ourselves, but I believe we'd have run the rapids wherever the men did
if they had allowed us to."
"Batter not run the rapid so long you can walk, young man," said
Carlson. "The safest kind sailorman ban the man that always stay on
shore." And he laughed heartily at his own wit.
The boat tied up at the head of the Revelstoke Canyon, and here the
boys put their scanty luggage in a wagon which had come out to meet
her, and started off, carrying their rifles, along the wagon-trail
which leads from above the canyon to the town, part of the time on a
high trestle.
When they came abreast of the canyon they were well in advance of the
men, who also were walking in, and they concluded to go to the brink
of the canyon and look down at the water.
[Illustration: REVELSTOKE CANYON]
It was a wild sight enough which they saw from their lofty perch.
The great Columbia River, lately so broad and lakelike, was
compressed into a narrow strip of raging white water, driven down
with such force that they could see very plainly the upflung rib of
the river, forced above the level of the edges by the friction on the
perpendicular rock walls. From where they peered over the brink they
could see vast white surges, and could even distinguish the strange,
irregular swells, or boils, which without warning or regularity come
up at times from the depths of this erratic river. They quite agreed
that it would have been impossible for a boat to go through
Revelstoke Canyon alive at the stage of the water as they saw it. Rob
tried to make a photograph, which he said he was going to take home
to show to his mother.
"You'd better not," said John. "You'll get the folks to thinking that
this sort of thing isn't safe!"
The boys stood back from the rim of the canyon after a while and waited
for the others to come up with them.
"We think this one looks about as bad as anything we've seen, Uncle
Dick," said Rob. "A man might get through once in a while, and they
say Sam Boyd and Tom Horn did make it more than once before it got
them. It doesn't look possible to me to run it."
"The river is a lot worse than the Peace," said John. "Of course,
there's the Rocky Mountain Canyon, which nobody can get through either
way, and there isn't any portage as bad as that on the whole Columbia
Big Bend. But for number of bad rapids this river is a lot worse than
the Peace."
"Yes," assented the others, "in some ways this is a wilder and more
risky trip than the one we had last year. But we've had a pretty good
time of it just the same, haven't we?"
"We certainly have," said Rob; and John and Jesse answered in the same
way. "I only wish it wasn't all over so soon," added Jesse,
disconsolately.
The boys, hardy and lighter of foot even than their companions, raced
on ahead over the few remaining miles into Revelstoke town, leaving
the bank of the river, which here swung off broad and mild enough once
it had emerged from its canyon walls. Before them lay the town of
Revelstoke, with its many buildings, its railway trains, and its signs
of life and activity.
In town they all found a great budget of mail awaiting them, and
concluded to spend the night at Revelstoke in order to do certain
necessary writing and telegraphing. They had several letters from
their people in Alaska, but none announcing any word from themselves
after they had arrived at Edmonton, so that some of the letters bore
rather an anxious note.
"What would it cost to send a telegram from here to Seattle, and a
cablegram up the coast, and then by wireless up to the fort near
Valdez?" inquired Rob. "That ought to get through to-morrow, and just
two or three words to let them know we were out safe might make them
all feel pretty comfortable. It's a good thing they don't know just
what we've been through the last few days."
"Well, you go down to the station and see if it can be done," said
Uncle Dick, "and I'll foot the bill. Get your berths for the next
Transcontinental west to Vancouver, and reserve accommodations for
Moise and me going east. Leo and George, I'm thinking, will want to
wait here for a while; with so much money as he has as grizzly
premiums and wages, Leo is not going to leave until he has seen
something of the attractions of this city. In fact, I shouldn't wonder
if he got broke here and walked back up to O'Brien's and took his boat
there up the Columbia. They always get back home some way, the
beggars, and I'll warrant you that when we all go to the Tete Jaune
Cache by rail, a couple of years from now, we'll see Leo and George
waiting for us at the train as happy as larks!"
"I wonder if my pony'll be there too?" said John.
"He will, unless something very unusual should happen to him. You'll
find the word of an Indian good; and, although Leo does not talk much,
I would depend on him absolutely in any promise that he made. We will
have to agree that he has been a good man in everything he agreed to
do, a good hunter and a good boatman."
"We may go in there and have a hunt with him some time after the road
comes through," said Rob. "In fact, all this northern country will
seem closer together when the road gets through to Prince Rupert. Why,
that's a lot closer to Valdez than Vancouver is, and we could just
step right off the cars there and get off at Leo's, or even go up to
Yellowhead Lake and get another goat."
"Or find the place where John fell off the raft," added Jesse,
laughing.
"Or go on across to where Uncle Dick may be working, one side or other
of the summit. I wish he didn't have to go back to Edmonton, and could
come on home with us now. But we can tell them all about it when we
get home."
"Where'd you like to go the next time, if you had a chance, Rob?"
asked John.
"There are a lot of places I'd like to see," said Rob. "For one thing,
I've always wanted to go down the Mackenzie and then over the Rat
portage to the Yukon, then out to Skagway--that'd be something of a
trip. Then I've always had a hankering to go up the Saskatchewan and
come up over the Howse Pass. And some day we may see the Athabasca
Pass and the trail above the Boat Encampment. The railroads have
spoiled a lot of the passes south of there, but when you come to read
books on exploration you'll find a lot of things happened, even in the
United States, in places where the railroads haven't gone yet. We'll
have to see some of those countries sometime."
"How is your map coming on, John?" inquired Uncle Dick, a little
later, when once more they had met in their room at the hotel.
"I've got this one almost done," said John.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Young Alaskans in the Rockies, by Emerson Hough