Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 93

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For a time after the boats parted the crew of the Jaybird said very little as they pursued their way down-stream. The accident to the Mary Ann made them all thoughtful, and Rob was very careful in his position as bow paddler for the remaining boat. As the craft was pretty well loaded, Alex also was cautious. They took their time when they struck the head of any fast water, went ashore and prospected, and once in awhile lined down the boat instead of undertaking to run a fast chute. In spite of their additional caution, they ran mile after mile of the great river, until finally they felt themselves approaching the great eastern gate of the Rockies, whence there breaks out upon the lower country of the great Peace River the Unjingah, or Unjigab, as the natives formerly called it.

“Now,” said Alex, at last, as he steered in along shore, “I think we’ll stop and take a look around.”

They had been expecting the entrance to the actual gorge of the river now for the last three or four miles, for they had passed into the wide space, six or eight hundred yards in extent, described as lying above the cañon entrance, where the river, falling through a narrow passageway in the rocks, is condensed to a quarter of its average width.

The fatigue of the steady travel of the trip now began to show its effect upon them all, and the boys were quite ready to go into camp. Rob and John undertook to prepare the supper, and soon were busy arranging a little fireplace of stone, while Alex climbed up the bank to do some prospecting farther on.

“How does it look, Alex?” inquired Rob, when he finally returned. Alex waved a hand as a sign of his ignorance. “Hills and woods,” said he. “Not so much spruce, but some pine and poplars, and plenty of ‘bois picard’ — what you call ‘devil’s club’ on your side of the Rockies. I didn’t know it grew this far east. I don’t see how Mackenzie’s men got up from below with a thirty-foot birch-bark,” he added, after a time. “They must have come through something on this course, because they could not have taken the water very much below here, that’s sure.”

“Is there any trail at all, Alex?” asked John.

“We’ve landed almost at the trail — just enough to call a trail for a foot man. It isn’t used much to-day, that’s sure. Pretty steep. Sandy farther up.”

“Could we carry the boat through, do you think?” Rob looked anxiously up at the lofty bank which rose above them. Perhaps there was a little trace of stubbornness in Rob’s make-up, and certainly he had no wish to abandon the project at this stage.

“We might edge her up the bank a little at a time,” said Alex, “snubbing her up by the line. I suppose we could pass it from stump to stump, the same as voyageurs had to with their big birch-barks sometimes.”

“We’ll get her up somehow to-morrow,” said Rob, “if you say it’s possible.”

“Then there’ll be some more hills,” smiled Alex; “eight or ten or twelve miles of rough country, I suppose.”

“Time enough to trouble about that to-morrow, Alex. Sit down and have a cup of tea.”

They still had one or two of their smoke-dried trout and a bit of the half-dried caribou which they had brought down with them. On the whole they made a very fair meal.

“Try some of my biscuits, Alex,” suggested John. “I baked them in the spider — mixed the dough all by myself in the sack, the way Moise does. Aren’t they fine?”

“You’re quite a cook, Mr. John. But I’m sorry we’re so nearly out of meat,” said Alex. “You can’t travel far on flour and tea.”

“Won’t there be any game in the river below the Rockies?” asked Rob.

“Oh yes, certainly; plenty of bear and moose, and this side of the Peace River Landing, wherever there are any prairies, plenty of grouse too; but I don’t think we’ll get back to the prairies — the valley is over a thousand feet deep east of the mountains.”

“Alex, how many moose have you ever killed in all your life?” asked Rob, curiously.

“Three hundred and eighty-seven,” answered Alex, quietly.

The boys looked at each other in astonishment. “I didn’t know anybody ever killed that many moose in all the world,” said John.

“Many people have killed more than I have,” replied Alex. “You see, at times we have to hunt for a living, and if we don’t get a moose or something of the kind we don’t eat.”

“And how many bear have you ever killed, Alex?”

“Twenty-odd grizzlies I have killed or helped kill,” said Alex. “We rarely hunt them alone. Of black bear I don’t know how many — we don’t count them at all, there are so many of them in this country. But now I suppose pretty soon we will have to go over on the Hay River, or the Liard, farther north, to get good hunting. The farms are bringing in mowing-machines and threshing-machines into this country now. The game can’t last forever at this rate.”

“Well, I’m glad we made our trip this year,” said Rob.

“We haven’t made it yet!” smiled Alex. “But I think to-morrow we’ll see what we can do.”

They made an early start in the morning, their first task being that of trying to get the Jaybird up the steep face of the bluff which rose back of the camp, on top of which the trail, such as it was, made off through the shoulders of the mountains in a general course toward the east, the river sweeping in a wide elbow, thirty miles around, through its wild and impassable gorge, far to the south of them.

Taking a boat, even a little one, overland is no easy task, especially up so steep an ascent as this. Powerful as was the old hunter, it was hard enough to make much progress, and at times they seemed to lose as much as they gained. None the less, Alex was something of a general in work of this sort, and when they had gained an inch of progress he usually managed to hold it by means of snubbing the boat’s line around the nearest stump or rock.

“That’s awfully strong line, isn’t it?” said Rob. “You brought that over with you — we didn’t have that in our country. We use rope. I was noticing how thin the line was which those two breeds had on their dugout yesterday.”

“That’s the sort they use all through the trade in the North,” answered Alex. “It has to be thin, or it would get too waterlogged and heavy. You’ll see how long it needs to be in order that the men on shore can get it over all the rocks and stumps and still leave the steersman headway on the boat. It has been figured out as the right thing through many years, and I have seen it used without change all my life.”

“Well, it hasn’t broken yet,” said Rob. “But I think we had better piece it out by doubling it the best we can. We don’t want to break it up at this work.”

Little by little, Alex lifting the main portion of the weight, and the boys shoving at the stern the best they could, they did edge the Jaybird at last clear to the top of the bank, where finally she sat on level keel on a little piece of green among the trees.

While they were resting John idly passed a little way to one side among the trees, when, much to his surprise, he almost stepped into the middle of a bunch of spruce-grouse. These foolish birds, although perhaps they had hardly seen a white man in all their lives, did no more than to fly up in the low branches of the trees. Alex called out in a low tone to John to come back. Then he fumbled in his pockets until he found a short length of copper wire, out of which he made a noose, fastening it to the end of a long stick.

“Now, Mr. John,” said he, “there’s lunch and supper both if you can get it. Let’s see how good you are at snaring grouse.”

John cautiously stepped up under the tree, expecting every minute that the birds would fly. Yet to his amazement they sat there stupidly looking down at him. Cautiously he raised the pole among the lower branches of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession — a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very fond of good things to eat.

They left the birds at the top of the bank, and, turning, brought up in a trip or so all the remainder of their scanty amount of baggage from the waterside below.

“I suppose it might be a good plan, now, to make a trip over to the east,” said Alex, “and see what we can see.”

They found after a long investigation that the trail, as nearly as they could trace it, soon swung away quite a distance from the course of the stream, rising steadily for three miles to a sort of high bench. It held this for several miles, finally approaching a steep slope and dropping sharply toward the level of the water, which was much lower than at the head of the cañon.

They discovered the eastern end of the portage to be close at the foot of a high and precipitous bank back of which grew scattered clumps of poplar-trees. This journey, which only Alex made throughout, took them several miles from the place where they had left the Jaybird, and they were tired enough by the time they had returned to their supplies. They made no further progress on that day. Alex told them they would find water at only one place on the portage, so they must camp here in any case for the night.