THE FIRST CROSSING OF THE BULKLEY
We were now following a chain of lakes to the source of the Endako,
one of the chief northwest sources of the Fraser, and were surrounded
by tumultuous ridges covered with a seamless robe of pine forests.
For hundreds of miles on either hand lay an absolutely untracked
wilderness. In a land like this the trail always follows a
water-course, either ascending or descending it; so for some days we
followed the edges of these lakes and the banks of the connecting
streams, toiling over sharp hills and plunging into steep ravines,
over a trail belly-deep in mud and water and through a wood empty of
life.
These were hard days. We travelled for many hours through a burnt-out
tract filled with twisted, blackened uprooted trees in the wake of
fire and hurricane. From this tangled desolation I received the
suggestion of some verses which I call "The Song of the North Wind."
The wind and the fire worked together. If the wind precedes, he
prepares the way for his brother fire, and in return the fire weakens
the trees to the wind.
We had settled into a dull routine, and the worst feature of each
day's work was the drag, drag of slow hours on the trail. We could
not hurry, and we were forced to watch our horses with unremitting
care in order to nurse them over the hard spots, or, rather, the soft
spots, in the trail. We were climbing rapidly and expected soon to
pass from the watershed of the Fraser into that of the Skeena.
We passed a horse cold in death, with his head flung up as if he had
been fighting the wolves in his final death agony. It was a grim
sight. Another beast stood abandoned beside the trail, gazing at us
reproachfully, infinite pathos in his eyes. He seemed not to have the
energy to turn his head, but stood as if propped upon his legs, his
ribs showing with horrible plainness a tragic dejection in every
muscle and limb.
The feed was fairly good, our horses were feeling well, and curiously
enough the mosquitoes had quite left us. We overtook and passed a
number of outfits camped beside a splendid rushing stream.
On Burns' Lake we came suddenly upon a settlement of quite sizable
Indian houses with beautiful pasturage about. The village contained
twenty-five or thirty families of carrier Indians, and was musical
with the plaintive boat-songs of the young people. How long these
native races have lived here no one can tell, but their mark on the
land is almost imperceptible. They are not of those who mar the
landscape.
On the first of June we topped the divide between the two mighty
watersheds. Behind us lay the Fraser, before us the Skeena. The
majestic coast range rose like a wall of snow far away to the
northwest, while a near-by lake, filling the foreground, reflected
the blue ridges of the middle distance--a magnificent spread of wild
landscape. It made me wish to abandon the trail and push out into the
unexplored.
From this point we began to descend toward the Bulkley, which is the
most easterly fork of the Skeena. Soon after starting on our downward
path we came to a fork in the trail. One trail, newly blazed, led to
the right and seemed to be the one to take. We started upon it, but
found it dangerously muddy, and so returned to the main trail which
seemed to be more numerously travelled. Afterward we wished we had
taken the other, for we got one of our horses into the quicksand and
worked for more than three hours in the attempt to get him out. A
horse is a strange animal. He is counted intelligent, and so he is if
he happens to be a bronco or a mule. But in proportion as he is a
thoroughbred, he seems to lose power to take care of himself--loses
heart. Our Ewe-neck bay had a trace of racer in him, and being
weakened by poor food, it was his bad luck to slip over the bank into
a quicksand creek. Having found himself helpless he instantly gave up
heart and lay out with a piteous expression of resignation in his big
brown eyes. We tugged and lifted and rolled him around from one
position to another, each more dangerous than the first, all to no
result.
While I held him up from drowning, my partner "brushed in" around him
so that he _could_ not become submerged. We tried hitching the other
horses to him in order to drag him out, but as they were
saddle-horses, and had never set shoulder to a collar in their
lives, they refused to pull even enough to take the proverbial
setting hen off the nest.
Up to this time I had felt no need of company on the trail, and for
the most part we had travelled alone. But I now developed a poignant
desire to hear the tinkle of a bell on the back trail, for there is
no "funny business" about losing a packhorse in the midst of a wild
country. His value is not represented by the twenty-five dollars
which you originally paid for him. Sometimes his life is worth all
you can give for him.
After some three hours of toil (the horse getting weaker all the
time), I looked around once more with despairing gaze, and caught
sight of a bunch of horses across the valley flat. In this country
there were no horses except such as the goldseeker owned, and this
bunch of horses meant a camp of trailers. Leaping to my saddle, I
galloped across the spongy marsh to hailing distance.
My cries for help brought two of the men running with spades to help
us. The four of us together lifted the old horse out of the pit more
dead than alive. We fell to and rubbed his legs to restore
circulation. Later we blanketed him and turned him loose upon the
grass. In a short time he was nearly as well as ever.
It was a sorrowful experience, for a fallen horse is a horse in ruins
and makes a most woful appeal upon one's sympathies. I went to bed
tired out, stiff and sore from pulling on the rope, my hands
blistered, my nerves shaken.
As I was sinking off to sleep I heard a wolf howl, as though he
mourned the loss of a feast.
We had been warned that the Bulkley River was a bad stream to
cross,--in fact, the road-gang had cut a new trail in order to avoid
it,--that is to say, they kept to the right around the sharp elbow
which the river makes at this point, whereas the old trail cut
directly across the elbow, making two crossings. At the point where
the new trail led to the right we held a council of war to determine
whether to keep to the old trail, and so save several days' travel,
or to turn to the right and avoid the difficult crossing. The new
trail was reported to be exceedingly miry, and that determined the
matter--we concluded to make the short cut.
We descended to the Bulkley through clouds of mosquitoes and endless
sloughs of mud. The river was out of its banks, and its quicksand
flats were exceedingly dangerous to our pack animals, although the
river itself at this point was a small and sluggish stream.
It took us exactly five hours of most exhausting toil to cross the
river and its flat. We worked like beavers, we sweated like hired
men, wading up to our knees in water, and covered with mud, brushing
in a road over the quicksand for the horses to walk. The Ewe-necked
bay was fairly crazy with fear of the mud, and it was necessary to
lead him over every foot of the way. We went into camp for the first
time too late to eat by daylight. It became necessary for us to use a
candle inside the tent at about eleven o'clock.
The horses were exhausted, and crazy for feed. It was a struggle to
get them unpacked, so eager were they to forage. Ladrone, always
faithful, touched my heart by his patience and gentleness, and his
reliance upon me. I again heard a gray wolf howl as I was sinking off
to sleep.
THE GAUNT GRAY WOLF
O a shadowy beast is the gaunt gray wolf!
And his feet fall soft on a carpet of spines;
Where the night shuts quick and the winds are cold
He haunts the deeps of the northern pines.
His eyes are eager, his teeth are keen,
As he slips at night through the bush like a snake,
Crouching and cringing, straight into the wind,
To leap with a grin on the fawn in the brake.
He falls like a cat on the mother grouse
Brooding her young in the wind-bent weeds,
Or listens to heed with a start of greed
The bittern booming from river reeds.
He's the symbol of hunger the whole earth through,
His spectre sits at the door or cave,
And the homeless hear with a thrill of fear
The sound of his wind-swept voice on the air.
ABANDONED ON THE TRAIL
A poor old horse with down-cast mien and sad wild eyes,
Stood by the lonely trail--and oh!
He was so piteous lean.
He seemed to look a mild surprise
At all mankind that we should treat him so.
How hardily he struggled up the trail
And through the streams
All men should know.
Yet now abandoned to the wolf, his waiting foe,
He stood in silence, as an old man dreams.
And as his master left him, this he seemed to say:
"You leave me helpless by the path;
I do not curse you, but I pray
Defend me from the wolves' wild wrath!"
And yet his master rode away!