RIVERON THE COLUMBIA RIVER
It took but a few moments now for them to embark, and soon they were plying their paddles once more and passing swiftly down the great river. Although they knew Leo was not very loquacious, and so not apt to say much of dangers on ahead, the general feeling of allthe others was that the worst of their route had been traversed and that now they were in close touch with civilization.
They were moving along steadily in the bright, warm sunlight, and John and Rob were assisting with paddles on each side of the boat, when all at once they saw the lead-boat leave the center of the channel and shoot to the left toward a high bluff, which, they could see, was surmounted by several buildings.
“What’s the matter?” said Jesse. “Rapids on ahead?”
“No,” said Uncle Dick, “not rapids, but houses and barns! This must be the Boyd farm, and, if so, we’re very likely done with our boating. Heave ho, then, my hearties, and let’s see how fast we can paddle!”
They pulled up presently at the foot of the bluff, where Leo and George lay waiting for them.
“Hallo, Leo! What place is this?” called Jesse.
“This Sam Boyd farm. Steamboat come here—not go more higher,” answered Leo. He steadied the bow of theBroncoas they swung in, and soon all were standing on the shore.
“Plenty house here, plenty farm—trail up there, all way to Revelstruck,” said Leo.
The boys looked at their boat and at the river, and then gazed up the bank, at the summit of which, as they now learned, lay what might be called the skirmish-line of civilization, the point which practically ended their adventures. A feeling of regret and disappointment came over them all, which was reflected in their countenances as they turned toward their leader.
“I know how you feel, boys,” said their uncle, “for I never want to leave the woods myself. But we’ll go up and have a look over things, and find out maybe more than Leo has told us about our plans.”
When they had climbed to the top of the highest bank they saw before them a clearing of over two hundred acres, a part of which had been made into a hay-field. Immediately in front of them was a yard full of beautiful flowers, kept as well as any flower-garden in the cities. To the left lay a series of barns and sheds, and near by was a vegetable-garden in which small green things already were beginning to show.
“Well, what do you know about this?” demanded John. “It looks as though we certainly had got to where people live at last. This is the finest place we’ve seen in many a day, and I’ll bet we can get something to eat here, too.”
Leo raised a shout, which presently brought out of the house a man who proved to be the caretaker of the place, a well-seasoned outdoorcharacter by name of O’Brien. He advanced now and made them welcome.
“Come in, come in,” said he, “and tell me who ye may be and where ye come from? Is it you, Leo? I thought you were at the Cache, far above.”
“We all were there a few days ago,” replied the leader of the party. “We engaged Leo to bring us down the Canoe and the Columbia, and out to Revelstoke—we’ve crossed the mountains at the Yellowhead Pass, coming west from Edmonton by pack-train.”
“Ye’re jokin’, man!” rejoined O’Brien. “Shure, ye’ll not be tellin’ me those boys came all that way?”
“Him did,” said Leo, with almost his first word of praise. “Boys all right. Kill ’um grizzlum. Not scare’ of rapid.”
They went on now to explain to O’Brien more details of their journey and its more exciting incidents, including the hunt for the grizzlies and the still more dangerous experiences on the rapids. O’Brien listened with considerable amazement.
“But I know Leo,” he added, “and he’ll go annywheres in a boat. ’Tis not the first time he’s run this river, bad cess to her! But comein the house now, and I’ll be gettin’ ye something to eat, for belike ye’re hungry.”
“We are frankly and thoroughly hungry,” said Uncle Dick, “especially John here, who is hungry most of the time. We’ve reached your place just as our grub was about gone. Can we stock up with you a little bit, O’Brien?”
“Shure, if ye need to. But why not take passage on the steamer—she’s due this afternoon at three o’clock, and she’s goin’ down to-morrow. Ye see, we run a wood-yard here, for the steamboat company owns this farm now, and I’m takin’ care of it for them.”
“What do you say, boys?” asked their leader. “Shall we make it on down? Or shall we take to the steamer and leave our boats here?”
“Better take to the steamboat,” said O’Brien. “True, ye could get down mayhap to the head of Revelstoke Cañon all right, but then ye’d have to walk in about five miles annyway. The steamer can’t run the cañon herself, for that matter, and no boat should try it at this stage, nor anny other stage, fer all that. She’s a murderer, this old river, that’s what she is.”
Leo and Moise now helped O’Brien with his preparation of the meal, so that in a littletime they were all sitting on real chairs and at a real table, with a real oil-cloth cover—the first of such things they had seen for many a day. Their own tin dishes they left in their boats, and ate from china, coarse but clean. Their meal was well cooked and abundant, and O’Brien gave them with a certain pride some fresh rhubarb, raised in a hotbed of his own, and also fried eggs.
“Wait a little,” said he, “and I’ll give ye new potatoes and all sorts o’ things. ’Tis a good farm we have here.”
“But how came you to have a farm like this, up here in the Selkirks?” inquired Rob.
“Well, you see,” answered O’Brien, “there’s quite a bit of gold-mining up here, and has been more. Those camps at the gold-creeks above here all needed supplies, and they used to pack them in—the pack-trail’s right back of our barn yonder. But Sam Boyd knew that every pound of hay and other stuff he raised fifty miles north of Revelstoke was that much closer to the market. This was his farm, you know—till the river got him, as she will every one who lives along her, in time.
“Ye see, Sam was the mail-carrier here, between Revelstoke and the camps above, and,as the trail is a horror, he mostly went by boat. His partner was Tom Horn, a good riverman too, and the two of them in their canoe went up and down together manny a trip. ’Twas a careful man he was, too, Sam, and no coward. But one time, to save them a little walk, I suppose, they concluded to run the Revelstoke Cañon. Well, they never got through, and what became of them no one knows, except that their boat came through in bits. Ye’re lucky this fellow Leo didn’t want to run ye all through there, with the fine big boats ye’ve got below. But at least Sam and Tom never made it through.
“Well, the old river got them, as she has so manny. Sam’s widow lived on here fer a time, then went to town and died there, and the company took the farm. They have a Chink to keep Mrs. Boyd’s flower-garden going the way she did before, for the boys all liked it in the mines. And back in the woods is a whole bunch of Chinks, wood-cutters that supplies the boats. When my Chink is done his gardenin’ I make him hoe my vegetables fer me.
“So ye’re grizzly-hunters, are ye, all of ye?” continued O’Brien. “And not afraid to takeyer own life in your hands? ’Tis well, and anny man must learn that who goes into the wilds. But manny a tale I could tell ye of bould and brave men who’ve not been able to beat this old river here. Take yon cañon above Revelstoke, fer instance. She’d be but a graveyard, if the tale was told. One time six men started through in a big bateau, and all were lost but one, and he never knew how he got through at all. Once they say a raft full of Chinamen started down, and all were swept off and drowned but one. He hung to a rope, and was swept through somehow, but when they found him he was so bad scared he could not say a word. He hit the ties afoot, goin’ west and shakin’ his head, and maybe bound for China. No man could ever get him to spake again!
“Now do ye mind the big rapids up there they call the Death Rapids, above the Priest—I’m thinkin’ ye lined through there, or ye wouldn’t be here at the table now, much as I know how Leo hates to line a boat.”
“We certainly did line,” said Uncle Dick, “and were glad to get through at that. We lost almost a day there getting down.”
“Lucky ye lost no more, fer manny a manhas lost his all at that very spot. Once a party of fourteen started down, in good boats, too, and only one man got out alive. Some say sixty men have been drowned in that one rapid; some say a hundred and sixty-five, counting in the Chinamen and Frenchmen who were drowned in the big stampede the time so manny started down to the diggings on rafts. Ye see, they’d shoot right around the head of the bend without sendin’ a man ahead to prospect the water, and then when they saw the rapids, ’twas too late to get to either side. ’Tis a death trap she is there, and well named.
“Wan time a Swede was spilled out on the Death Rapids, and somehow he came through alive. He swam for two miles below there before they could catch him with a boat, and he’d been swimming yet if they hadn’t caught him, he was that scared, and if they hadn’t hit him on the head with a oar. ’Twas entirely crazy he was.
“Mayhap ye remember the cabin on the west side, where they’re sluicing—that’s Joe Howard’s cabin. Well, Howard, like everywan else on the river, finds it easiest to get in and out by boat. Wan time he and his mate were lining down a boat not far from shorewhen she broke away. Howard jumped on a rock, but ’twas so far out he dared not try to swim ashore, fer the current set strong. The other man grabbed the boat and got through the edge of the rapids somehow, but ’twas half a mile below before he got ashore. Then he cuddn’t get the boat up again to where Howard was, and ’twas two or three hours of figgerin’ he did before Howard dared take the plunge and try to catch the pole which his mate reached out to him. ’Twas well-nigh crazy he was—a man nearly always goes crazy when he’s left out on a rock in the fast water that way.
“The Priest Rapids is another murderer, and I’ll not say how many have perished there. You tell me that your boats ran it at this stage of water? ’Twas wonderful, then, that’s all. Men have come through, ’tis true, and tenderfeet at that, and duffers, at that. Two were once cast in the Priest, and only one got through, and he could not swim a stroke! They say that sixty miners were lost in that rapid in one year.
“To be sure, maybe these are large tales, for such matters grow, most like, as the years go by, but ye’ve seen the river yerselves, and yeknow what the risk is. Take a band of miners, foolhardy men, and disgust them with tryin’ to get out of this country afoot—and ’tis awful going on foot through here—and a raft is the first thing they think of—’tis always a tenderfoot’s first idea. There’s nothing so hard to handle as a raft. Now here they come, singin’ and shoutin’, and swing around the bend before they see the Death Rapids, or the Priest, we’ll say. They run till the first cellar-door wave rolls back on them and the raft plunges her nose in. Then the raft goes down, and the men are swept off, and there’s no swimming in the Columbia for most men. There’s not annything left then fer anny man to do except the priest—and belike that’s why they call it the Priest Rapids.”
“I’ve often wondered,” said Rob, “when we were coming down that stream, whether some of those Alaska Indians with their big sea-canoes could not run this river—they’re splendid boats for rough water, and they go out in almost any weather.”
“And where’ll ye be meanin’, my boy?” asked O’Brien.
“Along the upper Alaska coast. You see, we live at Valdez.”
“Alaska? Do ye hear that now! And that’s the place I’ve been wanting to see all me life! They tell me ’tis foine up there, and plenty of gold, too. But tell me, why do ye come down to this country from so good a place as Alaska?”
“Well, we were just traveling about, you know,” said Rob, “and we wanted to see some of this country along the Rockies before it got too common and settled up. You see, this isn’t our first trip across the Rockies; we ran the Peace River from the summit down last summer, and had a bully time. The fact is, every trip we take seems to us better than any of the others. You must come up some time and see us in Alaska.”
“It’s that same I’ll be doin’, ye may depend,” said O’Brien, “the first chance I get. ’Tis weary I get here, all by myself, with no one to talk to, and no sport but swearin’ at a lot of pig-tailed Chinks, and not time to go grizzly-huntin’ even—though they do tell me there’s fine grizzly-huntin’ twelve miles back, in the Standard Basin. So ’tis here I sit, and watch that mountain yonder that they’ve named for pore Sam Boyd—Boyd’s Peak, they call it, and ’tis much like old Assiniboine she looks,isn’t it? Just that I be doin’ day by day, and all the time be wantin’ to see Alaska. And now here comes me friend Leo from the Cache, and brings a lot of Alaskans ye’d be expectin’ annywhere else but here or there! ’Tis fine byes ye are, to come so far, and I’ll be hopin’ to meet ye in Alaska one of these fine days, for I’m a bit of a miner myself, as most of us are up here.”
“She’s good boy,” said Moise, who took much pride in his young friends. “She ain’t scare’ go anywhere on therivièrewith Moise and his oncle, or even with Leo and George. I s’pose next year she’ll come see Moise again, maybe-so.”
The boys laughed and looked at Uncle Dick. “I don’t know about that,” said Rob, “but we’ll be wanting to go somewhere next summer.”
“That’s a long time off,” said their uncle.
O’Brien, after they had spent some time in this manner of conversation, began to look at his watch. “Carlson’s pretty prompt,” said he—“that’s the skipper of theColumbia. We’ll be hearin’ her whistle before long.”
“Then this about ends our trip, doesn’t it,Uncle Dick?” said John once more; and his uncle nodded.
“I’m going to give O’Brien one of the boats,” said he, “and I’ll let the title to the other and the cook outfit rest in Leo and George—they may be coming through here again one way or the other some day. As for us, we’ve been lucky, and I think we would better wait here a day rather than go on with our boats.”
They passed out into the bright sunlight to look about at the fine mountain prospect which stretched before them from the top of the bluff. They had not long to wait before they heard the boom of the steamboat’s whistle, and soon theColumbia, thrust forward by her powerful engines, could be seen bucking the flood of the Columbia and slowly churning her way up-stream. She landed opposite the wood-chute of the wood-yard, where a crowd of jabbering Chinamen gathered. Soon our party walked in that direction also, and so became acquainted with Carlson, the skipper of the boat, who agreed to take them down to Revelstoke the following day.
Although O’Brien offered them beds in his house, and Carlson bunks on board theColumbia, Rob, John, and Jesse all preferred to sleep out-of-doors as long as they could, and so made their beds on the grass-plot at the top of the bluff, not putting up any tent, as the mosquitoes here were not bad. They were rather tired; and, feeling that their trip was practically over, with little excitement remaining, they slept soundly and did not awake until the sun was shining in their faces.
“Come on, fellows,” said Jesse, kicking off his blankets. “I suppose now we’ll have to get used to washing in a real wash-basin and using a real towel. Somehow I feel more sorry than happy, even if it was rather rough work coming down the river.”
This seemed to be the feeling of both the others, and they were not talkative at thebreakfast-table, where O’Brien had supplied them with a fine meal, including abundance of fresh-laid eggs from his own farm-yard.
After breakfast they employed themselves chiefly in making themselves as tidy as they could and in packing their few personal possessions in shape for railway transportation. Most of their outfit, however, they gave away to the men who were to remain behind them. Toward noon the whistle of the steamboat announced that she was ready to take up her down-stream trip; so the young Alaskans were obliged to say good-by to O’Brien, in whose heart they had found a warm place.
“Good luck to ye, byes,” said he, “and don’t be diggin’ all the gold up in Alaska, for ’tis myself’ll be seein’ ye wan of these days—’tis a foine country entirely, and I’m wishin’ fer a change.”
Leo and George, without any instructions, had turned in to help the boat crew in their work of pushing off. Moise, once aboard the boat, seemed unusually silent and thoughtful for him, until Rob rallied him as to his sorrowful countenance.
“Well,” said Moise, “you boy will all go back on Alaska now, and Moise she’s got to gohome on the Peace River. I’ll not been scare’ of the horse or the canoe, but this steamboat and those railroad train she’ll scare Moise plenty. All the time I’m think she’ll ron off the track and bust Moise.”
“You mustn’t feel that way,” said Rob, “for that’s Uncle Dick’s business—finding places for railroads to run. That’s going to be my business too, sometime, as I told you. I think it’s fine—going out here where all those old chaps went a hundred years ago, and to see the country about as they saw it, and to live and travel just about as they did. Men can live in the towns if they like, but in the towns anybody can get on who has money so he can buy things. But in the country where we’ve been, money wouldn’t put you through; you’ve got to know how to do things, and not be afraid.”
“S’pose you boys keep on,” said Moise, “bime-by you makevoyageur. Then you come with Moise—she’ll show you something!”
“Well, Moise,” continued Rob, “if we don’t see you many a time again it won’t be our fault, you may be sure.”
“I’m just wondering,” said Jesse, “howLeo and George are going to get back up to the Tête Jaune Cache. They told us they meant to go up the Ashcroft trail and home by way of Fort George and the Fraser River and the ‘choo-choo boat.’ But that seems a long way around. I suppose you’ll come to the hotel with us, down to Revelstoke, won’t you Leo?” he added.
“No like ’um,” said Leo. “My cousin and me, we live in woods till time to take choo-choo that way to Ashcrof’.”
“Well, in that case,” said John, “I think we’d better give you our mosquito-tent; you may need it more than we will, and we can get another up from Seattle at any time.”
“Tent plenty all right,” said Leo. “Thank.” And when John fished it out of the pack-bag and gave it to him he turned it over to George with a few words in his own language.
George carried it away without comment. They were all very much surprised a little later, however, to discover him working away on the tent with his knife, and, to their great disgust, they observed that he was busily engaged in cutting out all the bobbinet windows and in ripping the front of the tent open so that it was precisely like any other tent! Johnwas very indignant at this, but his reproof had little effect on Leo.
“Tent plenty all right now,” said he. “Let plenty air inside! Mosquito no bite ’um Injun.”
When they came to think of it this seemed so funny to them that they rolled on the deck with laughter, but they all agreed to let Leo arrange his own outfit after that.
They passed steadily on down between the lofty banks of the Columbia, here a river several hundred yards in width, and more like a lake than a stream in many of its wider bends. They could see white-topped mountains in many different directions, and, indeed, close to them lay one of the most wonderful mountain regions of the continent, with localities rarely visited at that time save by hunters or travelers as bold as themselves.
Carlson, the good-natured skipper of theColumbia, asked the boys all up to the wheelhouse with him, and even allowed Rob to steer the boat a half-mile in one of the open and easy bends. He told them about his many adventurous trips on the great river and explained to them the allowances it was necessary to make for the current on a bend,the best way of getting off a bar, and the proper method of making a landing.
“You shall make good pilot-man pratty soon,” he said to Rob, approvingly. “Not manny man come down the Colomby. That take pilot-man, too.”
“Well,” said Rob, modestly, “we didn’t really do very much of it ourselves, but I believe we’d have run the rapids wherever the men did if they had allowed us to.”
“Batter not run the rapid so long you can walk, young man,” said Carlson. “The safest kind sailorman ban the man that always stay on shore.” And he laughed heartily at his own wit.
The boat tied up at the head of the Revelstoke Cañon, and here the boys put their scanty luggage in a wagon which had come out to meet her, and started off, carrying their rifles, along the wagon-trail which leads from above the cañon to the town, part of the time on a high trestle.
When they came abreast of the cañon they were well in advance of the men, who also were walking in, and they concluded to go to the brink of the cañon and look down at the water.
REVELSTOKEREVELSTOKE CAÑON
It was a wild sight enough which they sawfrom their lofty perch. The great Columbia River, lately so broad and lakelike, was compressed into a narrow strip of raging white water, driven down with such force that they could see very plainly the upflung rib of the river, forced above the level of the edges by the friction on the perpendicular rock walls. From where they peered over the brink they could see vast white surges, and could even distinguish the strange, irregular swells, or boils, which without warning or regularity come up at times from the depths of this erratic river. They quite agreed that it would have been impossible for a boat to go through Revelstoke Cañon alive at the stage of the water as they saw it. Rob tried to make a photograph, which he said he was going to take home to show to his mother.
“You’d better not,” said John. “You’ll get the folks to thinking that this sort of thing isn’t safe!”
The boys stood back from the rim of the cañon after a while and waited for the others to come up with them.
“We think this one looks about as bad as anything we’ve seen, Uncle Dick,” said Rob. “A man might get through once in a while,and they say Sam Boyd and Tom Horn did make it more than once before it got them. It doesn’t look possible to me to run it.”
“The river is a lot worse than the Peace,” said John. “Of course, there’s the Rocky Mountain Cañon, which nobody can get through either way, and there isn’t any portage as bad as that on the whole Columbia Big Bend. But for number of bad rapids this river is a lot worse than the Peace.”
“Yes,” assented the others, “in some ways this is a wilder and more risky trip than the one we had last year. But we’ve had a pretty good time of it just the same, haven’t we?”
“We certainly have,” said Rob; and John and Jesse answered in the same way. “I only wish it wasn’t all over so soon,” added Jesse, disconsolately.
The boys, hardy and lighter of foot even than their companions, raced on ahead over the few remaining miles into Revelstoke town, leaving the bank of the river, which here swung off broad and mild enough once it had emerged from its cañon walls. Before them lay the town of Revelstoke, with its many buildings, its railway trains, and its signs of life and activity.
In town they all found a great budget of mail awaiting them, and concluded to spend the night at Revelstoke in order to do certain necessary writing and telegraphing. They had several letters from their people in Alaska, but none announcing any word from themselves after they had arrived at Edmonton, so that some of the letters bore rather an anxious note.
“What would it cost to send a telegram from here to Seattle, and a cablegram up the coast, and then by wireless up to the fort near Valdez?” inquired Rob. “That ought to get through to-morrow, and just two or three words to let them know we were out safe might make them all feel pretty comfortable. It’s a good thing they don’t know just what we’ve been through the last few days.”
“Well, you go down to the station and see if it can be done,” said Uncle Dick, “and I’ll foot the bill. Get your berths for the next Transcontinental west to Vancouver, and reserve accommodations for Moise and me going east. Leo and George, I’m thinking, will want to wait here for a while; with so much money as he has as grizzly premiums and wages, Leo is not going to leave until he hasseen something of the attractions of this city. In fact, I shouldn’t wonder if he got broke here and walked back up to O’Brien’s and took his boat there up the Columbia. They always get back home some way, the beggars, and I’ll warrant you that when we all go to the Tête Jaune Cache by rail, a couple of years from now, we’ll see Leo and George waiting for us at the train as happy as larks!”
“I wonder if my pony’ll be there too?” said John.
“He will, unless something very unusual should happen to him. You’ll find the word of an Indian good; and, although Leo does not talk much, I would depend on him absolutely in any promise that he made. We will have to agree that he has been a good man in everything he agreed to do, a good hunter and a good boatman.”
“We may go in there and have a hunt with him some time after the road comes through,” said Rob. “In fact, all this northern country will seem closer together when the road gets through to Prince Rupert. Why, that’s a lot closer to Valdez than Vancouver is, and we could just step right off the cars there and getoff at Leo’s, or even go up to Yellowhead Lake and get another goat.”
“Or find the place where John fell off the raft,” added Jesse, laughing.
“Or go on across to where Uncle Dick may be working, one side or other of the summit. I wish he didn’t have to go back to Edmonton, and could come on home with us now. But we can tell them all about it when we get home.”
“Where’d you like to go the next time, if you had a chance, Rob?” asked John.
“There are a lot of places I’d like to see,” said Rob. “For one thing, I’ve always wanted to go down the Mackenzie and then over the Rat portage to the Yukon, then out to Skagway—that’d be something of a trip. Then I’ve always had a hankering to go up the Saskatchewan and come up over the Howse Pass. And some day we may see the Athabasca Pass and the trail above the Boat Encampment. The railroads have spoiled a lot of the passes south of there, but when you come to read books on exploration you’ll find a lot of things happened, even in the United States, in places where the railroads haven’t gone yet. We’ll have to see some of those countries sometime.”
“How is your map coming on, John?” inquired Uncle Dick, a little later, when once more they had met in their room at the hotel.
“I’ve got this one almost done,” said John.
[1]At the time of this journey the Kinney ascension of Mount Robson had not yet been made.—The Author.
[1]At the time of this journey the Kinney ascension of Mount Robson had not yet been made.—The Author.
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters’ errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author’s words and intent.