The great flues of thePeace Riverdevoured enormous quantities of the soft pine fuel, so that soon after noon of the second day they found it well to haul alongshore at a wood-yard, where some of the employés of the company had stacked up great heaps of cord-wood. It was the duty of the deck-hands to get this aboard the boat, an operation which would require perhaps several hours.
“You might prefer to go ashore here,” said Alex, “while we’re lying tied up. We’ll blow the whistle in time to call you in before we cast off.”
As Alex did not think there would be any hunting, he concluded to remain on the boat, but Moise volunteered to walk along the beach with the boys, to explain anything they might see, and to be of assistance in case they should happen to meet with any game, although no one suspected that such would be the case, since the arrival of the boat had necessarily made considerable disturbance.
“Maybe so we’ll seen some of these mooses somewhere,” said Moise after a time. “You’ll seen his track on the sand all along.”
“That’s so,” said Rob. “They look just like cattle, don’t they? I should think all the game in the country must be coming down into this valley to see what’s going on. Here’s a wolf track, too, big as a horse’s foot, almost. And what are all of these little scratches, like a cat, on the beach, Moise?”
“Some beevaire, he’ll sweem across an’ come out here. He’ll got a house somewhere, I’ll s’pose. Plenty game on this part of the river all tam. Plenty meat. My people he’ll live here many year. I got some onkle over on Battle River, an’ seven, five, eight cousin on Cadotte River, not far from here. All good honter, too.”
“I can believe that, Moise, after seeing you,” said John.
The happy-go-lucky Moise laughed light-heartedly. “If she’ll don’ hont on this land, she’ll starve sure. A man he’ll mus’ walk, he’ll mus’ hont, he’ll mus’ portage, he’ll mus’ trap, he’ll mus’ walk on the track-line, an’ know how for paddle an’ pole, else he’ll starve sure.”
They walked on down along the narrow beach covered with rough stones, and showingonly here and there enough of the sand or earth to hold a track. At length, however, Moise gave a sharp word of caution, and hurriedly motioned them all to get under cover at the bank.
“What is it, Moise?” whispered Rob, eagerly.
“Moose!” He pointed down the bank. For a long time the boys could discover nothing, but at last they caught sight of a little splash of water four or five hundred yards below, where a trickling stream entered the main river at a low place.
“He’ll stood there an’ fight the fly, maybe so,” said Moise. “Ha-hum! Why he’ll don’ see us I don’ know, me. Why the boat he’ll not scare heem I’ll don’ know, me, too. How we’ll get heem I don’ know, me. But we’ll try. Come!”
The boys now found that Moise was once more turned hunter, and rather a relentless and thoughtless one at that, for he seemed to pay no attention to the weakness of other members of his company. They scarcely could keep him in sight as he made his way through the heavy cover to an upper bench, where the forest was more open. Here he pointed to the steep slope which still rose above them.
“We must make surround,” said he, in a whisper.
Not so bad a general was Moise, for, slight as was his chance to approach so wary an animal as a moose under these conditions, he used the only possible plan by which success might have been attained.
The little trickle of water in which the moose stood at the beach below came down out of a steepcoulée, which at the point where they stood ran between deep banks, rapidly shallowing farther up the main slope. Fortunately the wind was right for an approach. Moise left John at a rock which showed on an open place pretty well up the hill, and stationed Jesse a little closer to thecoulée. Moise and Rob scrambled across the steep slopes of the ravine, and hurried on as fast as they could go, to try to get below the moose in case it should attempt to take the water. Thus they had four rifles distributed at points able to cover the course of the moose should it attempt to escape up the bank, and close enough to hear it if it passed beneath in the forest growth.
Rob and Moise paused only long enough partly to get their breath before Moise motioned to Rob to remain where he was, while he himself hastened to the right and down toward the beach.
For some time the half-breed hunter remained at the edge of the cover, listening intently. Apparently he heard no sound, and neither he nor Rob could detect any ripple on the water showing that the moose was going to undertake escape by swimming. Thus for a time, for what indeed seemed several minutes, all the hunters continued in their inaction, unable to determine upon a better course than simply to wait to see what might happen.
What did happen was something rather singular and unexpected. Suddenly Rob heard a rifle-shot at the left, and turning, saw the smoke of Jesse’s rifle, followed by a second and then a third report. He saw Jesse then spring to his feet and run up to the slope, shouting excitedly as he went and waving his cap. Evidently the hunt was over in very unexpected fashion. Moise, Rob, and John also ran up as fast as their legs and lungs would allow them.
They saw lying almost at the head of thecoulée, which here had shallowed up perceptibly, a great, long-legged, dark body, with enormous head, tremendously long nose, and widely palmated antlers—the latter in the velvet, but already of extreme size.
For a time they could hardly talk for fatigue and excitement, but presently each could seehow the hunt had happened to terminate in this way. The moose, smelling or hearing Moise when he got on the wind below, at the edge of the cover, had undertaken to make its escape quietly under the cover of the steepcouléedown which it had come. With the silence which this gigantic animal sometimes can compass, it had sneaked like a rabbit quite past Rob and almost to the head of thecoulée. A little bit later and it might have gained the summit and have been lost in the poplar forest beyond. Jesse, however, had happened to see it as it emerged, and had opened fire, with the result which now was obvious. His last bullet had struck the moose through the heart as it ran and killed it almost instantly.
“Well, Jess,” said Rob, “I take off my hat to you! That moose must have passed within a hundred yards of me and I never knew it, and from where you killed him he must have been three hundred yards at least.”
“Those boy she’ll be good shot,” said Moise, approvingly, slapping Jesse warmly on the shoulder. “Plenty meat now on the boat,hein?”
“When I shot him,” said Jesse, simply, “he just fell all over the hill.”
“I was just going to shoot,” said John, “but I couldn’t see very well from where Iwas, and before I could run into reach Jesse had done the business.”
“Well,” said Moise, “one thing, she’ll been lucky. We’ll make those deck-hand come an’ carry in this meat—me, I’m too proud to carry some more meat, what?”
He laughed now as he began to skin out and quarter the meat in his usual rapid and efficient fashion.
They had finished this part of their work, and were turning down the hill to return to the steamer when they were saluted by the heavy whistle of the boat, which echoed in great volume back and forth between the steep banks of the river, which here lay at the bottom of a trough-like valley, the stream itself several hundred yards in width.
“Don’t hurry,” said Moise; “she’ll wait till we come, an’ she’ll like plenty moose meat on his boat.”
All of which came out as Moise had predicted, for when they told Captain Saunders that they really had a dead moose ready to be brought aboard the latter beamed his satisfaction.
“That’s better than bear meat for me!” said he. “We’ll just lie here while the boys go out and bring in the meat.”
“Now,” said Rob to his friends, as, hot anddusty, they turned to their rooms to get ready for dinner, “I don’t know what you other fellows think, but it seems to me we’ve killed about all the meat we’ll need for a while. Let’s wait now until we see Uncle Dick—it won’t be more than a day or so, and we’ve all had a good hunt.”
As they had been told, our travelers found the banks of their river at this far northern latitude much lower than they had been for the first hundred miles below the Landing. Now and again they would pass little scattered settlements of natives, or the cabin of some former trading-station. For the most part, however, the character of the country was that of an untracked wilderness, in spite of the truth, which was that the Hudson Bay Company had known it and traded through it for more than a century past.
By no means the most northerly trading-posts of the great fur-trading company, Fort Vermilion, their present destination, seemed to our young friends almost as though it were at the edge of the world. Their journey progressed almost as though they were in a dream, and it was difficult for them to recall all of its incidents, or to get clearly before their minds the distance back of them to the homesin far-off Alaska, which they had left so long ago. The interest of travelers in new land, however, still was theirs, and they looked forward eagerly also to meeting the originator of this pleasant journey of theirs—Uncle Dick Wilcox, who, as they now learned from the officers of the boat, had been summoned to this remote region on business connected with the investigation of oil-fields on the Athabasca River, and had returned as far as Fort Vermilion on his way out to the settlements.
When finally they came within sight of the ancient post of Fort Vermilion, the boys, as had been the case in such other posts as they previously had seen, could scarcely identify the modest whitewashed buildings of logs or boards as really belonging to a post of the old company of Hudson Bay. The scene which they approached really was a quiet and peaceful one. At the rim of the bank stood the white building of the Company’s post, or store, with a well-shingled red roof. Beyond this were some houses of the employés. In the other direction was the residence of the factor, a person of considerable importance in this neighborhood. Yet farther up-stream, along the bank, stood a church with a little bell; whereas, quite beyond the scattered settlement and in the opposite direction there rosea tall, two-story building with projecting smoke-stack. Rob inquired the nature of this last building, which looked familiar to him.
“That is the grist-mill,” said Captain Saunders to him. “You see, we raise the finest wheat up here you’ll find in the world.”
“I’ve heard of it,” said Rob, “but I couldn’t really believe it, although we had good vegetables away back there at Peace River Landing.”
“It’s the truth,” said Captain Saunders; “yonder is the Company’s wheat-field, a hundred acres of it, and the same sort of wheat that took the first prize at the Centennial, at your own city of Philadelphia, in 1876. I’ll show you old Brother Regnier, the man who raised that wheat, too. He can’t speak any English yet, but he certainly can raise good wheat. And at the experimental farm you shall see nearly every vegetable you ever heard of.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Rob; “we always thought of this country as being arctic—we never speak of it without thinking of dog-trains and snowshoes.”
“The secret is this,” said Captain Saunders. “Our summers are short, but our days are very long. Now, wheat requires sunshine, daylight, to make it grow. All right; wegive it more hours of sunshine in a month than you do in a month in Dakota or Iowa. The result is that it grows quicker and stronger and better, as we think. It gets ripe before the nights become too cold. This great abundance of sunlight is the reason, also, that we raise such excellent vegetables—as I’m sure you will have reason to understand, for here we always lay in a supply for our return voyage. I am thinking, however,” added the captain, presently, as the boat, screaming with her whistle, swung alongside of her landing-place, “that you’ll see some one in this crowd here that you ought to know.”
All along the rim of the bank there was rather a gaily-clad line of Indians and half-breeds, men and women, many of whom were waving salutations to members of the boat’s crew. The boys studied this line eagerly, but for some time none of them spoke.
“I see him!” said Jesse at last. “That’s Uncle Dick sitting up there on the bench.”
The others also identified their relative and friend as he sat quietly smoking and waiting for the boat to make her landing. At length he arose and came to the staging—a rather slender, bronzed man, with very brown face and eyes wrinkled at the corners. He wore anengineer’s garb of khaki and stiff-brimmed white hat.
The three boys took off their hats and gave a cheer as they saw him standing there smiling.
“How are you, Uncle Dick?” they all cried; and so eager were they that they could scarcely wait for the gang-plank to be run out.
Their uncle, Mr. Richard Wilcox, at that time employed in the engineering department of one of the Dominion railways, laughed rather happily as he bunched them in his arms when they came ashore. There was little chance for him to say anything for some time, so eager were the boys in their greeting of him.
“Well, you’re all here!” said he at length, breaking away to shake hands with Alex and Moise, who smiled very happily also, now coming up the bank. “How have they done, Alex?”
“Fine!” said the old hunter. “Couldn’t have been better!”
“This was good boys, all right,” affirmed Moise. “We’ll save her life plenty tam, but she’s good boy!”
“Did you have any trouble getting across, Alex?” asked Uncle Dick.
“Plenty, I should say!” said Alex, smiling.“But we came through it. The boys have acted like sportsmen, and I couldn’t say more.”
“I suppose perhaps you got some game then, eh?”
All three now began to speak at once excitedly, and so fast that they could scarcely be understood.
“Did you really get a grizzly?” inquired Uncle Dick of Alex, after a while.
“Yes, sir, and a very good one. And a black bear too, and a moose, and some sheep, and a lot of small stuff like that. They’re hunters and travelers. We gave them a ‘lob-stick’ to mark their journey—far back in the Rockies.”
“Well, Alaska will have to look to its laurels!” said Uncle Dick, taking a long breath and pretending not to be proud of them. “It seems to me you must have been pretty busy shooting things, from all I can learn, young men.”
“Oh, we know the country,” interrupted Rob, “and we’ve got a map—we could build a railroad across there if we had to.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I’m mighty glad you got through all right,” said Uncle Dick. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I oughtn’t to have let you try that trip, for it’s dangerousenough for men. But everything’s well that ends well, and here you are, safe and sound. You’ll have to be getting out of here before long, though, in order to make Valdez in time for your fall school—you’d be running wild if I left you on the trail any longer.
“The boat will be going back to the Landing in a couple of days, I suppose,” he added after a time, as he gathered their hands in his and started along the path up the steep bank; “but there are a few things here you ought to see—the post and the farms and grains which they have—wonderful things in their way. And then I’ll try to get Saunders to fix it so that you can see the Vermilion Chutes of the Peace River.”
“I know right where that is,” said Rob, feeling in his pocket for his map—“about sixty miles below here. That’s the head of navigation on the Peace, isn’t it?”
“It is for the present time,” said Uncle Dick. “I’ve been looking at that cataract of the Peace. There ought to be a lock or a channel cut through, so that steamboats could run the whole length from Chippewayan to the Rockies! As it is, everything has to portage there.”
“We don’t know whether to call this country old or young,” said Rob. “In some waysit doesn’t seem to have changed very much, and in other ways it seems just like any other place.”
“One of these days you’ll see a railroad down the Mackenzie, young man,” said Uncle Dick, “and before long, of course, you’ll see one across the Rockies from the head of the Saskatchewan, above the big bend of the Columbia.”
“Why couldn’t we get in there some time, Uncle Dick?” asked Jesse, who was feeling pretty brave now that they were well out of the Rocky Mountains and the white water of the rapids.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Uncle Dick, suddenly looking around. “It might be a good idea, after all. But I think you’d find pretty bad water in the Columbia if you tried to do any navigation there. Time enough to talk about that next year. Come on now, and I’ll introduce you to the factor and the people up here at the Post.”
They joined him now, and soon were shaking hands with many persons, official and otherwise, of the white or the red race. They found the life very interesting and curious, according to their own notions. The head clerk and they soon struck up a warm friendship. He told them that he had spent thirtyyears of his life at that one place, although he received his education as far east as Montreal. Married to an Indian woman, who spoke no English, he had a family of ten bright and clean children, each one of whom, as John soon found to his satisfaction, appreciated the Imperial Toffy which made a part of the stock of the Hudson Bay Company at that post also.
THE PORTAGE, VERMILION CHUTES, PEACE RIVERTHE PORTAGE, VERMILION CHUTES, PEACE RIVER
All of these new friends of theirs asked them eagerly about their journey across the Rockies, which was a strange region to every one of them, although they had passed their lives in the service of the fur trade in the north. As usual, in short, they made themselves much at home, and asked a thousand questions difficult enough to answer. Here, as they had done at Peace River Landing, they laid in a stock of gaudy moccasins and gloves and rifle covers, all beautifully embroidered by native women in beads or stained porcupine quills, some of which work had come from the half-arctic tribes hundreds of miles north of Vermilion. They saw also some of the furs which had been sent down in the season’s take, and heard stories in abundance of the ways of that wild country in the winter season. Even they undertook to make friends with some of the half-savage sledge-dogs which werekept chained in the yard back of the Post. After this they made a journey out to the farm which the Dominion government maintains in that far-off region, and there saw, as they had been promised by Captain Saunders, wheat and rye taller than any one of them as they stood in the grain, and also vegetables of every sort, all growing or in full maturity.
“Well, we’ll have stories to tell when we get back,” said Rob, “and I don’t believe they’ll believe half of them, either, about the wildness of this country and the tameness of it. Anyhow, I’m glad we’ve come.”
The next day they put in, as Uncle Dick suggested, in a steamer trip down to the Vermilion Chutes. They did not get closer than three or four miles, but tied up while the party went down on foot to see the big cataract of the Peace—some fifteen feet of sheer, boiling white water, falling from a rim of rock extending almost half a mile straightaway across the river.
“I expect that’s just a little worse than the ‘Polly’ Rapids,” said John. “I don’t think even Moise could run that place.”
Even as they stood on the high rim of the rock at the edge of the falls they saw coming up from below the figure of a half-breed, whowas dragging at the end of a very long line a canoe which was guided by his companion far below on the swift water. Had the light line broken it must, as it seemed to these observers, have meant destruction of the man in the canoe. Yet the two went on about their work calmly, hauling up close to the foot of the falls, then lifting out their canoe, portaging above, and, with a brief salutation, passing quickly on their way up the stream.
“That’s the way we do it, boys,” said Uncle Dick, “in this part of the world—there goes the fast express. It would trouble the lightest of you to keep up with that boy on the line, too, I’m thinking. Some day,” added Uncle Dick, casting a professional eye out over the wide ridge of rock which here blocked the river, “they’ll blow a hole through that place so that a boat can get through. Who knows but one of you will be the engineer in charge? Anyhow, I hope so—if I don’t get the job myself.”
“You mustn’t forget about that trip over the Yellowhead Pass, where your new railroad’s going now, Uncle Dick,” said Jesse, as they turned to walk again up the rough beach toward the mooring-place of the steamer.
“Don’t be in too big a hurry, Jesse,” returned his relative. “You’ve got a wholeyear of studying ahead of you, between now and then. We’ll take it under advisement.”
“What I believe I like best about this country,” said Rob, soberly, “is the kindness of the people in it. Everywhere we have been they’ve been as hospitable as they could be. We don’t dare admire anything, because they’ll give it to us. It seems to me everybody gets along pleasantly with everybody else up here; and I like that, you know.”
“It’s a man’s country,” said Uncle Dick, “that’s true, and I don’t know that you’ll be the worse for a little trip into it, although you come from a man’s country back there in Alaska yourselves, for the matter of that. Well, this is the northern end of your trail for this year, my sons. Here’s where we turn back for home.”
They paused at the bend and looked once more back at the long, foaming ridge of white water which extended across from shore to shore of the stream which they had followed so far.
“All right,” said Rob, “we’ve had a good time.”
They turned now, and all tramped steadily back to the boat, which soon resumed her course up-stream.
Regarding their further stay at Fort Vermilion,or their return journey of several days southward to Peace River Landing, little need be said, save that, in the belief of all, the young hunters now had killed abundance of game. Although they saw more than a dozen bears on their way up the river, they were willing to leave their rifles in their cases, and spend their time studying the country and poring yet more over the maps which they were now preparing to show their friends at home.
Arrived at Peace River Landing, the young hunters found everything quite as Alex said it would be, their belongings perfectly safe and untouched in the tent where they had left them. Uncle Dick, who now took charge of the party, agreed with them that it was an excellent thing to make Alex and Moise presents of the canoes, and to give Moise the remainder of the supplies which would not be required on their brief trip to Little Slave Lake by wagon.
At this time the telephone line had been completed from Little Slave Lake to Peace River Landing, and the factor at the latter post had sent word for two wagons and teams to come up for these passengers, outbound. There was little difficulty in throwing their light equipment, with their many trophies and curiosities, into one of the wagons, and arranging with the other to carry out theJaybird, which, a little bit battered but practically unhurt, now continued the last stage of its somewhat eventful journey over the old Mackenzie trail—Alex, as may be supposed, watching it with very jealous eye so that it should get no harm in the long traverse.
Alex was thus to accompany the party for a few days, but Moise, who lived at the Landing, now must say good-by. This he did still smiling, though by no means glad to lose the company of his young friends.
“You’ll come back some more bimeby,” said he. “Any man he’ll drink the water on this river one time, he’ll couldn’t live no more without once each year he’ll come back an’ drink some more on that river! I’ll see you again, an’ bimeby you’ll get so you’ll could carry seex hondred poun’ half a mile an’ not set it down. Moise, he’ll wait for you.”
When they reached the top of the steep hill which rises back of Peace River Landing, almost a thousand feet above the river which runs below, they all stopped and looked back, waiting for the wagons to toil up the slope, and waiting also to take in once more the beauty of the scene which lay below them. The deep valley, forking here, lay pronounced in the dark outlines of its forest growth. It stillwas morning, and a light mist lay along the surface of the river. In the distance banks of purple shadows lay, and over all the sun was beginning to cast a softening light. The boys turned away to trudge on along the trail with a feeling almost of sadness at leaving a place so beautiful.
“It is as Moise says, though!” broke out Rob, answering what seemed to be the unspoken question in the minds of his fellows—“we’ll have to come back again some time. It’s a man’s country.”
Hardened by their long experience in the open, the boys were able to give even Uncle Dick, seasoned as he was, something of an argument at footwork on the trail, and they used wagons by no means all the time in the hundred miles which lie between Peace River Landing and Little Slave Lake—a journey which required them to camp out for two nights in the open. By this time the nights were cold, and on the height of land between these two waterways the water froze almost an inch in the water-pails at night, although the sun in the daytime was as warm as ever. To their great comfort, the mosquito nuisance was now quite absent; so, happy and a little hungry, at length they rode into the scattered settlement of Grouard, or Little Slave Lake,passing on the way to the lower town one more of the old-time posts of the Hudson Bay Company.
“You see here,” said Uncle Dick, as they paused at the edge of the water which lay at the end street, “only an arm of the lake proper. The steamer can’t get through this little channel, but ties up about eight miles from here. I suppose we ought to go aboard to-night.”
“If you will allow me, sir,” said Alex, stepping forward at this time, “I might give the boys a little duck-shoot this evening on their way down to the boat.”
“Why not?” said Uncle Dick, enthusiastically. “I don’t know but I’d like a mallard or so for myself, although I can’t join you to-night, as I’m too busy. Can you get guns and ammunition, Alex?”
“Oh yes,” replied the old hunter, “easily. And I’ll show the young gentlemen more ducks to-night than they ever saw in all their lives before. TheJaybirdwill carry all of us, if we’re careful, and I’ll just paddle them down along the edge of the marsh. After we’ve made our shoot, we’ll come on down to the boat after dark, or thereabout.”
“Fine!” said Uncle Dick. “That’ll give me time to get my business completed here,and I’ll go down to the boat by wagon along shore.”
This arrangement pleased the boys very much, for they knew in a general way that the lake on whose shores they now were arrived was one of the greatest breeding-places for wild fowl on the continent. Besides this, they wished to remain with Alex as long as possible, for all of them had become very fond of the quiet and dignified man who had been their guide and companion for so long.
The four of them had no trouble in finishing the portage of theJaybirdand her cargo from the wagon to navigable water, and finally they set off, paddling for the marshes which made off toward the main lake.
They had traveled perhaps three or four miles when Alex concluded to yield to the importunities of the boys to get ashore. They were eager to do this, because continually now they saw great bands and streams of wild fowl coming in from every direction to alight in the marshes—more ducks, as Alex had said, than they had thought there were in all the world. Most of them were mallards, and from many places in the marsh they could hear the quacking and squawking of yet other ducks hidden in the high grass.
“We haven’t any waders,” said Alex, “andI think you’ll find the water pretty cold, but you’ll soon get used it to. Come ahead, then.”
They pushed their canoe into the cover of the reeds and grasses, and disembarking, waded on out toward the outer edge of the marsh, where the water was not quite so deep, yet where they could get cover in rushes and clumps of grass. Alex posted them in a line across a narrow quarter of the marsh, so that each gun would be perhaps a hundred yards from his neighbor, Jesse, the shortest of the party, taking the shallowest water nearest to the road beyond the marsh.
They had not long to wait, for the air seemed to them quite full of hurrying bands of fowl, so close that they could see their eyes dart glances from side to side, their long necks stretched out, their red feet hugged tight up to their feathers.
It is not to be supposed that any one of our young hunters was an expert wild-fowl shot, for skill in that art comes only with a considerable experience. Moreover, they were not provided with the best of guns and ammunition, but only such as the Post was accustomed to sell to the half-breeds of that country. In spite of all handicaps, however, the sport was keen enough to please them, andsuccessful enough as well, for once in a while one of them would succeed in knocking out of a passing flock one or more of the great birds, which splashed famously in the water of the marsh. Sometimes they were unable to find their birds after they had fallen, but they learned to hurry at once to a crippled bird and secure it before it could escape and hide in the grasses. Presently they had at their feet almost a dozen fine mallards. In that country, where the ducks abound, there had as yet been no shooting done at them, so that they were not really as wild as they are when they reach the southern latitudes. Neither were their feathers so thick as they are later in the season, when their flight is stronger. The shooting was not so difficult as not to afford plenty of excitement for our young hunters, who called out in glee from one to the other, commenting on this, the last of their many sporting experiences in the north.
They found that Alex, although he had never boasted of his skill, was a very wonderful shot on wild fowl; in fact, he rarely fired at all unless certain he was going to kill his bird, and when he dropped the bird it nearly always was stone-dead.
After a time Rob, hearing what he supposed to be the quacking of a duck in the grassbehind him, started back to find what he fancied was the hidden mallard. He saw Alex looking at him curiously, and once more heard the quacking.
“Why, it’syouwho’ve been doing that all the time, Alex!” exclaimed Rob. “I see now why those ducks would come closer to you than to me—you were calling them!”
Alex tried to show Rob how to quack like a duck without using any artificial means, but Rob did not quite get the knack of it that evening. For a time, however, after the other boys had come over also, they all squatted in the grass near to Alex, and found much pleasure in seeing him decoy the ducks, and do good, clean shooting when they were well within reach.
At last Alex said, “I think this will do for the evening, if you don’t mind. It’s time we were getting on down to the steamer.”
The boys had with them their string of ducks, and Alex had piled up nearly two dozen of his own.
“What are we going to do with all of these?” said Rob. “They’re heavy, and our boat’s pretty full right now.”
“How many shall you want on the boat?” inquired Alex.
“Well,” said Rob, “I don’t know, but fromthe number of ducks we’ve seen I don’t suppose they’re much of a rarity there any more than they are with you. Why don’t you keep these ducks yourself, Alex, for your family?”
“Very well,” said Alex, “suppose you take half dozen or so, and let me get the others when I come back—I’ll pile them up on this muskrat house here, and pick them up after I have left you at the steamer. You see,” continued he, “my people live about two miles on the other side of the town, closer to the Hudson Bay post. I must go back and get acquainted with my family.”
“Have you any children, Alex?” asked Rob.
“Five,” said Alex. “Two boys about as big as you, and three little girls. They all go to school.”
“I wish we had known that,” said Rob, “when we came through town, for we ought to have called on your family. Never mind, we’ll do that the next time we’re up here.”
They paddled on now quietly and steadily along the edge of the marshes, passed continually by stirring bands of wild fowl, now indistinct in the dusk. At last they saw the lights of the steamer which was to carry them to the other extremity of Little Slave Lake.
And so at last, after they had gone aboard,it became necessary to part with Alex in turn. Rob called his friends apart for a little whispered conversation. After a time they all went up to Alex carrying certain articles in their hands.
“If you please, Alex,” said Rob, “we want to give your children some little things we don’t need any more ourselves. Here’s our pocket-knives, and some handkerchiefs, and what toffy John has left, and a few little things. Please take them to your boys, and to the girls, if they’ll have them, and say we want to come and see them some time.”
“That’s very nice,” said Alex. “I thank you very much.”
He shook each of them by the hand quietly, and then, dropping lightly into theJaybirdas she lay alongside, paddled off steadily into the darkness, with Indian dignity now, saying no further word of farewell.
Continually there was something new for the travelers, even after they had finished their steamboat journey across the lake on the second day. Now they were passing down through the deep and crooked little river which connects Slave Lake with the Athabasca River. They made what is known as the Mirror Landing portage in a York boat which happened to be above the rapids of the Little Slave River, where a wagon portage usually is made of some fifteen or sixteen miles. Here on the Athabasca they found yet another steamboat lying alongshore, and waiting for the royal mails from Peace River Landing.
This steamer, theNorth Star, in common with that plying on Little Slave Lake, they discovered to be owned by a transportation company doing considerable business in carrying settlers and settlers’ supplies into that upper country. Indeed, they found the ownerof the boat, a stalwart and kindly man, himself formerly a trader among the Indians, and now a prominent official in the Dominion government, ready to accompany them as far as Athabasca Landing, and eager to talk further with Mr. Wilcox regarding coming development of the country which Moise had called the Land of Plenty.
They found that the Athabasca River also flows to the northward in its main course, joining the water of the Peace River in the great Mackenzie, the artery of this region between the Rockies and the Arctics; but here it makes a great bend far to the south, as though to invite into the Far North any one living in the civilized settlements far below. Their maps, old and new, became objects of still greater interest to the young travelers, both on board the vessel, where they had talked with every one, as usual, regarding their trip and the country, and after they had left the steamer at the thriving frontier town of Athabasca Landing.
Here they were almost in touch with the head of the rails, but still clinging to their wish to travel as the natives long had done, they took wagon transportation from Athabasca Landing to the city of Edmonton, something like a hundred miles southward fromthe terminus of their water journey. At this point, indeed, they felt again that their long trail was ended, for all around them were tall buildings, busy streets, blazing electric lights, and all the tokens of a thriving modern city. Here, too, they and their journey became objects of newspaper comment, and for the brief time of their stay the youngvoyageurswere quite lionized by men who could well understand the feat they had performed.
Mr. Wilcox was obliged to remain in the north for some time yet in connection with his engineering duties, which would not close until the approach of winter. He therefore sent the boys off alone for their railway journey, which would take them first to Calgary, and then across the Rockies and Selkirks through Banff, and forward to Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle, from which latter point they were expected to take coast boats up the long Alaska coast to Valdez—a sea voyage of seven days more from Seattle.
Mr. Wilcox gave them full instructions regarding the remaining portions of their journey, and at length shook hands with them as he left them on the sleeping-car.
“Tell the folks in Valdez that I’ll be back home on one of the last boats. So long! Take care of yourselves!”
He turned, left the car, and marched off up the platform without looking around at them even to wave a hand. His kindly look had said good-by. The boys looked after him and made no comment. They saw that they were in a country of men. They were beginning to learn the ways of the breed of men who, in the last century or so, have conquered the American continent for their race—a race much the same, under whatever flag.
Even on the railway train they found plenty of new friends who were curious to learn of their long journey across the Rockies. The boys gave a modest account of themselves, and were of the belief that almost any one could have done as much had they had along such good guides as Alex and Moise.
The Rockies and the Selkirks impressed them very much, and they still consulted their maps, especially at the time when they found themselves approaching the banks of the Columbia River.
“This river and the Fraser are cousins,” said Rob, “like the Athabasca and the Peace. Both of these rivers west of the Rockies head far to the south, then go far to the north, and swing back—but they run to the Pacific instead of to the Arctic. Now right here”—he put his finger on the place marked as theYellowhead Pass—“is the head of the Saskatchewan River, and the fur-traders used to cross here from the Saskatchewan to the Columbia just the way Mackenzie and Fraser and Finlay used to cross to the Peace from the Fraser. I tell you what I think, fellows. I’d like to come back next year some time, and have a go at this Yellowhead Pass, the way we did at that on the head of the Peace—wouldn’t you? We could study up on Alexander Henry, and Thompson, and all those fellows, just as we did on Fraser and Mackenzie for the northern pass.”
“Well,” said John, “if we could have Alex and Moise, there’s nothing in the world I’d like better than just that trip.”
“That’s the way I feel, too,” added Jesse. “But now we’re done with this trip. When you stop to think about it, we’ve been quite a little way from home, haven’t we?”
“I feel as though I’d been gone a year,” said John.
“And now it’s all over,” added Rob, “and we’re really going back to our own country, I feel as if it would be a year from here to home.”
Jesse remained silent for a time. “Do you know what I am thinking about now? It’s about our ‘lob-stick’ tree that our mentrimmed up for us. We’ll put one on every river we ever run. What do you say to that?”
“No,” replied Rob, “we can’t do that for ourselves—that has to be voted to us by others, and only if we deserve it. I’ll tell you what—let’s do our best todeserveit first!”
The others of the Young Alaskans agreed to this very cheerfully, and thus they turned happily toward home.
1. 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.
2. “Uncle Dick” is variously referred to as both Richard Hardy and as Richard Wilcox in the text; in transcribing this book, no effort was made to correct this.