[Illustration: “Full speed ahead!” roared Clay. “Our only hope is to
keep her dead with the current and fight her through.”]
The River Motor Boat Boys on the Columbia
OR
The Confession of a Photograph
By HARRY GORDON
Author of
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the St. Lawrence,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Colorado,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Mississippi,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Amazon,’
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Ohio.”
A. L. Burt Company
New York
Copyright, 1913
By A. L. Burt Company
THE SIX RIVER MOTOR BOYS ON THE COLUMBIA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN A MOTOR BOAT
II. CAPTAIN JOE FOLLOWS A TRAIL
III. ALEX FINDS USE FOR HIS KODAK
IV. A NEW FACE ON THE RAMBLER
V. WHAT TOOK PLACE ON THE TRAIN
VI. MOURNING AN EMPTY KODAK
VII. PIE THAT LIVED IN A GLASS HOUSE
VIII. A WRECK AND A BABY BEAR
IX. THE MAKING OF A CEDAR CANOE
X. A RABBIT AND A SECRET MEETING
XI. ALEX BECOMES A DETECTIVE
XII. A BEAR, A FISH, AND A TREE
XIII. A MYSTERY AND A FISH SUPPER
XIV. A SWIFT AND PERILOUS RIDE
XV. THE RAMBLER TAKES TO WHEELS
XVI. TEDDY RECEIVES A CALLER
XVII. CAPTAIN JOE TO THE RESCUE
XVIII. CASE MAKES A HIT WITH DOUGH
XIX. WHY THERE WAS NO VENISON
XX. CAPTAIN JOE MAKES A DISCOVERY
XXI. A CAMPFIRE HIGH ON THE HILLS
XXII. THE SURGEON TURNS DETECTIVE
XXIII. THE POLICEMAN MAKES A MISTAKE
XXIV. MORE SURPRISES THAN ONE
CHAPTER I.—CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN A MOTOR BOAT.
The motor boat _Rambler_ lay at the very summit of the Rocky Mountains.
She was not in a lake, either, although there were lakes of ice not far
away. She was not in motion, and there was a great silence all around
her.
She lay, propped upright, on a platform car, and the car, with two
broken wheels, stood on a make-shift spur of track on the right-of-way
of the Canadian Pacific railroad. An unusual place to find a motor boat.
But listen.
The _Rambler_ was _en route_ from the South Branch, Chicago, to the
headwaters of the Columbia river. She had passed without serious
accident down Lake Michigan, through the Straits of Mackinaw, through
the Sault Ste. Marie river and canal, and over the crystal waters of old
Superior to Port Arthur, where she had been coaxed to the deck of the
platform car upon which she now stood.
Almost exactly on the boundary line between Alberta and British
Columbia, the flat car had come to grief, and the trainmen had bunted it
to the spur and gone on about their business, promising to order a
wrecker at the nearest telegraph office. The disabled car tilted
frightfully to the rear as it stood on the shaky track, giving the
platform a twenty-five per cent. pitch, and causing the _Rambler_ to
take on a rakish air, like a swaggering person with his hat set on the
back of his head.
A few miles to the east was Laggan, sometimes called Lake Louise, which
is 2,368 miles from Montreal and 5,032 feet above the level of the
Pacific ocean, 500 miles away. About the same distance to the west was
Field, sometimes called Emerald Lake, 2,387 miles from Montreal and over
4,000 feet above tidewater. The highest altitude on the boundary at that
point is 5,200 feet above the ocean, and the motor boat was just about
there.
It was close to sunset of an April day, and the mountain pass was cold
and desolate. There was snow on the peaks, and a cold wind blew
whistling through the narrow cut in the gray rock. There was no living
figure in sight from the sidling platform of the car, or from the
foot-square windows of the _Rambler’s_ tiny cabin. The silence was
broken only by the uneasy wind.
Decidedly it was anything but cheerful outside. Inside, there was a
glowing fire in a small coal stove, and a shaded electric light brought
out the cozy furnishings of the place. The electric generators were not
working, the motors being silent, but there was in the accumulators
sufficient current for the light and the little electric stove upon
which a supper was cooking.
Those who have followed the fortunes of the _Rambler_ to the headwaters
of the Amazon will understand without further detail exactly what kind
of a craft she was. After returning from the South American expedition,
the lads had planned a trip to the Columbia river, and they were now on
their way to Donald, where the motor boat was to be launched into the
waters of that interesting stream.
The boys had worked hard in Chicago all through the winter, and when
April came they were ready for the journey, although their supply of
money was not as large as they had hoped to make it. Of the five who had
visited Cloud island and secured the store of gold hidden in that
semi-volcanic heap of rocks, however, only three were in shape to set
out on the proposed voyage.
Frank Porter, who owned the gold taken from Cloud island, had insisted
on financing the trip, but this the self-reliant boys would not listen
to, preferring to depend upon their own exertions. Julian Shafer, in the
interest of whose health the Amazon trip had originally been planned,
had acquired a little property through the exertions of Dr. Holcomb, the
physician who was treating him for tuberculosis, and had decided to
spend the winter and summer at Los Angeles.
So, of the five, there remained only Clayton Emmett, Cornelius Witters,
and Alexander Smithwick to carry out the exploration of the Columbia the
following spring. It was hoped, however, that both Frank and Julian
would be able to join their friends at some point lower down. The story
of the boys’ adventures on the Amazon may be found in the first volume
of this series.
On this night, then, “Clay,” “Case,” and “Alex,” as they were familiarly
called, were gathered around the coal heater in the cabin of the
_Rambler_, high up in a rocky pass on a mountain range, the range
forming the backbone of the continent of North America. There was plenty
of coal on the platform car, and so they had no fear of passing a chill
as well as a desolate night on the great divide. Also, the boys had
plenty of provisions, as there were numerous boxes on the car which were
to be emptied of their eatables and carried on board the motor boat
whenever the great river was reached.
The leasing of the car had eaten into the finances of the boys quite
seriously, but they anticipated living mostly on game and fish during
the run down the Columbia to the Pacific ocean. They had made no
calculations for the return ride to Chicago, believing that they would
be able to find employment at Portland.
Boy-like, they had figured on the future only so far as the end of the
river journey was concerned. A motor boat trip down the Columbia was too
fascinating, they declared, to be mixed up with any prosaic monetary
calculations!
“If we go broke,” Case had said, when the closing details were under
discussion, “we can walk back! I’d rather swim around Cape Horn and walk
back to little old Chicago than miss the days and nights we are going to
have on the Columbia!”
“You’re light headed!” Alex had responded.
“That will be an aid in swimming!” Case had replied. “Anyway, it is the
Columbia first. The future may take care of itself!”
This night in the mountain pass should have been spent on the Columbia
at or near Donald, but the boys were by no means discouraged. Case was
inclined to express annoyance and disgust at unfavorable conditions, but
really he was as courageous in the face of difficulties as either of his
companions. They had been left on the spur early that morning, and had
anticipated relief in the shape of a wrecking outfit before noon.
While the supper of bacon, beans, pancakes and coffee sputtered and
steamed on the electric stove and the heater sent out generous waves of
warmth, Clay arose and opened the cabin door, which faced to the west.
The wind immediately chased itself into the room, played tag with
everything movable, and went whistling cheerily out again.
At a shout of remonstrance from Alex, Clay drew the door shut and
stepped out on the deck of the _Rambler_. He stood for a second with the
wind from the Pacific keen on his face, the ruddy light of the setting
sun bright in his eyes, and then beckoned through the glass panel of the
door to the boys inside. Case was too busy over the pancakes to notice
the signal, but Alex increased Case’s anger by opening the door again
and forcing his body out against the wind.
The sun dropping lower, the pencils of light which touched the crags
were slipping away, leaving them indistinct in the gathering night, as
if the sunlight had brought them into existence with a touch and
condemned them to obliteration by withdrawing itself from their angular
sides. The boys stood for a second in silence, Clay listening.
“Huh!” Alex grinned, catching Clay by the arm and pointing to the wild
country to the west. “This makes me feel queer! Why, we might be the
sons of Noah, looking out of the Ark after it stranded on Mt. Ararat!
Here we are, in a boat up on the mountains, and there, below, is the
lifeless world! I wonder,” he continued, nudging Clay in the ribs to
give emphasis to his observation, “if we had a dove, and the dove should
be sent out, whether it would bring back an engine with a car fitted up
to drag this old hulk to the railroad hospital?”
“No dove would mind bringing a wrecking train back in his bill!” replied
Clay. “Of course not!”
“Well,” Alex insisted, “we’ve got to get help from some source. Two
trains have passed us to-day without a whisper of help. A steamer on the
ocean wouldn’t pass a wrecked boat like that!”
Clay bent his head and shielded his ears with cupped palms.
“There’s a train coming now,” he declared.
“That’s the wind!” Alex answered.
“Can’t you hear it pounding, pounding up the grade to the east?”
demanded Clay. “There!” he added, as a sharp whistle was borne faintly
to their ears against the rush of the wind, “didn’t you hear that?”
“Sure!” Alex replied. “And it isn’t a passenger, either. A loaded
freight, all right. Here’s where we get out!”
The roaring of the train wheels, the sharp hissing of the laboring
exhaust, the pounding of the straining drivers, came nearer and nearer,
then only the wind was heard.
“Phantom train!” Alex laughed. “Nothing doing!”
Case came out of the cabin and stood holding the edge of the door in his
hand, his eyes fixed on his chums.
“Do we get away now?” he asked. “I hear a train coming.”
“She is stalled on the grade, I guess,” Clay replied. “Anyway, she isn’t
coming any nearer.”
“Oh, well,” Case grumbled, “I suppose we can stay out here until the
railroad gets a new wrecking crew and a new machine made! Old Rip Van
Winkle’s little mountain stunt was a summer night on a sleeping porch
compared with this. If anybody should come along in the next hundred
years, just wake me up, will you?”
“Going to bed?” asked Clay, with a laugh.
“You bet he isn’t!” shouted Alex. “He hasn’t had his supper yet. Catch
him going to bed without pancakes and bacon!”
“And the pancakes are burning, too!” cried Case, entering the cabin and
slamming the door after him.
“Come on, Case,” urged Alex. “Let’s go down the grade and see what’s the
matter, and what sort of a train it is.”
“We’ll find out soon enough if we remain here,” Clay answered. “Besides,
we ought to be getting things propped up in the cabin, so there will be
a little furniture left when we get bumped out on the main track.”
“Oh, they’ll just pry the truck up with a jack, put in new wheels, and
we’ll sail away like a ship on a summer sea!” Alex grinned. “If you
won’t go. I’ll go alone.”
Before Clay could utter the remonstrance that was on his lips, the boy
was away down the grade to the east, his cap bobbing along the ties
ahead of his leaping feet, his hair flying in the gale.
Before he was well out of sight around an angle in the pass the rumble
of a heavy train was heard again, and directly the round, red eye of a
headlight met the ruddy illumination of the sun in the narrow pass. Clay
could see the smutty face of the engineer peering out of the cab window
as the engine toiled, panting, upward, and then he saw the fireman
looking over his shoulder.
Both were gazing, with no little wonder showing on their faces, at the
unusual sight of a motor boat perched on a platform car at the summit of
the Rocky Mountains. Clay stood hopeful for a moment, and then the train
roared toward the grade to the east, winding down like a snake in the
fading light.