Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 65

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The boys preferred to spread their mosquito-tent again for the night, but the others concluded to bunk in the old trapper’s cabin, where they all gathered during the evening, as was their custom, for a little conversation before they retired for sleep. John found here an old table made of slabs, on which for a time he pursued his work as map-maker, by the aid of a candle which he fabricated from a saucer full of grease and a rag for a wick. The others sat about in the half darkness on the floor or on the single bunk.

“There was one book you once mentioned, Uncle Dick,” remarked Rob, after a time, “which I always wanted to read, although I could never get a copy. I think they call it The Northwest Passage by Land. Did you ever read it?”

“Certainly, and a very interesting and useful book it is, too. It was done by two Englishmen, Viscount Milton and Doctor Cheadle. They were among the very early ones to take a pack-train across by way of the Yellowhead Pass.”

“And did they come down this way where we are now?”

“Oh, no. They went west just as we did, over the Yellowhead Pass as far as the Tête Jaune Cache. They crossed the Fraser there, just as we did, and turned south, indeed passing up to Cranberry Lake at the summit, just as we did. Their story tells how they crossed the Canoe River on a raft and were nearly swept away and lost, the river being then in flood. From that point, however, they turned west beyond Albreda Lake, for it was their intention not to go down the Fraser or the Canoe or the Columbia, but down the North Thompson. You see, they were trying to get through and to discover a new route to the Cariboo Gold Diggings.”

“What year was that?” inquired Jesse.

“That was in 1863. The Tête Jaune Cache was then sometimes called the Leather Pass. At that time very little was known of this great region between the Rockies and the Pacific. Milton and Cheadle named many of its mountains that we passed. The old traders, as I have said, knew nothing of this country except along the trails, and these men even did not know the trails. Just to show you how little idea they actually had of this region hereabout, their book says that they supposed the Canoe River to rise in the Cariboo district!

“Now, in order for the Canoe River to rise in the Cariboo district, it would have to cross a vast range of mountains and two great rivers, the north fork of the Thompson and the Fraser River. Their map would not have been as accurate as John’s here, although when their book was printed they had the use of yet other maps made by others working in from the westward.

“None the less, theirs was a great journey. There were only two of them, both Englishmen, in charge of the party, and they had one half-breed and his wife and boy and an inefficient Irishman who was of no service but much detriment, according to their story. To my mind theirs is the most interesting account given of early times in this region, and the book will prove well worth reading.

“These men were observers, and they were the first to realize that the days of wild game were going, and that if the Hudson’s Bay Company was to keep up its trade it must feed its people on the products of the soil, and not of the chase. They speak of sixty million acres of land fit for farming in the Saskatchewan Valley, and speak of the country as the future support of this Pacific coast. That is precisely the policy of the Canadian country to-day. They said that the Hudson’s Bay Company could not long govern so vast a region — and all the history of the Dominion government and the changes in the western Canadian provinces have taken place almost as if they had prophesied them literally. They speak of the Yellowhead Pass as being the best one for railroad purposes — and now here is our railroad building directly over that pass, and yet others heading for it. They said also that without doubt there was a good route down the North Thompson — and to-day there is a railroad line following their trail with its survey, with Kamloops as its objective point. It was at Kamloops that they eventually came out, far below the Cariboo district, for which they were heading.

“These men were lost in a wilderness at that time wholly unknown, and how they ever got through is one of the wonderful things in exploration. They took their horses all the way across, except three, one of which was drowned in the Fraser and two of which they killed to eat — for in the closing part of their trip they nearly starved to death.

“They were following as best they could the path of another party of emigrants who had gone out the year before. But these men grew discouraged, and built rafts and tried to go down the Thompson, where many of them were drowned on the rapids. Perhaps to the wisdom of their half-breed guide is to be attributed the fact that Milton and Cheadle took their horses on through. Had they wearied of the great delay in getting through these tremendous forests with a pack-train, they must either have perished of starvation or have perished on the rapids. But in some way they got through.

“It was in that way, little by little, that all this country was explored and mapped — just as John is mapping out this region now.”

“It’s a funny thing to me,” said John, looking at one of the large folding maps which they had brought along, “how many of these rivers up here run north for quite a way and then bend south again.”

“Yes, that’s a peculiarity of this upper Pacific slope,” said Uncle Dick. “That’s the way the Columbia does. Not all Americans know the Columbia River rises near our boundary line and then runs for hundreds of miles north into Canada before it turns and swings southwest over our country to the Pacific — after reaching this very point where we are sitting now.

“Take the Fraser River, too. From the Tête Jaune Cache it swings far northwest, up to the Giscombe Portage. Then it bends just like the Columbia. You may remember the upper bend of the Fraser, for that is about where the Salmon River comes in, down which Sir Alexander Mackenzie came — and where you went in last year on your trip over the Peace River Pass.”

“Oh, don’t we remember that, though!” said John. “And now that you mention it, I recall that at that time we were speaking of this big bend in the Fraser.”

“Yes, and the Canoe River rises in these hills, and it runs north quite a way before it bends down and comes into the Columbia, although it runs to the southeast ultimately, and not to the southwest.

“You see, these mountains are all laid out along great parallels, and the rivers have to do just as we did, hunt a way through if they want to get west. This is the pass of the Columbia where we are now, the way it has found downhill between the Selkirks and the Rockies. Always in getting through from east to west, as I have told you, men have followed the rivers up on one side and down on the other. So you can see, right on this ground, the way in which much of our history has been made.”

“One thing about this sort of geography is that when you see it this way you don’t forget it. And I rather like those old books which tell about the trips across the country,” said John.

“Yes,” said his uncle, “they are interesting, and useful as well, and it is interesting to follow their story, as we have done. If you would read The Northwest Passage — Rob’s book which he has just mentioned — you will see that they had even worse troubles than we, I should say, for, although they had one good guide, most of them were rank tenderfeet. They were five days getting from Jasper House up to the Yellowhead Pass, and they were a month and a half in getting from Edmonton to the Tête Jaune Cache — very much longer than we were, as you will remember.

“And worst of all — and here’s what I want you to remember — they delayed so much from time to time that when they got out of this country they met all the rivers at their swollen stages. They reached the Cache in the middle of July, and that was why they found the Canoe River so swollen and dangerous near its sources. We are about a month ahead of them. And now you will see why I have been crowding so hard all along this trip — I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the earliest explorers who crossed this country, not knowing what they were to find in it. But I give them all honor, these two Englishmen, Milton and Cheadle, for making one of the best trips ever made over the Rockies, all things considered, and contributing as they did to the growth and civilization of this country. For they were among the first to have the vision of all these great developments which have come since then.”

“They must have had a hard old time,” said Rob, “plugging along and not knowing where they were coming out. But, then, you told us that everybody who crossed the mountains in those times had native guides.”

“And so did they. At Edmonton they met a man who had been west with the emigrants the year before, who had started for the gold-fields. This guide had taken the party right up by Cranberry Lake, where we were a few days ago, over the Albreda Pass, and down the Thompson, until he showed them what he called the Cariboo country — which none of them ever reached.

“And when they reached Jasper House they found some of Leo’s people — the Rocky Mountain Shuswaps — living over there. In that way they got more directions on how to reach the Cache. There an old woman told them about the country to the west, and a man took them up to the pass into the Thompson and showed them their way down — if way it could be called. Then, when they got down toward Kamloops, they met yet other natives, and if they had not they must have starved to death, near as they were to the settlements. Left alone, these men perhaps never would have gotten even to the Yellowhead Pass. I’ll warrant it was some Indian who first ran the rapids on the Columbia. Eh, Leo?”

“Maybe-so,” smiled Leo, who had been listening intently to every word of this. “Injun not always ’fraid of water, some tribes.”

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “I don’t know whether it was courage or laziness, Leo, but certainly a great many of your people were the ones to tell the whites about the rapids on some of these bad rivers.”

They all laughed heartily over this at Leo, who joined in.

“But it’s true,” Uncle Dick went on, “there never has been an original passage of the Rocky Mountains made by a white man, from the time of Lewis and Clark and Mackenzie up to the modern engineers, which was not conducted, in reality, by some native who pointed out the way.

“Now here we are, with Leo and George. I trust them perfectly. Leo’s map, there on the sand at the Boat Encampment, showed me that he was perfectly accurate, and that he knew the places of all the streams and rapids. So I feel no fear about our getting down the Big Bend from here with him as our guide. I’ll warrant that Leo can draw a map of the river from here to Revelstoke as accurately as any professional map-maker, and name every stream and tell every rapid all the way down. In short, we furnish the grub and Leo furnishes the experience.”

“We’ll not furnish grub much longer,” said Moise. “The flour she’s getting mighty low, and not much pork now, and the tea she’s ’bout gone.”

“Well, what could you expect?” said Uncle Dick. “With three Injuns and an engineer to eat, we ought to have an extra boat to carry the grub — not to mention John, here, who is hungry all the time. We may have to eat our moccasins yet, young men.”

“Leo says we can’t get any fish yet,” said John, “and we’re not to stop for any more bear meat, even if we could eat it. We’re not apt to get any grub right along the river either. I don’t see how any one can hunt in this awful forest. It’s always cold and dark, and there doesn’t seem to be anything to eat there. Rob and I measured some trees by stretching out our arms, and we figured that they were thirty feet or more around, some of them. And one log we walked which paced over three hundred feet — it was so thick we couldn’t crawl over it at all. That’s no sort of place to hunt.”

“No, not for anything unless it was a porcupine,” said Uncle Dick. “We may have to come to that. But even with a little grub we can last for a hundred miles or so, can’t we? Can’t we make forty or fifty miles a day, Leo?”

Leo laughed and shook his head. “Some day not make more than ten or twelve mile,” said he.

“Well, I know that there’s a good deal of slack water for quite a way below here. At least, I have heard that that is the case. So for a time, if we don’t meet bad head-winds, we can put a good deal of this country back of us.”

“Could any one walk along these banks and get out to the settlements at all if he were left alone in here?” inquired Rob.

“One can do a great deal if he has to,” said Uncle Dick. “But I hope none of us will ever have to try to make the railroad on foot from here. There isn’t any trail, and very often the banks are sheer rock faces running into the river. Get behind such a hill, and you’re on another slope, and the first thing you know you’re clear away from the river and all tangled up. But, still, men have come up here one way or another. On the other side, there used to be a sort of pack-horse trail from Revelstoke up to the Selkirk gold-mines. There are two or three creeks which are still worked along the Big Bend of the Columbia. When we engineers have all done our work it will be easier to get in here than it is to-day.”

“Well, I’m going to be an engineer some day,” said Rob, firmly, once more. “I like this work.”

“Well, you’re all going to bed now at once,” said Uncle Dick. “We must hurry on down to-morrow, for, unless I am mistaken, this roily water of the Canoe means that the spring rise has begun earlier than it should.”