of the slack water as they could, and of the up-stream wind which
aided them for a time, they slowly advanced along the banks of the
Columbia, whose mighty green flood came pouring down in a way which
caused them almost a feeling of awe. Thus they passed the mouth of the
more quiet Wood River, coming in from the north, and after a long,
hard pull of it landed at last at the edge of a sharp bend, where a
little beach gave them good landing-room.
Uncle Dick led them a short distance back toward a flat grassy space
among the low bushes. Here there was a scattered litter of old
tent-pegs and a few broken poles, now and then a tin can. Nothing else
remained to mark the historic spot, which had passed from the physical
surface of the earth almost as completely as the old Tete Jaune Cache.
Uncle Dick turned away in disgust.
"Some trappers have camped here lately," said he, "or perhaps some of
the engineers sent out by another railroad. But, at any rate, this is
the old Boat Encampment. Yonder runs the trail, and you can follow
that back clear to Timbasket Lake, if you like, or to the Athabasca
Pass."
"Is this where they came in from the Saskatchewan?" demanded Rob.
"No, the old trail that way really came down the Blaeberry, very far
above. I presume after they got on the west side, in the Columbia
valley, they took to the trail and came down to this point just the
same, for I doubt if any of them ran the Columbia much above here.
Many a time old David Thompson stopped here--the first of the great
map-makers, my young friends, and somewhat ahead of you, John. And Sir
George Simpson, the lord of the fur-traders, came here with his Indian
wife, who became a peeress of Great Britain, but who had to walk like
any voyageur from here out across the Rockies. I don't doubt old
Doctor Laughlin, of Fort Vancouver, was here, as I have told you. In
short, most of the great fur-traders came to this point up to about
1825, or 1826, at which time, as we have learned, they developed the
upper trail, along the Fraser to the Tete Jaune Cache."
"But didn't any one of them ever go up the Wood River yonder?"
demanded Rob. "That looks like an easy stream."
"The engineer Moberly went up there, and crossed the Rockies to the
head of the Whirlpool River on the east side," replied Uncle Dick,
"but that was in modern times--about the same time that Major Rogers
discovered the Rogers Pass through the Selkirks below here, where the
Canadian Pacific road crosses the Rockies. It's a great tumble and
jumble of mountains in here, my young friends, and a man's job for any
chap who picked out any pass in these big mountains here.
"Yonder"--he rose and pointed as he spoke--"east of us, is the head of
the Saskatchewan--the Howse Pass is far to the south of where we stand
here. Northeast of us, and much closer, is the Athabasca Pass, and we
know that by following down the Athabasca we would come to Henry House
and Jasper House, not far from the mouth of the Miette River.
"Now, somewhere north of here, down the west side of the mountains,
came the trail from the Athabasca Pass, and it ended right here where
we stand. I've never made that trip across the Athabasca Pass myself.
That old pass, famous as it is, is in the discard now. With a railroad
on each side of it, it will be visited from this time on very rarely
by any man, whether he be tourist or bear-hunter. The Rockies will
take back their own once more.
"But here, right where we stand, is one of those points comparable to
old Fort Benton, or Laramie, on the plains below us, in our own
country. This was the rendezvous, the half-way house, of scores of
bold and brave men who now are dead and gone. I want you to look at
this place, boys, and to make it plain on your map, and to remember it
always. Few of your age have ever had the privilege of visiting a spot
like this."
Rob and Jesse busied themselves helping John with his map, and
meantime Moise and the other two men were making a little fire to boil
a kettle of tea.
"Why did they stop here?" asked John, after a time, busy with his
pencil. "Couldn't they get any farther up?"
[Illustration: THE COLUMBIA RIVER, ABOVE THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT]
Uncle Dick pointed to the jutting end of the shore which hid the bend
of the river from view above them. "You know that river, Leo?" said
he.
Leo spread out his hands wide, with a gesture of respect.
"Me know 'um," said he. "Plenty bad river. Me run 'um, and my Cousin
George. And Walt Steffens--he live at Golden, and Jack Bogardus, his
partner, and Joe McLimanee, and old man Allison--no one else know this
river--no one else ron 'um. No man go up Columby beyond here--come
down, yes, maybe-so."
"Last year," said Uncle Dick, "when I came in from the Beaver Mouth I
saw a broken boat not far below Timbasket Lake. Whose was it?"
"My boat," grinned Leo. And George also laughed. "We bust up boat on
rock, lose flour, tea, everything. We swim out, and walk trail down to
here, swim Wood River, and go up Canoe River, fifty mile. Two day
we'll not got anything to eat."
"Well, I don't see how they got up these streams at all," said John.
"Joe McLimanee he come this far from Revelstruck," said Leo. "Take
him twenty-nine day, not on high water."
"Then there must be bad rapids below here," said John.
"Yes," said his uncle, "and, as I went up the Canoe myself from here,
I've never seen that part of this river, but they say that at the time
of the big gold excitements a generation ago, when the miners tried to
get out of this country, they took to rafts. The story is that a
hundred and sixty-five men of that stampede were drowned in one year
on the Death Rapids."
Leo picked up a stick and began to make a map on the sand, showing the
Big Bend of the Columbia and some of its side-streams.
"You start Beaver Mouth," said he, "all right, till you come on
Surprise Rapids--all at once, right round bend. Surprise Rapids, him
very bad. Much portage there. Very bad to get boat through even on
line. Portage three mile there, maybe-so.
"Here was old man Brinkman, his rapid--not so bad, but bad enough for
to scare old man Brinkman, so they name it on him, 'Brinkman's
Terror.'
"Here is what Walt Steffen calls 'Double Eddy'--bad place sometam in
high water. Bime-by we come on Lake Timbasket, up there, maybe thirty
mile, maybe-so."
Leo made a tracing of the outline of the lake, then followed his
scratch in the sand on around.
"Now begin Twenty-six Mile Rapid, all bad--Gordon Rapids here, Big
Eddy here, Rock Canyon here. Now we come on Boat Encampment. This way
Revelstruck. Death Rapids here; Priest Rapids down here; and then
Revelstruck Canyon; him bad, very bad, plenty man drown there, too.
That five miles from Revelstruck; we get out and walk there.
"Now here"--and he pointed on his sand map--"is Boat Encampment. Right
around corner there is one of most bad places on whole river."
"But you've been through, Uncle Dick. Tell us about it."
"Yes, I came through once last year, and that's enough for me," said
Uncle Dick. "That's the Rock Canyon and the Grand Eddy. Leo has shown
it all pretty plainly here. I don't want to make that trip again,
myself. But when we got to Lake Timbasket we didn't any of us know
how bad it was going to be--the old trapper who acted as our guide had
never been through when the water was high. But when we got at the
head of the Twenty-six Mile Rapids, below Lake Timbasket, it was like
the bottom had dropped out of things, and we had to go through, for we
couldn't get back.
"Of course, we could line sometimes, and many of the chutes we did not
attempt. The first day below Timbasket we made about ten miles, to a
camp somewhere below the Cummins Creek chute. We could hear the water
grinding--it sounded like breaking glass--all night long, right near
the place where we slept, and it kept me awake all night. I suppose it
is the gravel down at the bottom of the deep water. Then there were
growlings and rumblings--the Indians say there are spirits in the
river, and it sounded like it.
"There was one Swede that the trapper told us of, who started through
the Cummins Rapids on a raft and was wrecked. He got ashore and walked
back to the settlements. He had only money enough left to buy one sack
of flour, then he started down the river again. From that day to this
he has never been heard of, and no one knows when or where he was
drowned.
"We passed one big boulder where the trapper said the name of another
Swede was cut on the rock by his friends who were wrecked with him
near by. I believe they were some miners trying to get out of this
country in boats. That man's body was never found, for the Columbia
never gives up her dead. We saw Leo's broken boat, as I told you; and
on the shores of Lake Timbasket we found the wrecks of two other
boats, washed down. You see, this wild country has no telegraph or
newspaper in it. When a man starts down the Big Bend of the Columbia
he leaves all sort of communication behind him. Many an unknown man
had started down this stream and never been seen again and never
missed--this river can hold its own mysteries."
"Well, tell us about this rapid just above here, Uncle Dick," went on
Jesse. "Wasn't it pretty bad?"
"The worst I ever saw, at least. When we stopped above the head of
that canyon the trapper told me where the trail was down here to the
Encampment, but of course I concluded to run on through if the others
did. Before we got that far I was pretty well impressed with the
Columbia, myself. When we landed at the head of Upper Death Canyon I
don't believe any of us were very sure that our boat would go through.
No one was talking very much, I'll promise you that.
"The worst part of that long stretch of bad water of the Rock Canyon
can't be more than four or five miles in all, and there isn't a foot
of good water in the whole distance, as I remember it. Of course, the
worst is the Giant Eddy--it lies just over there, beyond the edge of
the hill from us. In there the water runs three different ways all at
once. There is no boat on earth can go up this river through the Giant
Eddy, and lucky enough is the one which comes down through it.
"You see, once you get in there, you can't get either up again or out
on either side--the rock walls come square down to the river, which
boils down through a narrow, crooked gorge. It is like a big letter Z,
with all the flood of the Columbia pouring through the bent legs; no
one knows how deep, but not half the width which we see here.
"That's the worst water I ever saw myself--it runs so strong that
there is a big ridge thrown up in the middle of the river, many feet
higher than the water on either side. There is a crest of white water
all down the sides of the top of that high ridge. The water looks as
though it were hard, so that you couldn't drive a nail through it,
it's flung through there at such tremendous pressure.
"You don't have much time to look as you go through, and there is no
place where you can see the Giant Eddy except from the Giant Eddy
itself. All I can remember is that we were clawing to keep on top of
that high rib of the water mid-stream. I can see it now, that
place--with green water running up-stream on each side, and the ridge
of white water in the middle, and the long bent slope, like a
show-case glass, running on each side from us to the edges of the
up-stream currents. It was a very wonderful and terrible sight, and
seeing it once was quite enough for me.
"About half-way down that long, bad chute I saw a hole open up in the
crown of that ridge and could look down into it, it seemed to me,
fifteen feet--some freak in the current made it--no one can tell what.
It seemed to chase us on down, and all our men paddled like mad. If
our stern had got into that whirlpool a foot, no power on earth could
have saved us. As luck would have it, we kept just outside the rim of
the suckhole, and finally escaped it.
"Then we came to the place which lies first around the bend above
us--a great deep saucer in the river, below a rock ledge of white
water--it is like a shallow bicycle track, higher at the edges, a
basin dished out in the river itself. I don't know how we got into it,
and have only a passing memory of the water running three ways, and
the high ridge in the middle, and the suckhole that followed us, and
then we slipped down into that basin at the last leg of the Z, and
through it and across it, and so right around that bend yonder, and
here to the Boat Encampment. You may believe me, we were glad enough.
"So now, adding my story to the one you'll be able to tell from here
on down, you may say that you know almost as much about the Big Bend
of the Columbia as Gabriel Franchere himself, or even Sir George
Simpson, peer of the realm of Great Britain.
"Some day they'll build a railroad around the Big Bend. Then I
believe I'll take that journey myself; it's much easier than making it
as we are making it now. Not that I wish to frighten you at all, young
men, about the rest of our journey, for our men are good, and Leo and
George have the advantage of knowing every inch of the river
thoroughly--an Indian never forgets a place he once has seen."
"Have you 'got some scares,' Leo?" inquired John, smiling. Leo also
smiled.
"No, no get scare--not 'fraid of Columby."
"You Shuswaps are white-water dogs, all right," said Uncle Dick. "I'm
not going to let you run all the rapids that you want, perhaps,
between here and Revelstoke.
"Now," he continued, "if John has finished his map work I think we can
make a few more miles on our way down this evening, and every mile we
make is that much done."
"Bime-by below Canoe," said Leo, "come on old man Allison's cabin--him
trap there two winters ago, not live there now."
The boys looked inquiringly at Uncle Dick.
"All right," said he. "We'll stop there for the night." So presently
they took boat once more, and, passing the tawny flood waters of the
Wood and the Canoe rivers, which only stained the edges of the green
Columbia, not yet wholly discolored in its course through its
snow-crowned pathway, they pulled up at length on a beach at the edge
of which stood a little log cabin, roofed with bark and poles.
XXV
HISTORY ON THE GROUND
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 Tete 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 Tete 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 Tete 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 Tete 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.