GOING UP THE LOWER SLAVE
What we thought about the steamboat official who was responsible
for our dilemma we did not need to put into words; for every one
knew of the bargain and its breach: nearly every one present had
protested at the time, and the hardest things I felt like saying
were mild compared with the things already said by that official's
own colleagues. But these things were forgotten in the hearty greetings
of friends and bundles of letters from home. It was eight o'clock,
and of course black night when we landed; yet it was midnight when
we thought of sleep.
Fort Resolution is always dog-town; and now it seemed at its
worst. When the time came to roll up in our blankets, we were fully
possessed of the camper's horror of sleeping indoors; but it was
too dark to put up a tent and there was not a square foot of ground
anywhere near that was not polluted and stinking of "dog-sign,"
so very unwillingly I broke my long spell of sleeping out, on this
131st day, and passed the night on the floor of the Hudson's Bay
Company house. I had gone indoors to avoid the "dog-sign" and next
morning found, alas, that I had been lying all night on "cat-sign."
I say lying; I did not sleep. The closeness of the room, in spite
of an open window, the novelty, the smells, combined with the
excitement of letters from home, banished sleep until morning came,
and, of course, I got a bad cold, the first I had had all summer.
Here I said "good-bye" to old Weeso. He grinned affably, and when I
asked what he would like for a present said, "Send me an axe like
yours," There were three things in my outfit that aroused the cupidity
of nearly every Indian, the Winchester rifle, the Peterboro canoe
and the Marble axe, "the axe that swallows its face." Weeso had
a rifle, we could not spare or send him a canoe, so I promised to
send him the axe. Post is slow, but it reached him six months later
and I doubt not is even now doing active service.
Having missed the last steamer, we must go on by canoe. Canoeing
up the river meant "tracking" all the way; that is, the canoe must
be hauled up with a line, by a man walking on the banks; hard work
needing not only a strong, active man, but one who knows the river.
Through the kindness of J. McLeneghan, of the Swiggert Trading
Company, I was spared the horrors of my previous efforts to secure
help at Fort Resolution, and George Sanderson, a strong young
half-breed, agreed to take me to Fort Smith for $2.00 a day and
means of returning. George was a famous hunter and fisher, and
a "good man" to travel. I marked his broad shoulders and sinewy,
active form with joy, especially in view of his reputation. In one
respect he was different from all other half-breeds that I ever
knew--he always gave a straight answer. Ask an ordinary half-breed,
or western white man, indeed, how far it is to such a point, his
reply commonly is, "Oh, not so awful far," or "It is quite a piece,"
or "It aint such a hell of a ways," conveying to the stranger no
shadow of idea whether it is a hundred yards, a mile, or a week's
travel. Again and again when Sanderson was asked how far it was to
a given place, he would pause and say, "Three miles and a half,"
or "Little more than eight miles," as the case might be. The usual
half-breed when asked if we could make such a point by noon would
say "Maybe. I don't know. It is quite a piece." Sanderson would
say, "Yes," or "No, not by two miles," according to circumstances;
and his information was always correct; he knew the river "like a
book."
On the afternoon of September 27 we left "Dogtown" with Sanderson
in Weeso's place and began our upward journey. George proved as
good as his reputation. The way that active fellow would stride
along the shore, over logs and brush, around fallen trees, hauling
the canoe against stream some three or four miles an hour was
perfectly fine; and each night my heart was glad and sang the old
refrain, "A day's march nearer home."
The toil of this tracking is second only to that of portageing.
The men usually relieve each other every 30 minutes. So Billy and
George were the team. If I were going again into that country and
had my choice these two again would be my crew.
Once or twice I took the track-line myself for a quarter of an hour,
but it did not appeal to me as a permanent amusement. It taught me
one thing that I did not suspect, namely, that it is much harder to
haul a canoe with three inches of water under her keel than with
three feet. In the former case, the attraction of the bottom is
most powerful and evident. The experience also explained the old
sailor phrase about the vessel feeling the bottom: this I had often
heard, but never before comprehended.
All day we tracked, covering 20 to 25 miles between camps and hourly
making observations on the wild life of the river. Small birds and
mammals were evidently much more abundant than in spring, and the
broad, muddy, and sandy reaches of the margin were tracked over by
Chipmunks, Weasels, Foxes, Lynxes, Bear, and Moose.
A Lynx, which we surprised on a sand-bar, took to the water without
hesitation and swam to the mainland. It went as fast as a dog, but
not nearly so fast as a Caribou. A large Fox that we saw crossing
the river proved very inferior to the Lynx in swimming speed.
The two portages, Ennuyeux and Detour, were duly passed, and on the
morning of October 3, as we travelled, a sailboat hove into sight.
It held Messrs. Thomas Christy, C. Harding, and Stagg. We were now
within 11 days of Fort Smith, so I took advantage of the opportunity
to send Sanderson back. On the evening of the 3d we came to Salt
River, and there we saw Pierre Squirrel with his hundred dogs and
at 1 P. M., October 4, arrived at Fort Smith.