WE SWIM THE NECHACO
Here was perfection of camping, but no allurement could turn the
goldseekers aside. Some of them remained for a day, a few for two
days, but not one forgot for a moment that he was on his way to the
Klondike River sixteen hundred miles away. In my enthusiasm I
proposed to camp for a week, but my partner, who was "out for gold
instid o' daisies, 'guessed' we'd better be moving." He could not
bear to see any one pass us, and that was the feeling of every man on
the trail. Each seemed to fear that the gold might all be claimed
before he arrived. With a sigh I turned my back on this glorious
region and took up the forward march.
All the next day we skirted the shores of Tatchick Lake, coming late
in the afternoon to the Nechaco River, a deep, rapid stream which
rose far to our left in the snowy peaks of the coast range. All day
the sky to the east had a brazen glow, as if a great fire were raging
there, but toward night the wind changed and swept it away. The trail
was dusty for the first time, and the flies venomous. Late in the
afternoon we pitched camp, setting our tent securely, expecting rain.
Before we went to sleep the drops began to drum on the tent roof, a
pleasant sound after the burning dust of the trail. The two trampers
kept abreast of us nearly all day, but they began to show fatigue and
hunger, and a look of almost sullen desperation had settled on their
faces.
As we came down next day to where the swift Nechaco met the Endako
rushing out of Fraser Lake, we found the most dangerous flood we had
yet crossed. A couple of white men were calking a large ferry-boat,
but as it was not yet seaworthy and as they had no cable, the horses
must swim. I dreaded to see them enter this chill, gray stream, for
not only was it wide and swift, but the two currents coming together
made the landing confusing to the horses as well as to ourselves.
Rain was at hand and we had no time to waste.
The horses knew that some hard swimming was expected of them and
would gladly have turned back if they could. We surrounded them with
furious outcry and at last Ladrone sprang in and struck for the
nearest point opposite, with that intelligence which marks the bronco
horse. The others followed readily. Two of the poorer ones labored
heavily, but all touched shore in good order.
The rain began to fall sharply and we were forced to camp on the
opposite bank as swiftly as possible, in order to get out of the
storm. We worked hard and long to put everything under cover and were
muddy and tired at the end of it. At last the tent was up, the outfit
covered with waterproof canvas, the fire blazing and our bread
baking. In pitching our camp we had plenty of assistance at the
hands of several Indian boys from a near-by village, who hung about,
eager to lend a hand, in the hope of getting a cup of coffee and a
piece of bread in payment. The streaming rain seemed to have no more
effect upon them than on a loon. The conditions were all strangely
similar to those at the Muddy River.
Night closed in swiftly. Through the dark we could hear the low swish
of the rising river, and Burton, with a sly twinkle in his eye,
remarked, "For a semi-arid country, this is a pretty wet rain."
In planning the trip, I had written to him saying: "The trail runs
for the most part though a semi-arid country, somewhat like eastern
Washington."
It rained all the next day and we were forced to remain in camp,
which was dismal business; but we made the best of it, doing some
mending of clothes and tackle during the long hours.
We were visited by all the Indians from Old Fort Fraser, which was
only a mile away. They sat about our blazing fire laughing and
chattering like a group of girls, discussing our characters minutely,
and trying to get at our reasons for going on such a journey.
One of them who spoke a little English said, after looking over my
traps: "You boss, you ty-ee, you belly rich man. Why you come?"
This being interpreted meant, "You have a great many splendid things,
you are rich. Now, why do you come away out here in this poor Siwash
country?"
I tried to convey to him that I wished to see the mountains and to
get acquainted with the people. He then asked, "More white men come?"
Throwing my hands in the air and spreading my fingers many times, I
exclaimed, "Hy-u white man, hy-u!" Whereat they all clicked their
tongues and looked at each other in astonishment. They could not
understand why this sudden flood of white people should pour into
their country. This I also explained in lame Chinook: "We go klap
Pilchickamin (gold). White man hears say Hy-u Pilchickamin there (I
pointed to the north). White man heap like Pilchickamin, so he
comes."
All the afternoon and early evening little boys came and went on the
swift river in their canoes, singing wild, hauntingly musical boating
songs. They had no horses, but assembled in their canoes, racing and
betting precisely as the Cheyenne lads run horses at sunset in the
valley of the Lamedeer. All about the village the grass was rich and
sweet, uncropped by any animal, for these poor fishermen do not
aspire to the wonderful wealth of owning a horse. They had heard that
cattle were coming over the trail and all inquired, "Spose when
Moos-Moos come?" They knew that milk and butter were good things, and
some of them had hopes of owning a cow sometime.
They had tiny little gardens in sheltered places on the sunny slopes,
wherein a few potatoes were planted; for the rest they hunt and fish
and trap in winter and trade skins for meat and flour and coffee, and
so live. How they endure the winters in such wretched houses, it is
impossible to say. There was a lone white man living on the site of
the old fort, as agent of the Hudson Bay Company. He kept a small
stock of clothing and groceries and traded for "skins," as the
Indians all call pelts. They count in skins. So many skins will buy a
rifle, so many more will secure a sack of flour.
The storekeeper told me that the two trampers had arrived there a few
days before without money and without food. "I gave 'em some flour
and sent 'em on," he said. "The Siwashes will take care of them, but
it ain't right. What the cussed idiots mean by setting out on such a
journey I can't understand. Why, one tramp came in here early in the
spring who couldn't speak English, and who left Quesnelle without
even a blanket or an axe. Fact! And yet the Lord seems to take care
of these fools. You wouldn't believe it, but that fellow picked up an
axe and a blanket the first day out. But he'd a died only for the
Indians. They won't let even a white man starve to death. I helped
him out with some flour and he went on. They all rush on. Seems like
they was just crazy to get to Dawson--couldn't sleep without dreamin'
of it."
I was almost as eager to get on as the tramps, but Burton went about
his work regularly as a clock. I wrote, yawned, stirred the big
campfire, gazed at the clouds, talked with the Indians, and so passed
the day. I began to be disturbed, for I knew the power of a rain on
the trail. It transforms it, makes it ferocious. The path that has
charmed and wooed, becomes uncertain, treacherous, gloomy, and
engulfing. Creeks become rivers, rivers impassable torrents, and
marshes bottomless abysses. Pits of quicksand develop in most
unexpected places. Driven from smooth lake margins, the trailers'
ponies are forced to climb ledges of rock, and to rattle over long
slides of shale. In places the threadlike way itself becomes an
aqueduct for a rushing overflow of water.
At such times the man on the trail feels the grim power of Nature.
She has no pity, no consideration. She sets mud, torrents, rocks,
cold, mist, to check and chill him, to devour him. Over him he has no
roof, under him no pavement. Never for an instant is he free from the
pressure of the elements. Sullen streams lie athwart his road like
dragons, and in a land like this, where snowy peaks rise on all
sides, rain meant sudden and enormous floods of icy water.
It was still drizzling on the third day, but we packed and pushed on,
though the hills were slippery and the creeks swollen. Water was
everywhere, but the sun came out, lighting the woods into radiant
greens and purples. Robins and sparrows sang ecstatically, and
violets, dandelions, and various kinds of berries were in odorous
bloom. A vine with a blue flower, new to me, attracted my attention,
also a yellow blossom of the cowslip variety. This latter had a form
not unlike a wild sunflower.
Here for the first time I heard a bird singing a song quite new to
me. He was a thrushlike little fellow, very shy and difficult to see
as he sat poised on the tip of a black pine in the deep forest. His
note was a clear cling-ling, like the ringing of a steel triangle.
_Chingaling, chingaling_, one called near at hand, and then farther
off another answered, _ching, ching, chingaling-aling_, with immense
vim, power, and vociferation.
Burton, who had spent many years in the mighty forests of Washington,
said: "That little chap is familiar to me. Away in the pines where
there is no other bird I used to hear his voice. No matter how dark
it was, I could always tell when morning was coming by his note, and
on cloudy days I could always tell when the sunset was coming by
hearing him call."
To me his phrase was not unlike the metallic ringing cry of a sort of
blackbird which I heard in the torrid plazas of Mexico. He was very
difficult to distinguish, for the reason that he sat so high in the
tree and was so wary. He was very shy of approach. He was a plump,
trim little fellow of a plain brown color, not unlike a small robin.
There was another cheerful little bird, new to me also, which uttered
an amusing phrase in two keys, something like _tee tay, tee tay, tee
tay_, one note sustained high and long, followed by another given on
a lower key. It was not unlike to the sound made by a boy with a
tuning pipe. This, Burton said, was also a familiar sound in the
depths of the great Washington firs. These two cheery birds kept us
company in the gloomy, black-pine forest, when we sorely needed
solace of some kind.
Fraser Lake was also very charming, romantic enough to be the scene
of Cooper's best novels. The water was deliciously clear and cool,
and from the farther shore great mountains rose in successive sweeps
of dark green foothills. At this time we felt well satisfied with
ourselves and the trip. With a gleam in his eyes Burton said, "This
is the kind of thing our folks think we're doing all the time."
RELENTLESS NATURE
She laid her rivers to snare us,
She set her snows to chill,
Her clouds had the cunning of vultures,
Her plants were charged to kill.
The glooms of her forests benumbed us,
On the slime of her ledges we sprawled;
But we set our feet to the northward,
And crawled and crawled and crawled!
We defied her, and cursed her, and shouted:
"To hell with your rain and your snow.
Our minds we have set on a journey,
And despite of your anger we go!"