Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 78

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Before our young trail-makers now lay the expanse of one of those little mountain lakes which sometimes are forgotten by the map-makers. The ground immediately about the edge of the lake was low, flat, and overgrown. Only a gentle ripple crossed the surface of the lake, for almost no air at all was stirring. Out of a near-by cove a flock of young wild geese, scarcely able to fly, started off, honking in excitement; and here and there a wild duck broke the surface into a series of ripples; or again a fish sprang into the air, as it went about its own breakfast operations for the day. It was an inspiring scene for all, and for the time the Young Alaskans paused, taking in its beauty.

“Il fait beau, ce matin,” said Moise, in the French which made half or more of his speech. “She’ll been fine morning this day, what?”

“Couldn’t be better,” assented Alex, who stood knee-deep at the edge of the lake, and who now calmly removed his moccasins and spread them on the thwart of the boat before he stepped lightly in to take his place at the stern of the Jaybird. The boys noticed that when he stepped aboard he hardly caused the boat to dip to one side or the other. This he managed by placing his paddle on the farther side of the boat from him and putting part of his weight on it, as it rested on the bottom at the other side of the boat. All the boys, observing the methods of this skilled canoeman, sought to imitate his example. Presently they were all aboard, Rob in the bow of the Mary Ann, John taking that place for the Jaybird, with Jesse cuddled up amidships.

“Well,” said Alex, “here’s where we start. For me, I don’t care whether we go to the Pacific or the Arctic!”

“Nor me no more,” added Moise. “Only I’ll rather go downheel as upheel, me — always I’ll rather ron the rapeed than track the boat up the rapeed on the bank. Well, en roulant, eh, M’sieu Alex?”

“Roulant!” answered Alex, briefly. Moise, setting his paddle into the water with a great sweep, began once more the old canoe song.

“Le fils du roi s’en va chassant

En roulant, ma boule!

Avec son grand fusil d’argent

En roulant, ma boule!”

So they fared on merrily, the strong arms of the two skilled boatmen pushing the light canoes rapidly through the rippling water. Moise, a strong and skilful paddler, was more disposed to sudden bursts of energy than was the soberer and quieter Alex, who, none the less, came along not far in the rear with slow and easy strokes which seemed to require little exertion on his part, although they drove the boat straight and true as an arrow. The boys at the bow paddles felt the light craft spring under them, but each did his best to work his own passage, and this much to the approval of the older men, who gave them instructions in the art of paddling.

“You’ll see, M’sieu Rob,” said Moise, “these paddle she’ll be all same like fin of those feesh. You’ll pull square with heem till she’ll get behind you, then she’ll turn on her edge just a little bit — so. That way, you paddle all time on one side. The paddle when she’ll come out of water, she’ll keep the boat running straight.”

The distance from their point of embarkation to the eastern edge of the little lake could not have been more than a couple of miles, for the entire distance from the western to the eastern edge was not over three miles. In what seemed no more than a few moments the boats pulled up at the western end of what was to be their first portage.

“Now,” said Moise, “we’ll show those boy how a Companee man make the portage.” He busied himself arranging his packs, first calling for the tent, on which he placed one package after another. Then he turned in the ends of the canvas and folded over the sides, rolling all up into a big bundle of very mixed contents which, none the less, he fastened by means of the strap which now served him as support for it all.

“I know how you did that,” said Rob — “I watched you put the strap down inside of the roll.”

“Yes,” said Moise, smiling, “she’ll been what Injun call tump-strap. White man he’ll carry on hees shoulder, but Injun an’ voyageur, she’ll put the tump-band on her head, what? That’s best way for much load.”

Moise now proceeded to prove the virtue of his remarks. He was a very powerful man, and he now swung up the great pack to his shoulders, although it must have weighed much over a hundred and fifty pounds and included almost the full cargo of the foremost boat.

“Throw something on top of her,” said Moise. “She’ll been too light! I’m afraid I’ll ron off, me.”

“Well, look at that man,” said Jesse, admiringly. “I didn’t know any man was so strong.”

“Those Companee man, she’ll have to be strong like hox!” said Moise, laughing. “You’ll ought to seen heem. Me, I’m not ver’ strong. Two, three hondred pounds, she’ll make me tire.”

“Well, trot on over, Moise,” said Alex, “and I’ll bring the boat. Young gentlemen, each of you will take what he can conveniently carry. Don’t strain yourselves, but each of you do his part. That’s the way we act on the trail.”

The boys now shouldered their small knapsacks and, each carrying his rifle and rod, started after the two stalwart men who now went on rapidly across the portage.

Moise did not set down his pack at all, but trotted steadily across, and Alex followed, although he turned at the summit and motioned to Rob to pause.

“You’d hardly know it,” said Rob, turning to John and Jesse, who now put down their packs, “but here we are at the top of this portage trail and the top of the Peace River pass. Here was where old Sir Alexander really turned toward the west, just as we now are turning toward the east. It’s fine, isn’t it?”

“I’m glad I came,” remarked John.

“And so am I,” added Jesse; “I believe we’re going to have a good time. I like those two men awfully well — they’re just as kind, and my! how strong!”

Presently they all met again at the eastern edge of the dim trail. “I stepped it myself,” said John, proudly. “Both Sir Alexander and old Simon Fraser were wrong — she’s just six hundred and ninety-three paces!”

“Maybe they had longer legs than you,” smiled Alex. “At any rate, there’s no doubt about the trail itself. We’re precisely where they were.”

“What made them call that river the Parsnip River?” demanded Jesse of Alex, to whom he went for all sorts of information.

“I’ll show you,” said Alex, quietly, reaching down and breaking off the top of a green herb which grew near by. “It was because of the wild parsnips — this is one. You’ll find where Sir Alexander mentions seeing a great many of these plants. They used the tops in their pemmican. You see, the north men have to eat so much meat that they’re glad to get anything green to go with it once in a while.”

“What’s pemmican?” asked Jesse, curiously.

“We used to make it out of buffalo meat, or moose or caribou,” said Alex. “The buffalo are all gone now, and, in fact, we don’t get much pemmican any more. It’s made by drying meat and pounding it up fine with a stone, then putting it in a hide sack and pouring grease in on top of it. That used to be the trail food of the voyageurs, because a little of it would go a good way. Do you think you could make any of it for the boys, Moise?”

“I don’ know,” grinned Moise. “Those squaw, she’ll make pemmican — not the honter. Besides, we’ll not got meat. Maybe so if we’ll get moose deer we could make some, if we stop long tam in camp. But always squaw make pemmican — not man.”

“Well, we’ll have to give some kind of imitation of the old ways once in a while,” commented Alex, “for though they are changed and gone, our young friends here want to know how the fur-traders used to travel.”

“One thing,” said John, feeling at his ankle. “I’ll be awfully glad when we get out of the devil’s club country.”

“Do you have those up in Alaska?” asked Alex.

“Have them? — I should say we have! They’re the meanest thing you can run across out of doors. If you step on one of those long, snaky branches, it’ll turn around and hit you, no matter where you are, and whenever it hits those little thorns stick in and stay.”

“I know,” nodded Alex. “I struck plenty of them on the trail up north from the railroad. They went right through my moccasins. We’ll not be troubled by these, however, when we get east of the divide — that’s a plant which belongs in the wet country of the western slope.”

All this time Moise was busy rearranging the cargoes in the first boat, leaving on the shore, however, such parcels as did not belong in the Mary Ann. Having finished this to his liking, he turned before they made the second trip on the Jaybird and her cargo.

“Don’t we catch any of those feesh?” he asked Alex, nodding back at the lake.

“Fish?” asked John. “I didn’t see any fish.”

“Plenty trout,” said Moise. “I s’pose we’ll better catch some while we can.”

“Yes,” said Alex, “I think that might be a good idea. Now, if we had a net such as Sir Alexander and old Simon Fraser always took along, we’d have no trouble. Moise saw what I also saw, and which you young gentlemen did not notice — a long bar of gravel where the trout were feeding.”

“We’ll not need any net,” said Rob. “Here are our fly-rods and our reels. If there are any trout rising, we can soon catch plenty of them.”

“Very well. We’d better take the rods back, then, when we go for the second boat.”

When they got to the shore of the middle lake, the boys saw that the keener eyes of the old voyageurs had noted what they had missed — a series of ripples made by feeding fish not far from the point where they had landed.

“Look at that!” cried Jesse. “I see them now, myself.”

“Better you’ll take piece pork for those feesh,” said Moise.

“I don’t think we’ll need it,” replied Rob. “We’ve plenty of flies, and these trout won’t be very wild up here, for no one fishes for them. Anyhow, we’ll try it — you’ll push us out, won’t you, Moise?”

Carefully taking their places now in the Jaybird, whose cargo was placed temporarily on the bank, the three boys and Moise now pushed out. As Rob had predicted, the fish were feeding freely, and there was no difficulty in catching three or four dozen of them, some of very good weight. The bottom of the canoe was pretty well covered with fish when at length, after an hour or so of this sport, Moise thought it was time to return to shore, where Alex, quietly smoking all the time, had sat awaiting them.

“Now we’ll have plenty for eat quite a while,” said Moise.

“That’s all right,” said John. “I’m getting mighty hungry. How long is it going to be before we have something to eat?”

“Why, John,” said Rob, laughingly, “the morning isn’t half gone yet, and we’ve just had breakfast.”