The Young Alaskans in the Rockies by Emerson Hough (classic books for 12 year olds TXT) 📖

he and Leo were friends. He pointed back across the mountains, and, placing his head on his hands and raising his fingers several times, signified that he had come, so many sleeps, to this place. He said they had come horseback—straddling his left forefinger with two fingers on his right hand. Then smilingly he pointed to the boys and to his own heart, and made a motion as though trying to break a stout stick, thus saying to Leo that their hearts were strong.

Leo stood looking at him unsmiling, and when he had finished threw out his right hand in front of him, palm down, by which he said: “That is all right. It is good. I am satisfied.”

“Oh, pshaw! Moise,” said Uncle Dick, laughing, “you and Leo can both talk English a great deal better than you let on. I’ll say, Leo, that our man Moise is as good in a boat as you are yourself, so you need not be uneasy. As for the rest of us, we’ll undertake to keep up our end. When will you be ready to start?”

“Maybe-so to-night, maybe-so to-morrow,” said Leo.

“And can you take care of our horses for us as I wrote you last fall?”

“Yes. Horse all right here. You get ’um next year all right.”

“Very well,” said Uncle Dick. “We’ll just unpack and turn them over right here.”

The boys were very regretful at saying good-by to their faithful animals, especially the saddle-ponies which had carried them safely so far. They stood looking at them rather ruefully.

“Never mind,” said Uncle Dick. “Leo has got some hay for them, and they will winter well here. I’ll warrant you they’ll be very glad to trade the trail for this pleasant valley here, where they can live in idleness and get fat for a year.

“Now, about the boat, Leo,” he resumed.

“All right. Got two boats,” said Leo. “I make ’um.” And he led the way to an open spot in the bushes where there stood two newly completed boats, flat-bottomed and double-ended, with high sides, the material all made of whip-sawed lumber gotten out by Leo and his people.

Uncle Dick walked up to the boats and looked them over carefully. “Pretty heavy, Leo,” said he, “but they’ll do to run downhill all the way.”

“She’s good boat,” said Leo. “Need ’um strong.”

“Yes, about twenty-two feet long each one—that will carry us and our supplies nicely. You and your man will take one boat, and Moise and I the other. I think I’ll put the boys in our boat. What man are you going to get to go with you, Leo?”

“My cousin George; he’s good man. We make hunt last spring down the Canoe River.”

“What were you after?”

“After grizzlum bear.”

“Did you get one?”

“No, not get one.”

“Not one? And I thought that was a good bear country!”

“Not get one,” said Leo. “Get sixteen.”

“Sixteen! That’s something different. That looks as though we might expect some bears ourselves this spring.”

“All right, plenty grizzlum. Maybe-so forty, fifty mile.”

“What does he think about the running on the Canoe River, Uncle Dick?” inquired Rob. “Is it going to be bad water?”

“Not too bad water,” said Leo, turning to Rob. “Snow not too much melt yet on big hills. We take wagon first.”

“A wagon!” exclaimed John. “I didn’t know there was a wagon within a thousand miles.”

“My cousin other side river,” said Leo, proudly, “got wagon. Bring ’um wagon two hunder’ miles from Fort George on canoe. His horses heap kick wagon sometam, but bime-by all right. We get work on railroad bime-by.”

Rob and John stood looking at each other somewhat puzzled. “Well,” said John, “I thought we were coming to a wild country, but it looks as though everybody here was getting ready to be civilized as fast as possible. But even if we have a wagon, where are we going with it?”

“There’s a perfectly good trail up to Cranberry Lake, the summit of this divide, as I told you,” said Uncle Dick. “I think Leo would rather take one of the boats by wagon. The rest of us can push the other boat up the McLennan, part way at least.”

“Good trail,” said Leo. “Suppose you’ll like, we got horse trail down Canoe River forty mile now. Many people come now. I been to Revelstruck [Revelstoke] three tam, me and my cousin George—part way horse, part way boat. Bime-by go on railroad. That’s why my cousin buy his wagon—work on railroad and get money for ticket to Revelstruck.”

“Well, what do you know about that, Rob?” said John. “This country certainly is full of enterprise. What I don’t understand is, how they got a wagon up the Fraser River in a canoe.”

After a time Leo led them down to the bank of the Fraser and showed them several of the long, dug-out canoes of the Shuswap, with which these people have navigated that wild river for many years. He explained how, by lashing two canoes together, they could carry quite a load without danger of capsizing; and he explained the laborious process of poling such a craft up this rapid river. The boys listened to all these things in wonder and admiration, feeling that certainly they were in a new and singular country after all. Once all the trade of the Pacific coast had passed this very spot.

“Well now, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “you go get your cousin George, and let us begin to make plans to start out. We’ve got to hurry.”

“Oh, of course we’ve got to hurry!” said John, laughing. “I never saw you when you were not in a hurry, Uncle Dick.”

“S’pose we put boat on Canoe River or Columby River,” said Leo, smiling, “she’ll go plenty hurry, fast enough.”

By and by he brought another Indian of his own age, even darker in color and more taciturn.

“This George,” said he, “my cousin. I am mos’ bes’ grizzlum-hunter at Tête Jaune. George is mos’ bes’ man on boat.”

“And Moise is the most best cook,” said Uncle Dick, laughing. “Well, it looks as though we’d get along all right. But, since you accuse me of always being in too big a hurry, I’ll agree to camp here for the night. Boys, you may unroll the packs. Leo, you may get us that mosquito-tent I left with you last year.”

XVIII SOUTHWARD BOUND

The boys all had a pleasant time visiting around the Indian village, and enjoyed, moreover, the rest after their long ride on the trail. On the morning of their start from Tête Jaune Cache they went to look once more at the boats which were now to make their means of transportation.

“I think they’ll be all right,” said Rob. “They’re heavier than the ones we had on the Peace River, and the sides are higher. You could put a ton in one of these boats and she’d ride pretty safe in rather rough water, I should say.”

“I’ll bet we’ll think they weigh a ton when we try to carry them down to the river,” said Jesse. “But I suppose there’ll be plenty of men to help do that.”

“Now, we’ll be leaving this place pretty soon,” continued John. “I hate to go away and leave my pony, Jim. This morning he came up and rubbed his nose on my arm as if he was trying to say something.”

“He’d just as well say good-by,” smiled Rob, “for, big as our boats are, we couldn’t carry a pack-train along in them, and I think the swimming will be pretty rough over yonder.”

“These are pretty heavy paddles,” said Jesse, picking up one of the rough contrivances Leo had made. “They look more like sweeps. But they’re not oars, for I don’t see any thole-pins.”

“It’ll be all paddling and all down-stream,” said Rob. “You couldn’t use oars, and the paddles have to be very strong to handle boats as heavy as these. You just claw and pole and pull with these paddles, and use them more to guide than to get up motion for the boat.”

“How far do we go on the Canoe River?” inquired Jesse of Rob. “You’ll have to be making your map now, John, you know.”

“Leo called it a hundred and fifty miles from the summit to the Columbia River,” replied Rob, “but Uncle Dick thought it was not over eighty or a hundred miles in a straight line.”

“Besides, we’ve got to go down the Columbia River a hundred miles or so,” added John, drawing out his map-paper. “I’m going to lay out the courses each day.”

“It won’t take long to run that far in a boat,” said Rob. “And I only hope Uncle Dick won’t get in too big a hurry, although I suppose he knows best about this high water which he seems to dread so much all the time. Leo told me that about the worst thing on the Canoe River was log-jams—driftwood, I mean.”

The boys now bent over John’s map on which he was beginning to trace some preliminary lines.

“Yonder to the left and south, somewhere, Rob, is the Athabasca Pass, which the traders all used who used the Columbia River instead of the Fraser. Somewhere on our way south we’ll cut their trail. It came down some of these streams on the left. I don’t know whether they came up the Canoe River or not, but not regularly, I’m sure. On Thompson’s map you’ll see another stream running south almost parallel to the Canoe—that’s the Wood River. They didn’t use that very much, from all I can learn, and that place on the Columbia called the Boat Encampment was a sort of a round-up place for all those who crossed the Athabasca Pass. Just to think, we’re going the same trail on the big river traveled a hundred years ago by David Thompson and Sir George Simpson, and Doctor Laughlin, of old Fort Vancouver, and all those old chaps!”

“I wonder what kind of boats they had in those times,” remarked Jesse.

“They seem to have left no record about these most interesting details in their business. I suppose, however, they must have had log canoes a good deal like these Indians use on the Fraser. I don’t think they used birch-bark; and if they had boats made out of sawed boards, I can’t find any mention of it.”

While they were standing talking thus, and working on John’s map, they were approached by the leader of the party with the men who were to accompany them, and one or two other Indians of the village.

“All ready now,” said Uncle Dick. “Here, you men, carry this boat down to the river-bank. The rest of you get busy with the packs.”

“There she goes, the old Fraser,” said John, as they gathered at the river-bank. “It’s a good rifle-shot across her here, and she’s only fifty miles long. It looks as though we’d have our own troubles getting across, too.”

But Leo and George, well used to navigation on these swift waters, took the first boat across, loaded, without any difficulty, standing up and paddling vigorously, and making a fairly straight passage across the rapid stream, although they landed far below their starting-point. With no serious difficulty the entire party was thus transported, and soon the heavier of the two boats, with most of the camp supplies, was loaded on the new red wagon of Leo’s other cousin, who now stood waiting for them, having his own troubles with a pair of fractious young cayuses that he had managed to hitch to the wagon.

With this last addition to their party perched on top, and Leo and George walking alongside, the procession started off up the trail across the valley, headed for the low divide which lay beyond. The remaining boat, manned by Moise and Uncle Dick at bow and stern, was