The Pioneers by R. M. Ballantyne (most popular ebook readers .txt) 📖

the rope, relieved them of any downward weight. The rope was then shifted to a stump farther up, and the advance was continued. Thus they may be said to have warped the canoe up the mountain! By two in the afternoon everything was got to the summit. Then Mackenzie, axe in hand, led the way forward. The progress was slow, the work exhausting. Through every species of country they cut their way. Here the trees were large and the ground encumbered with little underwood; there, the land was strewn with the trunks of fallen timber, where fire had passed with desolating power years before, and in its place had sprung up extensive copses of so close a growth, and so choked up with briars, that it was all but impossible to cut through them. Poplar, birch, cypress, red-pine, spruce, willow, alder, arrow-wood, red-wood, hard, and other trees,—all fell before the bright axes of the voyageurs, with gooseberry-bushes, currant-bushes, briars, and other shrubs innumerable. It must not be supposed that they did this heavy work with absolute impunity. No, there was many a bruise and blow from falling trees, and even the shrubs were successful not only in tearing trousers and leggings, but also in doing considerable damage to skin and flesh. So toilsome was the labour, that at the close of one of the days they had advanced only three miles.

On the afternoon of the third day they finally came out in triumph on the banks of the river above the cascades, having cut a road of about nine miles in extent.

Once again, then, behold them afloat and paddling up stream—still westward—with hopes animated and fortune smiling, or, as Reuben put it, with “a gale of luck blowin’ right astarn.” Reuben, be it observed, had consorted with sailors in his day down the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and had picked up a little of their slang.

But their good fortune never lasted long at a time. Their progress being very slow, it was found advisable to send the young Indian interpreters on shore to lighten the canoe and to hunt as they advanced. They frequently killed elk and other game. On one of these occasions Swiftarrow was nearly killed. He had been sent to fetch the choice parts of an elk which they had shot, when a big rock fell from the cliffs above, and was dashed to pieces at his very feet. Just after this incident a violent fall of rain took place, obliging them to remain in camp for a day. Then driftwood barred the river, and an opening had to be forced through it. Then more cascades appeared to check their advance; and, worst of all, just as they began to hope that the height of land was gained, an opening in the hills revealed a range of blue mountains far ahead of them, running south and north as far as the eye could reach. To add to their perplexities, they came to a fork in the river, one branch running due west, the other in a southerly direction.

“Follow the westerly branch,” said one; “that must be the right one.”

“Not so sure o’ that,” observed Reuben; “the end of a track don’t needsesarly p’int out the gin’ral run of it.”

“You are right, Reuben,” said Mackenzie; “besides, I have been warned of this very branch by an old Indian whom I met last winter, and who said he had been up here in his youth. Therefore, though appearances are against it, I shall follow the southern branch.”

Mackenzie was right in this determination, as it afterwards proved, but most of his men grumbled very much at the time, because the southerly branch, besides appearing to be the wrong one, was a very rapid and dangerous stream. They knew by that time, however, that nothing could bend their leader’s will, so they submitted, though with a bad grace.

Here an immense number of beaver were seen, and a gladsome sight it was to the fur-trader, because beaver skins at that time were in great repute—silk hats not having, as yet, beaten them off the field and reduced their value to almost nothing. In some places these sagacious and busy animals had cut down several acres of large poplars. At this place, too, they had an alarm, some of the men declaring that they had heard shots fired by Indians in the woods. A whole night was therefore spent on the qui vive, although it turned out to be a false alarm.

One morning, the weather being fine and the river more manageable than usual, Mackenzie landed with Reuben and the two Indians, to ascend an adjacent mountain, telling his men to proceed in the canoe diligently, and directing them to fire two shots if they should require his return, agreeing that he would do the same if he should wish them to wait for him. Nothing was gained by this attempt to obtain a better prospect. On descending to the river they fired two shots, as agreed on, but no answer was received. Again they tried it, but the deep silence was only broken by an echo and by the rushing of the river.

“They’re behind us,” suggested Reuben.

“They’ve overshot us,” said the Indians.

Again two shots were fired, but still no reply came. Mackenzie’s mind was at once filled with anxious fears lest some accident should have befallen his canoe, while he reproached himself for having left them even for a brief period in such dangerous navigation.

In these circumstances he turned to consult with his men.

“It’s my opinion,” said Reuben, “that they’ve diskivered more rapids than they bargained for, and are out of earshot behind us; so we’d better make tracks down stream till we find ’em.”

“Not so,” said the elder of the Indians; “without doubt the canoe is dashed to pieces, and our comrades are even now with their forefathers. We shall see them no more; and my advice is that we construct a raft and try to return on it to the lands whence we came.”

Anxious though he was, Mackenzie could scarce refrain from laughing at the prompt way in which the red man had consigned his comrades to destruction. “Come,” said he, “we won’t give them up quite so readily as you seem inclined to. We shall make at least one effort to find them.”

It was now arranged that Reuben and one of the Indians should remain at the spot where they then were, kindle a large fire, and send branches down the stream from time to time, as a signal to their comrades if they chanced to be below, and that Mackenzie with the other Indian should walk up the bank of the river several miles. This was done; but they returned after some hours to the fire, having seen nothing of the canoe.

As evening was now approaching, they became thoroughly alarmed, and a more rigorous plan of search was instituted. Reuben was sent off with one Indian to proceed down the river as far as he could go before night came on, with directions to continue the journey in the morning as far as to the place where they had encamped the preceding evening. Mackenzie with the other Indian again went off up the river, intending to make a thorough search in that direction. They had no food with them, but, having their guns and the means of making fire, they had no anxiety on that score, except in regard to an immediate meal, for game was scarcer than usual at that particular spot.

It was agreed that if both should fail of success, they were to return to the place where they then separated. But their anxieties were brought to an end sooner than they had hoped for. Not very long after parting, Mackenzie heard a very far-off shot, and then another, and in a few minutes an answering double shot at a still greater distance. These being the concerted signals, he knew that the canoe party must have been discovered by Reuben; he therefore retraced his steps with a light heart, despite the fact that he had worn the moccasins off his feet, and was completely drenched with rain. It turned out that the delay had been occasioned by the breaking of the canoe, and the consequent necessity of landing to repair damages. Indeed, the sorely-battered craft had become almost a wreck. As a fitting climax to this disastrous day, the night finished off with thunder, lightning, and rain.

While thus forcing their way to the head-waters of the river, they met with a small party of miserable-looking natives, who received them at first with violent demonstrations of an intention to immolate them on the spot if they should dare to land. It was evident that the poor creatures had been subjected to bad treatment and deception by other and more powerful tribes, because they remained in a state of great suspicion and anxiety even after the interpreter had stated earnestly that the intentions of the white men were friendly, and after gifts had been presented to them. By degrees, however, they became more confident, and as their anxieties diminished their curiosity increased.

“I do believe,” said Lawrence, “that the critters have never seen white folk before.”

To most people it might have seemed ridiculous to have heard that bronzed voyageur calling himself and his brown-faced, smoke-dried, weather-worn companions, by the title of white people; but Lawrence referred to the natural colour of the race to which he belonged.

“They do seem rather koorious,” observed Reuben, as one of the Indians timidly touched his arm and looked wonderingly up into his blue eyes.

It was found, however, that these natives had heard of white people, though they had not seen them; moreover, they displayed a number of knives and iron implements which they said had been procured from people inhabiting the banks of a river which might be reached over a carrying-place of “eleven days in length,” and which river flowed in an opposite direction from the Peace River. These people, they said, travelled during a moon to get to the country of another tribe who dwelt in houses, and these again extended their journeys to the sea, or, as they called it, the “Stinking Lake,” where they exchanged their furs with white people, like our pioneers, who came to the coast of that lake in canoes as big as islands!

Here, then, at last, was definite information, and the enterprising discoverer was not long in availing himself of it. After gratifying his new friends with sundry little gifts, a feed of pemmican, which they relished amazingly, and a taste of sugar to tickle their palates, he gained their confidence so much as to induce one of them to be his guide, and immediately pushed forward.

In the course of the following week they gained the much-longed-for height of land, and found two lakelets within a quarter of a mile of each other, from one of which the waters find their way through Peace River, on the east side of the mountains, into the Arctic Sea, while from the other the waters flow south and west through the great River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.

But the succession of disasters that befell them here, and the difficulties of the route—for it could not be called navigation—threw all their previous experiences into the shade. One day, having made a portage, they relaunched the canoe and began the well-nigh forgotten process of descending stream. They had not gone far when they struck a rock and were driven down sideways with great violence, Mackenzie, followed by his men, jumped into the shallow to turn the canoe straight, but in a moment the water deepened and they had to scramble inboard again hurriedly. Swiftarrow by some mischance was left behind to struggle on shore as best he might. Before they could resume their paddles they struck again; the stem of the canoe was shattered like an egg-shell and hung only by the gunwales, so that Lawrence, who was steering, had