars, for I don’t see any thole-pins.”
“It’ll be all paddling and all down-stream,” said Rob. “You couldn’t use oars, and the paddles have to be very strong to handle boats as heavy as these. You just claw and pole and pull with these paddles, and use them more to guide than to get up motion for the boat.”
“How far do we go on the Canoe River?” inquired Jesse of Rob. “You’ll have to be making your map now, John, you know.”
“Leo called it a hundred and fifty miles from the summit to the Columbia River,” replied Rob, “but Uncle Dick thought it was not over eighty or a hundred miles in a straight line.”
“Besides, we’ve got to go down the Columbia River a hundred miles or so,” added John, drawing out his map-paper. “I’m going to lay out the courses each day.”
“It won’t take long to run that far in a boat,” said Rob. “And I only hope Uncle Dick won’t get in too big a hurry, although I suppose he knows best about this high water which he seems to dread so much all the time. Leo told me that about the worst thing on the Canoe River was log-jams—driftwood, I mean.”
The boys now bent over John’s map on which he was beginning to trace some preliminary lines.
“Yonder to the left and south, somewhere, Rob, is the Athabasca Pass, which the traders all used who used the Columbia River instead of the Fraser. Somewhere on our way south we’ll cut their trail. It came down some of these streams on the left. I don’t know whether they came up the Canoe River or not, but not regularly, I’m sure. On Thompson’s map you’ll see another stream running south almost parallel to the Canoe—that’s the Wood River. They didn’t use that very much, from all I can learn, and that place onthe Columbia called the Boat Encampment was a sort of a round-up place for all those who crossed the Athabasca Pass. Just to think, we’re going the same trail on the big river traveled a hundred years ago by David Thompson and Sir George Simpson, and Doctor Laughlin, of old Fort Vancouver, and all those old chaps!”
“I wonder what kind of boats they had in those times,” remarked Jesse.
“They seem to have left no record about these most interesting details in their business. I suppose, however, they must have had log canoes a good deal like these Indians use on the Fraser. I don’t think they used birch-bark; and if they had boats made out of sawed boards, I can’t find any mention of it.”
While they were standing talking thus, and working on John’s map, they were approached by the leader of the party with the men who were to accompany them, and one or two other Indians of the village.
“All ready now,” said Uncle Dick. “Here, you men, carry this boat down to the river-bank. The rest of you get busy with the packs.”
“There she goes, the old Fraser,” said John,as they gathered at the river-bank. “It’s a good rifle-shot across her here, and she’s only fifty miles long. It looks as though we’d have our own troubles getting across, too.”
But Leo and George, well used to navigation on these swift waters, took the first boat across, loaded, without any difficulty, standing up and paddling vigorously, and making a fairly straight passage across the rapid stream, although they landed far below their starting-point. With no serious difficulty the entire party was thus transported, and soon the heavier of the two boats, with most of the camp supplies, was loaded on the new red wagon of Leo’s other cousin, who now stood waiting for them, having his own troubles with a pair of fractious young cayuses that he had managed to hitch to the wagon.
With this last addition to their party perched on top, and Leo and George walking alongside, the procession started off up the trail across the valley, headed for the low divide which lay beyond. The remaining boat, manned by Moise and Uncle Dick at bow and stern, was launched on the little river which came down from Cranberry Lake.The boys, rifles in hand, and light packs on their shoulders, trudged along on foot, cutting off bends and meeting the boat every once in a while. They had an early start after all, and, the wagon doubling back after depositing its load late in the afternoon to bring on the second boat, they all made camp on the summit not far from the lake that evening.
“
John,” said Uncle Dick, before they broke camp the following morning, “you’ll have some work to do now with your map. This pass is not as high as the Yellowhead Pass, but in a way it’s almost as interesting because it is the divide between the Fraser and the Columbia valleys; so you must get it on the map.
“Yonder is the river which old Simon Fraser thought was the Columbia, and the river which first took Sir Alexander Mackenzie to the Pacific. South of us runs the great Columbia, bending up as far as it can to reach this very spot. South to the Columbia run these two rivers, the Canoe and the Wood. Over yonder is the Albreda Pass, by which you reach the Thompson—glaciers enough there to suit any one. And over in that way, too, rises the Canoe River, whichruns conveniently right toward us here, within a mile of our lake, inviting us to take its pathway to the Columbia.
“Over that way on the left, as you know, lie the Rockies, and outside of two or three passes between the Kicking Horse Pass and the Yellowhead Pass no one really knows much about them. You see, we’ve quite a little world of our own in here. The white men are just beginning to come into this valley.”
“Where are we going to hunt the grizzlies, Leo?” inquired Rob, after a time, as they busied themselves making ready for the portage with the canoe.
Leo rose and pointed his hand first south, and then to the west and south.
“Little creek come in from high mountain,” said he. “All valleys deep, plenty slides.”
“Slides? What does he mean, Uncle Dick?” inquired John.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Leo hunts bear here in about the only practical way, which is to say, on the slides which the avalanches have torn down the sides of the mountains. You see, all these mountainsides are covered with enormous forest growth, so dense that youcould not find anything in them, for game will hear or see you before you come up with it. These forests high up on the mountains make the real home of the grizzly. In the spring, however, the first thing a grizzly does is to hunt out some open country where he can find grass, or roots, or maybe mice or gophers—almost anything to eat. Besides, he likes to look around over the country, just like a white goat, apparently. So he will pick out a sort of feeding-ground or loafing-ground right in one of these slides—a place where the snow-slips have carried away the trees and rocks perhaps many years earlier and repeated it from year to year.
“On these slides you will find grass and little bushes. As this is the place where the bears are most apt to be, and as you could not see them anyhow if they were anywhere else, that is where the hunters look for them. Late in the afternoon is the best time to find a grizzly on a slide. You see, his fur is very hot for him, and he doesn’t like the open sun, and stays in until the cooler hours of the day. Evidently Leo has found some creeks down below in the Canoe Valley where the hunters have not yet got in, and that is why he madesuch a big hunt last spring. Indeed, there are a number of creeks which come into the Columbia from the west where almost no hunting has ever been done, and where, very likely, one could make a good bear-hunt any time this month.”
The boys all agreed that the prospects of getting a grizzly apiece seemed very good indeed, and so set to work with much enthusiasm in the task of re-embarking, on the rapid waters of the Canoe River, here a small and raging stream, but with water sufficient to carry down the two bateaux. Their man with the wagon, without saying good-by, turned and went back to his village on the banks of the Fraser. Thus in the course of a day, the young travelers found themselves in an entirely different country, bound upon a different route, and with a wholly different means of transport. The keen delight of this exciting form of travel took hold upon them, and Uncle Dick and Moise, who handled the rear boat, in which all the boys were passengers, had all they could do to keep them still and to restrain their wish to help do some of the paddling.
Leo and his cousin George, as has beenstated, took the lead in the boat which the party christened theLizzie W., in honor of Jesse’s mother. The rear boat they called theBronco, because of her antics in some of the fast rapids which from time to time they encountered.
For a time they made none too rapid progress on their stream, which, though deep enough, was more or less clogged with sweepers and driftwood in some of the bends. Uncle Dick gave Leo orders not to go more than one bend ahead, so that in case of accident the boats would be in touch with each other. Thus very often the rear boat ran up on the forward one, lying inshore, and held ready to line down some bad chute of the stream.
In this work all bore a hand. The lines to be used were made of rawhide, which would have been slippery except for the large knots tied every foot or so to give a good handhold. Of course, in all this, as much in as out of the water, pretty much every one in the party got soaked to the skin, but this was accepted as part of the day’s work, and they all went steadily on down the stream, putting mile after mile behind them, and opening up at every bend additional vistas of splendid mountain prospects.
At noon they paused to boil the tea-kettle, but made only a short stop. So steady had been their journey that when they pitched camp for the night on a little beach they estimated that their progress had been more than that of a pack-train in a good day’s travel. That night they had for supper some fresh grouse, or “fool-hens,” which fell to Jesse’s rifle out of a covey which perched in the bushes not far from their camp-site. They passed a very jovial night in this camp, well content alike with their advance and with the prospects which now they felt lay before them.
“
This weather,” said Uncle Dick, walking toward an open place in the trees and looking up at the bright sky above, “is entirely too fine to suit me. This morning looks as though we would have a warm day, and that means high water. The rock walls in the cañons below here don’t stretch, and a foot of water on a flat like this may mean twenty feet rise in a cañon. And that is where this little band of travelers will all get out and walk.”
Leo, who had been examining his boat, which he had drawn up on the beach to dry overnight, now asked a little time to calk a leak which he had discovered. Meantime the boys concluded it might be a good plan to walk out a little way into an open place and try the sights of their rifles, which they knew would need to be exactly right if theywere to engage in such dangerous sport as that of hunting the grizzly bear.
“S’pose you see some small little bear,” said Moise, as they started out, “you shoot ’um. Shoot ’um caribou too, s’pose you see one—law says traveler can kil meat.”
“Well, we’re not apt to see one,” said John, “for we’d scare them when we began to shoot our rifles.”
They had advanced only a few hundred yards from the camp when they found an open place in front of the trees which offered a good opportunity for a rifle-range of two hundred yards.
“I’m not going to fool with my sights,” said Jesse, “because my gun shot all right last night on the grouse. You fellows go ahead.”
Rob and John proceeded with the work of targeting their rifles, firing perhaps a dozen shots apiece in all before they turned to walk back to the camp. As they did so Rob, happening to look back of them, suddenly halted them with a low word. “What’s that?” said he.
An animal large as a two-year-old heifer and wearing short stubs of horns was trottingtoward them steadily, as though bound to come directly up to them. So far from being alarmed by the firing, it seemed to have been attracted by it, and really it was only curiosity which brought it up thus to its most dangerous enemy. It had never heard a rifle or seen a human being before in all its life.
“Caribou!” said Rob in a low tone of voice. Even as he spoke John’s rifle rang out, and the other two followed promptly. The stupid beast, now within sixty yards of them, fell dead in less time than it would take to tell of the incident. A moment later the boys stood at its side, excitedly talking together.
“Go back to camp, Jesse,” said Rob, at length, “and tell Moise to come out. John and I will stay and begin to skin out the meat.”
Moise, when he came out from camp, was very much pleased with the results of this impromptu hunt. “Plenty fat meat now,” said he. “That’s nice young caribou, heem.” He fell rapidly to work in his experienced fashion, and in a short time he and George had packed the meat down to the camp and loaded it in the two boats, both of which were now ready for the departure.
“That’s the most obliging caribou I ever heard of,” said Rob, “to walk right into our camp that way. I’ve read about buffalo-hunters in the old times running a buffalo almost into camp before they killed it, to save trouble in packing the meat. But they’d have to do pretty well if they beat this caribou business of ours.”
Leo stood looking at the young hunters with considerable surprise, for he had been very skeptical of their ability to kill any game, and extremely distrustful of their having anything to do with grizzly hunting.
“Plenty caribou this valley,” said he; “big black-face caribou. Heem plenty fool, too. Caribou he don’t bite. But s’pose you’ll see grizzlum bear, you better look out—then maybe you get some scares. S’pose you get some scares, you better leave grizzlum alone.”
“Never mind, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, laughing at him, “let’s not worry about that yet a while. First find your grizzly.”
“Find plenty grizzlum to-morrow, one day, two day,” said Leo. “Not far now.”
They determined to make a good long run that day, and indeed the stage of water aided them in that purpose; but Uncle Dick, asleader of the party, found that Leo and George had very definite ideas of their own as to what constituted a day’s work. When noon came—although neither of them had a watch—they went ashore at a beach and signified their intention of resting one hour, quite as though they were members of a labor-union in some city; so nothing would do but the kettle must be boiled and a good rest taken.
“How’ll you and George get back up this stream, Leo?” inquired Rob, seating himself by the Indians as they lolled on the sand.
“That easy,” said Leo. “We go Revelstruck two, three tam, my cousin and me. Come up Columby those wind behind us all right. Sometam pull boat on rope, mos’ tam pole. Sometam pull ’um up on bush, little bit at time. But when we come on Columby, up Canoe, we get horse fifty miles this side Cranberry Lake and go out on trail. It most easy to go down and not come up.”
“Well, I should say so,” said Rob, “and on the whole I’m glad we don’t have to come back at all.”
“We not come back this way,” said Leo, calmly lighting his pipe.
“But I thought you just said that you did.”
“Not this tam. My cousin and me we go on railroad from Revelstruck west to Ashcroft. Plenty choo-choo wagon Ashcroft near Fort George. At Fort George two, three choo-choo boat nowadays. We get on choo-choo boat and go up to Tête Jaune. That’s more easy. Bime-by railroad, then heap more easy.”
“Well, will you listen to that!” said John, as Leo concluded. “Automobiles and powerboats up in this country, and a railroad coming in a couple of years! It looks to me as though we’d have to go to the north pole next time, if we get anywhere worth while.”
“Bime-by grizzlum,” said Leo, rising after a while and tightening his belt, as he walked down to the boats. “I know two, three good place. We camp this night, make hunt there.”
As they advanced to the southward the boys all felt that they were, in spite of all these threats of an advancing civilization, at last in the wilderness itself. Where the stream swept in close to the mountain range they could see dense, heavy forest, presenting an unbroken cover almost to the tops of the peaks themselves. At times when obliged to leave the bed of the stream for a little while, when the men lined down the boat on a bad passage, the boys would find themselves confronted, even when going a hundred yards or so, with a forest growth whose like they had never seen. Giant firs whose trunks were six feet or more in diameter were everywhere. Sometimes they would find one of these giants fallen in the woods, crashing down through the other trees, even great trunks spanning little ravines or gullies as bridges.
They were willing enough to make theirpath along any of these trunks which lay in their way, for below them lay the icy floor of the forest, covered with wet moss, or with slush and snow, since the sun hardly ever shone fair upon the ground in these heavy forests. Dense alders and thickets of devil’s-club also opposed them, so that they were at a loss to see how any one could make his way through such a country as this, and were glad enough to reach even the inhospitable pathway of their mountain river and to take to the boats again.
Unquestionably they made a long run that afternoon, for Leo evidently was in a hurry to reach some certain point. Late as the sun sank in that northern latitude, it was almost dark when at length they pulled inshore on an open beach at the mouth of the brawling stream which came down from the west out of a deep gorge lined with the ancient and impenetrable forest growth.
“I wish we had some fish to eat,” said John. “Couldn’t we catch any in this creek, or in the river?”
“No catch ’um trout,” said Leo. “Too much ice and snow in water. Some trout in Columby. In summer salmon come.”
“And in spring mosquito come,” said Jesse, slapping at his face. “I think we’d better put up our new mosquito-tents from this time on.”
“All right,” said John. “That’s a good idea. We haven’t needed them very much yet, but it looks as though the warm weather was going to hatch out a lot of fly.”
They now proceeded to put up on the beach one of the tents which had earlier been brought along to the Cache by their uncle from Seattle, where much of the Alaskan outfitting is done. This tent was a rather curious affair, but effective in its way. It had about a three-foot wall, and the roof extended for two inches beyond the sides, as well as the two inches above the top, or ridge, where a number of grommets allowed the passage of a rope for a ridge-pole. The boys pitched the tent by means of a ridge-pole above the tent, supported by crotched poles at each end, and lashed the top firmly to the ridge-pole.
The interior of the tent was like a box, for the floor was sewed to the bottom of the walls all around and the front end of the tent did not open at all. Instead it had a round hole large enough to admit a man’s body, and tothe edges of this hole was sewed a long sleeve, or funnel, of light drilling, with an opening just large enough to let a man crawl through it to the interior of the tent. Once inside, he could, as John explained it, pull the hole in after him and then tie a knot in the hole. The end of the sleeve, or funnel, was tied tight after the occupant of the tent had gotten inside.
In order to secure ventilation, ample windows, covered with bobbinet, or cheese-cloth, were provided in each end and in the sides, each with a little curtain of canvas which could be tied down in case of rain. Their engineer uncle, who had aided in the perfection of this device, declared it to be the only thing which made engineering possible in this far northern country, which was impassable in the winter-time, and intolerable in the summer-time for the man who has no defense against the insect pests which make life so wretched for the inexperienced traveler in the north.
Leo looked with considerable interest at this arrangement after the boys had crawled in and made their beds inside ready for the night’s rest. The boys offered him the use oftheir old tent, if he liked, but he seemed a trifle contemptuous about it.
“Fly no hurt Injun,” said he. And indeed he, George, and Moise all slept in the open by preference, with only their blankets drawn over their heads to protect them against the onslaughts of the mosquitoes.
They were now at their first hunting-ground, and our young friends were keen enough to be about the business soon after the sun had begun to warm up their little valley the next day. Leo swept a hand to the steep gorge down which the little creek came tumbling. “Plenty slide up there,” said he. “Maybe-so three mile, maybe-so five.”
“Well, now, how about that, Leo?” inquired Uncle Dick. “That’s quite a climb, perhaps. Shall we come back here to-night, or stay up in the hills? We might pack up a camp outfit, and let Moise and George come back here to spend the night.”
“All right,” said Leo. “That’s most best way. High up this creek she come flatten down—little valley there, plenty slide, plenty grizzlum.”
“No mosquito-tent now, fellows,” saidRob, laughing. “That’ll be too heavy to pack up—we’ll take the light silk shelter-tent, and get on the best we can to-night, eh?”
“Precisely,” said Uncle Dick, “and only one blanket for two. That, with our rifles and axes and some bacon and flour, will make all the load we need in a country such as this.”
Equipped for the chase, early in the day they plunged into the dense forest which seemed to fill up completely the valley of the little stream which came tumbling down out of the high country. Leo went ahead at a good pace, followed by Moise and George with their packs. Uncle Dick and the young hunters carried no packs, but, even so, they were obliged to keep up a very fast gait to hold the leaders in sight. The going was the worst imaginable, the forest being full of devil’s-club and alder, and the course—for path or trail there was none—often leading directly across the trunk of some great tree over which none of the boys could climb unassisted.
At times they reached places along the valley where the only cover was a dense growth of alders, all of which leaned downhill close to the ground, and then curved upstrongly at their extremities. Perhaps no going is worse than side-hill country covered with bent alders, and sometimes the boys almost lost their patience. They could not stoop down under the alders, and could hardly crawl over or through them.
“This is the worst ever, Uncle Dick,” complained Jesse. “What makes them grow this way?”
“It’s the snow,” replied his uncle. “All this country has a very heavy snowfall in the winter. It packs down these bushes and slides down over them until it combs them all downhill. Then when the snow melts or slides off the ends of the bushes begin to grow up again toward the light and the sun. That’s why they curve at the ends and why they lie so flat to the ground. Mixed in with devil’s-club, I must say these alders are enough to try a saint.”
In the course of an hour or so they had passed the heaviest forest growth and gotten above the worst of the alder thicket. On ahead they could now begin to see steep mountainsides, and their progress was up the shoulder of a mountain, at as sharp an angle as they could well accomplish. Aftera time they came to a steep slope still covered with a long, slanting drift of snow which ran down sharply to the tumbling creek below them. Across this the three men with the packs already made their way, but the boys hesitated, for the snow seemed to lie at an angle of at least forty-five degrees, and a slip would have meant a long roll to the bottom of the slope.
“It’s perfectly safe,” said Uncle Dick, “especially since the others have stamped in footholds. You just follow me and step in my tracks. Not that way, Jesse—don’t lean in toward the slope, for that is not the way to cross ice or snow on a side-hill. If you lean in, don’t you see, you make yourself most liable to slip? Walk just as straight up as though you were on level ground—that’s the safest position you can take.”
“Well,” said Jesse, “I can understand how that theory works, but it’s awfully hard not to lean over when you feel as though your feet were going to slip from under you.”
They gained confidence as they advanced on the icy side-hill, and got across without mishap. Soon they came up with the three packers, who were resting and waiting for them.
“Make camp soon now,” said Leo. “Good place. Plenty slide not far.”
Indeed, within half a mile the men threw off their packs at a grunted word or so from Leo, and at once began to make their simple preparations for a camp. It was now almost noon, and all the party were well tired, so that a kettle of tea seemed welcome.
“Which way do we hunt from here, Leo?” inquired Uncle Dick, as they sat on a rock at the comfortable little bivouac they had constructed.
“Walk one mile,” answered Leo, “go around edge this mountain here. Come little creek there, three, four good slides. We kill ’um bear last spring. Camp here, so not get too close.”
After a time they were all ready for the hunt, but Leo seemed unhappy about something.
“You s’pose them boy go along?” he inquired of the leader.
“They surely do,” was the answer. “That’s what we came here for.”
“Even those small leetle boy?”
“Even those small leetle boy, yes, Leo. You don’t need to be uneasy—you and I cantake care of these boys if they show they can’t take care of themselves. How about that, Moise?”
“I’ll tol’ Leo those boy she’ll been all right,” said Moise. “I’ll been out with those boy when she’ll ain’t one year so old as he is now, and she’s good honter then, heem. Those boy she’ll not get scare’. Better for those bear he’ll get scare’ and ron off!”
Accordingly, there were five rifles in the party which at length started up the mountain after Moise and George had gone back down the trail to the main camp on the river. They climbed upward in country now grown very steep, and at last turned into a high, deep gorge out of which came a brawling stream of milky-colored ice-water, some twenty or thirty yards across. Without hesitation Leo plunged in and waded across, proving the stream to be not much more than knee-deep. And truth to say, Uncle Dick was proud of his young comrades when, without a word or a whimper, they unhesitatingly plunged in also and waded through after their leader. Nothing was said about the incident, but it was noticeable that Leo seemed more gracious thereafter toward theyoung hunters, for pluck is something an Indian always admires.
“Now, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, when after a steady march of some time they had reached the foot of a slide perhaps half a mile or so in extent, which lay like a big gash of green on the face of the black mountain slope, “I suppose this is where we make our first hunt.”
Leo nodded, and began to feel in his pockets for some cartridges.
“Now never mind about loading up your magazine any more than it is, Leo,” went on the other, “and just pump out the shells from your rifle. If there’s any bear-killing done by this party this afternoon these boys are going to do it, and you and I will only serve as backing guns in case of trouble. My gun’s loaded, but I know you well enough, Leo, old man, not to let you load your gun just yet awhile—you’d be off up the hill if we saw a bear, and you’d have it killed before any of the others got a chance for a shot. You just hold your horses for a while, neighbor, and give my boys a chance.”
“Me no like,” said Leo, rather glumly. “Me heap kill ’um grizzlum.”
“Not this evening! These boys hunt ’umgrizzlum this evening, Leo. They’ve come a long way, and they have to begin sometime. You live in here, and can kill plenty of bear any time you like. Besides, if any one of these boys kills a bear this afternoon I’m going to give you twenty dollars—that’ll be about as good as though you killed one yourself and got nothing but your wages, won’t it, Leo?”
Leo broke out into a broad smile. “All right,” said he. “But please, when you come on bear, let me load gun.”
“Certainly,” said Uncle Dick. “I’m not going to ask any man to stand in front of a grizzly with an empty rifle. But I’m not going to let you shoot until the time comes, believe me.”
The boys found it right cold sitting about in this high mountain air with their clothing still wet from their fording of the stream. They could see on ahead of them the flattened valley of the creek which they had ascended, and Leo promised that perhaps on the next day they would move their camp farther in that direction and so avoid fording the icy torrent twice a day.
“First hunt this slide,” said he. “Heap good. I ketch ’um bear here every time.”
For an hour or more it seemed as if Leo was not going to “ketch ’um bear” this afternoon, and all the members of the party except himself grew cold and uneasy, although he sat impassive, every so often glancing up the steep slope above them. All at once they heard him give a low grunt.
Following his gaze, they saw, high up on the slide, and nearly half a mile away, a great, gray figure which, even without the glasses, they knew to be a large grizzly bear. The boys felt the blood leap in their veins as they stood looking up at this great creature, which carelessly, as though it knew nothing of any intrusion, now strolled about in full view above them. Sometimes it pawed idly as though hunting grass roots or the like, and then again it would stand and look vacantly down the mountainside.
“He’ll see us, sure,” whispered Rob.
“S’pose keep still, no see ’um,” said Leo, still sitting looking at the bear. “S’pose hear ’um noise in bush, heem not scare. S’pose him smell us small little bit, heem run, sure. Wind this way. We go up this side.”
They now threw off all encumberingclothing, and each of the boys, with loaded rifle, began the ascent of the mountain, parallel to the slide, and under the thick cover of the forest. More than once Uncle Dick had to tap Leo on the shoulder and make him wait for the others, for an Indian has no mercy on a weak or inexperienced person on a hunting-trail. Indeed, so little did he show the fabled Indian calm, he was more excited than any of the others when they began to approach a point from which they might expect to see their game. Uncle Dick reached out his hand for Leo’s rifle and motioned for him to go ahead for a look. Leo advanced quietly to the edge of the slide and stood for a time peering out from behind the screening bush. Presently he came back.
“Beeg bear,” said he, “grizzlum. Heem eat grass. Up there, two, three hundred yard.”
Uncle Dick turned to look at his young friends to see how they were standing the excitement of this experience. Jesse was a little pale, but his eyes were shining. Rob, as usual, was a little grave and silent, and John, although somewhat out of breath, showed no disposition to halt. Smiling tohimself, Uncle Dick motioned Leo to the rear; and once more they began their progress, this time closer to the edge of the slide and working steadily upward all the time.
At length he held up his hand. They could hear a low, whining, discontented sound, as though the bear were grumbling at the food which he was finding. Uncle Dick laid his finger on his lips and beckoned to Rob to go on ahead. Without hesitation Rob cocked his rifle and strode forward toward the edge of the slide, the others cautiously following, and Uncle Dick now handing Leo a handful of his cartridges, but raising a restraining hand to keep him back in his place.
They saw Rob, stooping down, advance rapidly to the edge of the cover and peer out intently, his rifle poised. Then quick as thought he raised his rifle and fired one shot, stood a half instant, and dashed forward.
There was no sound of any thrashing about in the bushes, nor had Rob fired more than the one shot, but when they joined him it was at the side of the dead body of a five-hundred-pound grizzly, in prime, dark coat, a silver tip such as any old bear-hunter would have been proud to claim as a trophy.
Rob was trying his best to control his excitement, and both the other boys were trembling quite as much as he. Leo quite forgot his calm and gave a tremendous yell of joy, and, advancing, shook Rob warmly by the hand. “Heap shoot!” said he. “I see!” And, taking the bear by the ear, he turned its head over to show the small red hole in the side of the skull.
“He was right here,” said Rob, “not thirty-five yards away. When I first saw him his head was down, but then he raised it and stood sideways to me. I knew if I could hit him in the butt of the ear I’d kill him dead at once, so I took that shot.”
“Son,” said Uncle Dick, “this is fine business. I couldn’t have done better myself.”
“I s’pose you’ll give me twenty dollar now,” said Leo; at which they all laughed heartily.
“I certainly will, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “and will do it right now, and on the spot! You certainly made good in taking us up to the bear, and it certainly was worth twenty dollars to see Rob kill him as quick and clean as he did.”
“Is he good to eat?” asked John.
“No, John. And if he were, you couldn’teat all of him; he’s too big. Some men have eaten grizzly liver, but I beg to be excused. But here’s a robe that down in the States would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars these days. Come on, Leo, let’s get our work over with and get back to camp.”
Under the experienced hands of Leo and Uncle Dick the great robe was rapidly removed. Leo rolled it into a pack, and Uncle Dick showed him how to make it firm by using two square-pointed sticks to hold it in shape after it was folded—a trick Moise had taught them long before. Leo, though not a large man, proved powerful, for he scorned all assistance after the heavy pack was once on his shoulders, and so staggered down the mountainside. So pleased were the boys over the success of their hunt that they hardly noticed the icy ford when again they plunged through the creek on their way to camp.