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[Illustration: Once he had to paddle like a madman to keep from being
sucked into the largest whirlpool along the course. (Page 12)]
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CANOE MATES IN CANADA
OR
THREE BOYS AFLOAT ON THE SASKATCHEWAN
By
ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE
Author of
"THE HOUSE BOAT BOYS," "CHUMS IN DIXIE,"
"THE YOUNG FUR TAKERS," Etc.
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,
Chicago
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CANOE AND CAMPFIRE SERIES
Four Books of Woodcraft and Adventure in the Forest and on the Water
that every Boy Scout should have in his Library
By ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE
CANOEMATES IN CANADA; or, Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan.
THE YOUNG FUR-TAKERS; or, Traps and Trails in the Wilderness.
THE HOUSE-BOAT BOYS; or, Drifting Down to the Sunny South.
CHUMS IN DIXIE; or, The Strange Cruise of a Motor Boat.
CAMP MATES IN MICHIGAN; or, With Pack and Paddle in the Pine Woods.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOYS; or, Camping in the Big Game Country.
In these four delightful volumes the author has drawn bountifully from
his thirty-five years experience as a true sportsman and lover of
nature, to reveal many of the secrets of the woods, such as all Boys
Scouts strive to know. And, besides, each book is replete with stirring
adventures among the four-footed denizens of the wilderness; so that a
feast of useful knowledge is served up, with just that class of stirring
incidents so eagerly welcomed by all boys with red blood in their veins.
For sale wherever books are sold, or sent prepaid for 50 cents each by
the publishers.
Copyright, 1912, M. A. Donohue & Co.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A PLUNGE DOWN THE RAPIDS 7
II. THE CAMP UNDER THE HEMLOCKS 17
III. COMRADES 28
IV. THE THREE SMOKE SIGNALS 37
V. THE FALSE CHART OF DUBOIS 47
VI. THE TIMBER-CRUISER 57
VII. OWL AND TIMBER WOLF 67
VIII. THE CALL OF THE WILD 77
IX. TRAPPER LORE 84
X. MAGIC IN THE BERRIES 104
XI. A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 117
XII. ON THE TRACK OF ELI 127
XIII. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 137
XIV. WITHOUT AUTHORITY 152
XV. SCENTS A MYSTERY 160
XVI. A LITTLE WITCH 170
XVII. SEEN THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR 184
XVIII. OWEN FINDS HIMSELF A PRISONER 194
XIX. FOR SO IT WAS WRITTEN 204
XX. THE TENT DWELLERS 214
XXI. AT DEAD OF NIGHT 221
XXII. CONCLUSION 231
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CANOE MATES IN CANADA
or
Afloat on the Saskatchewan
CHAPTER I.
A PLUNGE DOWN THE RAPIDS.
Kneeling in a "bullboat," fashioned from the skin of an animal, and
wielding a paddle with the dexterity only to be attained after years of
practice in canoeing, a sturdily-built and thoroughly bronzed Canadian
lad glanced ever and anon back along the course over which he had so
recently passed; and then up at the black storm clouds hurrying out of
the mysterious North.
It was far away in the wilderness of the Northwest, where this fierce
tributary of the great Saskatchewan came pouring down from the
timber-clad hills; and all around the lone voyager lay some of the
wildest scenery to be met with on the whole continent.
Here and there in this vast territory one might come across the
occasional trading posts of the wide-reaching Hudson Bay Company, at
each of which the resident factor ruled with the arbitrary power of a
little czar.
It might be he would discover the fire of some Ishmaelite of the forest,
a wandering "timber-cruiser," marking out new and promising fields for
those he served, and surveying the scene of possible future bustling
logging camps.
Otherwise the country at this time was a vast unknown land, seldom
penetrated by human kind, save the Indian fur gatherers.
Considering that he was in so vast a wilderness this adventurous lad
appeared to have scant luggage in his well battered bullboat--indeed,
beyond the buskskin jacket, which he had thrown off because of his
exertions, there did not seem to be anything at all aboard the craft,
not even a gun, by means of which he might provide himself with food
while on the journey downstream.
This singular fact would seem to indicate that he might have had trouble
of some sort back yonder.
Indeed, the occasional glances which he cast over his shoulder added
strength to this possibility; though the look upon his strong face was
more in the line of chagrin and anger than fear.
Now and then he shook his curly head, and muttered something; and once a
name passed his lips in anything but a friendly fashion--that of
Alexander Gregory.
Swifter grew the current, giving plain warning to one so well versed as
this lad must be in the vagaries of these mad rivers of the Silent Land
that presently it would be racing furiously down a steep incline, with
razoredge rocks on every side, apparently only too eager to rend asunder
the frail canoe of the adventurous cruiser.
Still Owen Dugdale continued to ply the nimble paddle, weaving it in and
out like a shuttle.
He kept to the middle of the river when it would seem to at least have
been the part of wisdom had he edged his craft closer to either shore,
so that he might, in time, make a safe landing in preference to trusting
himself to the mercy of the wild rapids, in which his frail bullboat
would be but as a chip in the swirl of conflicting waters.
Already had the vanguard of the storm swept down upon him.
An inky pall began to shut out the daylight, and when a sudden flash of
lightning cleft the low-hanging clouds overhead the effect was perfectly
staggering.
The roar of thunder that followed quick upon its heels was like the
explosion of a twelve-inch gun as heard in the steel-jacketed turret of
a modern battleship.
Again and again was the rushing river, with its grim forest-clad shores
lighted up by the rapid-fire electric flashes.
All around crashed the loud-toned thunderclaps, rumbling and roaring
until the whole affair became a perfect pandemonium; and brave indeed
must be the soul that could gaze upon it without dismay and flinching.
It was just then, before the rain had begun to descend, and while the
artillery of heaven flashed and roared with all the fury of a
Gettysburg, that Owen Dugdale found himself plunging into the dangerous
rapids, ten times more to be feared under such conditions than ordinary.
Possibly he may have regretted his rashness in sticking to the middle of
the channel until it was too late to change his course; but apparently
the solitary young Canuck was at the time in somewhat of a desperate
frame of mind, and recked little what might be the result of his mad act
of defiance to the combined powers of tempest and boiling rapids.
At least he showed no signs of shrinking from the consequences.
Beyond shifting his weight a trifle, as if to settle himself better for
the desperate work that faced him, he remained just as before, on his
knees.
Crouching amidships, lie held his paddle poised as if ready to thrust it
into the swirling water at a second's notice, to stay the progress of
the canoe as it lunged toward a threatening rock, or glided too near a
roaring whirlpool, where disaster was certain to follow.
Owen Dugdale was no novice at shooting rapids, though never before could
he have undertaken such a fierce fight as the one in which he was now
engaged, for the combination of the elements made it simply appalling.
The stirring scene might have appealed to the instinct of an artist; but
so far as the lad was concerned he had only eyes for the perils with
which he was surrounded, and his whole soul seemed wrapped up in the
prompt meeting of each emergency as it flashed before him.
A dozen times he would have met with sudden disaster but for the
instantaneous manner in which his hand followed the promptings of his
brain.
Even then it was a mighty close shave more than once, for the boat
rubbed up against several snags in whirling past, any one of which
would have sunk the frail craft had it been a head-on collision.
Once he had to paddle like a madman to keep from being sucked into the
largest whirlpool along the course; which seemed to reach out eager
fingers, and strive to the utmost to engulf him in its gluttonous maw.
Thanks to the almost incessant lightning, Owen was enabled to see these
perils in time to take action, else he must have been speedily
overwhelmed in the fury of the rushing waters.
While the time might have seemed an eternity to the brave lad who
battled for his very life, in reality it could not have been more than a
couple of minutes at most that he was shooting down that foamy descent,
dodging hither and thither as the caprice of the rapids or the impetus
of his paddle dictated.
Just below him was the finish of the dangerous fall, and as so often
happens, the very last lap proved to be more heavily charged with
disaster than any of those above, even though they appeared to be far
worse.
Being a son of the wilderness, Owen Dugdale had probably never heard of
the kindred terrors that used to lie in wait for the bold mariners of
ancient Greece--the rock and the whirlpool known as Scylla and
Charybdis--if they missed being impaled upon the one they were apt to
be engulfed in the other--and yet here in the rapids of this furious
Saskatchewan feeder he was brought face to face with a proposition
exactly similar to that of mythology.
He strove valiantly to meet the occasion, and his sturdy sweep of the
paddle did send him away from the ugly pointed rock; but the last
whirlpool was so close that he was not enabled to fully recover in time
to throw his whole power into the second stroke; consequently his canoe
was caught in the outer edge of the swirl, and before one could even
wink twice it capsized.
This was not the first time Owen had met with such a disaster while
shooting rapids and he had his wits about him for all of the confusion
that surrounded him there.
His very first act was to clutch hold of the canoe, and throw all his
energies into the task of avoiding the deadly suction of the whirlpool,
for once he fell into its grip there must be only a question of seconds
ere he reached its vortex and went under.
Fortune, aided by his own violent efforts, favored him, and as a result
he managed to swim down the balance of the rapid, and reach the smoother
waters below, still hanging on with a desperate clutch to his poor old
boat, while his other hand gripped the paddle.
The canoe was full of water, but it did not sink, being buoyant enough
to keep on the surface; but Owen found it as much as he could do to push
the unwieldly thing along when he began to make for the nearest shore.
Exciting as this adventure had been, it was only an episode in a life
such as he had spent up in this vast region, where the first lesson a
boy learns is to take care of himself, and meet peril in any guise.
There was not the least doubt with regard to his ability to gain the
nearby shore with his wrecked canoe, even if left to himself.
Nevertheless, when his ears caught the sound of encouraging shouts, and
he realized that his perilous descent of the rapids had been witnessed
by sympathetic eyes, it gave Mm a thrill to know that friends were near
by, and waiting to assist him, if such were necessary.
But young Dugdale was an independent lad, accustomed to relying
altogether upon his own endeavors, as one must always do whose life is
spent in the heart of the Great Lone Land of the Far Northwest.
Hence, he kept on swimming with his boat until he could wade, and in
this way came out of the river dripping, temporarily held in check by
his misfortune, but not in the least dismayed.
Two figures hurried to meet him, though they arrived too late to give
him a helping hand in effecting a landing.
Owen looked at them in amazement--he had at the most anticipated that
those whose encouraging shouts had reached his ears while in the water
must be some timber-cruisers who chanced to be camping at the foot of
the rapids for the fishing to be found there; or it might be several of
the halfbreed _voyageurs_ employed by the Hudson Bay Company to carry
furs from far distant posts to some station on the railroad; but he
found himself gazing upon neither.
Two boys confronted him, neither of them much older than himself, and
utter strangers at that.
Owen had never had a chum; and indeed, his life had been a lonely one,
burdened by responsibilities that had made him much older than his
years--his scanty associations had been with hardy lumbermen or
_voyageurs_, so that the presence of this twain struck him as the most
mysterious and remarkable thing in all his experience.
And they seemed so solicitous concerning his welfare, insisting upon
taking hold of the boat and pulling the same clear of the water, that he
almost began to fancy he must be dreaming.
"Now," exclaimed the taller of the two, when this job had been finished,
"come right up to our tent, where we have a bully fire that will dry you
off in a jiffy. And our coffee is just ready, too--I rather guess
that'll warm you up some. Eli, it's lucky you made an extra supply,
after all. Looks as if you expected we'd have company drop in on us.
I'll carry the paddle--good you hung on to it, for it's a tough job to
whittle one out, I know. Here we are, old chap, and believe me, you're a
thousand times welcome!"