Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 94

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“We might just as well do what we can toward getting across,” said Alex the next day, “because now we know what there is ahead of us. I’d just as soon portage the boat a little way, at least, because it will only have to be done when Moise and the two breeds come to help us. Come ahead, then.”

He swung the Jaybird up on his broad shoulders, and started off up a trail none too good at best. The boys, one on each side of the stern of the boat, helped all they could, and thus they made considerable progress, resting and carrying again and again, so that by noon the Jaybird was high and dry, and far enough indeed from the stream which had brought her on so long a journey.

In short, they kept at this work, doubling back to portage the cargo, and making a mid-way camp at the water, but always edging both their boat and their baggage farther on over the trail, until in the course of three days they actually finished the difficult portage, twelve miles in length, alone, one man and two boys! This feat would have been impossible for any man less powerful and determined than Alex, and even he admitted himself to be very weary when at length they paused not far from the scattered buildings of the old port of Hudson’s Hope.

They were now on the eastern side of the Rockies, and the river which they had been following here took on yet a different character. It had dropped down rapidly in the thirty miles of the cañon, and ran in a wide flood, some hundreds of yards across, rapid and indeed violent, but still steady in current, between banks which rose sharply to a thousand feet in height on either side. It was easy to be seen why the earlier traders thought they were among mountains, even before they reached the Rockies, because from the river they really could not see out over the country at all.

At the top of the steep bank above the river they left their boat and most of their supplies, with the intention of waiting until the arrival of the rest of their party. Meantime they paid a visit to the half-abandoned trading-post. There were only two or three log houses, where small stocks of goods sometimes were kept. There really were two posts here, that of the Hudson Bay Company and of Revillon Frères, but it seemed that only the Hudson Bay post was occupied in the summer-time. Whether or not the trader in charge had any family or any associate they could not tell, but on the door of the log building they found a written notice saying that he was gone out bear hunting, and did not know when he would return.

“Well, this isn’t much of a settlement, young gentlemen,” said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. “But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble the Company at all.”

“I always thought there was a good trail from here to St. John,” said Rob. “At least, it’s marked on the map.”

“Not much of a trail!” said Alex. “I worked with the Mounted Police making trail from St. John as far as Half Way River. But the trail cuts across the corner there, and goes on up to Fort Grahame, on the Finlay River. The real highway here is the river yonder — it’s easy water now all the way to St. John — that is, it will be if we can get a boat. I don’t see any chance of one here, and can only hope that Moise and his ‘cousins’ can find that dugout down below here somewhere.”

“If we were on the river down there, you wouldn’t know there was any post here at all,” said Jesse. “You can’t see any buildings.”

“No,” said Alex; “they’re too high up on this bench. You can see the buildings at St. John as you go by, because they are close to the river, and so you can at Dunvegan. I don’t imagine, however, we’ll want to stop anywhere except in camp this side of Peace River Landing. It’ll be fine from here down.”

“My!” said John, “that certainly was hard work, portaging over that twelve miles there. They ought to have horses and carts, I should say.”

“Hard to use ’em in here,” smiled Alex. “As it is, it’s better than trying to run the cañon. No one ever did get through there, so far as ever I heard.”

“Yes,” said Rob, “Sir Alexander Mackenzie must have come up through the cañon, according to his story. That is, he must have followed the big bend around, although, of course, he had to take his boat out and carry it through the roughest kind of country. That was worse than our portage here, and no man can tell how they made it through, from all you can learn through his story about it. You see, they didn’t know this country then, and had to learn it as they went. If they had hit that cañon a month later on their journey the men wouldn’t have stood it — they’d have mutinied and killed Mackenzie, or have left him and started home.”

Not caring yet to undertake their embarkment below the portage, they now strolled around here and there, intending to wait until their friends caught up with them. Off to the east they could see, from among the short, choppy hills, a country which seemed for the most part covered with continuous growth of poplars, sometimes broken with glades, or open spaces.

“I’ve never been west of the Half Way River,” said Alex after a time, “but I know right where we are. We could almost throw our boat on the deck of the steamboat from this bank if we were as far east as St. John.”

“No steamboat for ours until we get to Peace River Landing,” said Rob.

“That’s right,” John assented. “We’ve come through this far, and we can finish the way we started — that is, if the other fellows catch up with us all right, and we get another boat. How long since we left them? I’ve sort of lost track of the time.”

“Fifth day,” said Rob. “It’s about time they were coming.”

His prediction was fulfilled that evening, when, as they were preparing the camp-fire for their supper, they heard a loud shout from the trail back of them.

“Who’s that, Alex?” demanded John.

But even as he asked he had his answer. Such excited gesticulations, such cries of welcome, could come from no one but Moise.