“Nor I. Let’s wait here awhile and maybe the stag’ll come out again.”
This indeed proved to be the case, for in a few minutes the smaller stag did show at the edge of the wood, offering a dim and very uncertain mark at a distance of several hundred yards. Rob began to prepare his rifle.
“It’s too far,” said Alex. “No Injun would think of shooting that far. You might only cripple.”
“Yes,” said Rob, “and I might only miss. But I’d rather do that than shoot at one of the cows. I believe I’ll take a chance anyhow, Alex.”
Adjusting his rifle-sights to the best of his knowledge, Rob took long and careful aim, and fired at the shoulder of the distant caribou, which showed but indistinctly along his rifle-sights. The shot may have come somewhere close to the animal, but certainly did not strike it, for with a sudden whirl it was off, and in the next instant was hidden by the protecting woods.
Now, there was instanced the truth of what Alex had said about the fickleness of caribou nature. The three cows, one old and two young ones, stood in full view in the open, at about half the distance of the stag. They plainly saw both Alex and Rob as they now stepped out from their cover. Yet instead of wheeling and running, the older cow,her ears standing out high and wide, began to trot steadily toward them instead of running away. Rob once more raised his rifle, but this time not to shoot at game, but only to make an experiment. He fired once, twice, and three times in the air; and even up to the time of the last shot, the old cow trotted steadily toward him, not stopping until she was within fifty yards of him. Here she stood staring wide-eyed, but at length, having figured out something in her own mind, she suddenly wheeled and lumbered off again, her heavy, coarse muzzle straight ahead of her. All three now shambled off and soon were lost to view.
“Well, what do you think about that, Alex?” demanded Rob. “That’s the funniest thing I ever saw in all my hunting. Those things must be crazy.”
“I suppose they think we are,” replied Alex, glumly; “maybe we are, or we’d have taken a shot at her. I can almost taste that tenderloin!”
“I’m sorry about it, Alex,” said Rob, “but maybe some of the others will get some meat. I really don’t like to shoot females, because game isn’t as plentiful now as it used to be, you know, even in the wild country.”
Alex sighed, and rather unhappily turnedand led the way back toward the river. “It’s too late to hunt anything more,” said he, “and we might not find anything that just suited us.”
When at length they reached camp, after again crossing the river in theMary Ann, twilight was beginning to fall. Rob did not notice any difference in the camp, although the keen eyes of Alex detected a grayish object hanging on the cut limb of the tree at the edge of the near-by thicket. John and Jesse pretended not to know anything, and Alex and Rob, to be equally dignified, volunteered no information and asked no questions.
All the boys had noticed that old hunters, especially Indian hunters, never ask one another what success they have had, and never tell anything about what they have killed. Jesse, however, could not stand this sort of thing very long, and at length, with considerable exultation, asked Rob what luck he had had. Rob rather shamefacedly admitted the failure which he and Alex had made.
“We did better,” said Jesse; “we got one.”
“You got one? Who got it?” demanded Rob. “Where is it?”
“There’s a ham hanging up over there in the brush,” answered Jesse. “We all went out, but I killed him.”
“Is that so, John?” asked Rob.
“It certainly is,” said John. “Yes, Jesse is the big chief to-night.”
“We only went a little way, too,” said Jesse, “just up over the ridge there, I don’t suppose more than half a mile. It must have been about noon when we started, and Moise didn’t think we were going to see anything, and neither did we. So we sat down, and in an hour or so I was shooting at a mark to see how my rifle would do. All at once we saw this fellow—it wasn’t a very big one, with little bits of horns—come out and stand around looking to see what the noise was about. So I just took a rest over a log, and I plugged him!”
Jesse stood up straight, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, a very proud young boy indeed.
Moise, strolling around, was grinning happily when at last he met the unsuccessful hunters.
“Those Jesse boy, she’ll been good shot,” said he. “I s’pose, Alex, you’ll not make much hunter out of yourself,hein?”
“Well,” said Alex, “we let some mighty good cow venison get away from us, all right.”
“Never mind,” said Moise, consolingly, “we’ll got fat young caribou now plenty for two—three days, maybe so.”
Rob went up to Jesse and shook him by the hand. “Good boy, Jess!” said he. “I’m glad you got him instead of myself. But why didn’t you tell us when we came into camp?”
“Moise said good hunters didn’t do that,” ventured John, who joined the conversation. “How about that, Alex?”
“Well,” said the older hunter, “you must remember that white men are different from Injuns. People who live as Injuns do get to be rather quiet. Now, suppose an Injun hunter has gone out after a moose, and has been gone maybe two or three days. He’ll probably not hunt until everything is gone in the lodge, and maybe neither he nor his family is going to eat much until he gets a moose. Well, by and by he comes home some evening, and throws aside the skin door of the lodge, and goes in and sits down. His wife helps him off with his moccasins and hands him a dry pair, and makes up the fire. He sits and smokes. No one asks him whether he has killed or not, and he doesn’t say whether he has killed, although they all may be very hungry. Now, his wife doesn’t know whether to get ready to cook or not, but she doesn’t ask her man. He sits there awhile; but, of course, he likes his family and doesn’t want them to be hungry. So after a while, verydignified, he’ll make some excuse so that his wife can tell what the result of the hunt has been. Maybe he’ll say carelessly that he has a little blood on his shirt, which ought to be washed off, or maybe he’ll say that if any one were walking a couple of miles down the river they might see a blazed trail out toward the hills. Then his wife will smile and hurry to put on the kettles. If it isn’t too far, she’ll take her pack-strap then and start out to bring in some of the meat. Every people, you see, will have different ways.”
“But the man who doesn’t kill something goes hungry, and his family, too?”
“Not in the least!” rejoined Alex, with some spirit. “There, too, the ‘First People’ are kinder than the whites who govern them now. Suppose in my village there are twenty lodges. Out of the twenty there will be maybe four or five good hunters, men who can go out and kill moose or bear. It gets to be so that they do most of the hunting, and if one of them brings in any meat all the village will have meat. Of course the good hunters don’t do any other kind of work very much.”
“That isn’t the way white people do,” asserted John; “they don’t divide up in business matters unless they have to.”
“Maybe not,” said Alex, “but it has alwaysbeen different with my people in the north. If men did not divide meat with one another many people would starve. As it is, many starve in the far-off countries each winter. Sometimes we cannot get even rabbits. It may be far to the trading-post. The moose or the caribou may be many miles away, where no one can find them. A heavy storm may come, so no one can travel. Then if a man is fortunate and has meat he would be cruel if he did not divide. He knows that all the others would do as much with him. It is our custom.”
IF Rob, John, and Jesse had been eager for exciting incidents on their trip across the mountains, certainly they found them in plenty during the next three days after the caribou hunt, as they continued their passage on down the mountain river, when they had brought in all their meat and once more loaded the canoes.
Rob had been studying his maps and records, and predicted freely that below this camp they would find wilder waters. This certainly proved to be the case. Moreover, they found that although it is easier to go down-stream than up in fast water, it is more dangerous, and sometimes progress is not so rapid as might be expected. Indeed, on the first day below the caribou camp they made scarcely more than six or eight miles, for, in passing the boats down along shore to avoid a short piece of fast water, the force of the current broke the line of theMary Ann, and it wasmerely by good fortune that they caught up with her, badly jammed and wedged between two rocks, her gunwale strip broken across and the cedar shell crushed through, so that she had sprung a bad leak.
They hauled the crippledMary Annashore and discharged her cargo in order to examine the injuries received.
“Well, now, we’re giving an imitation of the earlyvoyageurs,” said John, as he saw the rent in the side of the canoe. “But how are we going to fix her? She isn’t a birch-bark, and if she were, we have no bark.”
“I think we’ll manage,” Rob replied, “because we have canvas and cement and all that sort of thing. But her rail is broken quite across.”
“She’ll been good boat,” said Moise, smiling; “we’ll fix heem easy.” So saying, he took his ax and sauntered over to a half-dead cedar-tree, from which, without much difficulty, he cut some long splints. This they managed to lash inside the gunwale of the canoe, stiffening it considerably. The rent in the bottom they patched by means of their cement, and some waterproof material. They finished the patch with abundant spruce gum and tar, melted together and spread all over. When they were done their labors theMaryAnnwas again watertight, but not in the least improved in beauty.
“We’ll have to be very careful all the way down from here, I’m thinking,” said Alex. “The river is getting far more powerful almost every hour as these other streams come in. Below the Finlay, I know very well, she’s a big stream, and the shores are so bad that if we had an accident it would leave things rather awkward.”
None the less, even with one boat crippled in this way, Rob and John gained confidence in running fast water almost every hour. They learned how to keep their heads when engaged in the passage of white water, how to avoid hidden rocks, as well as dangerous swells and eddies. It seemed to them quite astonishing what rough water could be taken in these little boats, and continually the temptation was, of course, to run a rapid rather than laboriously to disembark and line down alongshore. Thus, to make their story somewhat shorter, they passed on down slowly for parts of three days, until at last, long after passing the mouth of the Pack River and the Nation, and yet another smaller stream, all coming in from the west, they saw opening up on the left hand a wide valley coming down from the northwest.
The character of the country, and the distance they had traveled, left no doubt whatever in their minds that this was the Finlay River, the other head-stream of the Peace River. They therefore now felt as though they knew precisely where they were. Being tired, they pitched their camp not far below the mouth of the Finlay, and busied themselves in looking over their boats and supplies. They knew that the dreaded Finlay rapids lay only two miles below them.
They were now passing down a river which had grown to a very considerable stream, sometimes with high banks, again with shores rather low and marshy, and often broken with many islands scattered across an expanse of water sometimes nearly a quarter of a mile in extent. The last forty miles of the stream to the junction of the Finlay had averaged not more rapid but much heavier than the current had seemed toward the headwaters. The roar of the rapids they approached now came up-stream with a heavier note, and was distinguishable at much greater distances, and the boats in passing through some of the heavier rapids did so in the midst of a din quite different from the gentle babble of the shallow stream far toward its source. The boom of the bad water far below this camp made them uneasy.
“Well,” said Rob, as they sat in camp near the shore, “we know where we are now. We have passed the mouth of the McLeod outlet, and we have passed the Nation River and everything else that comes in from the west. Here we turn to the east. It must be nearly one hundred and fifty miles to the real gate of the Rockies—at the Cañon of the Rocky Mountains, as the first traders called it.”
“It looks like a pretty big river now,” said Jesse dubiously.
“I would like to hope it’s no worse than it has been just above here,” said Rob, “but I fear it is, from all I know. Mackenzie got it in high water, and he only averaged half a mile an hour for a long time going up, along in here. Of course coming down we could pick our way better than he could.”
“We have been rather lucky on the whole,” said Alex, “for, frankly, the water has been rather worse for canoes than I thought it would be. Moreover, it is still larger below here. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What do you mean, Alex?” inquired John.
“You ought not to need to ask me,” replied the old hunter. “You’re allvoyageurs, are you not?”
“But what is it, then?”
“Look closely.”
They went to the edge of the beach and looked up and down the river carefully, also studying the forking valleys into which they could see from the place where they were in camp.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Rob, “but it seems to me she’s rising a little!”
Alex nodded. “We’ve been in camp here three hours now,” said he, “and she’s come up a little more than an inch.”
“Why, how do you know that?” asked John.
“I set a stick with a notch at water-level when we first came ashore.”
“How did you happen to think of that?”
“Very likely the same thing which made Rob guess it.”
“Yes,” said Rob, “I saw that the Finlay water coming down seemed to be discolored. But at first I supposed it was the natural color of that river. So you think there has been a thaw?”
“Maybe some sort of rain or chinook over in there,” said Alex. “What do you think, Moise?”
Moise and Alex talked for a time in the Cree language, Moise shaking his head as he answered.
“Moise thinks there has been a little rise,”interpreted Alex. “He says that below here the river sometimes cañons up, or runs between high banks with a narrow channel. That would make it bad. You see, the rise of a foot in a place like that would make much more difference than two inches in the places where the river is spread out several hundred yards wide. We know a little bit more about the river from here east, because we have talked with men who have been here.”
“I suppose we’ll have to wait here until it runs down,” said Jesse.
“Maybe not. If we were here earlier in the season and this were the regular spring rise we might have to wait for some time before we could go down with these boats. But the big flood has gone down long ago. There isn’t anything to hinder us as yet from dropping down and watching carefully on ahead as we go.”
Rob was again consulting his inevitable copy ofMackenzie’s Voyages.
“It took Mackenzie and Fraser each of them just eight days to get this far up the river from the west end of the Cañon of the Rocky Mountains,” said he. “Fraser must have built his boat somewhere west of the Rocky Mountain Portage, as they call it. That must be seventy-five miles east of here,as near as I can figure it from the Mackenzie story, but Uncle Dick’s friend, Mr. Hussey, said it was one hundred and thirty miles—and only two big rapids, the Finlay and the Parle Pas. I wish we could run it every foot, because Mackenzie did when he came down. At least, he doesn’t say he didn’t.”
“It was done by the traders for a long time,” said Alex, “all but those two rapids and that cañon. There is no trail even for horses between Hudson’s Hope and Fort St. John, but that is easy water. They serve St. John now with steamboats, and the old canoe days are pretty much over. But, anyhow, there is the main ridge of the Rockies east of us, and we’ve got to get through it somehow, that’s sure. Back there”—he pointed up the valley down which they had been coming now for so long—“we were between two ranges of the divide. The Finlay yonder comes down out of some other range to the northwest. But now the doubled river has to break through that dam of the eastern rim. I suppose we may look for bad water somewhere. Look here,” he added, examining the map, “here are the altitudes all marked on by the government surveyors—twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level at Giscombe Portage, twenty-two hundred and fifty at Fort McLeod. I supposeit was about three thousand feet where we started across. At the mouth of the Finlay it’s only two thousand feet—a big drop. But she drops nearly three hundred feet more to the west end of the portage, and two hundred feet more at the east end. That’s going downhill pretty fast—five hundred feet in less than one hundred and fifty miles—and some of it not very fast water.”
“Well,” ventured Rob, “why don’t we drop down as far as we can, and if we get caught by a flood then stop and take a little hunt somewhere back in the hills? You know, we haven’t got that grizzly yet you promised us.”
“Sure enough,” said Alex, with no great enthusiasm; for he did not relish the idea of hunting grizzly bear in company with such young companions.
“But we have come through good grizzly country already,” ventured John.
“Very likely,” Alex smiled. “I’ve seen considerable bear sign along the shores, as well as a good many moose tracks close to where we camped.”
“If you think we’re afraid to go bear hunting, Alex,” Rob began, “you certainly don’t know us very well. That’s one of the reasons we came on this trip—we wanted to get a real Rocky Mountain grizzly.”
“It is not too late,” the old hunter rejoined, “and I shouldn’t wonder if there was as good country east of here as any we’ve come to. The grizzly is a great traveler, anyhow, and is as apt to be found one place as another. At this time of year all the bears come out of the mountains and feed along the valleys on red willow buds and such things. They even swim from the shore to the islands, in search of willow flats. Besides, there are plenty of saskatoons, I don’t doubt, not far back from the river. The bears ought to be down out of the high country by this time, and if you really care for a hunt, there ought to be plenty of good places below here.”
“It isn’t dark yet,” said Rob; “suppose we break camp and run down just a little farther this evening. If the flood comes in behind us, we’re just that much ahead.”
They acted on Rob’s suggestion, and, passing rapidly on down the now slightly discolored water, they soon left the Finlay gap behind them. Their journey was but brief, however, for soon they heard the boom of the rapids below them.
“On shore, queek!” called Moise to Rob, who was in the bow of the leading boat.
The sound and sight of the Finlay rapids, at the head of which the leading boat now paused, gave Rob his first real idea of how wicked a great mountain river can be. He looked back to see whether theJaybirdand her crew were well warned of the danger. But Alex soon brought the other boat alongside at the landing place, on the south side of the stream, above the rapids.
“Well, here we are,” said he. “Now you may see what some real rapids are. Those little ripples up above didn’t amount to much.”
“She looks pretty bad,” said Rob. “Could anybody run a boat through there?”
“Old Sir Alexander probably did it, but he had a big birch-bark. I’d take it on with a good man and a good boat. We could very possibly even get one of these boats through if we were obliged to, but there is no use taking any risk. We can line down through theworst of it, or even run the boat ashore if we like.”
“Me, I’ll rather ron the rapeed than walk on the bank with boat,” said Moise.
“Never mind, Moise,” said Alex, “we’ll not have to walk far with her. We’ll camp here to-night and look it over in the morning. It’s always better to tackle rough work in the morning rather than in the evening.”
The young travelers slept none too well that night. The sound of the rapids coming through the dark and the feeling of remoteness here in this wild mountain region proved depressing to their spirits. They were glad enough when at length toward dawn they heard Moise stirring about the camp. By the time they had their breakfast finished and camp broken Alex had already returned from a trip along the side of the rapids.
“It’s not so very bad,” said he, “although the river has come up an inch or so during the night. The whole rapid is about a quarter of a mile long, but the worst place is only a couple of hundred yards or so. We’ll drop down to the head of that strip on the line and portage around there.”
They followed this plan, loading the boats and dropping down for a short time, saving themselves all the portage work they could.In places the water seemed very wild, tossing over the rocks in long, rolling waves or breaking in foam and spray. The boys scrambled alongshore, allowing Alex and Moise to care for the first boat when it became necessary for them to double up on each trip over the worst water. Part of the time they bore a hand on the line, and were surprised to see the strength of the current even on a boat without a load.
“You see,” said Alex, when at length they came to a place where the water seemed still more powerful and rough, and where it seemed necessary to haul the boat entirely from the water for a carry of some distance over the rocks, “it’s better to take a little trouble and go slow rather than to lose a boat in here. If she broke away from us we’d feel a long way from home!”
After they got theMary Annagain in the water and at the foot of the rapids, the men went up after theJaybird, while the boys did what they could toward advancing the cargo of theMary Ann. In less than an hour they had everything below the rapids and saw plain sailing once more ahead of them. Moise expressed his disappointment at not being allowed to run the Finlay rapids.
“My onkle, she’ll always ron those rapeed,”said he. “S’pose I’ll tell heem I’ll walk aroun’, he’ll laugh on me, yes!”
“That’s all right, Moise,” said Rob; “your uncle isn’t here, and for one, I’m glad we took it easy coming through here. That’s rough water either way you look at it, up-stream or down. But now,” he continued, once more consulting his maps and notes, “we ought to have a couple of days of good, straightaway running, with almost no bad water. It’s about seventy miles from here to the Parle Pas rapids. And speaking ofrapids, they tell me that’s the worst place on the whole river.”
“That’s a funny name—why do they call them the Parle Pas rapids?” asked Jesse.
“Those were Frenchman words,” said Moise. “Parle Pas means ‘no speak.’ He’s a quiet rapeed. S’pose you’ll ron on the river there, an’ smoke a pipe, an’ talk, an’ not think of nothing. All at once,Boum! You’ll been in those rapeed, an’ he’ll not said a word to you!”
“Well,” said Rob, “the traders used to run them somehow, didn’t they?”
“Yes, my onkle he’ll ron them in beeg boat many tam, but not with leetle boat. She’ll jump down five, three feet sometams. Leetle boat she’ll stick his nose under, yes. Myonkle he’ll tol’ me, when you come on the Parle Pas take the north side, an’ find some chute there for leetle boat. Leetle boat could ron the Parle Pas, maybe so, but I suppose, us, we’ll let those boat down on the line because we’ll got some scares,hein?”
“It’s just as well to have some scares on these mountain rivers, Moise,” said Alex, reprovingly. “This water is icy cold, and if even a man got out into the rapids he couldn’t swim at all, it would tumble him over so. We’ll line down on the Parle Pas, yes, depend on that. But that’s down-stream a couple of days if we go slow.”
“When do we get that bear hunt, Alex?” asked John, who loved excitement almost as much as Moise.
“Almost anywhere in here,” answered Alex; “but I think we’d better put off the hunt until we get below all the worst water. No use portaging bear hides.”
“It looks like good bear country here,” said Rob. “We must be in the real Rockies now, because the mountains come right down to the river.”
“Good bear country clear to Hudson’s Hope, or beyond that,” assented Alex.
“All right,” said Rob; “we’ll have a good hunt somewhere when we get below the ParlePas. If we have to do any more portaging, we don’t want to carry any more than we can help, that’s true. And, of course, we’re going to get that grizzly.”
Having by this time reloaded the boats, they re-embarked, and passed merrily on down the river, which now seemed wholly peaceful and pleasant. The mountains now indeed were all about them, in places rising up in almost perpendicular rock faces, and the valley was very much narrower. They were at last entering the arms of the great range through which they later were to pass.
The character of the river changed from time to time. Sometimes they were in wide, quiet reaches, where they needed the paddles to make much headway. Again there would be drops of faster water, although nothing very dangerous. Relieved as they were now of any thought of danger for the next sixty or seventy miles ahead, this part of their journey seemed delightful in every way. They did not pause to hunt, and saw no game excepting one band of four timber wolves, upon which they came as they swept around a bend, but which hastened under cover before any one could get a shot. Once in a while they stopped at little beaches or bars, and almost always saw the trails of large game in thesand or mud. Always they felt that now they were deep in the wilderness, and every moment was a pleasure to them.
They did not really know how far below the Finlay rapids they traveled that day, for continually they discovered that it is difficult to apply map readings to the actual face of a new country. They made no great attempt at speed, but sometimes drifted down-stream, the boats close together. Sometimes when the wind was fair Rob or John would raise the corner of a tent or blanket to act as a sail. Thus, idling and chatting along, they made perhaps forty miles down-stream before they made their next evening camp. The country seemed to them wilder now, since the bold hills were so close in upon them, though of course they knew that each day was bringing them closer to the settlements on the eastern side of the range.
That night was cold, and they had no trouble with mosquitoes. Feeling no need of hurry, they made a late start and idled on down the river through a very interesting mountain region, until the afternoon. Toward evening they began to feel that they might perhaps be near the dreaded Parle Pas rapids, and they approached each bend with care, sometimes going ashore for a prospectingtrip which proved to be made only on a false alarm. They had, however, now begun to learn the “feel of the water,” as thevoyageurscalled it. Rob, who was ahead, at length noted the glassy look of the river, and called back to Moise that he believed there were rapids ahead.
“Parle Pas!” cried Moise. “On shore, queek!”
Swiftly they paddled across, to the north side of the river, where presently they were joined by the other boat.
“She’s the Parle Pas, all right,” laughed Moise; “look at heem!”
From their place of observation they could see a long ridge, or rim, the water falling in a sort of cascade well out across the stream. There seemed to be a chute, or channel, in midstream, but the back-combing rollers below it looked ominously large for a boat the size of theirs, so that they were glad enough to be where they were, on dry land.
Moise was once more for running the boats through the chute on the north shore, but Alex’s cautious counsel prevailed. There was not more than thirty or forty feet of the very worst water, rather a cascade than a long rapid, but they discharged the cargo and lined both boats through light. This sortof work proved highly interesting and exciting to all hands, and, of course, when superintended by such men as Alex and Moise had no great danger, although all of them were pretty wet when at length they had their boats reloaded at the foot of the rapids.
“I know how Sir Alexander got across the mountains,” said John. “He had goodvoyageursto do the work! About all he had to do was to write the story each night, and he didn’t do that any too well, it seems to me—anyhow, when you come to read his story backward you can’t tell where you are very well.”
“That’s right,” said Rob. “I don’t much blame Simon Fraser for finding fault with Mackenzie’s narrative. But maybe if we had written the story they’d have found fault with us the same way. The same country doesn’t look alike to different people, and what is a mile to one man may be two miles to another when both are guessing. But anyhow, here we are below the ‘Polly’ rapids—as the traders call them to-day—and jolly glad we ought to be we’re safe, too.”
“Plain sailing again now for a while,” said Jesse. “Let’s see the map.”
They all bent over the different maps they had, especially one which Rob had made up from all the sources of information he had.
“Yes,” said Rob, “it ought to be about sixty miles of pretty good water now until we get to the one place on this river which the boldestvoyageurnever tried to run—the Cañon of the Rocky Mountains, as the very first travelers called it.”
“Those map she’ll not been much good,” said Moise, pointing to the government maps of which Rob had a store. “The only good map she’ll been made by the Injun with a stick, s’pose on the sand, or maybe so on a piece of bark. My onkle she’ll made me a map of the Parle Pas. He’ll show the place where to go through the middle on the Parle Pas. S’pose you’ll tell my onkle, Moise he’ll walk down the Parle Pas an’ not ron on heem, he’ll laugh on me, heem! All right, when you get to the Grand Portage sixty miles below, you’ll get all the walk you want, Alex,hein?”
Alex answered him with a pleasant smile, not in the least disposed to be laughed into taking any risks he did not think necessary.
“We’d better drop down a few miles farther before we make camp,” said he. “En avant, Moise. En roulant, ma boule!”
Moise turned to his paddle and broke into song gaily as they once more headed down the stream. They did not tarry again untilthe sun was behind the western ridges. The mountain shadows were heavy when at last their little fire lighted up the black forest which crowded close in all around them.
“I think this is fine,” said Jesse, quietly, as they sat about the camp-fire that night.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world,” said John; and Rob gave his assent by a quiet nod of satisfaction.
“I feel as if we were almost home now,” said Jesse. “We must have come an awfully long way.”
Alex shook his head. “We’re a long way from home yet,” said he. “When the Klondike rushes were on some men got up as far north as this place, and scattered everywhere, hoping they could get through somehow to the Yukon—none of them knew just how. But few of them ever got up this river beyond Hudson’s Hope, or even Fort St. John, far east of there. Some turned back and went down the Mackenzie, others took the back trail from Peace River landing. A good many just disappeared. I have talked with some who turned back from the mountains here, and they all said they didn’t think the whole world was as big as it seemed by the time they got here! And they came from the East, where home seems close to you!”
“Well,” said Rob, “as it’s probably pretty rough below here, and good grizzly country, why not stop here and make that little hunt we were talking about?”
“All right,” said Alex; “I suppose this is as good a game country as any. We ought to get a moose, even if we don’t see any bear. In the old times there used to be plenty of buffalo this far to the west in the mountains. What do you say, Moise—shall we make a hunting camp here?”
“We’ll been got no meat pretty quick bimeby,” said Moise. “Maybe so.”
They were encamped here on a narrow beach, which, however, sheered up high enough to offer them security against any rise in the stream. They were careful to pull up the boats high and dry, and to secure them in case of any freshet. Used as they were by this time to camp life, it now took them but a few minutes to complete their simple operations in making any camp. As all the boys had taken a turn at paddling this day, and as the exciting scenes of the past few days had been of themselves somewhat wearying, they were glad enough to get a long night’s sleep.
Before Rob, the leader of the younger members of the party, had rolled up in his blankets Alex came to him and asked himwhether he really cared to finish running the river, provided they could get out overland.
“Surely we do,” said Rob at once. “We’ll go on through, as far as we can, at least, by boat. We don’t want to be modern and ride along on horseback until we have to. Mackenzie didn’t and Fraser didn’t! Nor do we want to go to any trading-post for supplies. We can get butter and eggs in the States if we want to, but we’rehunters! You show us a grizzly to-morrow, Alex, that’s all!”
“All right,” said Alex, smiling. “Maybe we can.”
“
Why, Alex, this land along the bayou here looks like a cattle-yard!” exclaimed Rob as early the next morning they paused to examine a piece of the moist ground which they had observed much cut up with tracks of big game.
There were four in party now, Moise alone having remained to keep the camp. For an hour or more now they had passed back toward the hills, examining the damp ground around the edges of the willow flats and alder thickets. From time to time they had seen tracks of bears, some large and some small, but at this particular point the sign was so unmistakable that all had paused.
“I don’t know that I ever saw more sign on one piece of ground,” admitted Alex. He spoke in a low tone of voice and motioned for the others to be very quiet. “The trouble is, they seem to be feeding at night and working back toward the hills in the daytime. Onthis country here there have been six black bears and two grizzlies.”
“Yes, and here’s that big track again,” said Rob. “He sinks in the mud deep as an ox, and has a hind foot as long as my rifle-stock.”
“Six or eight hundred pounds, maybe,” said Alex. “He’s a good one. The other one isn’t so big. They fed here last night, and seem to be working up this little valley toward the hills again. If we had plenty of time I’d be in favor of waiting here until evening, for this seems to be a regular stamping-ground for bear. What do you think, Mr. Rob?”
“Well,” said Rob, “I know it usually isn’t much worth while to follow a bear, but maybe it wouldn’t do any harm in here to work on after this one a little way, because there doesn’t seem to be any hunting in here, and maybe the bears aren’t badly scared.”
“Very well, that’s what I think, too,” said Alex; “but if this trail gets very much fresher I think it is just as well for all of us to keep out of the thicket and take to the open. Maybe we can find higher ground on ahead.”
They passed on up, making cross-cuts on the trail and circling now and again through the willow flats as they advanced. Once in a while Alex would have to search a little beforehe could pick up the trail, but always somewhere among the willows he would find the great footprint of the big bear. Often he showed the boys where the willows had been broken down by the bear in its feeding, and at some places it left a path as though a cyclone had gone through.
Having established it in his mind that the bear was steadily advancing deeper back into the valley they were following, Alex at last left the willow flats and made for the side of the depression down which a little stream was coming, striking into the hills at the place where the valley finally narrowed to a deep coulée. Here they advanced slowly and cautiously, taking care to be on the side where the wind would favor them most, and once in a while Alex still dropped down to the foot of the coulée in search of sign or feeding-ground. As they advanced, however, the course of the stream became more definite and the moist ground not so large in extent, so that it became more difficult to trail any animal on the drier ground. A mile farther on, none the less, in a little muddy place, they found the track of the giant bear, still ahead of them. It had sunk eight inches or more into the soft earth, and a little film of muddy water still was trickling into the bottom of thetrack, while at its rim little particles of mud still hung loose and ragged.
Alex’s eyes now gleamed with eagerness, for he saw that the bear was but a little distance ahead. He examined closely the country about to see whether the big grizzly was alone, and to his relief found no sign of the smaller bear.
“I’m not afraid of them both,” said he, in a low whisper to Rob, “but sometimes it’s easier to get up to one bear than it is to two, and I notice it’s nearly always the small one that gives the alarm.”
The big grizzly, however, still was traveling steadily at times. They could not locate him in this thicket, and, indeed, a little farther on found where, apparently but a few moments earlier, he had left this coulée and crossed a little ridge, apparently intending to change his course entirely. This was disappointing, but Alex whispered to the young hunters not to be disturbed, for that possibly the bear might lie up or go to feeding in some other ravine not far on ahead.
“You’d better wait here, I think,” said he at last, as they approached the top of a little ridge, where evidently another coulée came down.
He began slowly to climb toward the top,from which he could get a view of the other side. Almost as soon as he raised his head above the summit he pulled it back again. Quickly he dropped down to where the others stood.
“Is he there?” asked Rob, eagerly.
Alex nodded. He looked at the faces of all the boys. Not one of them was pale, and every one seemed only eager to go ahead. Slowly standing and watching them for a time, at length the old hunter turned, silently motioning them to follow him.
What Alex had seen when he peered over the top of the ridge was nothing else than the big bear feeding in the bushes which lay some sixty yards ahead and below, where the ground was moister. When at length the boys, however, reached the same place and gazed over eagerly they saw nothing at all at first.
Rob turned to whisper a question to Alex, but even as he did so he felt John clutch him by the arm. Then as they all looked on ahead they saw the great bear rise once more on his hind legs high above the bushes. He was so close they could see his blocky head, his square nose, and even his little piggish eyes. Slowly the grizzly turned a little bit from side to side, nodding his head and whininga little all to himself, as he started once more to reach out and break down the tops of the bushes toward him in his great arms.
It was at that instant that the rifle of Alex rang out, and he called to the others hurriedly, “Shoot! Shoot!”
He needed not to give such counsel, for every boy there had almost at the same instant fired at the giant grizzly which stood below them. He fell with a great roar, and began to thresh about in the bushes. No sight of him for a moment could be obtained. All four now sprang erect, waiting eagerly for the crippled game to break cover. John and Rob even started down the slope, until Alex called out to them peremptorily to come back. As a matter of fact, three of the four bullets had struck the bear and he was already hurt mortally, but this could not be determined, and Alex knew too much to go into the cover after a wounded grizzly.