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 canyon.
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.
XXI
THE PORTAGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
"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 canyon, 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 Freres,
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 canyon. 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 canyon, 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 canyon 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.
XXII
EAST OF THE ROCKIES
The two boys ran rapidly to meet Moise, and overwhelmed him with
questions asked all at once.
"How's everything?" demanded Rob, "and where's Jesse?"
"Oh, those boy, she'll been all right," said Moise. "She'll be on camp
seex, h'eight mile below here, up above, maybe so. My cousins Billy
and At-tick, come through with us--they'll portage half-way to-day.
"But, _mes amis_," broke out Moise; "there's your boat! How you'll got
her through? S'pose you take wings an' fly over those rock, _hein_?
_Mon Dieu!_"
"We couldn't wait any longer, Moise," said Rob, "and we thought we had
better be busy than idle. It was hard work, but Alex carried her over,
and we didn't have much left to pack except our rifles and ourselves."
"Then you'll not need any mans for help on the portage? All right.
We'll get some boat below."
"How far is it back to your camp, Moise?" demanded John.
"Maybe five, seex mile, maybe more--I'll not keep track of heem."
"Can we go back there to-night with you? I'd like to see Jess. May we
go, Alex?"
"If you like," answered the old hunter, quietly. "I'll stay here and
sleep, and if you care to, you can sleep there. I don't doubt you will
be glad to see your friend again, and he'll be glad to see you."
Tired as the boys had been, they were now so excited that they forgot
their fatigue, and trotted along close to Moise as he now turned and
struck a steady pace back on the portage trail. It was quite dark when
at last they came out on a high bank above a level, at which a
camp-fire was glowing. John and Rob put their hands to their mouths
and gave a loud "Halloo!" They saw the smaller of the three figures at
the fire jump to his feet. Then came the answering "Halloo!" of Jesse,
who came scrambling up to meet them as they hurried down.
"You're safe, then," said Jesse. "Oh, but I'm glad you got here all
right."
"We're glad to meet you safe and sound, too," said Rob. "Yes, we
finished the trip--we even carried our boat through by ourselves, and
she's there now on the bank of the stream, ready to go on down."
"That's fine," said Jess. "These two men, the cousins of Moise, have
been as nice as you please. They said they could fix up the _Mary
Ann_, and they were very glad to have her--there she is, all in a
bundle. They are taking her across in sections. It was hard work
getting up the river, for it was all dirty and high. But we made it--I
think we worked eighteen hours a day all the way round. Moise is a
hustler, all right, besides being a cook."
"So is Alex a hustler, you may depend," rejoined Rob. "We couldn't
have two better men. Well, here we are, together once more, safe and
sound."
"What's the programme now, Rob?" asked John.
"We're to sleep here to-night--although it doesn't seem as though we'd
have very many blankets," answered Rob. "And then in the morning I
suppose Moise would better go and help Alex get the boat down to the
river. But where's the other dugout we were to have, Moise?"
Moise talked awhile further with the two reticent breeds.
"My cousin Billy, he'll say there's old man about five, seex mile
below there, an' he'll got dugout," he said at last. "He'll say twenty
dollar for dugout."
"That's cheaper than Peterboroughs," said Rob, smiling. "Anyhow, we've
got to have it, because you can't buy canoes in shops here on the
Peace River. You tell these two men, Moise, to go down there in the
morning and have the old man, whoever he is, bring his canoe up as
soon as he can to the port. We'll meet, I should say, about noon
to-morrow, if all goes well. And as we're now through the worst of it
and seem to have pretty fair weather yet, I shall be surprised if we
don't get quite a bit farther east inside of the next twenty-four
hours."
"Then hurrah for Uncle Dick!" said John. "He's somewhere down this
river, and maybe it won't be so very long before we run across him."
"Hurrah! for all those boy also!" smiled Moise. "Pretty lucky,
_hein_?"
XXIII
THE LAND OF PLENTY
Rob's plans were approved by Alex and Moise, and worked out so well
that by noon of the next day the entire party had reassembled at the
rendezvous. The _Jaybird_ was the first boat to be loaded, the men
getting her down the steep bank with small delay and taking a rapid
run of a couple of miles or so down the river soon thereafter. After a
little time they concluded to wait for the other men who had gone down
the river-bank to secure the dugout of an old Indian, who, it seems,
was known as Picheu, or the Lynx.
"I don't know about a dugout, Moise," said Rob. "There may be bad
water below here."
"No, not very bad water," said Moise. "I'll ron heem on steamboat many
tam! But those dugout she'll been good boat, too. I s'pose she'll been
twenty foot long an' carry thousand pound all right."
"Well," Rob answered, "that will do us as well as a steamboat. I
wonder why the old _voyageurs_ never used the dugout instead of the
birch-bark--they wouldn't have had to mend it so often, even if they
couldn't carry it so easily."
"I'll tell you, fellows," said Jesse, who was rather proud of his
overland trip by himself, "the fur trade isn't what it used to be.
At those posts you don't see just furs and traps, and men in
blanket-coats, and dog-trains. In the post here they had groceries,
and axes, and calico dresses, and hats, just like they have in a
country store. I peeked in through the windows."
Alex smiled at them. "You see," said he, "you've been looking at
pictures which were made some time ago perhaps. Or perhaps they were
made in the winter-time, and not in the summer. At this season all the
fur packets have gone down the trail, and they don't need dog-trains
and blanket-coats. You ought to come up here in the winter-time to get
a glimpse of the old scenes. I'll admit, though, that the fur-posts
aren't what they were when I was a boy. You can get anything you like
now, from an umbrella to a stick of toffy."
"Where?" asked John, suddenly, amid general laughter.
"The toffy? I'm sure we'll find some at Peace River Landing, along
with plows and axes and sewing-machines, and all that sort of thing!"
"But the people pay for them all with their furs?" inquired Rob.
"For the most part, yes. Always in this part of the country the people
have lived well. Farther north the marten have longer fur, but not
finer than you will find here, so that they bring just as good prices.
This has always been a meat country--you'll remember how many buffalo
and elk Mackenzie saw. Now, if the lynx and the marten should
disappear, and if we had to go to farming, it still would be the 'Land
of Plenty,' I'm thinking--that's what we used to call it. If we should
go up to the top of these high banks and explore back south a little
bit, on this side of the Smoky, you'd see some of the prettiest
prairies that ever lay out of doors, all ready for the plow. I suppose
my people some time will have to use the plow too."
"Yes," assented Rob, "I remember Mackenzie's story, how very beautiful
he found this country soon after he started west on his trip."
"My people, the Crees, took this country from others long ago," said
Alex, rather proudly. "They came up the old war-trail from Little
Slave Lake to the mouth of the Smoky, where the Peace River Landing is
now. They fought the Beavers and the Stoneys clear to the edges of the
Rockies, where we are now. They've held the land ever since, and
managed to make a living on it, with or without the white man's help.
Some of us will change, but men like At-tick, the old Indian who
brought Jess across the trail, and like old Picheu, below here, aren't
apt to change very much."
John was once more puzzling at the map which the boys had made for
themselves, following the old Mackenzie records. "I can't figure out
just where Mackenzie started from on his trip, but he says it was
longitude 117 deg. 35' 15", latitude 56 deg. 09'. Now, that doesn't check
up with our map at all. That would make his start not very far from the
fort, or what they call the Peace River Landing to-day, I should
think. But he only mentions a 'small stream coming from the east,'
although Moise says the Smoky is quite a river."
"Most people think Mackenzie started from Fort Chippewayan," said
Alex, "but as a matter of fact, he wintered far southwest of there, on
the Peace River, somewhere between three hundred and four hundred
miles south and west of Fort Vermilion, as I gather from the length of
time it took him to get to the edge of the Rockies, where we are now.
He mentions the banks getting higher as he went south and west. When
you get a couple of hundred miles north of the Landing the banks begin
to get low, although at the Landing they're still almost a thousand
feet high above the water-level, at least eight hundred feet, I should
say."
"Well," said Rob, "we know something about this country ourselves now,
and we'll make a map of it some time, perhaps--a better one than we
have now."
"Yes," said Jesse, "but who can draw in that horse-trail from Hudson's
Hope to the head of the steamboat transport? I'd like to see that
trail!"
"I suppose we could get on the steamboat some time before long if we
wanted to," said John.
"No," said Alex, "hardly again this summer, for she's made her last
trip with supplies up to Fort St. John by now."
"We don't want any steamboat, nor anything else," said Rob, "except to
go on down on our own hook, the way we started. Let's be as wild as we
can!"
"We're apt to see more game from here down than we have any place on
the trip," said Alex. "You know, I told you this was the Land of
Plenty."
"Bimeby plenty bear," said Moise. "This boy Billy, he'll tol' me ol'
Picheu he'll keel two bear this last week, an' he'll say plenty bear
now all on river, on the willows."
"Well, at any rate," said Alex, "old Picheu himself is coming."
"How do you know?" asked Jesse.
"I hear the setting-pole."
Presently, as Alex had said, the dugout showed its nose around the
bend. At-tick and Billy, Jesse's two friends, were on the tracking
line, and in the stern of the dugout, doing most of the labor of
getting up-stream, was an old, wrinkle-faced, gray-haired and
gray-bearded man, old Picheu himself, in his time one of the most
famous among the hunters of the Crees, as the boys later learned. He
spoke no English, but stood like some old Japanese war-god on the
bank, looking intently from one to the other as they now finished
their preparations for re-embarking. He seemed glad to take the money
which Rob paid him for the dugout and shook hands pleasantly all
around, to show his satisfaction.
The boys saw that what Moise had said about the dugout was quite
true. It was a long craft, hewed out of a single log, which looked at
first crankier than it really was. It had great carrying capacity, and
the boys put a good part of the load in it, which seemed only to
steady it the more. It was determined that Rob and Moise should go
ahead in this boat, as they previously had done in the _Mary Ann_, the
others to follow with the _Jaybird_.
Soon all the camp equipment was stowed aboard, and the men stood at
the edge of the water ready to start. Their old friends made no
comment and expressed little concern one way or the other, but as Rob
turned when he was on the point of stepping into the leading boat he
saw Billy standing at the edge of the water. He spoke some brief word
to Alex.
"He wants to say to Mr. Jess," interpreted Alex, "that he would like
to make him a present of this pair of moccasins, if he would take them
from him."
"Would I take them!" exclaimed Jesse; "I should say I would, and thank
him for them very much. I'd like to give him something of mine, this
handkerchief, maybe, for him to remember me by."
"He says," continued Alex, "that when you get home he wishes you
would write to him in care of the priest at St. John. He says he hopes
you'll have plenty of shooting down the river. He says he would like
to go to the States when he gets rich. He says his people will talk
about you all around the camp-fire, a great many times, telling how
you crossed the mountains, where so few white men ever have been."
"I'll tell you what, boys," said Rob, "let's line up and give them all
a cheer."
So the three boys stood in a row at the waterside, after they had
shaken hands once more with the friends they were leaving, and gave
them three cheers and a tiger, waving their hats in salutation. Even
old Picheu smiled happily at this. Then the boys sprang aboard, and
the boats pushed out into the current.
XXIV
THE WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY
They were passing now between very high banks, broken now and then by
rock faces. The currents averaged extremely strong, and there were at
times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was
beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the
whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before.
The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very
tractable, and made a splendid boat for this sort of travel.
"You'd think from the look of this country," said John to Alex, "that
we were the first ever to cross it."
"No," said the old hunter, "I wish we were; but that is far from the
truth to-day. This spring, before I started west to meet you, there
were a dozen wagons passed through the Landing on one day--every one
of them with a plow lashed to the wagon-box. The farmers are coming.
If you should stop at Dunvegan you'd hardly know you were in
Mackenzie's old country, I'm afraid. And now the buffalo and the elk
are all gone, where there used to be so many. It is coming now to be
the white man's country."
"You'll have to come up to Alaska, where we live, Alex," said John.
"We've got plenty of wild country back inside of Alaska yet. But even
there the outside hunters are killing off the bear and moose mighty
fast."
"Yes," said Alex, "for sport, for their heads, and not for the meat!
My people kill for meat alone, and they could live here forever and
the game would still be as thick as ever it was. It's the whites who
destroy the new countries."
"I'm beginning to like this country more and more," said Jesse,
frankly. "Back in the mountains sometimes I was pretty badly scared,
the water roared so much all the time. But here the country looks
easier, and the water isn't so strong. I think we'll have the best
part of our trip now."
At that instant the sound of a rifle-shot rang out from some point
below them on the river. The dugout had just swung out of sight around
the bend. "That's Rob's rifle!" exclaimed John.
"Very likely," said Alex. "Bear, I suppose."
The crew of the _Jaybird_ bent to their paddles and presently passed
in turn about the sharp bend and came up alongside the dugout, which
lay along shore in some slack water. Rob was looking a trifle
shamefaced.
"Did you miss him?" asked John, excitedly.
"Well," said Rob, "I suppose you'd call it a miss--he was running up
the bank there about half a mile away. You can see him going yet, for
that matter."
Sure enough, they could, the animal by this time seeming not larger
than a dog as it scrambled up among the bushes on the top of the steep
precipice which lined the bank of the river.
"He must have been feeding somewhere below," said Rob, "and I suppose
heard us talking. He ran up that bank pretty fast. I didn't know it
was so hard to shoot from a moving boat. Anyhow, I didn't get him."
"He'll was too far off," said Moise. "But those boy she'll shoot right
on his foot all the time. I think she'll hit him there."
"Never mind, Mr. Rob," said Alex. "We've got plenty of river below us,
and we're sure to see more bear. This river is one of the best
countries for black bear there is this side of the Hay or the Liard."
Both boats proceeded at a leisurely pace for the remainder of this
stage, no one being anxious to complete the journey to the Peace River
Landing any earlier than was necessary, for the journey down the river
was of itself interesting and pleasant. All the landscape continued
green, although it was late in the summer. The water, however, was now
less brilliant and clear than it had been in the mountains, and had
taken on a brownish stain.