Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 88

Table of Contents

The sound and sight of the Finlay rapids, at the head of which the leading boat now paused, gave Rob his first real idea of how wicked a great mountain river can be. He looked back to see whether the Jaybird and her crew were well warned of the danger. But Alex soon brought the other boat alongside at the landing place, on the south side of the stream, above the rapids.

“Well, here we are,” said he. “Now you may see what some real rapids are. Those little ripples up above didn’t amount to much.”

“She looks pretty bad,” said Rob. “Could anybody run a boat through there?”

“Old Sir Alexander probably did it, but he had a big birch-bark. I’d take it on with a good man and a good boat. We could very possibly even get one of these boats through if we were obliged to, but there is no use taking any risk. We can line down through the worst of it, or even run the boat ashore if we like.”

“Me, I’ll rather ron the rapeed than walk on the bank with boat,” said Moise.

“Never mind, Moise,” said Alex, “we’ll not have to walk far with her. We’ll camp here to-night and look it over in the morning. It’s always better to tackle rough work in the morning rather than in the evening.”

The young travelers slept none too well that night. The sound of the rapids coming through the dark and the feeling of remoteness here in this wild mountain region proved depressing to their spirits. They were glad enough when at length toward dawn they heard Moise stirring about the camp. By the time they had their breakfast finished and camp broken Alex had already returned from a trip along the side of the rapids.

“It’s not so very bad,” said he, “although the river has come up an inch or so during the night. The whole rapid is about a quarter of a mile long, but the worst place is only a couple of hundred yards or so. We’ll drop down to the head of that strip on the line and portage around there.”

They followed this plan, loading the boats and dropping down for a short time, saving themselves all the portage work they could. In places the water seemed very wild, tossing over the rocks in long, rolling waves or breaking in foam and spray. The boys scrambled alongshore, allowing Alex and Moise to care for the first boat when it became necessary for them to double up on each trip over the worst water. Part of the time they bore a hand on the line, and were surprised to see the strength of the current even on a boat without a load.

“You see,” said Alex, when at length they came to a place where the water seemed still more powerful and rough, and where it seemed necessary to haul the boat entirely from the water for a carry of some distance over the rocks, “it’s better to take a little trouble and go slow rather than to lose a boat in here. If she broke away from us we’d feel a long way from home!”

After they got the Mary Ann again in the water and at the foot of the rapids, the men went up after the Jaybird, while the boys did what they could toward advancing the cargo of the Mary Ann. In less than an hour they had everything below the rapids and saw plain sailing once more ahead of them. Moise expressed his disappointment at not being allowed to run the Finlay rapids.

“My onkle, she’ll always ron those rapeed,” said he. “S’pose I’ll tell heem I’ll walk aroun’, he’ll laugh on me, yes!”

“That’s all right, Moise,” said Rob; “your uncle isn’t here, and for one, I’m glad we took it easy coming through here. That’s rough water either way you look at it, up-stream or down. But now,” he continued, once more consulting his maps and notes, “we ought to have a couple of days of good, straightaway running, with almost no bad water. It’s about seventy miles from here to the Parle Pas rapids. And speaking of rapids, they tell me that’s the worst place on the whole river.”

“That’s a funny name — why do they call them the Parle Pas rapids?” asked Jesse.

“Those were Frenchman words,” said Moise. “Parle Pas means ‘no speak.’ He’s a quiet rapeed. S’pose you’ll ron on the river there, an’ smoke a pipe, an’ talk, an’ not think of nothing. All at once, Boum! You’ll been in those rapeed, an’ he’ll not said a word to you!”

“Well,” said Rob, “the traders used to run them somehow, didn’t they?”

“Yes, my onkle he’ll ron them in beeg boat many tam, but not with leetle boat. She’ll jump down five, three feet sometams. Leetle boat she’ll stick his nose under, yes. My onkle he’ll tol’ me, when you come on the Parle Pas take the north side, an’ find some chute there for leetle boat. Leetle boat could ron the Parle Pas, maybe so, but I suppose, us, we’ll let those boat down on the line because we’ll got some scares, hein?”

“It’s just as well to have some scares on these mountain rivers, Moise,” said Alex, reprovingly. “This water is icy cold, and if even a man got out into the rapids he couldn’t swim at all, it would tumble him over so. We’ll line down on the Parle Pas, yes, depend on that. But that’s down-stream a couple of days if we go slow.”

“When do we get that bear hunt, Alex?” asked John, who loved excitement almost as much as Moise.

“Almost anywhere in here,” answered Alex; “but I think we’d better put off the hunt until we get below all the worst water. No use portaging bear hides.”

“It looks like good bear country here,” said Rob. “We must be in the real Rockies now, because the mountains come right down to the river.”

“Good bear country clear to Hudson’s Hope, or beyond that,” assented Alex.

“All right,” said Rob; “we’ll have a good hunt somewhere when we get below the Parle Pas. If we have to do any more portaging, we don’t want to carry any more than we can help, that’s true. And, of course, we’re going to get that grizzly.”

Having by this time reloaded the boats, they re-embarked, and passed merrily on down the river, which now seemed wholly peaceful and pleasant. The mountains now indeed were all about them, in places rising up in almost perpendicular rock faces, and the valley was very much narrower. They were at last entering the arms of the great range through which they later were to pass.

The character of the river changed from time to time. Sometimes they were in wide, quiet reaches, where they needed the paddles to make much headway. Again there would be drops of faster water, although nothing very dangerous. Relieved as they were now of any thought of danger for the next sixty or seventy miles ahead, this part of their journey seemed delightful in every way. They did not pause to hunt, and saw no game excepting one band of four timber wolves, upon which they came as they swept around a bend, but which hastened under cover before any one could get a shot. Once in a while they stopped at little beaches or bars, and almost always saw the trails of large game in the sand or mud. Always they felt that now they were deep in the wilderness, and every moment was a pleasure to them.

They did not really know how far below the Finlay rapids they traveled that day, for continually they discovered that it is difficult to apply map readings to the actual face of a new country. They made no great attempt at speed, but sometimes drifted down-stream, the boats close together. Sometimes when the wind was fair Rob or John would raise the corner of a tent or blanket to act as a sail. Thus, idling and chatting along, they made perhaps forty miles down-stream before they made their next evening camp. The country seemed to them wilder now, since the bold hills were so close in upon them, though of course they knew that each day was bringing them closer to the settlements on the eastern side of the range.

That night was cold, and they had no trouble with mosquitoes. Feeling no need of hurry, they made a late start and idled on down the river through a very interesting mountain region, until the afternoon. Toward evening they began to feel that they might perhaps be near the dreaded Parle Pas rapids, and they approached each bend with care, sometimes going ashore for a prospecting trip which proved to be made only on a false alarm. They had, however, now begun to learn the “feel of the water,” as the voyageurs called it. Rob, who was ahead, at length noted the glassy look of the river, and called back to Moise that he believed there were rapids ahead.

“Parle Pas!” cried Moise. “On shore, queek!”

Swiftly they paddled across, to the north side of the river, where presently they were joined by the other boat.

“She’s the Parle Pas, all right,” laughed Moise; “look at heem!”

From their place of observation they could see a long ridge, or rim, the water falling in a sort of cascade well out across the stream. There seemed to be a chute, or channel, in midstream, but the back-combing rollers below it looked ominously large for a boat the size of theirs, so that they were glad enough to be where they were, on dry land.

Moise was once more for running the boats through the chute on the north shore, but Alex’s cautious counsel prevailed. There was not more than thirty or forty feet of the very worst water, rather a cascade than a long rapid, but they discharged the cargo and lined both boats through light. This sort of work proved highly interesting and exciting to all hands, and, of course, when superintended by such men as Alex and Moise had no great danger, although all of them were pretty wet when at length they had their boats reloaded at the foot of the rapids.

“I know how Sir Alexander got across the mountains,” said John. “He had good voyageurs to do the work! About all he had to do was to write the story each night, and he didn’t do that any too well, it seems to me — anyhow, when you come to read his story backward you can’t tell where you are very well.”

“That’s right,” said Rob. “I don’t much blame Simon Fraser for finding fault with Mackenzie’s narrative. But maybe if we had written the story they’d have found fault with us the same way. The same country doesn’t look alike to different people, and what is a mile to one man may be two miles to another when both are guessing. But anyhow, here we are below the ‘Polly’ rapids — as the traders call them to-day — and jolly glad we ought to be we’re safe, too.”

“Plain sailing again now for a while,” said Jesse. “Let’s see the map.”

They all bent over the different maps they had, especially one which Rob had made up from all the sources of information he had.

“Yes,” said Rob, “it ought to be about sixty miles of pretty good water now until we get to the one place on this river which the boldest voyageur never tried to run — the Cañon of the Rocky Mountains, as the very first travelers called it.”

“Those map she’ll not been much good,” said Moise, pointing to the government maps of which Rob had a store. “The only good map she’ll been made by the Injun with a stick, s’pose on the sand, or maybe so on a piece of bark. My onkle she’ll made me a map of the Parle Pas. He’ll show the place where to go through the middle on the Parle Pas. S’pose you’ll tell my onkle, Moise he’ll walk down the Parle Pas an’ not ron on heem, he’ll laugh on me, heem! All right, when you get to the Grand Portage sixty miles below, you’ll get all the walk you want, Alex, hein?”

Alex answered him with a pleasant smile, not in the least disposed to be laughed into taking any risks he did not think necessary.

“We’d better drop down a few miles farther before we make camp,” said he. “En avant, Moise. En roulant, ma boule!”

Moise turned to his paddle and broke into song gaily as they once more headed down the stream. They did not tarry again until the sun was behind the western ridges. The mountain shadows were heavy when at last their little fire lighted up the black forest which crowded close in all around them.

“I think this is fine,” said Jesse, quietly, as they sat about the camp-fire that night.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world,” said John; and Rob gave his assent by a quiet nod of satisfaction.

“I feel as if we were almost home now,” said Jesse. “We must have come an awfully long way.”

Alex shook his head. “We’re a long way from home yet,” said he. “When the Klondike rushes were on some men got up as far north as this place, and scattered everywhere, hoping they could get through somehow to the Yukon — none of them knew just how. But few of them ever got up this river beyond Hudson’s Hope, or even Fort St. John, far east of there. Some turned back and went down the Mackenzie, others took the back trail from Peace River landing. A good many just disappeared. I have talked with some who turned back from the mountains here, and they all said they didn’t think the whole world was as big as it seemed by the time they got here! And they came from the East, where home seems close to you!”

“Well,” said Rob, “as it’s probably pretty rough below here, and good grizzly country, why not stop here and make that little hunt we were talking about?”

“All right,” said Alex; “I suppose this is as good a game country as any. We ought to get a moose, even if we don’t see any bear. In the old times there used to be plenty of buffalo this far to the west in the mountains. What do you say, Moise — shall we make a hunting camp here?”

“We’ll been got no meat pretty quick bimeby,” said Moise. “Maybe so.”

They were encamped here on a narrow beach, which, however, sheered up high enough to offer them security against any rise in the stream. They were careful to pull up the boats high and dry, and to secure them in case of any freshet. Used as they were by this time to camp life, it now took them but a few minutes to complete their simple operations in making any camp. As all the boys had taken a turn at paddling this day, and as the exciting scenes of the past few days had been of themselves somewhat wearying, they were glad enough to get a long night’s sleep.

Before Rob, the leader of the younger members of the party, had rolled up in his blankets Alex came to him and asked him whether he really cared to finish running the river, provided they could get out overland.

“Surely we do,” said Rob at once. “We’ll go on through, as far as we can, at least, by boat. We don’t want to be modern and ride along on horseback until we have to. Mackenzie didn’t and Fraser didn’t! Nor do we want to go to any trading-post for supplies. We can get butter and eggs in the States if we want to, but we’re hunters! You show us a grizzly to-morrow, Alex, that’s all!”

“All right,” said Alex, smiling. “Maybe we can.”