people in the north. If men did not divide meat with one another many
people would starve. As it is, many starve in the far-off countries
each winter. Sometimes we cannot get even rabbits. It may be far to
the trading-post. The moose or the caribou may be many miles away,
where no one can find them. A heavy storm may come, so no one can
travel. Then if a man is fortunate and has meat he would be cruel if
he did not divide. He knows that all the others would do as much with
him. It is our custom."
XIV
EXPLORING THE WILDERNESS
IF Rob, John, and Jesse had been eager for exciting incidents on their
trip across the mountains, certainly they found them in plenty during
the next three days after the caribou hunt, as they continued their
passage on down the mountain river, when they had brought in all their
meat and once more loaded the canoes.
Rob had been studying his maps and records, and predicted freely that
below this camp they would find wilder waters. This certainly proved
to be the case. Moreover, they found that although it is easier to go
down-stream than up in fast water, it is more dangerous, and sometimes
progress is not so rapid as might be expected. Indeed, on the first
day below the caribou camp they made scarcely more than six or eight
miles, for, in passing the boats down along shore to avoid a short
piece of fast water, the force of the current broke the line of the
_Mary Ann_, and it was merely by good fortune that they caught up
with her, badly jammed and wedged between two rocks, her gunwale strip
broken across and the cedar shell crushed through, so that she had
sprung a bad leak.
They hauled the crippled _Mary Ann_ ashore and discharged her cargo in
order to examine the injuries received.
"Well, now, we're giving an imitation of the early _voyageurs_," said
John, as he saw the rent in the side of the canoe. "But how are we
going to fix her? She isn't a birch-bark, and if she were, we have no
bark."
"I think we'll manage," Rob replied, "because we have canvas and
cement and all that sort of thing. But her rail is broken quite
across."
"She'll been good boat," said Moise, smiling; "we'll fix heem easy."
So saying, he took his ax and sauntered over to a half-dead
cedar-tree, from which, without much difficulty, he cut some long
splints. This they managed to lash inside the gunwale of the canoe,
stiffening it considerably. The rent in the bottom they patched by
means of their cement, and some waterproof material. They finished the
patch with abundant spruce gum and tar, melted together and spread all
over. When they were done their labors the _Mary Ann_ was again
watertight, but not in the least improved in beauty.
"We'll have to be very careful all the way down from here, I'm
thinking," said Alex. "The river is getting far more powerful almost
every hour as these other streams come in. Below the Finlay, I know
very well, she's a big stream, and the shores are so bad that if we
had an accident it would leave things rather awkward."
None the less, even with one boat crippled in this way, Rob and John
gained confidence in running fast water almost every hour. They
learned how to keep their heads when engaged in the passage of white
water, how to avoid hidden rocks, as well as dangerous swells and
eddies. It seemed to them quite astonishing what rough water could be
taken in these little boats, and continually the temptation was, of
course, to run a rapid rather than laboriously to disembark and line
down alongshore. Thus, to make their story somewhat shorter, they
passed on down slowly for parts of three days, until at last, long
after passing the mouth of the Pack River and the Nation, and yet
another smaller stream, all coming in from the west, they saw opening
up on the left hand a wide valley coming down from the northwest.
The character of the country, and the distance they had traveled, left
no doubt whatever in their minds that this was the Finlay River, the
other head-stream of the Peace River. They therefore now felt as
though they knew precisely where they were. Being tired, they pitched
their camp not far below the mouth of the Finlay, and busied
themselves in looking over their boats and supplies. They knew that
the dreaded Finlay rapids lay only two miles below them.
They were now passing down a river which had grown to a very
considerable stream, sometimes with high banks, again with shores
rather low and marshy, and often broken with many islands scattered
across an expanse of water sometimes nearly a quarter of a mile
in extent. The last forty miles of the stream to the junction of
the Finlay had averaged not more rapid but much heavier than the
current had seemed toward the headwaters. The roar of the rapids
they approached now came up-stream with a heavier note, and was
distinguishable at much greater distances, and the boats in passing
through some of the heavier rapids did so in the midst of a din quite
different from the gentle babble of the shallow stream far toward its
source. The boom of the bad water far below this camp made them
uneasy.
"Well," said Rob, as they sat in camp near the shore, "we know where
we are now. We have passed the mouth of the McLeod outlet, and we have
passed the Nation River and everything else that comes in from the
west. Here we turn to the east. It must be nearly one hundred and
fifty miles to the real gate of the Rockies--at the Canyon of the Rocky
Mountains, as the first traders called it."
"It looks like a pretty big river now," said Jesse dubiously.
"I would like to hope it's no worse than it has been just above here,"
said Rob, "but I fear it is, from all I know. Mackenzie got it in high
water, and he only averaged half a mile an hour for a long time going
up, along in here. Of course coming down we could pick our way better
than he could."
"We have been rather lucky on the whole," said Alex, "for, frankly,
the water has been rather worse for canoes than I thought it would be.
Moreover, it is still larger below here. But that's not the worst of
it."
"What do you mean, Alex?" inquired John.
"You ought not to need to ask me," replied the old hunter. "You're all
_voyageurs_, are you not?"
"But what is it, then?"
"Look closely."
They went to the edge of the beach and looked up and down the river
carefully, also studying the forking valleys into which they could see
from the place where they were in camp.
"Well, I don't know," said Rob, "but it seems to me she's rising a
little!"
Alex nodded. "We've been in camp here three hours now," said he, "and
she's come up a little more than an inch."
"Why, how do you know that?" asked John.
"I set a stick with a notch at water-level when we first came ashore."
"How did you happen to think of that?"
"Very likely the same thing which made Rob guess it."
"Yes," said Rob, "I saw that the Finlay water coming down seemed to be
discolored. But at first I supposed it was the natural color of that
river. So you think there has been a thaw?"
"Maybe some sort of rain or chinook over in there," said Alex. "What
do you think, Moise?"
Moise and Alex talked for a time in the Cree language, Moise shaking
his head as he answered.
"Moise thinks there has been a little rise," interpreted Alex. "He
says that below here the river sometimes canyons up, or runs between
high banks with a narrow channel. That would make it bad. You see, the
rise of a foot in a place like that would make much more difference
than two inches in the places where the river is spread out several
hundred yards wide. We know a little bit more about the river from
here east, because we have talked with men who have been here."
"I suppose we'll have to wait here until it runs down," said Jesse.
"Maybe not. If we were here earlier in the season and this were the
regular spring rise we might have to wait for some time before we
could go down with these boats. But the big flood has gone down long
ago. There isn't anything to hinder us as yet from dropping down and
watching carefully on ahead as we go."
Rob was again consulting his inevitable copy of _Mackenzie's Voyages_.
"It took Mackenzie and Fraser each of them just eight days to get this
far up the river from the west end of the Canyon of the Rocky
Mountains," said he. "Fraser must have built his boat somewhere west
of the Rocky Mountain Portage, as they call it. That must be
seventy-five miles east of here, as near as I can figure it from the
Mackenzie story, but Uncle Dick's friend, Mr. Hussey, said it was one
hundred and thirty miles--and only two big rapids, the Finlay and the
Parle Pas. I wish we could run it every foot, because Mackenzie did
when he came down. At least, he doesn't say he didn't."
"It was done by the traders for a long time," said Alex, "all but
those two rapids and that canyon. There is no trail even for horses
between Hudson's Hope and Fort St. John, but that is easy water. They
serve St. John now with steamboats, and the old canoe days are pretty
much over. But, anyhow, there is the main ridge of the Rockies east of
us, and we've got to get through it somehow, that's sure. Back
there"--he pointed up the valley down which they had been coming now
for so long--"we were between two ranges of the divide. The Finlay
yonder comes down out of some other range to the northwest. But now
the doubled river has to break through that dam of the eastern rim. I
suppose we may look for bad water somewhere. Look here," he added,
examining the map, "here are the altitudes all marked on by the
government surveyors--twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level at
Giscombe Portage, twenty-two hundred and fifty at Fort McLeod. I
suppose it was about three thousand feet where we started across. At
the mouth of the Finlay it's only two thousand feet--a big drop. But
she drops nearly three hundred feet more to the west end of the
portage, and two hundred feet more at the east end. That's going
downhill pretty fast--five hundred feet in less than one hundred and
fifty miles--and some of it not very fast water."
"Well," ventured Rob, "why don't we drop down as far as we can, and if
we get caught by a flood then stop and take a little hunt somewhere
back in the hills? You know, we haven't got that grizzly yet you
promised us."
"Sure enough," said Alex, with no great enthusiasm; for he did not
relish the idea of hunting grizzly bear in company with such young
companions.
"But we have come through good grizzly country already," ventured
John.
"Very likely," Alex smiled. "I've seen considerable bear sign along
the shores, as well as a good many moose tracks close to where we
camped."
"If you think we're afraid to go bear hunting, Alex," Rob began, "you
certainly don't know us very well. That's one of the reasons we came
on this trip--we wanted to get a real Rocky Mountain grizzly."
"It is not too late," the old hunter rejoined, "and I shouldn't wonder
if there was as good country east of here as any we've come to. The
grizzly is a great traveler, anyhow, and is as apt to be found one
place as another. At this time of year all the bears come out of the
mountains and feed along the valleys on red willow buds and such
things. They even swim from the shore to the islands, in search of
willow flats. Besides, there are plenty of saskatoons, I don't doubt,
not far back from the river. The bears ought to be down out of the
high country by this time, and if you really care for a hunt, there
ought to be plenty of good places below here."
"It isn't dark yet," said Rob; "suppose we break camp and run down
just a little farther this evening. If the flood comes in behind us,
we're just that much ahead."
They acted on Rob's suggestion, and, passing rapidly on down the now
slightly discolored water, they soon left the Finlay gap behind them.
Their journey was but brief, however, for soon they heard the boom of
the rapids below them.
"On shore, queek!" called Moise to Rob, who was in the bow of the
leading boat.
XV
IN THE BIG WATERS
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 Canyon 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?"