Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 64

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Our party of adventurers were now in one of the wildest and most remote regions to be found in all the northern mountains, and one perhaps as little known as any to the average wilderness goer — the head of the Big Bend of the Columbia River; that wild gorge, bent in a half circle, two hundred miles in extent, which separates the Selkirks from the Rockies. There are few spots on this continent farther from settlements of civilized human beings.

To the left, up the great river, lay a series of mighty rapids, impossible of ascent by any boat. Nearly a hundred miles that way would have been the nearest railroad point, that on the Beaver Mouth River. Down-stream to the southward more than a hundred miles of water almost equally dangerous lay before them. Back of them lay the steep pitch of the Canoe River, down which they had come. Before them reared the mighty wedge of the Selkirks, thrusting northward. Any way they looked lay the wilderness, frowning and savage, and offering conditions of travel perhaps the most difficult to be found in any part of this continent.

“I congratulate you, young men,” said Uncle Dick, at last, as they sat silently gazing out over this tremendous landscape. “This is a man’s trip, and few enough men have made it. So far as I know, there has never been a boy here before in the history of all this valley which we see here before us.”

Rob and John began to bend over their maps, both those which they had brought with them and that which John was still tracing out upon his piece of paper.

“We can’t be far from the Boat Encampment here,” said Rob, at last.

THE BIG BEND OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER

“It’s just around the corner of the Big Bend here,” rejoined their leader. “Over yonder a few hundred yards away is the mouth of the Wood River, and the Encampment lies beyond that. That’s the end of the water trail of the Columbia going east, and the end of the land trail for those crossing the Athabasca Pass and going west. Many a bold man in the past has gone by this very spot where we now stand. There isn’t much left to mark their passing, even at the old Boat Encampment, but, if you like, we’ll go up there and have a look at the old place.”

Accordingly, they now embarked once more, and, taking such advantage of the slack water as they could, and of the up-stream wind which aided them for a time, they slowly advanced along the banks of the Columbia, whose mighty green flood came pouring down in a way which caused them almost a feeling of awe. Thus they passed the mouth of the more quiet Wood River, coming in from the north, and after a long, hard pull of it landed at last at the edge of a sharp bend, where a little beach gave them good landing-room.

Uncle Dick led them a short distance back toward a flat grassy space among the low bushes. Here there was a scattered litter of old tent-pegs and a few broken poles, now and then a tin can. Nothing else remained to mark the historic spot, which had passed from the physical surface of the earth almost as completely as the old Tête Jaune Cache. Uncle Dick turned away in disgust.

“Some trappers have camped here lately,” said he, “or perhaps some of the engineers sent out by another railroad. But, at any rate, this is the old Boat Encampment. Yonder runs the trail, and you can follow that back clear to Timbasket Lake, if you like, or to the Athabasca Pass.”

“Is this where they came in from the Saskatchewan?” demanded Rob.

“No, the old trail that way really came down the Blaeberry, very far above. I presume after they got on the west side, in the Columbia valley, they took to the trail and came down to this point just the same, for I doubt if any of them ran the Columbia much above here. Many a time old David Thompson stopped here — the first of the great map-makers, my young friends, and somewhat ahead of you, John. And Sir George Simpson, the lord of the fur-traders, came here with his Indian wife, who became a peeress of Great Britain, but who had to walk like any voyageur from here out across the Rockies. I don’t doubt old Doctor Laughlin, of Fort Vancouver, was here, as I have told you. In short, most of the great fur-traders came to this point up to about 1825, or 1826, at which time, as we have learned, they developed the upper trail, along the Fraser to the Tête Jaune Cache.”

“But didn’t any one of them ever go up the Wood River yonder?” demanded Rob. “That looks like an easy stream.”

“The engineer Moberly went up there, and crossed the Rockies to the head of the Whirlpool River on the east side,” replied Uncle Dick, “but that was in modern times — about the same time that Major Rogers discovered the Rogers Pass through the Selkirks below here, where the Canadian Pacific road crosses the Rockies. It’s a great tumble and jumble of mountains in here, my young friends, and a man’s job for any chap who picked out any pass in these big mountains here.

“Yonder” — he rose and pointed as he spoke — “east of us, is the head of the Saskatchewan — the Howse Pass is far to the south of where we stand here. Northeast of us, and much closer, is the Athabasca Pass, and we know that by following down the Athabasca we would come to Henry House and Jasper House, not far from the mouth of the Miette River.

“Now, somewhere north of here, down the west side of the mountains, came the trail from the Athabasca Pass, and it ended right here where we stand. I’ve never made that trip across the Athabasca Pass myself. That old pass, famous as it is, is in the discard now. With a railroad on each side of it, it will be visited from this time on very rarely by any man, whether he be tourist or bear-hunter. The Rockies will take back their own once more.

“But here, right where we stand, is one of those points comparable to old Fort Benton, or Laramie, on the plains below us, in our own country. This was the rendezvous, the half-way house, of scores of bold and brave men who now are dead and gone. I want you to look at this place, boys, and to make it plain on your map, and to remember it always. Few of your age have ever had the privilege of visiting a spot like this.”

Rob and Jesse busied themselves helping John with his map, and meantime Moise and the other two men were making a little fire to boil a kettle of tea.

“Why did they stop here?” asked John, after a time, busy with his pencil. “Couldn’t they get any farther up?”

THE COLUMBIA RIVER, ABOVE THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT

Uncle Dick pointed to the jutting end of the shore which hid the bend of the river from view above them. “You know that river, Leo?” said he.

Leo spread out his hands wide, with a gesture of respect.

“Me know ’um,” said he. “Plenty bad river. Me run ’um, and my Cousin George. And Walt Steffens — he live at Golden, and Jack Bogardus, his partner, and Joe McLimanee, and old man Allison — no one else know this river — no one else ron ’um. No man go up Columby beyond here — come down, yes, maybe-so.”

“Last year,” said Uncle Dick, “when I came in from the Beaver Mouth I saw a broken boat not far below Timbasket Lake. Whose was it?”

“My boat,” grinned Leo. And George also laughed. “We bust up boat on rock, lose flour, tea, everything. We swim out, and walk trail down to here, swim Wood River, and go up Canoe River, fifty mile. Two day we’ll not got anything to eat.”

“Well, I don’t see how they got up these streams at all,” said John.

“Joe McLimanee he come this far from Revelstruck,” said Leo. “Take him twenty-nine day, not on high water.”

“Then there must be bad rapids below here,” said John.

“Yes,” said his uncle, “and, as I went up the Canoe myself from here, I’ve never seen that part of this river, but they say that at the time of the big gold excitements a generation ago, when the miners tried to get out of this country, they took to rafts. The story is that a hundred and sixty-five men of that stampede were drowned in one year on the Death Rapids.”

Leo picked up a stick and began to make a map on the sand, showing the Big Bend of the Columbia and some of its side-streams.

“You start Beaver Mouth,” said he, “all right, till you come on Surprise Rapids — all at once, right round bend. Surprise Rapids, him very bad. Much portage there. Very bad to get boat through even on line. Portage three mile there, maybe-so.

“Here was old man Brinkman, his rapid — not so bad, but bad enough for to scare old man Brinkman, so they name it on him, ‘Brinkman’s Terror.’

“Here is what Walt Steffen calls ‘Double Eddy’ — bad place sometam in high water. Bime-by we come on Lake Timbasket, up there, maybe thirty mile, maybe-so.”

Leo made a tracing of the outline of the lake, then followed his scratch in the sand on around.

“Now begin Twenty-six Mile Rapid, all bad — Gordon Rapids here, Big Eddy here, Rock Cañon here. Now we come on Boat Encampment. This way Revelstruck. Death Rapids here; Priest Rapids down here; and then Revelstruck Cañon; him bad, very bad, plenty man drown there, too. That five miles from Revelstruck; we get out and walk there.

“Now here” — and he pointed on his sand map — “is Boat Encampment. Right around corner there is one of most bad places on whole river.”

“But you’ve been through, Uncle Dick. Tell us about it.”

“Yes, I came through once last year, and that’s enough for me,” said Uncle Dick. “That’s the Rock Cañon and the Grand Eddy. Leo has shown it all pretty plainly here. I don’t want to make that trip again, myself. But when we got to Lake Timbasket we didn’t any of us know how bad it was going to be — the old trapper who acted as our guide had never been through when the water was high. But when we got at the head of the Twenty-six Mile Rapids, below Lake Timbasket, it was like the bottom had dropped out of things, and we had to go through, for we couldn’t get back.

“Of course, we could line sometimes, and many of the chutes we did not attempt. The first day below Timbasket we made about ten miles, to a camp somewhere below the Cummins Creek chute. We could hear the water grinding — it sounded like breaking glass — all night long, right near the place where we slept, and it kept me awake all night. I suppose it is the gravel down at the bottom of the deep water. Then there were growlings and rumblings — the Indians say there are spirits in the river, and it sounded like it.

“There was one Swede that the trapper told us of, who started through the Cummins Rapids on a raft and was wrecked. He got ashore and walked back to the settlements. He had only money enough left to buy one sack of flour, then he started down the river again. From that day to this he has never been heard of, and no one knows when or where he was drowned.

“We passed one big boulder where the trapper said the name of another Swede was cut on the rock by his friends who were wrecked with him near by. I believe they were some miners trying to get out of this country in boats. That man’s body was never found, for the Columbia never gives up her dead. We saw Leo’s broken boat, as I told you; and on the shores of Lake Timbasket we found the wrecks of two other boats, washed down. You see, this wild country has no telegraph or newspaper in it. When a man starts down the Big Bend of the Columbia he leaves all sort of communication behind him. Many an unknown man had started down this stream and never been seen again and never missed — this river can hold its own mysteries.”

“Well, tell us about this rapid just above here, Uncle Dick,” went on Jesse. “Wasn’t it pretty bad?”

“The worst I ever saw, at least. When we stopped above the head of that cañon the trapper told me where the trail was down here to the Encampment, but of course I concluded to run on through if the others did. Before we got that far I was pretty well impressed with the Columbia, myself. When we landed at the head of Upper Death Cañon I don’t believe any of us were very sure that our boat would go through. No one was talking very much, I’ll promise you that.

“The worst part of that long stretch of bad water of the Rock Cañon can’t be more than four or five miles in all, and there isn’t a foot of good water in the whole distance, as I remember it. Of course, the worst is the Giant Eddy — it lies just over there, beyond the edge of the hill from us. In there the water runs three different ways all at once. There is no boat on earth can go up this river through the Giant Eddy, and lucky enough is the one which comes down through it.

“You see, once you get in there, you can’t get either up again or out on either side — the rock walls come square down to the river, which boils down through a narrow, crooked gorge. It is like a big letter Z, with all the flood of the Columbia pouring through the bent legs; no one knows how deep, but not half the width which we see here.

“That’s the worst water I ever saw myself — it runs so strong that there is a big ridge thrown up in the middle of the river, many feet higher than the water on either side. There is a crest of white water all down the sides of the top of that high ridge. The water looks as though it were hard, so that you couldn’t drive a nail through it, it’s flung through there at such tremendous pressure.

“You don’t have much time to look as you go through, and there is no place where you can see the Giant Eddy except from the Giant Eddy itself. All I can remember is that we were clawing to keep on top of that high rib of the water mid-stream. I can see it now, that place — with green water running up-stream on each side, and the ridge of white water in the middle, and the long bent slope, like a show-case glass, running on each side from us to the edges of the up-stream currents. It was a very wonderful and terrible sight, and seeing it once was quite enough for me.

“About half-way down that long, bad chute I saw a hole open up in the crown of that ridge and could look down into it, it seemed to me, fifteen feet — some freak in the current made it — no one can tell what. It seemed to chase us on down, and all our men paddled like mad. If our stern had got into that whirlpool a foot, no power on earth could have saved us. As luck would have it, we kept just outside the rim of the suckhole, and finally escaped it.

“Then we came to the place which lies first around the bend above us — a great deep saucer in the river, below a rock ledge of white water — it is like a shallow bicycle track, higher at the edges, a basin dished out in the river itself. I don’t know how we got into it, and have only a passing memory of the water running three ways, and the high ridge in the middle, and the suckhole that followed us, and then we slipped down into that basin at the last leg of the Z, and through it and across it, and so right around that bend yonder, and here to the Boat Encampment. You may believe me, we were glad enough.

“So now, adding my story to the one you’ll be able to tell from here on down, you may say that you know almost as much about the Big Bend of the Columbia as Gabriel Franchere himself, or even Sir George Simpson, peer of the realm of Great Britain.

“Some day they’ll build a railroad around the Big Bend. Then I believe I’ll take that journey myself; it’s much easier than making it as we are making it now. Not that I wish to frighten you at all, young men, about the rest of our journey, for our men are good, and Leo and George have the advantage of knowing every inch of the river thoroughly — an Indian never forgets a place he once has seen.”

“Have you ‘got some scares,’ Leo?” inquired John, smiling. Leo also smiled.

“No, no get scare — not ’fraid of Columby.”

“You Shuswaps are white-water dogs, all right,” said Uncle Dick. “I’m not going to let you run all the rapids that you want, perhaps, between here and Revelstoke.

“Now,” he continued, “if John has finished his map work I think we can make a few more miles on our way down this evening, and every mile we make is that much done.”

“Bime-by below Canoe,” said Leo, “come on old man Allison’s cabin — him trap there two winters ago, not live there now.”

The boys looked inquiringly at Uncle Dick.

“All right,” said he. “We’ll stop there for the night.” So presently they took boat once more, and, passing the tawny flood waters of the Wood and the Canoe rivers, which only stained the edges of the green Columbia, not yet wholly discolored in its course through its snow-crowned pathway, they pulled up at length on a beach at the edge of which stood a little log cabin, roofed with bark and poles.