Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 114

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As Rob indicated in his diary, the start from McMurray was made early on Monday morning, but the stop was long enough for the boys to gain an idea of the importance of this busy frontier settlement. Here also came in the Clearwater River, down which, by way of a chain of lakes, all the brigade traffic used to come before the discovery that the Grand Rapids themselves could be run. When it is remembered that the start was made from Athabasca Landing on May 29th, and the arrival at McMurray on June 7th, it will be seen that, crude as the system and the means of transport had been, a great deal of results had been attained. Rob figured that at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a week they would not get very far, but Uncle Dick pointed out that now, since they had reached steamer transport, the journey would advance very rapidly.

The steamboat, after its start, passed the string of scows, among which were some boats of independent traders, and a few hardy adventurers bound north, for what purpose they hardly knew.

The Grahame advanced steadily and rapidly down-stream. Some of the passengers excitedly tried to point out to Uncle Dick the value of the oil-lands in this part of the world, but Uncle Dick only smiled and said he was out for a good time, and not building railroads now.

The weather grew quite warm, and in the state-rooms the boys found that the thermometer stood at ninety degrees. With one stop for wood at a yard where the natives had piled up enormous quantities of cordwood, the boat tied up after making perhaps sixty miles.

On the following day she continued her steady progress down-stream between the green-lined shores. The banks of the river now grew lower and lower, and by nine o’clock in the evening, at which time it still was light, there began to show the marshes of the Peace River Delta, one of the most important deltas in all the world. The boat ran on into the night, and before midnight had passed the mouths of the Quatre Fourches, or Four Forks, which make the mouth of the Peace River.

The boys wondered at the great marshes which now they saw, and Uncle Dick explained to them that here was one of the greatest wild-fowl breeding-grounds in all the world.

“If there were any way in the world for sportsmen to get up here,” said he, “this country would soon be famous, for it certainly is a wilderness. Here is where the natives shoot wild geese for their winter’s meat. And as for ducks, there is no numbering them.”

Every one sat on the decks of the boat late at night, and we may rest assured that the boys were on hand when finally the Grahame swung to her moorings along the rocky shore of historic Fort Chippewyan.

In the morning they went ashore eagerly and gazed with wonderment over the wild scene which lay all about. The point where they landed was a rocky promontory. Before it lay high, rocky islands, among which ran the channels of the two great rivers which here met in the great waters of Athabasca Lake.

“Just to think,” said Rob to his friends, “this post here was founded a hundred and forty-three years ago. My, but I’d have liked to have been with old Sir Alexander at that time! He ought to have a monument here, it seems to me, or some sort of tablet; but there isn’t a thing to tell about his having found this place or done anything extraordinary.”

“I wonder how much these natives here are going to get in the way of treaty money,” said John, as he saw the commissioner again putting up his tent with the flag of his country above it. “There are a lot of canoes coming in from everywhere, so they say — fifty Cree boats from their camp. They tell me that the Crees and Chippewyans don’t mix any too well. I think the Crees have got them scared when it comes to that.”

“Well, these dogs have got me scared,” complained Jesse. “I never saw so many dogs in all my life. And there isn’t a cow anywhere in the world, nor even a goat or sheep.”

“They have to have these dogs in the winter-time, you understand,” said John, paternally. “They pull as much as a team of horses would in the snow.”

“Yes, and they eat as much as a horse would,” said Jesse. “The bacon for Fort Resolution was unloaded here last night, and the dogs ate up more than a ton of it; there’s nothing left there except a lot of paper and pieces of canvas! I’ll bet it’s the first time these dogs here ever had a square meal in their lives!”

“I don’t know about that,” said Rob, laughing. “Look over yonder.” He pointed to where an Indian woman sat on the ground, cleaning a lot of fish. Around her squatted a circle of gaunt, wolfish creatures which seemed ready to devour her and her fish alike.

Uncle Dick joined their group as they wandered around, and explained such things as they did not understand.

“This is one of the greatest posts of all the fur trade,” said he. “It is the center, as you have learned, of a lot of the native tribes in this part of the world. It ships from here an enormous amount of fur which the traders collect. The independent traders are breaking in here now, but the natives learn to catch more and more fur, so it seems. I suppose in time it will be exterminated. Then the natives will go, too.

“Over yonder is a tombstone, but not any monument for Sir Alexander. It tells about the life-history of an old factor who lived here for so long in this wilderness. It’s all old, old, old — older almost than any city in the United States, or at least older than a great many of our considerable cities. But you would think this was at the beginning. There are the natives, and there are the dogs, just as they were when Sir Alexander came through. Perhaps they didn’t have so much calico then. Of course they didn’t have repeating-rifles then, and surely not steel traps. But they talked the same language, and in my opinion they had about as much religion then as they have now.”

“What’s that boat out there with a sail on it?” demanded Rob, after a time, pointing to a small craft which was moored near by.

“Goodness only knows,” replied Uncle Dick. “There are all sorts of fool adventurers in the world, and they take all sorts of fool chances. I have heard that there are a half-dozen prospectors in that schooner, going north, they don’t know where nor why.

“Well, at least we can say we’re in the North here,” he added. “They get just nine mails a year at Chippewyan, about four mails in and the rest of them go out. In the summer-time mail service runs about once a month.

“They say they did have a horse in here two years ago, and that it ran off, and they did not find it for two years. They had a team at Fort McMurray, and it was lost, too. I wouldn’t call this a good horse country myself! No, it’s a fur country and an Indian country. That’s why it’s interesting to us, isn’t it?”

“Well,” said John, “we ought to get some pictures of the treaty payments to the Indians to show our folks back home how they live up here. I wish I had brought along twice as many rolls of film as I’ve got. I never get tired of making pictures of dogs and Indians.”

“Well, when you are photographing Indians study Indians, too,” said Uncle Dick. “Most people look at Indians just as an object of curiosity, but he may be quite a fellow, even so. For instance, there are these Crees sitting over there in the grass before the flag, waiting for their treaty money. They flock by themselves, quite distinct from the Chippewyans; they don’t camp within three miles of each other. As you know, the Crees are of the Algonquin family. They have pushed west all the way from eastern Canada, following the fur trade. They have followed up the Red River and down the Athabasca, and they have overrun all the intervening tribes and elected themselves chiefs and bosses pretty much. You may call the Cree half-breed the mainstay of all the northern fur trade.

“But now,” he added, “we are getting beyond the country even of the Crees. Here at Chippewyan is the farthest north of the Cree so far. Now we are going to find a lot of other different tribes.”

The boys passed here and there along the rocky shore among the villages of the natives and among the stoutly built log houses of the fur-post itself. Here and there a woman was sitting in front of her tent, trying to operate one of the little cheap hand sewing-machines which had been brought on for the first time that year. In another tent strange sounds came which seemed familiar to the boys. They discovered that a proud family had purchased a cheap phonograph, and under the instruction of one of the clerks was proceeding to produce what is sometimes called melody. These things, however, did not interest the young adventurers so much as the more primitive scenes of the native life.

Here they saw a boatman fresh from his nets, with half a boat-load of fish still alive, throw out some of the live fish, among them a number of pickerel, or Great Northern Pike, to his dogs, which sat waiting on the shore for his arrival. A dog would seize a five-pound fish by the head, kill it, and eat it outright, bones and all.

“They never get enough to eat,” said John. “They’re hungry all the time.”

“Well,” said Jesse, laughing, “that’s the same way with you, isn’t it, John?”

“That’s all right,” said John, testily. “I’m growing, that’s why I eat so much. But as for you, Jesse, you’d better keep away from these dogs. Do you know what I heard? It was old Colin Frazer, the fur-trader, told me. He said there was a child killed last winter out on the ice by dogs, and they ate it up, every bit. You see, it had on a caribou coat, and it was alone at the time. The dogs killed it and ate it. Sometimes they eat little dogs, too. They’ll eat anything and never get enough. But I suppose they have to have dogs here the same as they have to have Indians, else they could have no fur trade.”

“The old trader up at the post is mighty crusty, it seems to me,” complained Jesse, after a time. “He won’t let me go up in the fur-loft, where he keeps his silver-gray foxes and all that sort of thing, to make any pictures. What’s the reason he won’t?”

Rob smiled as he answered: “The Hudson’s Bay Company is a big monopoly and it keeps its own secrets. You’ll have to ask a good many questions before you find out much about its business. And if you should try to buy even one skin of an ermine or a marten or a fox or a mink in here, you couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t sell you anything at all. Perhaps some of the independent traders who are coming in might sell you some furs for yourself — at a very good price. But the old Company stands pat and runs its affairs the way it used to. It doesn’t tell its secrets.”

The boys stood, hands in pockets now, toward the close of their interesting day at Chippewyan, looking in silence at the squared logs of the whitewashed Company buildings. A certain respect came into their minds.

“It’s old,” said John, after a time. “They don’t seem to rustle very much now, but they have done things — haven’t they?”