this far northern latitude much lower than they had been for the first
hundred miles below the Landing. Now and again they would pass little
scattered settlements of natives, or the cabin of some former
trading-station. For the most part, however, the character of the
country was that of an untracked wilderness, in spite of the truth,
which was that the Hudson Bay Company had known it and traded through
it for more than a century past.
By no means the most northerly trading-posts of the great fur-trading
company, Fort Vermilion, their present destination, seemed to our
young friends almost as though it were at the edge of the world.
Their journey progressed almost as though they were in a dream, and
it was difficult for them to recall all of its incidents, or to get
clearly before their minds the distance back of them to the homes in
far-off Alaska, which they had left so long ago. The interest of
travelers in new land, however, still was theirs, and they looked
forward eagerly also to meeting the originator of this pleasant
journey of theirs--Uncle Dick Wilcox, who, as they now learned from
the officers of the boat, had been summoned to this remote region on
business connected with the investigation of oil-fields on the
Athabasca River, and had returned as far as Fort Vermilion on his
way out to the settlements.
When finally they came within sight of the ancient post of Fort
Vermilion, the boys, as had been the case in such other posts as they
previously had seen, could scarcely identify the modest whitewashed
buildings of logs or boards as really belonging to a post of the old
company of Hudson Bay. The scene which they approached really was a
quiet and peaceful one. At the rim of the bank stood the white
building of the Company's post, or store, with a well-shingled red
roof. Beyond this were some houses of the employes. In the other
direction was the residence of the factor, a person of considerable
importance in this neighborhood. Yet farther up-stream, along the
bank, stood a church with a little bell; whereas, quite beyond the
scattered settlement and in the opposite direction there rose a tall,
two-story building with projecting smoke-stack. Rob inquired the
nature of this last building, which looked familiar to him.
"That is the grist-mill," said Captain Saunders to him. "You see, we
raise the finest wheat up here you'll find in the world."
"I've heard of it," said Rob, "but I couldn't really believe it,
although we had good vegetables away back there at Peace River
Landing."
"It's the truth," said Captain Saunders; "yonder is the Company's
wheat-field, a hundred acres of it, and the same sort of wheat that
took the first prize at the Centennial, at your own city of
Philadelphia, in 1876. I'll show you old Brother Regnier, the man who
raised that wheat, too. He can't speak any English yet, but he
certainly can raise good wheat. And at the experimental farm you shall
see nearly every vegetable you ever heard of."
"I don't understand it," said Rob; "we always thought of this country
as being arctic--we never speak of it without thinking of dog-trains
and snowshoes."
"The secret is this," said Captain Saunders. "Our summers are short,
but our days are very long. Now, wheat requires sunshine, daylight, to
make it grow. All right; we give it more hours of sunshine in a month
than you do in a month in Dakota or Iowa. The result is that it grows
quicker and stronger and better, as we think. It gets ripe before the
nights become too cold. This great abundance of sunlight is the
reason, also, that we raise such excellent vegetables--as I'm sure you
will have reason to understand, for here we always lay in a supply for
our return voyage. I am thinking, however," added the captain,
presently, as the boat, screaming with her whistle, swung alongside of
her landing-place, "that you'll see some one in this crowd here that
you ought to know."
All along the rim of the bank there was rather a gaily-clad line of
Indians and half-breeds, men and women, many of whom were waving
salutations to members of the boat's crew. The boys studied this line
eagerly, but for some time none of them spoke.
"I see him!" said Jesse at last. "That's Uncle Dick sitting up there
on the bench."
The others also identified their relative and friend as he sat quietly
smoking and waiting for the boat to make her landing. At length he
arose and came to the staging--a rather slender, bronzed man, with
very brown face and eyes wrinkled at the corners. He wore an
engineer's garb of khaki and stiff-brimmed white hat.
The three boys took off their hats and gave a cheer as they saw him
standing there smiling.
"How are you, Uncle Dick?" they all cried; and so eager were they that
they could scarcely wait for the gang-plank to be run out.
Their uncle, Mr. Richard Wilcox, at that time employed in the
engineering department of one of the Dominion railways, laughed rather
happily as he bunched them in his arms when they came ashore. There
was little chance for him to say anything for some time, so eager were
the boys in their greeting of him.
"Well, you're all here!" said he at length, breaking away to shake
hands with Alex and Moise, who smiled very happily also, now coming up
the bank. "How have they done, Alex?"
"Fine!" said the old hunter. "Couldn't have been better!"
"This was good boys, all right," affirmed Moise. "We'll save her life
plenty tam, but she's good boy!"
"Did you have any trouble getting across, Alex?" asked Uncle Dick.
"Plenty, I should say!" said Alex, smiling. "But we came through it.
The boys have acted like sportsmen, and I couldn't say more."
"I suppose perhaps you got some game then, eh?"
All three now began to speak at once excitedly, and so fast that they
could scarcely be understood.
"Did you really get a grizzly?" inquired Uncle Dick of Alex, after a
while.
"Yes, sir, and a very good one. And a black bear too, and a moose, and
some sheep, and a lot of small stuff like that. They're hunters and
travelers. We gave them a 'lob-stick' to mark their journey--far back
in the Rockies."
"Well, Alaska will have to look to its laurels!" said Uncle Dick,
taking a long breath and pretending not to be proud of them. "It seems
to me you must have been pretty busy shooting things, from all I can
learn, young men."
"Oh, we know the country," interrupted Rob, "and we've got a map--we
could build a railroad across there if we had to."
"Well, to tell the truth, I'm mighty glad you got through all right,"
said Uncle Dick. "I've been thinking that maybe I oughtn't to have
let you try that trip, for it's dangerous enough for men. But
everything's well that ends well, and here you are, safe and sound.
You'll have to be getting out of here before long, though, in order to
make Valdez in time for your fall school--you'd be running wild if I
left you on the trail any longer.
"The boat will be going back to the Landing in a couple of days, I
suppose," he added after a time, as he gathered their hands in his and
started along the path up the steep bank; "but there are a few things
here you ought to see--the post and the farms and grains which they
have--wonderful things in their way. And then I'll try to get Saunders
to fix it so that you can see the Vermilion Chutes of the Peace
River."
"I know right where that is," said Rob, feeling in his pocket for his
map--"about sixty miles below here. That's the head of navigation on
the Peace, isn't it?"
"It is for the present time," said Uncle Dick. "I've been looking at
that cataract of the Peace. There ought to be a lock or a channel cut
through, so that steamboats could run the whole length from
Chippewayan to the Rockies! As it is, everything has to portage
there."
"We don't know whether to call this country old or young," said Rob.
"In some ways it doesn't seem to have changed very much, and in other
ways it seems just like any other place."
"One of these days you'll see a railroad down the Mackenzie, young
man," said Uncle Dick, "and before long, of course, you'll see one
across the Rockies from the head of the Saskatchewan, above the big
bend of the Columbia."
"Why couldn't we get in there some time, Uncle Dick?" asked Jesse, who
was feeling pretty brave now that they were well out of the Rocky
Mountains and the white water of the rapids.
"Well, I don't know," said Uncle Dick, suddenly looking around. "It
might be a good idea, after all. But I think you'd find pretty bad
water in the Columbia if you tried to do any navigation there. Time
enough to talk about that next year. Come on now, and I'll introduce
you to the factor and the people up here at the Post."
They joined him now, and soon were shaking hands with many persons,
official and otherwise, of the white or the red race. They found the
life very interesting and curious, according to their own notions. The
head clerk and they soon struck up a warm friendship. He told them
that he had spent thirty years of his life at that one place,
although he received his education as far east as Montreal. Married to
an Indian woman, who spoke no English, he had a family of ten bright
and clean children, each one of whom, as John soon found to his
satisfaction, appreciated the Imperial Toffy which made a part of the
stock of the Hudson Bay Company at that post also.
[Illustration: THE PORTAGE, VERMILION CHUTES, PEACE RIVER]
All of these new friends of theirs asked them eagerly about their
journey across the Rockies, which was a strange region to every one of
them, although they had passed their lives in the service of the fur
trade in the north. As usual, in short, they made themselves much at
home, and asked a thousand questions difficult enough to answer. Here,
as they had done at Peace River Landing, they laid in a stock of gaudy
moccasins and gloves and rifle covers, all beautifully embroidered by
native women in beads or stained porcupine quills, some of which work
had come from the half-arctic tribes hundreds of miles north of
Vermilion. They saw also some of the furs which had been sent down in
the season's take, and heard stories in abundance of the ways of that
wild country in the winter season. Even they undertook to make friends
with some of the half-savage sledge-dogs which were kept chained in
the yard back of the Post. After this they made a journey out to the
farm which the Dominion government maintains in that far-off region,
and there saw, as they had been promised by Captain Saunders, wheat
and rye taller than any one of them as they stood in the grain, and
also vegetables of every sort, all growing or in full maturity.
"Well, we'll have stories to tell when we get back," said Rob, "and I
don't believe they'll believe half of them, either, about the wildness
of this country and the tameness of it. Anyhow, I'm glad we've come."
The next day they put in, as Uncle Dick suggested, in a steamer trip
down to the Vermilion Chutes. They did not get closer than three or
four miles, but tied up while the party went down on foot to see the
big cataract of the Peace--some fifteen feet of sheer, boiling white
water, falling from a rim of rock extending almost half a mile
straightaway across the river.
"I expect that's just a little worse than the 'Polly' Rapids," said
John. "I don't think even Moise could run that place."
Even as they stood on the high rim of the rock at the edge of the
falls they saw coming up from below the figure of a half-breed, who
was dragging at the end of a very long line a canoe which was guided
by his companion far below on the swift water. Had the light line
broken it must, as it seemed to these observers, have meant
destruction of the man in the canoe. Yet the two went on about their
work calmly, hauling up close to the foot of the falls, then lifting
out their canoe, portaging above, and, with a brief salutation,
passing quickly on their way up the stream.
"That's the way we do it, boys," said Uncle Dick, "in this part of the
world--there goes the fast express. It would trouble the lightest of
you to keep up with that boy on the line, too, I'm thinking. Some
day," added Uncle Dick, casting a professional eye out over the wide
ridge of rock which here blocked the river, "they'll blow a hole
through that place so that a boat can get through. Who knows but one
of you will be the engineer in charge? Anyhow, I hope so--if I don't
get the job myself."
"You mustn't forget about that trip over the Yellowhead Pass, where
your new railroad's going now, Uncle Dick," said Jesse, as they turned
to walk again up the rough beach toward the mooring-place of the
steamer.
"Don't be in too big a hurry, Jesse," returned his relative. "You've
got a whole year of studying ahead of you, between now and then.
We'll take it under advisement."
"What I believe I like best about this country," said Rob, soberly,
"is the kindness of the people in it. Everywhere we have been they've
been as hospitable as they could be. We don't dare admire anything,
because they'll give it to us. It seems to me everybody gets along
pleasantly with everybody else up here; and I like that, you know."
"It's a man's country," said Uncle Dick, "that's true, and I don't
know that you'll be the worse for a little trip into it, although you
come from a man's country back there in Alaska yourselves, for the
matter of that. Well, this is the northern end of your trail for this
year, my sons. Here's where we turn back for home."
They paused at the bend and looked once more back at the long, foaming
ridge of white water which extended across from shore to shore of the
stream which they had followed so far.
"All right," said Rob, "we've had a good time."
They turned now, and all tramped steadily back to the boat, which soon
resumed her course up-stream.
Regarding their further stay at Fort Vermilion, or their return
journey of several days southward to Peace River Landing, little need
be said, save that, in the belief of all, the young hunters now had
killed abundance of game. Although they saw more than a dozen bears on
their way up the river, they were willing to leave their rifles in
their cases, and spend their time studying the country and poring yet
more over the maps which they were now preparing to show their friends
at home.
XXXI
HOMEWARD BOUND
Arrived at Peace River Landing, the young hunters found everything
quite as Alex said it would be, their belongings perfectly safe and
untouched in the tent where they had left them. Uncle Dick, who now
took charge of the party, agreed with them that it was an excellent
thing to make Alex and Moise presents of the canoes, and to give Moise
the remainder of the supplies which would not be required on their
brief trip to Little Slave Lake by wagon.
At this time the telephone line had been completed from Little Slave
Lake to Peace River Landing, and the factor at the latter post had
sent word for two wagons and teams to come up for these passengers,
outbound. There was little difficulty in throwing their light
equipment, with their many trophies and curiosities, into one of the
wagons, and arranging with the other to carry out the _Jaybird_,
which, a little bit battered but practically unhurt, now continued the
last stage of its somewhat eventful journey over the old Mackenzie
trail--Alex, as may be supposed, watching it with very jealous eye so
that it should get no harm in the long traverse.
Alex was thus to accompany the party for a few days, but Moise, who
lived at the Landing, now must say good-by. This he did still smiling,
though by no means glad to lose the company of his young friends.
"You'll come back some more bimeby," said he. "Any man he'll drink the
water on this river one time, he'll couldn't live no more without once
each year he'll come back an' drink some more on that river! I'll see
you again, an' bimeby you'll get so you'll could carry seex hondred
poun' half a mile an' not set it down. Moise, he'll wait for you."
When they reached the top of the steep hill which rises back of Peace
River Landing, almost a thousand feet above the river which runs
below, they all stopped and looked back, waiting for the wagons to
toil up the slope, and waiting also to take in once more the beauty of
the scene which lay below them. The deep valley, forking here, lay
pronounced in the dark outlines of its forest growth. It still was
morning, and a light mist lay along the surface of the river. In the
distance banks of purple shadows lay, and over all the sun was
beginning to cast a softening light. The boys turned away to trudge on
along the trail with a feeling almost of sadness at leaving a place so
beautiful.
"It is as Moise says, though!" broke out Rob, answering what seemed to
be the unspoken question in the minds of his fellows--"we'll have to
come back again some time. It's a man's country."
Hardened by their long experience in the open, the boys were able to
give even Uncle Dick, seasoned as he was, something of an argument at
footwork on the trail, and they used wagons by no means all the time
in the hundred miles which lie between Peace River Landing and Little
Slave Lake--a journey which required them to camp out for two nights
in the open. By this time the nights were cold, and on the height of
land between these two waterways the water froze almost an inch in the
water-pails at night, although the sun in the daytime was as warm as
ever. To their great comfort, the mosquito nuisance was now quite
absent; so, happy and a little hungry, at length they rode into the
scattered settlement of Grouard, or Little Slave Lake, passing on the
way to the lower town one more of the old-time posts of the Hudson Bay
Company.
"You see here," said Uncle Dick, as they paused at the edge of the
water which lay at the end street, "only an arm of the lake proper.
The steamer can't get through this little channel, but ties up about
eight miles from here. I suppose we ought to go aboard to-night."
"If you will allow me, sir," said Alex, stepping forward at this time,
"I might give the boys a little duck-shoot this evening on their way
down to the boat."
"Why not?" said Uncle Dick, enthusiastically. "I don't know but I'd
like a mallard or so for myself, although I can't join you to-night,
as I'm too busy. Can you get guns and ammunition, Alex?"
"Oh yes," replied the old hunter, "easily. And I'll show the young
gentlemen more ducks to-night than they ever saw in all their lives
before. The _Jaybird_ will carry all of us, if we're careful, and I'll
just paddle them down along the edge of the marsh. After we've made
our shoot, we'll come on down to the boat after dark, or thereabout."
"Fine!" said Uncle Dick. "That'll give me time to get my business
completed here, and I'll go down to the boat by wagon along shore."
This arrangement pleased the boys very much, for they knew in a
general way that the lake on whose shores they now were arrived was
one of the greatest breeding-places for wild fowl on the continent.
Besides this, they wished to remain with Alex as long as possible, for
all of them had become very fond of the quiet and dignified man who
had been their guide and companion for so long.
The four of them had no trouble in finishing the portage of the
_Jaybird_ and her cargo from the wagon to navigable water, and finally
they set off, paddling for the marshes which made off toward the main
lake.
They had traveled perhaps three or four miles when Alex concluded to
yield to the importunities of the boys to get ashore. They were eager
to do this, because continually now they saw great bands and streams
of wild fowl coming in from every direction to alight in the
marshes--more ducks, as Alex had said, than they had thought there
were in all the world. Most of them were mallards, and from many
places in the marsh they could hear the quacking and squawking of yet
other ducks hidden in the high grass.
"We haven't any waders," said Alex, "and I think you'll find the
water pretty cold, but you'll soon get used it to. Come ahead, then."
They pushed their canoe into the cover of the reeds and grasses, and
disembarking, waded on out toward the outer edge of the marsh, where
the water was not quite so deep, yet where they could get cover in
rushes and clumps of grass. Alex posted them in a line across a narrow
quarter of the marsh, so that each gun would be perhaps a hundred
yards from his neighbor, Jesse, the shortest of the party, taking the
shallowest water nearest to the road beyond the marsh.
They had not long to wait, for the air seemed to them quite full of
hurrying bands of fowl, so close that they could see their eyes dart
glances from side to side, their long necks stretched out, their red
feet hugged tight up to their feathers.
It is not to be supposed that any one of our young hunters was an
expert wild-fowl shot, for skill in that art comes only with a
considerable experience. Moreover, they were not provided with the
best of guns and ammunition, but only such as the Post was accustomed
to sell to the half-breeds of that country. In spite of all handicaps,
however, the sport was keen enough to please them, and successful
enough as well, for once in a while one of them would succeed in
knocking out of a passing flock one or more of the great birds, which
splashed famously in the water of the marsh. Sometimes they were
unable to find their birds after they had fallen, but they learned to
hurry at once to a crippled bird and secure it before it could escape
and hide in the grasses. Presently they had at their feet almost a
dozen fine mallards. In that country, where the ducks abound, there
had as yet been no shooting done at them, so that they were not really
as wild as they are when they reach the southern latitudes. Neither
were their feathers so thick as they are later in the season, when
their flight is stronger. The shooting was not so difficult as not to
afford plenty of excitement for our young hunters, who called out in
glee from one to the other, commenting on this, the last of their many
sporting experiences in the north.
They found that Alex, although he had never boasted of his skill, was
a very wonderful shot on wild fowl; in fact, he rarely fired at all
unless certain he was going to kill his bird, and when he dropped the
bird it nearly always was stone-dead.
After a time Rob, hearing what he supposed to be the quacking of a
duck in the grass behind him, started back to find what he fancied
was the hidden mallard. He saw Alex looking at him curiously, and once
more heard the quacking.
"Why, it's _you_ who've been doing that all the time, Alex!" exclaimed
Rob. "I see now why those ducks would come closer to you than to
me--you were calling them!"
Alex tried to show Rob how to quack like a duck without using any
artificial means, but Rob did not quite get the knack of it that
evening. For a time, however, after the other boys had come over also,
they all squatted in the grass near to Alex, and found much pleasure
in seeing him decoy the ducks, and do good, clean shooting when they
were well within reach.
At last Alex said, "I think this will do for the evening, if you don't
mind. It's time we were getting on down to the steamer."
The boys had with them their string of ducks, and Alex had piled up
nearly two dozen of his own.
"What are we going to do with all of these?" said Rob. "They're heavy,
and our boat's pretty full right now."
"How many shall you want on the boat?" inquired Alex.
"Well," said Rob, "I don't know, but from the number of ducks we've
seen I don't suppose they're much of a rarity there any more than they
are with you. Why don't you keep these ducks yourself, Alex, for your
family?"
"Very well," said Alex, "suppose you take half dozen or so, and let me
get the others when I come back--I'll pile them up on this muskrat
house here, and pick them up after I have left you at the steamer. You
see," continued he, "my people live about two miles on the other side
of the town, closer to the Hudson Bay post. I must go back and get
acquainted with my family."
"Have you any children, Alex?" asked Rob.
"Five," said Alex. "Two boys about as big as you, and three little
girls. They all go to school."
"I wish we had known that," said Rob, "when we came through town, for
we ought to have called on your family. Never mind, we'll do that the
next time we're up here."