"Maybe some sort of rain or chinook over in there," said Alex. "What do you think, Moise?"

Moise and Alex talked for a time in the Cree language, Moise shaking his head as he answered.

"Moise thinks there has been a little rise," interpreted Alex. "He says that below here the river sometimes canyons up, or runs between high banks with a narrow channel. That would make it bad. You see, the rise of a foot in a place like that would make much more difference than two inches in the places where the river is spread out several hundred yards wide. We know a little bit more about the river from here east, because we have talked with men who have been here."

"I suppose we'll have to wait here until it runs down," said Jesse.

"Maybe not. If we were here earlier in the season and this were the regular spring rise we might have to wait for some time before we could go down with these boats. But the big flood has gone down long ago. There isn't anything to hinder us as yet from dropping down and watching carefully on ahead as we go."

Rob was again consulting his inevitable copy of Mackenzie's Voyages.

"It took Mackenzie and Fraser each of them just eight days to get this far up the river from the west end of the Canyon of the Rocky Mountains," said he. "Fraser must have built his boat somewhere west of the Rocky Mountain Portage, as they call it. That must be seventy-five miles east of here, as near as I can figure it from the Mackenzie story, but Uncle Dick's friend, Mr. Hussey, said it was one hundred and thirty miles—and only two big rapids, the Finlay and the Parle Pas. I wish we could run it every foot, because Mackenzie did when he came down. At least, he doesn't say he didn't."

"It was done by the traders for a long time," said Alex, "all but those two rapids and that canyon. There is no trail even for horses between Hudson's Hope and Fort St. John, but that is easy water. They serve St. John now with steamboats, and the old canoe days are pretty much over. But, anyhow, there is the main ridge of the Rockies east of us, and we've got to get through it somehow, that's sure. Back there"—he pointed up the valley down which they had been coming now for so long—"we were between two ranges of the divide. The Finlay yonder comes down out of some other range to the northwest. But now the doubled river has to break through that dam of the eastern rim. I suppose we may look for bad water somewhere. Look here," he added, examining the map, "here are the altitudes all marked on by the government surveyors—twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level at Giscombe Portage, twenty-two hundred and fifty at Fort McLeod. I suppose it was about three thousand feet where we started across. At the mouth of the Finlay it's only two thousand feet—a big drop. But she drops nearly three hundred feet more to the west end of the portage, and two hundred feet more at the east end. That's going downhill pretty fast—five hundred feet in less than one hundred and fifty miles—and some of it not very fast water."

"Well," ventured Rob, "why don't we drop down as far as we can, and if we get caught by a flood then stop and take a little hunt somewhere back in the hills? You know, we haven't got that grizzly yet you promised us."

"Sure enough," said Alex, with no great enthusiasm; for he did not relish the idea of hunting grizzly bear in company with such young companions.

"But we have come through good grizzly country already," ventured John.

"Very likely," Alex smiled. "I've seen considerable bear sign along the shores, as well as a good many moose tracks close to where we camped."

"If you think we're afraid to go bear hunting, Alex," Rob began, "you certainly don't know us very well. That's one of the reasons we came on this trip—we wanted to get a real Rocky Mountain grizzly."

"It is not too late," the old hunter rejoined, "and I shouldn't wonder if there was as good country east of here as any we've come to. The grizzly is a great traveler, anyhow, and is as apt to be found one place as another. At this time of year all the bears come out of the mountains and feed along the valleys on red willow buds and such things. They even swim from the shore to the islands, in search of willow flats. Besides, there are plenty of saskatoons, I don't doubt, not far back from the river. The bears ought to be down out of the high country by this time, and if you really care for a hunt, there ought to be plenty of good places below here."

"It isn't dark yet," said Rob; "suppose we break camp and run down just a little farther this evening. If the flood comes in behind us, we're just that much ahead."

They acted on Rob's suggestion, and, passing rapidly on down the now slightly discolored water, they soon left the Finlay gap behind them. Their journey was but brief, however, for soon they heard the boom of the rapids below them.

"On shore, queek!" called Moise to Rob, who was in the bow of the leading boat.



XV

IN THE BIG WATERS

The sound and sight of the Finlay rapids, at the head of which the leading boat now paused, gave Rob his first real idea of how wicked a great mountain river can be. He looked back to see whether the Jaybird and her crew were well warned of the danger. But Alex soon brought the other boat alongside at the landing place, on the south side of the stream, above the rapids.

"Well, here we are," said he. "Now you may see what some real rapids are. Those little ripples up above didn't amount to much."

"She looks pretty bad," said Rob. "Could anybody run a boat through there?"

"Old Sir Alexander probably did it, but he had a big birch-bark. I'd take it on with a good man and a good boat. We could very possibly even get one of these boats through if we were obliged to, but there is no use taking any risk. We can line down through the worst of it, or even run the boat ashore if we like."

"Me, I'll rather ron the rapeed than walk on the bank with boat," said Moise.

"Never mind, Moise," said Alex, "we'll not have to walk far with her. We'll camp here to-night and look it over in the morning. It's always better to tackle rough work in the morning rather than in the evening."

The young travelers slept none too well that night. The sound of the rapids coming through the dark and the feeling of remoteness here in this wild mountain region proved depressing to their spirits. They were glad enough when at length toward dawn they heard Moise stirring about the camp. By the time they had their breakfast finished and camp broken Alex had already returned from a trip along the side of the rapids.

"It's not so very bad," said he, "although the river has come up an inch or so during the night. The whole rapid is about a quarter of a mile long, but the worst place is only a couple of hundred yards or so. We'll drop down to the head of that strip on the line and portage around there."

They followed this plan, loading the boats and dropping down for a short time, saving themselves all the portage work they could. In places the water seemed very wild, tossing over the rocks in long, rolling waves or breaking in foam and spray. The boys scrambled alongshore, allowing Alex and Moise to care for the first boat when it became necessary for them to double up on each trip over the worst water. Part of the time they bore a hand on the line, and were surprised to see the strength of the current even on a boat without a load.

"You see," said Alex, when at length they came to a place where the water seemed still more powerful and rough, and where it seemed necessary to haul the boat entirely from the water for a carry of some distance over the rocks, "it's better to take a little trouble and go slow rather than to lose a boat in here. If she broke away from us we'd feel a long way from home!"

After they got the Mary Ann again in the water and at the foot of the rapids, the men went up after the Jaybird, while the boys did what they could toward advancing the cargo of the Mary Ann. In less than an hour they had everything below the rapids and saw plain sailing once more ahead of them. Moise expressed his disappointment at not being allowed to run the Finlay rapids.

"My onkle, she'll always ron those rapeed," said he. "S'pose I'll tell heem I'll walk aroun', he'll laugh on me, yes!"

"That's all right, Moise," said Rob; "your uncle isn't here, and for one, I'm glad we took it easy coming through here. That's rough water either way you look at it, up-stream or down. But now," he continued, once more consulting his maps and notes, "we ought to have a couple of days of good, straightaway running, with almost no bad water. It's about seventy miles from here to the Parle Pas rapids. And speaking of rapids, they tell me that's the worst place on the whole river."

"That's a funny name—why do they call them the Parle Pas rapids?" asked Jesse.

"Those were Frenchman words," said Moise. "Parle Pas means 'no speak.' He's a quiet rapeed. S'pose you'll ron on the river there, an' smoke a pipe, an' talk, an' not think of nothing. All at once, Boum! You'll been in those rapeed, an' he'll not said a word to you!"

"Well," said Rob, "the traders used to run them somehow, didn't they?"

"Yes, my onkle he'll ron them in beeg boat many tam, but not with leetle boat. She'll jump down five, three feet sometams. Leetle boat she'll stick his nose under, yes. My onkle he'll tol' me, when you come on the Parle Pas take the north side, an' find some chute there for leetle boat. Leetle boat could ron the Parle Pas, maybe so, but I suppose, us, we'll let those boat down on the line because we'll got some scares, hein?"

"It's just as well to have some scares on these mountain rivers, Moise," said Alex, reprovingly. "This water is icy cold, and if even a man got out into the rapids he couldn't swim at all, it would tumble him over so. We'll line down on the Parle Pas, yes, depend on that. But that's down-stream a couple of days if we go slow."

"When do we get that bear hunt, Alex?" asked John, who loved excitement almost as much as Moise.

"Almost anywhere in here," answered Alex; "but I think we'd better put off the hunt until we get below all the worst water. No use portaging bear hides."

"It looks like good bear country here," said Rob. "We must be in the real Rockies now, because the mountains come right down to the river."

"Good bear country clear to Hudson's Hope, or beyond that," assented Alex.

"All right," said Rob; "we'll have a good hunt somewhere when we get below the Parle Pas. If we have to do any more portaging, we don't want to carry any more than we can help, that's true. And, of course, we're going to get that grizzly."

Having by this time reloaded the boats, they re-embarked, and passed merrily on down the river, which now seemed wholly peaceful and pleasant. The mountains now indeed were all about them, in places rising up in almost perpendicular rock faces, and the valley was very much narrower. They were at last entering the arms of the great range through which they later were to pass.

The character of the river changed from time to time. Sometimes they were in wide, quiet reaches, where they needed the paddles to make much headway. Again there would be drops of faster water, although nothing very dangerous. Relieved as they were now of any thought of danger for the next sixty or seventy miles ahead, this part of their journey seemed delightful in every way. They did not pause to hunt, and saw no game excepting one band of four timber wolves, upon which they came as they swept around a bend, but which hastened under cover before any one could get a shot. Once in a while they stopped at little beaches or bars, and almost always saw the trails of large game in the sand or mud. Always they felt that now they were deep in the wilderness, and every moment was a pleasure to them.

They did not really know how far below the Finlay rapids they traveled that day, for continually they discovered that it is difficult to apply map readings to the actual face of a new country. They made no great attempt at speed, but sometimes drifted down-stream, the boats close together. Sometimes when the wind was fair Rob or John would raise the corner of a tent or blanket to act as a sail. Thus, idling and chatting along, they made perhaps forty miles down-stream before they made their next evening camp. The country seemed to them wilder now, since the bold hills were so close in upon them, though of course they knew that each day was bringing them closer to the settlements on the eastern side of the range.

That night was cold, and they had no trouble with mosquitoes. Feeling no need of hurry, they made a late start and idled on down the river through a very interesting mountain region, until the afternoon. Toward evening they began to feel that they might perhaps be near the dreaded Parle Pas rapids, and they approached each bend with care, sometimes going ashore for a prospecting trip which proved to be made only on a false alarm. They had, however, now begun to learn the "feel of the water," as the voyageurs called it. Rob, who was ahead, at length noted the glassy look of the river, and called back to Moise that he believed there were rapids ahead.

"Parle Pas!" cried Moise. "On shore, queek!"

Swiftly they paddled across, to the north side of the river, where presently they were joined by the other boat.

"She's the Parle Pas, all right," laughed Moise; "look at heem!"

From their place of observation they could see a long ridge, or rim, the water falling in a sort of cascade well out across the stream. There seemed to be a chute, or channel, in midstream, but the back-combing rollers below it looked ominously large for a boat the size of theirs, so that they were glad enough to be where they were, on dry land.

Moise was once more for running the boats through the chute on the north shore, but Alex's cautious counsel prevailed. There was not more than thirty or forty feet of the very worst water, rather a cascade than a long rapid, but they discharged the cargo and lined both boats through light. This sort of work proved highly interesting and exciting to all hands, and, of course, when superintended by such men as Alex and Moise had no great danger, although all of them were pretty wet when at length they had their boats reloaded at the foot of the rapids.

"I know how Sir Alexander got across the mountains," said John. "He had good voyageurs to do the work! About all he had to do was to write the story each night, and he didn't do that any too well, it seems to me—anyhow, when you come to read his story backward you can't tell where you are very well."

"That's right," said Rob. "I don't much blame Simon Fraser for finding fault with Mackenzie's narrative. But maybe if we had written the story they'd have found fault with us the same way. The same country doesn't look alike to different people, and what is a mile to one man may be two miles to another when both are guessing. But anyhow, here we are below the 'Polly' rapids—as the traders call them to-day—and jolly glad we ought to be we're safe, too."

"Plain sailing again now for a while," said Jesse. "Let's see the map."

They all bent over the different maps they had, especially one which Rob had made up from all the sources of information he had.

"Yes," said Rob, "it ought to be about sixty miles of pretty good water now until we get to the one place on this river which the boldest voyageur never tried to run—the Canyon of the Rocky Mountains, as the very first travelers called it."

"Those map she'll not been much good," said Moise, pointing to the government maps of which Rob had a store. "The only good map she'll been made by the Injun with a stick, s'pose on the sand, or maybe so on a piece of bark. My onkle she'll made me a map of the Parle Pas. He'll show the place where to go through the middle on the Parle Pas. S'pose you'll tell my onkle, Moise he'll walk down the Parle Pas an' not ron on heem, he'll laugh on me, heem! All right, when you get to the Grand Portage sixty miles below, you'll get all the walk you want, Alex, hein?"

Alex answered him with a pleasant smile, not in the least disposed to be laughed into taking any risks he did not think necessary.

"We'd better drop down a few miles farther before we make camp," said he. "En avant, Moise. En roulant, ma boule!"

Moise turned to his paddle and broke into song gaily as they once more headed down the stream. They did not tarry again until the sun was behind the western ridges. The mountain shadows were heavy when at last their little fire lighted up the black forest which crowded close in all around them.

"I think this is fine," said Jesse, quietly, as they sat about the camp-fire that night.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world," said John; and Rob gave his assent by a quiet nod of satisfaction.

"I feel as if we were almost home now," said Jesse. "We must have come an awfully long way."

Alex shook his head. "We're a long way from home yet," said he. "When the Klondike rushes were on some men got up as far north as this place, and scattered everywhere, hoping they could get through somehow to the Yukon—none of them knew just how. But few of them ever got up this river beyond Hudson's Hope, or even Fort St. John, far east of there. Some turned back and went down the Mackenzie, others took the back trail from Peace River landing. A good many just disappeared. I have talked with some who turned back from the mountains here, and they all said they didn't think the whole world was as big as it seemed by the time they got here! And they came from the East, where home seems close to you!"

"Well," said Rob, "as it's probably pretty rough below here, and good grizzly country, why not stop here and make that little hunt we were talking about?"

"All right," said Alex; "I suppose this is as good a game country as any. We ought to get a moose, even if we don't see any bear. In the old times there used to be plenty of buffalo this far to the west in the mountains. What do you say, Moise—shall we make a hunting camp here?"

"We'll been got no meat pretty quick bimeby," said Moise. "Maybe so."

They were encamped here on a narrow beach, which, however, sheered up high enough to offer them security against any rise in the stream. They were careful to pull up the boats high and dry, and to secure them in case of any freshet. Used as they were by this time to camp life, it now took them but a few minutes to complete their simple operations in making any camp. As all the boys had taken a turn at paddling this day, and as the exciting scenes of the past few days had been of themselves somewhat wearying, they were glad enough to get a long night's sleep.

Before Rob, the leader of the younger members of the party, had rolled up in his blankets Alex came to him and asked him whether he really cared to finish running the river, provided they could get out overland.

"Surely we do," said Rob at once. "We'll go on through, as far as we can, at least, by boat. We don't want to be modern and ride along on horseback until we have to. Mackenzie didn't and Fraser didn't! Nor do we want to go to any trading-post for supplies. We can get butter and eggs in the States if we want to, but we're hunters! You show us a grizzly to-morrow, Alex, that's all!"

"All right," said Alex, smiling. "Maybe we can."



XVI

THE GRIZZLY HUNT

"Why, Alex, this land along the bayou here looks like a cattle-yard!" exclaimed Rob as early the next morning they paused to examine a piece of the moist ground which they had observed much cut up with tracks of big game.

There were four in party now, Moise alone having remained to keep the camp. For an hour or more now they had passed back toward the hills, examining the damp ground around the edges of the willow flats and alder thickets. From time to time they had seen tracks of bears, some large and some small, but at this particular point the sign was so unmistakable that all had paused.

"I don't know that I ever saw more sign on one piece of ground," admitted Alex. He spoke in a low tone of voice and motioned for the others to be very quiet. "The trouble is, they seem to be feeding at night and working back toward the hills in the daytime. On this country here there have been six black bears and two grizzlies."

"Yes, and here's that big track again," said Rob. "He sinks in the mud deep as an ox, and has a hind foot as long as my rifle-stock."

"Six or eight hundred pounds, maybe," said Alex. "He's a good one. The other one isn't so big. They fed here last night, and seem to be working up this little valley toward the hills again. If we had plenty of time I'd be in favor of waiting here until evening, for this seems to be a regular stamping-ground for bear. What do you think, Mr. Rob?"

"Well," said Rob, "I know it usually isn't much worth while to follow a bear, but maybe it wouldn't do any harm in here to work on after this one a little way, because there doesn't seem to be any hunting in here, and maybe the bears aren't badly scared."

"Very well, that's what I think, too," said Alex; "but if this trail gets very much fresher I think it is just as well for all of us to keep out of the thicket and take to the open. Maybe we can find higher ground on ahead."

They passed on up, making cross-cuts on the trail and circling now and again through the willow flats as they advanced. Once in a while Alex would have to search a little before he could pick up the trail, but always somewhere among the willows he would find the great footprint of the big bear. Often he showed the boys where the willows had been broken down by the bear in its feeding, and at some places it left a path as though a cyclone had gone through.

Having established it in his mind that the bear was steadily advancing deeper back into the valley they were following, Alex at last left the willow flats and made for the side of the depression down which a little stream was coming, striking into the hills at the place where the valley finally narrowed to a deep coulee. Here they advanced slowly and cautiously, taking care to be on the side where the wind would favor them most, and once in a while Alex still dropped down to the foot of the coulee in search of sign or feeding-ground. As they advanced, however, the course of the stream became more definite and the moist ground not so large in extent, so that it became more difficult to trail any animal on the drier ground. A mile farther on, none the less, in a little muddy place, they found the track of the giant bear, still ahead of them. It had sunk eight inches or more into the soft earth, and a little film of muddy water still was trickling into the bottom of the track, while at its rim little particles of mud still hung loose and ragged.

Alex's eyes now gleamed with eagerness, for he saw that the bear was but a little distance ahead. He examined closely the country about to see whether the big grizzly was alone, and to his relief found no sign of the smaller bear.

"I'm not afraid of them both," said he, in a low whisper to Rob, "but sometimes it's easier to get up to one bear than it is to two, and I notice it's nearly always the small one that gives the alarm."

The big grizzly, however, still was traveling steadily at times. They could not locate him in this thicket, and, indeed, a little farther on found where, apparently but a few moments earlier, he had left this coulee and crossed a little ridge, apparently intending to change his course entirely. This was disappointing, but Alex whispered to the young hunters not to be disturbed, for that possibly the bear might lie up or go to feeding in some other ravine not far on ahead.

"You'd better wait here, I think," said he at last, as they approached the top of a little ridge, where evidently another coulee came down.

He began slowly to climb toward the top, from which he could get a view of the other side. Almost as soon as he raised his head above the summit he pulled it back again. Quickly he dropped down to where the others stood.

"Is he there?" asked Rob, eagerly.

Alex nodded. He looked at the faces of all the boys. Not one of them was pale, and every one seemed only eager to go ahead. Slowly standing and watching them for a time, at length the old hunter turned, silently motioning them to follow him.

What Alex had seen when he peered over the top of the ridge was nothing else than the big bear feeding in the bushes which lay some sixty yards ahead and below, where the ground was moister. When at length the boys, however, reached the same place and gazed over eagerly they saw nothing at all at first.

Rob turned to whisper a question to Alex, but even as he did so he felt John clutch him by the arm. Then as they all looked on ahead they saw the great bear rise once more on his hind legs high above the bushes. He was so close they could see his blocky head, his square nose, and even his little piggish eyes. Slowly the grizzly turned a little bit from side to side, nodding his head and whining a little all to himself, as he started once more to reach out and break down the tops of the bushes toward him in his great arms.

It was at that instant that the rifle of Alex rang out, and he called to the others hurriedly, "Shoot! Shoot!"

He needed not to give such counsel, for every boy there had almost at the same instant fired at the giant grizzly which stood below them. He fell with a great roar, and began to thresh about in the bushes. No sight of him for a moment could be obtained. All four now sprang erect, waiting eagerly for the crippled game to break cover. John and Rob even started down the slope, until Alex called out to them peremptorily to come back. As a matter of fact, three of the four bullets had struck the bear and he was already hurt mortally, but this could not be determined, and Alex knew too much to go into the cover after a wounded grizzly.



The bear itself heard them shouting, and, having located the presence of an enemy, now broke cover with a savage roar, limping as best he could in a vain endeavor to get up the slope and to attack his enemies. But again and again the rifles spoke, and an instant later the great bear dropped down and rolled limp at the bottom of the slope, almost back into the bushes from which he had come.

"He's dead now, all right!" said Alex, even as he held out his hand to restrain his young companions once more from rushing in on their game. "Some one hit him in the head that last time. I'm thinking the hide won't be good for much, for he must be shot full of holes by now!"

Such indeed proved to be the case. The high-power rifles, fired at close range, with hands excited yet none the less fairly accurate, had done their work in such fashion as might have finished three or four bears instead of one even as large as this one proved to be.

Alex turned once more to note the conduct of his young friends as they gathered at the side of the dead bear. He smiled a little bit grimly. Whereas their faces had lately been flushed and eager, they now were just a little pale, and he saw that they all were disposed to tremble as they stood.

"We're well out of that," said he, quietly. "That's bad as the Parle Pas. Of course the odds were in our favor, but with a bear of this size any man or any party is well out of it when they get him down. But here's your grizzly, young gentlemen."

"My, isn't he a whale!" said Jesse. "There's plenty of meat, I should think."

"Yes, we've killed him," said Alex, "but what good is he to us? Grizzlies aren't good to eat, even when they are feeding on berries, as this one is."

"Never mind," said Rob; "this is a pretty good robe, I want to tell you, even if it is only in August. It is finer and closer than our Alaska bears; see how white on the shoulders and face. I believe he's about as ugly a customer, too, as most of our big Alaska bears, that live on fish."

"Yes," said Alex, "he's what you call a bald-face, and whether there's any truth in it or not, Injuns always say that these white-faced bears are the most savage. Look at his claws—they're white too. All of them perfect, however, which shows that he hasn't been digging among the rocks very much, but has been feeding in low country for quite a while. I suppose Moise would call this bear his cousin, and I doubt if he'd want to help skin him. But that's what we've got to do now, and it's no easy job either."

"We'll all help," said Rob.

"Well, you'd better go and help by finding some sort of rock for a whetstone," said Alex, "for I see I have left my file down in camp. There's nothing in the world takes the edge off the best steel like skinning a big bear—the hide is like sandpaper inside."

"Here's something," said Jesse, picking up a flat stone, "and maybe we can sharpen the knives on it."

They all fell to work now, each with his own hunting-knife. Alex, of course, did most of the work, first ripping down the tough hide with his big buffalo knife, along each leg and up the middle of the body. Then giving each of the boys a leg, and himself keeping clear of the eager knife blades, they all began the work of skinning off the hide.

"Skin it close," said Alex, "and don't leave on much meat. The Injuns never skin a bear hide close, for the women like the fat, it seems, and they do all the scraping in camp. But this hide is so big that I'm not anxious to carry any more weight on it than I have to—I should not wonder if it would weigh seventy-five to a hundred pounds, the best we can do."

At last, however, they had the great hide free from the carcass, with the footpads and long claws attached, and the scalp all skinned carefully free from the skull at eyes, ears, and nose. Rob insisted on taking the skull also, although Alex demurred.

"We'll carry it, Alex," said he. "This is a splendid robe, I'm telling you, fine color, and not worn nearly as badly as I should have expected in the summer-time. We're going to have a rug made out of it for Uncle Dick's house, and we want the skull, too. We'll carry that down the hill."

"All right," said Alex; "I'll have plenty to do with the rest of this old fellow."

He rolled the green hide into a pack, which he lashed tightly with some thongs, and once more using his belt as a pack-strap, which he rested on the top of his head, he managed to get under the weight of the green hide, and started off at a half trot, following the nearest valley down to the river where their camp was pitched.

Strong as the old hunter was, at times even he was willing enough to set down his pack and rest awhile, and to smoke a pipe. The boys, who were carrying his rifle and also making shifts at carrying the heavy bear skull, themselves were willing enough to join him when he stopped. At last, however, they got to the top of the bank under which their camp was pitched.

"Listen!" said Rob. "There's some one talking."

Alex nodded. They stepped up to the top of the bank and looked over.



XVII

THE YOUNG ALASKANS' "LOB-STICK"

They saw sitting near the fire three men beside Moise, all of them Indians or half-breeds. They were all of them talking and laughing eagerly, certainly not showing very much of the so-called Indian reserve, at the time the hunters peered over at them. Yet occupied as they were, their senses were always alert. One of them heard a twig snap, and turned his face to the bank.

Alex said nothing, but kicked over the edge of the bank the big rolled hide of the grizzly; after which, silently and with proper dignity, all the hunters, old and young, advanced down the bank and across the beach toward the fire. No one said anything until after the rifles were all lined up against the blanket rolls and the pipes of the men had been filled once more. Moise at length could be dignified no more, and broke out into a loud series of French, English, and Cree terms, all meant to express his delight and approval at the success of the hunt. The three breeds also smiled broadly and nodded approvingly, once in a while saying a word in their own tongue to one another. They did not, however, seem to ask any questions regarding the hunt as yet. Alex spoke a word or so to Moise.

"She's been my cousin," said Moise, pointing indifferently to all three of the new-comers. He also pointed to their means of locomotion, a long and risky looking dugout which lay at the beach.

"He'll gone on up the river," said Moise, "from Hudson's Hope."

"Well, when they go," said Alex, "I suppose you'll have to give them something to eat, as you seem to be doing now. Only please don't part with quite all our supplies—we're going to need a little tea and flour for ourselves before we get out of here. You can tell these men there's plenty of game in this part of the country, so they can easily make a hunt if they like."

"Sure," said Moise, "I'll dream last night you'll catch grizzly this time. But how we'll go to put heem in boat, hein? S'pose we put that hide in canoe, she'll sink unless we eat up all the grub pile."

Alex told Moise to unroll the bear hide so that it might dry as much as possible. He then set all of them at fleshing the hide, a task none of them seemed to relish. Afterward, he also added some sort of counsel in the Cree language which presently resulted in the three visitors tightening up their belts, taking their solitary rifle, and passing out of sight in the bush at the top of the bank.

"Where are they going?" asked John, curiously, of Moise.

"She'll say she'll go after bear meat," said Moise. "Not got much meat, for she'll ain't seen much moose yet."

"Well, they're welcome to that grizzly meat," grinned Alex. "I didn't think they'd eat it. They must be starving. Make them up a little package of tinned stuff, Moise, and put it in their boat. I think we'll need about all the bacon we've got, and they can use the fat of the bear better than we can. Give them some tea, and a little flour too. What do they say about the river below here at the big canyon?"

"Says bad water," said Moise. "She'll rose perhaps four, three, two inches to-day, maybe so, here, and that's all same so many foots in the canyon. She'll say best way to do is to take portage trail and leave those boat on west end of those canyon."

"Yes, but we want to get our boats through," said Alex, "although it must be a dozen miles anyhow by way of the carrying trail, and not too good at that."

"He'll say," resumed Moise, "s'pose we take those boat through to the big mountain—through big water, ver' wide, with many islands—we'll come on a place where boats can go up the bank, if plenty men carry them up. Then she'll been ten mile, eight mile, to some place below the mountain. All the tam she'll say best way is to go by horse, on the north side of the river, on the police trail from Fort St. John, s'pose we'll could find that trail, an' s'pose we'll had some horse."

"What do you say, Mr. Rob?" asked Alex. "We ought to get our boats down. Shall we haul out at the west end, or try for Hudson's Hope?"

"I'd be in favor of getting down as far as we can," said Rob. "We can reach the head of the mountain in a couple of days. I'm for moving on down and taking a chance on the rest of it! Of course we'll have to portage the canyon somehow."

"That suits me," said John. And even Jesse, the youngest of the three, was all for continuing the journey as originally planned.

"All right," said Alex, "I'm with you. We're learning the game now, certainly, and I don't think we'll find this part of the river any worse than it has been up above. There isn't anything bad marked on the map, anyhow, for quite a way."

At about this time, as they were all busied about the camping place, the boys noticed Alex and Moise step a little apart and begin to converse in low tones. From their looks and gestures, the boys gathered that the men were speaking of something in which they themselves were concerned, in just what way they could not tell. Presently Moise smiled and nodded vigorously. Approaching the camp-fire, he took up his short-handled ax and slung it at his back by a bit of thong. Then he stepped over to the tallest and straightest pine-tree which grew close to the water's edge thereabout. Active as a cat, he soon had climbed the lower branches, where, without pausing, he began to hack off, close to the trunk, every branch within his reach. Having done so, he climbed yet higher up and repeated the operation, as though it were his purpose to cut off nearly all the branches to the top of the tree. At first the boys thought he was gathering boughs for the beds, but as they were almost ready to break camp they could not understand this.

"Let's go up and help him, fellows!" exclaimed John.

Alex restrained them. "No, you mustn't do that." John stopped rather abashed.

"You see," explained the old hunter, "you are concerned in this, so you must not help."

"I don't understand—" began John.

"Well, the truth is, we are going to give you a celebration. In short, we are making a monument for you young gentlemen, all of you."

Rob broke into the conversation. "A monument? But we're not dead, and aren't going to be soon!"

"This is a monument of the Far North. It is not necessary to die. We are making you what we call a 'lob-stick,' or 'lop-stick.'"

"I never heard of anything like that."

"Very likely not. Nor do I suppose there is one this far to the west, although there are some which we may see down the Peace River. Had Mackenzie and Fraser got their dues, each of them would have had a 'lob-stick' somewhere in here. Probably they were too busy in those days. But if either of them had had a 'lob-stick' made for him it would very likely be standing to-day. In that case every man who went past on the river would know why it had been given."

The boys were very much excited over this and demanded of Alex that he should explain more precisely these matters.

"Well," said the old hunter, kindly, "each country has its own ways. When I was in London with General Kitchener I went to Westminster Cathedral, and saw there engraved in brass the names of men who had done deeds worth commemorating. It is our way in this country also to perpetuate the memory of deeds of goodness or of bravery, anything which is remarkable and worth remembering. Here and there along the Peace River, and far to the north on the Athabasca, you will see a tree trimmed like this, different from the others, and noticeable to all passers-by. Perhaps one tells where a man has saved the life of another man, or where a party have divided their food until all starved, or where some great deed was done, such as a fight with some animal. Any great event in our history we may keep in mind in this way. When the men go by on the river they think of that. We believe it may make their hearts stronger, or make them more disposed to do good or brave things themselves. It is our custom."

"But what have we done to deserve this?" demanded Rob.

"Moise and I and those other men who were here have the right to decide in regard to that," said Alex. "We would not be foolish enough to leave a 'lob-stick' for any light reason. To us it seemed that you were brave, considering your years, in facing the grizzly this morning as you did; also, that you are brave to undertake this trip, young as you are, and with us whom you did not know, across this wild country, which daunted even Mackenzie and Fraser in the old days. Having met in council, Moise and I have determined to do this. We think there is no other 'lob-stick' on the river above here, and that there is not apt to be."

By this time Moise had lopped off all the branches of the tree except the top ones, which stood out like an umbrella. Descending from stub to stub, he now trimmed off all the remaining branches clear to the ground. As Alex had said, the tree stood straight and unmistakable, so that any voyageur on the river must notice it.

Rob took off his hat, and the others did the same. "We do not know how to thank you for this honor, Alex and Moise," said he, "but we will try never to do anything which shall make you ashamed of us. If we do, you may come and cut down this tree."

"I believe it will stand," smiled Alex. "Not many men pass here in these days, but by and by every man who does come here will know where this tree stands and why it was made a 'lob-stick.' They will measure distances by it on the river. And always when the voyageurs pass, or when they camp here near the tree, they will know your story. That is the way history is made in this country. I think that a hundred years from now, perhaps, men will know your story as well as you do that of Mackenzie and Fraser, although theirs was written in books. This is our custom. If it pleases you, we are very glad."

Hats still in hand, the boys now stepped up one by one and shook hands with Alex and Moise. When they left this camp they looked back for a long time, and they could see their commemorative tree standing out tall, slender, and quite distinct from all the others. No doubt it stands there to-day just as it was left in the honor of our young voyageurs.



XVIII

BAD LUCK WITH THE "MARY ANN"

Alex now went down to the boats and began to rearrange the cargo, from which the boys saw that in his belief it was best to continue the journey that evening, although it now was growing rather late. Evidently he was for running down ahead of the flood-water if any such should come, although it seemed to all of them that after all they need have no great fear, for the river had risen little if any since morning.

They determined to put the big bear hide in the Mary Ann, and shifted some of the burden of that boat to the Jaybird, folding up the long hide and putting it at the bottom of the canoe under the thwarts, so that the weight would come as low as possible. When the Mary Ann had received the rest of her necessary cargo she showed most of her bundles and packages above the gunwale, and Alex looked at the two boats a little dubiously, even after Moise had carried down to the dugout of his cousins such of the joint supplies as even his liberality thought proper.

"We'll try her, anyhow," said Alex, taking a look up the river, which came rolling down, tawny now, and not white and green in its colors. So saying, they pushed off.

They must, at this camp, have been somewhere between twelve and twenty miles east of the mouth of the Parle Pas rapids, and they had made perhaps a dozen miles more that evening when they began to come to a place where again the mountains approached the stream closely. Here they could not see out at all from their place at the foot of the high banks which hedged them in. At nightfall they encamped in a wild region which seemingly never had known the foot of man. The continuous rush of the waters and the gloom of the overhanging forests now had once more that depressing effect which sometimes is not unknown even to seasoned voyageurs. Had they been asked, the young travelers must truthfully have replied that they would be glad when at last the mountains were passed and the prairie country to the eastward reached.

On the next day they continued among the high hills for several hours, although at length the river expanded into a wide reach which gave them a little free paddling. In such contractions of the stream as they met it seemed to them that the rocks were larger, the water deeper, and each hour becoming more powerful than it had been. Advancing cautiously, they perhaps had covered thirty miles when they came to a part of the stream not more than three hundred yards wide, where the current was very smooth but of considerable velocity. Below this the mountains crowded still closer in to the stream, seeming to rise almost directly from the edge of the banks and to tower nearly two thousand feet in height.

"We must be getting close to the big portage now," said Rob to Moise, as they reached this part of the river.

"Yes," said Moise, "pretty soon no more water we'll could ron."

Moise's speech was almost prophetic. In less than half an hour after that moment they met with the first really serious accident of the entire journey, and one which easily might have resulted disastrously to life as well as to property.

They were running a piece of water where a flat rapid dropped down without much disturbance toward a deep bend where the current swung sharply to the right. A little island was at one side, on which there had been imbedded the roots of a big tree, which had come down as driftwood. The submerged branch of this tree, swinging up and down in the violent current, made one of the dangerous "sweepers" which canoemen dread. Both Rob and Moise thought there was plenty of room to get by, but just as they cleared the basin-like foot of the rapid the Mary Ann suddenly came to a stop, hard and fast amidships, on a naked limb of the tree which had been hidden in the discolored waters at the time.

As is usual in all such accidents, matters happened very quickly. The first thing they knew the boat was lifted almost bodily from the water. There was the cracking noise of splintering wood, and an instant later, even as the white arm of the tree sunk once more into the water, the Mary Ann sunk down, weak and shattered, her back broken square across, although she still was afloat and free.

Rob gave a sudden shout of excitement and began to paddle swiftly to the left, where the bank was not far away. Moise joined him, and they reached the shore none too soon, their craft half full of water, for not only had the keel to the lower ribs of the boat been shattered by the weight thus suspended amidships, but the sheathing had been ripped and torn across, so that when they dragged the poor Mary Ann up the beach she was little more than the remnant of herself.

The others, coming down the head of the rapid a couple of hundred yards to the rear, saw this accident, and now paddled swiftly over to join the shipwrecked mariners, who luckily had made the shore.

"It's bad, boys," said Rob, hurrying down to catch the prow of the Jaybird as she came alongside. "Just look at that!"

They all got out now and discharged the cargo of the Mary Ann, including the heavy grizzly hide, which very likely was the main cause of the accident, its weight having served to fracture the stout fabric of the plucky little boat. When they turned her over the case looked rather hopeless.

"She's smashed almost to her rail," said Rob, "and we've broken that already. It's that old grizzly hide that did it, I'm sure. We lit fair on top of that 'sweeper,' and our whole weight was almost out of the water when it came up below us. Talk about the power of water, I should say you could see it there, all right—it's ripped our whole ship almost in two! I don't see how we can fix it up this time."

Moise by this time had lighted his pipe, yet he did not laugh, as he usually did, but, on the contrary, shook his head at Alex.

"Maybe so we'll could fix heem," was all he would venture.

"Well, one thing certain," said Rob, "we'll have to go into camp right here, even if it isn't late."

"Did you have any fun in the other rapids above here?" asked John of Rob.

"No," said Rob; "it was all easy. We've run a dozen or twenty a lot worse than this one. Not even the Parle Pas hurt us. Then I come in here, head paddler, and I run my boat on a 'sweeper' in a little bit of an easy drop like this. It makes me feel pretty bad, I'll tell you that!"

They walked about the boat with hands in pockets, looking gloomy, for they were a little bit doubtful, since Moise did not know, whether they could repair the Mary Ann into anything like working shape again.

Alex, as usual, made little comment and took things quietly. They noticed him standing and looking intently down the river across the near-by bend.

"I see it too," said Rob. "Smoke!"

The old hunter nodded, and presently walked on down the beach to have a look at the country below, leaving Moise to do what he could with the broken boat. The boys joined Alex.

Presently they saw, not far around the bend, a long dugout canoe pulled up on the beach. Near by was a little fire, at which sat two persons, an old man and a younger one. They did not rise as the visitors approached, but answered quietly when Alex spoke to them in Cree.



XIX

NEW PLANS

"These men say," interpreted Alex, as he turned to the boys, "that it's sixteen to twenty miles from here to the end of the portage out of the hills, across the north bank, which cuts off the thirty miles of canyon that nobody ever tries to run. They say for a little way the river is wide, with many islands, but below that it narrows down and gets very bad. They're tracking stuff up-stream from the portage to a surveyors' camp which depends on their supplies. They say they will not sell their canoe, because they couldn't get up-stream, but that if we can get east of the portage there's a man, a sort of farmer, somewhere below there, who has a boat which perhaps he would sell."

"What good would that do us?" demanded John. "A boat twenty or thirty miles east of here across the mountains isn't going to help us very much. What we want is a boat now, and I don't see how we can get along without it. Won't they sell their canoe?"

"No, they don't want to sell it," said Alex; "they say they're under employment, and must get through to the camp from Hudson's Hope on time. We couldn't portage a dugout, anyhow. But they say that we can go on up there with them if we like, and then come back and go around by the portage. What do you say, Mr. Rob?"

Rob answered really by his silence and his tight-shut jaw. "Well," said he, "at least I don't much care about turning back on a trail. But we'll have to split here, I think, unless we all go into camp. But part of us can go on through by the river, and the rest come on later. Maybe we can cache some of our luggage here, and have it brought on across by these men, if they're going back to Hudson's Hope."

"That sounds reasonable," said Alex, nodding. "I believe we can work it out."

He turned and spoke rapidly in Cree to the two travelers, with many gestures, pointing both up and down the stream, all of them talking eagerly and at times vehemently.

"They say," said Alex at last, "there's a place at the foot of the high bank above the canyon head where two or three men might be able to get a boat up to the carrying trail, although the landing is little used to-day. But they say if we could get across to the east end of the canyon they could send men down by the trail after that other boat. They don't think we can get our boat across. They say they'll find us in a few days, they think, somewhere on the portage. They ask us if they can have what's left of our canoe. They say they'll take two dollars a day and grub if we want them to work for us. They don't say that no man could make the portage below here, but don't think we could do it with our crew. Well, what do you say now, Mr. Rob?"

"Why, it's all as easy as a fiddle-string," said Rob. "I'll tell you how we'll fix it. Jess, you and Moise go with these men on up to the surveyors' camp, and back down to Hudson's Hope—you can take enough grub to last you around, and you know that water is easy now. Alex and John and I will still have enough grub to last us through to the east side of the Rockies—we're almost through now. It might be rather hard work for Jess. The best way for him is to keep with Moise, who'll take good care of him, and it's more fun to travel than to loaf in camp. For the rest of us, I say we ought to go through, because we started to go through. We all know where we are now. Moise will bring the men and supplies around to meet us at the east side. Even if we didn't meet," he said to Jesse, "and if you and Moise got left alone, it would be perfectly simple for you to go on through to Peace River Landing, two or three hundred miles, to where you will get word of Uncle Dick. There are wagon-trails and steamboats and all sorts of things when you once get east of the mountains, so there's no danger at all. In fact, our trip is almost done right where we stand here—the hardest part is behind us. Now, Jess, if you don't feel hard about being asked to go back up the river, or to stay here till these men come back down-stream, that's the way it seems best to me."

"I'm not so anxious as all that to go on down this river," grinned Jesse. "It isn't getting any better. Look at what it did to the old Mary Ann up there."

"Well, the main thing is not to get lonesome," said Rob, "and to be sure there's no danger. We'll get through, some time or somewhere. Only don't get uneasy, that's all. You ought to get around to us in a couple of days after you start on the back trail. How does it look to you, Alex?"

The old hunter nodded his approval. "Yes," said he; "I think the three of us will take the Jaybird loaded light and run down to the head of the mountain without much trouble. I don't hear of anything particularly nasty down below here until you get nearly to the gorge. I think we had better hire these two breeds for a time, put them on pay from the time they start up the river with Moise and Mr. Jess. They say they would like to go with Mr. Jess for their 'bourgeois'—that's 'boss,' you know. They also say," he added, smiling, "that they would very much like to have some sugar and tea."

After a time Alex rose, beckoned to the two breeds, and they all went back up the beach to the place where Moise by this time was building his camp-fire and spreading out the cargo of the Mary Ann to dry.

The two breeds expressed wonder at the lightness of the boats which they now saw, and rapidly asked in their language how the party had managed to get so far across the mountains with such little craft. But they alternately laughed and expressed surprise when they lifted the fragments of the Mary Ann and pointed out the nature of the injury she had sustained.

"Those man'll been my cousin, too," said Moise, pointing to the new-comers. "She'll been glad to see us, both of her. Her name is Billy and Richard. Ole Richard, his Injun name was been At-tick—'The Reindeer.' Also she'll say," he added, "she'll ain't got some tea nor sugar. Allons! I think maybe we'll eat some dish of tea."

Soon they were seated on the ground, once more eating tea and bannock, piecing out their meal, which, by the way, was the third during the day, with some of the dried caribou meat which they had brought from far above.

"They'll ask me, my cousin," said Moise at last, his mouth full, "what we'll take for those busted canoe."

"What do you say, Mr. Rob?" asked Alex.

"I don't see how it's going to be worth anything to us," said Rob, "and it will take us a long time to patch her up at best. Tell them we'll give them what there is left of the Mary Ann if they'll take good care of Jess on the way around on the trail. And we'll pay them two dollars a day each besides."

When Moise had interpreted this speech, the older of the two breeds, who did not speak any English, rose and gravely shook each of the boys by the hand, then not saying anything further, he rose, took his big buffalo knife from its sheath, and proceeded to finish the distribution of the unfortunate Mary Ann, it being his plan evidently not to float her again, but to reduce her to a portable package which could be taken away in their other canoe, the dugout, on the beach below.

"Well, there goes the Mary Ann," said John, sadly. "He is evidently going to make some kindling wood for himself."

"My cousin she'll say this boat must be took up to camp, where womans can work on heem," explained Moise. "He'll say he'll patch up those boat fine, for all the ribs she'll be bent all right an' not bust, and he'll make new keel an' new side rails—oh, you wait! Maybe so nex' year you'll come here you'll see those boat Marie H'Ann just so fine like she never was."

Whatever might have been the future plans for the Mary Ann, she soon resembled nothing so little as a Peterborough canoe. The old man calmly proceeded to separate the framework at bow and stern, so that he could crush the two sides of the canoe together after removing the ribs, which also he proceeded to do, one by one. Finally he had a pile of ribs and some broken splints which he laid carefully on the beach. Then he doubled back the splintered skin of the canoe, throwing away very little indeed of the fractured woodwork. At last he grunted some rapid words to the younger man, who seemed to be his son or a member of his family.

"My cousin she'll say he can took those boat in dugout all right down the river," said Moise. "She'll said to me also we'll go on Hudson's Hope with heem." Moise pointed to Jesse. Alex nodded and explained further the plan which had roughly been sketched out before that time by Rob and himself. In a little time the younger Cree had returned and poled the big dugout around the bend up to the place where they were now in camp. With some excited talk on the part of both, they now took the wreck of the Mary Ann and carried it up the bank to await their return. In different places along the great cottonwood dugout they added such supplies as Moise thought was right. The other supplies they then cached, and put over all the robe of the big grizzly, flesh side out, and heavily salted, weighting the edges down with heavy stones.

The freeboard of the dugout was very slight when Jesse took his place, but seemed quite enough to satisfy the requirements of these voyageurs. The old man sprang into the stern of the dugout and motioned to Jesse to find a seat amidships. Meantime Moise was fixing up a towing collar, which he attached to the line. It became apparent that the plan was for him and the younger breed to double on the tracking line, the old man remaining astern to do the steering.

"That's the way we get up a river in this country," said Alex to Rob, who was watching all this with interest. "I would bet they would do twenty-five miles a day with that rig they've got there—they go almost at a trot whenever there's an open bit of beach. When there is none, they pole or paddle."

"I don't see how they do it," said Rob. "None of them have got anything on their feet but moccasins, and those men there have only pieces of moccasins at that. I should think the rocks would cut their feet in bits!"

"Well, you know, Moise and his 'cousins' are all 'same like dog,' as he would say," smiled Alex. "Your feet get used to it in time. These men have never known anything better, so they have got adjusted to the way they have to make their living. I doubt if they would wear hard-soled shoes if they had them, because they would say the soles would slip on the rocks. They're in the water about as much as they are out of it when they are tracking a boat up-stream. That's the way this country was conquered for the white men—by the paddle, pole, and tracking line."

"You forget Uncle Dick's way," chimed in John.

"How do you mean?"

"Railroads."

"Yes," said Alex, sighing, "they're coming some day, that's sure. But even the surveyors and engineers had to travel this way, and I think you will find even in the country where the wagons are it's quite a way from here to home."

"Well, here we go," said Rob, after a time. "We mustn't waste daylight, you know."

By this time Jesse was looking very serious. Naturally he relied very much upon Moise, but he disliked to leave his friends, and especially to say good-by to Alex, on whom they all seemed to depend very much.

"It's the right thing to do, Jess," said John, after a time. "So far as that is concerned, you'll have it just as safe and a good deal easier than we will, in all probability. We'll meet you in a week or so at most."

"So long, then!" said Jesse, bravely waving his hand.

"So long!" said Rob and John. They waved their caps to one another, as each boat now began its way, the Jaybird carrying three passengers, and the long dugout, under the tracking line, taking what remained of the expedition of our voyageurs, who now separated for the time to take different directions on the stream they had followed thus far.



XX

THE GORGE OF THE MOUNTAINS

For a time after the boats parted the crew of the Jaybird said very little as they pursued their way down-stream. The accident to the Mary Ann made them all thoughtful, and Rob was very careful in his position as bow paddler for the remaining boat. As the craft was pretty well loaded, Alex also was cautious. They took their time when they struck the head of any fast water, went ashore and prospected, and once in awhile lined down the boat instead of undertaking to run a fast chute. In spite of their additional caution, they ran mile after mile of the great river, until finally they felt themselves approaching the great eastern gate of the Rockies, whence there breaks out upon the lower country of the great Peace River the Unjingah, or Unjigab, as the natives formerly called it.

"Now," said Alex, at last, as he steered in along shore, "I think we'll stop and take a look around."

They had been expecting the entrance to the actual gorge of the river now for the last three or four miles, for they had passed into the wide space, six or eight hundred yards in extent, described as lying above the canyon entrance, where the river, falling through a narrow passageway in the rocks, is condensed to a quarter of its average width.

The fatigue of the steady travel of the trip now began to show its effect upon them all, and the boys were quite ready to go into camp. Rob and John undertook to prepare the supper, and soon were busy arranging a little fireplace of stone, while Alex climbed up the bank to do some prospecting farther on.

"How does it look, Alex?" inquired Rob, when he finally returned. Alex waved a hand as a sign of his ignorance. "Hills and woods," said he. "Not so much spruce, but some pine and poplars, and plenty of 'bois picard'—what you call 'devil's club' on your side of the Rockies. I didn't know it grew this far east. I don't see how Mackenzie's men got up from below with a thirty-foot birch-bark," he added, after a time. "They must have come through something on this course, because they could not have taken the water very much below here, that's sure."

"Is there any trail at all, Alex?" asked John.

"We've landed almost at the trail—just enough to call a trail for a foot man. It isn't used much to-day, that's sure. Pretty steep. Sandy farther up."

"Could we carry the boat through, do you think?" Rob looked anxiously up at the lofty bank which rose above them. Perhaps there was a little trace of stubbornness in Rob's make-up, and certainly he had no wish to abandon the project at this stage.

"We might edge her up the bank a little at a time," said Alex, "snubbing her up by the line. I suppose we could pass it from stump to stump, the same as voyageurs had to with their big birch-barks sometimes."

"We'll get her up somehow to-morrow," said Rob, "if you say it's possible."

"Then there'll be some more hills," smiled Alex; "eight or ten or twelve miles of rough country, I suppose."

"Time enough to trouble about that to-morrow, Alex. Sit down and have a cup of tea."

They still had one or two of their smoke-dried trout and a bit of the half-dried caribou which they had brought down with them. On the whole they made a very fair meal.

"Try some of my biscuits, Alex," suggested John. "I baked them in the spider—mixed the dough all by myself in the sack, the way Moise does. Aren't they fine?"

"You're quite a cook, Mr. John. But I'm sorry we're so nearly out of meat," said Alex. "You can't travel far on flour and tea."

"Won't there be any game in the river below the Rockies?" asked Rob.

"Oh yes, certainly; plenty of bear and moose, and this side of the Peace River Landing, wherever there are any prairies, plenty of grouse too; but I don't think we'll get back to the prairies—the valley is over a thousand feet deep east of the mountains."

"Alex, how many moose have you ever killed in all your life?" asked Rob, curiously.

"Three hundred and eighty-seven," answered Alex, quietly.

The boys looked at each other in astonishment. "I didn't know anybody ever killed that many moose in all the world," said John.

"Many people have killed more than I have," replied Alex. "You see, at times we have to hunt for a living, and if we don't get a moose or something of the kind we don't eat."

"And how many bear have you ever killed, Alex?"

"Twenty-odd grizzlies I have killed or helped kill," said Alex. "We rarely hunt them alone. Of black bear I don't know how many—we don't count them at all, there are so many of them in this country. But now I suppose pretty soon we will have to go over on the Hay River, or the Liard, farther north, to get good hunting. The farms are bringing in mowing-machines and threshing-machines into this country now. The game can't last forever at this rate."

"Well, I'm glad we made our trip this year," said Rob.

"We haven't made it yet!" smiled Alex. "But I think to-morrow we'll see what we can do."

They made an early start in the morning, their first task being that of trying to get the Jaybird up the steep face of the bluff which rose back of the camp, on top of which the trail, such as it was, made off through the shoulders of the mountains in a general course toward the east, the river sweeping in a wide elbow, thirty miles around, through its wild and impassable gorge, far to the south of them.

Taking a boat, even a little one, overland is no easy task, especially up so steep an ascent as this. Powerful as was the old hunter, it was hard enough to make much progress, and at times they seemed to lose as much as they gained. None the less, Alex was something of a general in work of this sort, and when they had gained an inch of progress he usually managed to hold it by means of snubbing the boat's line around the nearest stump or rock.

"That's awfully strong line, isn't it?" said Rob. "You brought that over with you—we didn't have that in our country. We use rope. I was noticing how thin the line was which those two breeds had on their dugout yesterday."

"That's the sort they use all through the trade in the North," answered Alex. "It has to be thin, or it would get too waterlogged and heavy. You'll see how long it needs to be in order that the men on shore can get it over all the rocks and stumps and still leave the steersman headway on the boat. It has been figured out as the right thing through many years, and I have seen it used without change all my life."

"Well, it hasn't broken yet," said Rob. "But I think we had better piece it out by doubling it the best we can. We don't want to break it up at this work."

Little by little, Alex lifting the main portion of the weight, and the boys shoving at the stern the best they could, they did edge the Jaybird at last clear to the top of the bank, where finally she sat on level keel on a little piece of green among the trees.

While they were resting John idly passed a little way to one side among the trees, when, much to his surprise, he almost stepped into the middle of a bunch of spruce-grouse. These foolish birds, although perhaps they had hardly seen a white man in all their lives, did no more than to fly up in the low branches of the trees. Alex called out in a low tone to John to come back. Then he fumbled in his pockets until he found a short length of copper wire, out of which he made a noose, fastening it to the end of a long stick.

"Now, Mr. John," said he, "there's lunch and supper both if you can get it. Let's see how good you are at snaring grouse."

John cautiously stepped up under the tree, expecting every minute that the birds would fly. Yet to his amazement they sat there stupidly looking down at him. Cautiously he raised the pole among the lower branches of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession—a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very fond of good things to eat.

They left the birds at the top of the bank, and, turning, brought up in a trip or so all the remainder of their scanty amount of baggage from the waterside below.

"I suppose it might be a good plan, now, to make a trip over to the east," said Alex, "and see what we can see."

They found after a long investigation that the trail, as nearly as they could trace it, soon swung away quite a distance from the course of the stream, rising steadily for three miles to a sort of high bench. It held this for several miles, finally approaching a steep slope and dropping sharply toward the level of the water, which was much lower than at the head of the canyon.

They discovered the eastern end of the portage to be close at the foot of a high and precipitous bank back of which grew scattered clumps of poplar-trees. This journey, which only Alex made throughout, took them several miles from the place where they had left the Jaybird, and they were tired enough by the time they had returned to their supplies. They made no further progress on that day. Alex told them they would find water at only one place on the portage, so they must camp here in any case for the night.



XXI

THE PORTAGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

"We might just as well do what we can toward getting across," said Alex the next day, "because now we know what there is ahead of us. I'd just as soon portage the boat a little way, at least, because it will only have to be done when Moise and the two breeds come to help us. Come ahead, then."

He swung the Jaybird up on his broad shoulders, and started off up a trail none too good at best. The boys, one on each side of the stern of the boat, helped all they could, and thus they made considerable progress, resting and carrying again and again, so that by noon the Jaybird was high and dry, and far enough indeed from the stream which had brought her on so long a journey.

In short, they kept at this work, doubling back to portage the cargo, and making a mid-way camp at the water, but always edging both their boat and their baggage farther on over the trail, until in the course of three days they actually finished the difficult portage, twelve miles in length, alone, one man and two boys! This feat would have been impossible for any man less powerful and determined than Alex, and even he admitted himself to be very weary when at length they paused not far from the scattered buildings of the old port of Hudson's Hope.

They were now on the eastern side of the Rockies, and the river which they had been following here took on yet a different character. It had dropped down rapidly in the thirty miles of the canyon, and ran in a wide flood, some hundreds of yards across, rapid and indeed violent, but still steady in current, between banks which rose sharply to a thousand feet in height on either side. It was easy to be seen why the earlier traders thought they were among mountains, even before they reached the Rockies, because from the river they really could not see out over the country at all.

At the top of the steep bank above the river they left their boat and most of their supplies, with the intention of waiting until the arrival of the rest of their party. Meantime they paid a visit to the half-abandoned trading-post. There were only two or three log houses, where small stocks of goods sometimes were kept. There really were two posts here, that of the Hudson Bay Company and of Revillon Freres, but it seemed that only the Hudson Bay post was occupied in the summer-time. Whether or not the trader in charge had any family or any associate they could not tell, but on the door of the log building they found a written notice saying that he was gone out bear hunting, and did not know when he would return.

"Well, this isn't much of a settlement, young gentlemen," said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. "But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble the Company at all."

"I always thought there was a good trail from here to St. John," said Rob. "At least, it's marked on the map."

"Not much of a trail!" said Alex. "I worked with the Mounted Police making trail from St. John as far as Half Way River. But the trail cuts across the corner there, and goes on up to Fort Grahame, on the Finlay River. The real highway here is the river yonder—it's easy water now all the way to St. John—that is, it will be if we can get a boat. I don't see any chance of one here, and can only hope that Moise and his 'cousins' can find that dugout down below here somewhere."

"If we were on the river down there, you wouldn't know there was any post here at all," said Jesse. "You can't see any buildings."

"No," said Alex; "they're too high up on this bench. You can see the buildings at St. John as you go by, because they are close to the river, and so you can at Dunvegan. I don't imagine, however, we'll want to stop anywhere except in camp this side of Peace River Landing. It'll be fine from here down."

"My!" said John, "that certainly was hard work, portaging over that twelve miles there. They ought to have horses and carts, I should say."

"Hard to use 'em in here," smiled Alex. "As it is, it's better than trying to run the canyon. No one ever did get through there, so far as ever I heard."

"Yes," said Rob, "Sir Alexander Mackenzie must have come up through the canyon, according to his story. That is, he must have followed the big bend around, although, of course, he had to take his boat out and carry it through the roughest kind of country. That was worse than our portage here, and no man can tell how they made it through, from all you can learn through his story about it. You see, they didn't know this country then, and had to learn it as they went. If they had hit that canyon a month later on their journey the men wouldn't have stood it—they'd have mutinied and killed Mackenzie, or have left him and started home."

Not caring yet to undertake their embarkment below the portage, they now strolled around here and there, intending to wait until their friends caught up with them. Off to the east they could see, from among the short, choppy hills, a country which seemed for the most part covered with continuous growth of poplars, sometimes broken with glades, or open spaces.

"I've never been west of the Half Way River," said Alex after a time, "but I know right where we are. We could almost throw our boat on the deck of the steamboat from this bank if we were as far east as St. John."

"No steamboat for ours until we get to Peace River Landing," said Rob.

"That's right," John assented. "We've come through this far, and we can finish the way we started—that is, if the other fellows catch up with us all right, and we get another boat. How long since we left them? I've sort of lost track of the time."

"Fifth day," said Rob. "It's about time they were coming."

His prediction was fulfilled that evening, when, as they were preparing the camp-fire for their supper, they heard a loud shout from the trail back of them.

"Who's that, Alex?" demanded John.

But even as he asked he had his answer. Such excited gesticulations, such cries of welcome, could come from no one but Moise.



XXII

EAST OF THE ROCKIES

The two boys ran rapidly to meet Moise, and overwhelmed him with questions asked all at once.

"How's everything?" demanded Rob, "and where's Jesse?"

"Oh, those boy, she'll been all right," said Moise. "She'll be on camp seex, h'eight mile below here, up above, maybe so. My cousins Billy and At-tick, come through with us—they'll portage half-way to-day.

"But, mes amis," broke out Moise; "there's your boat! How you'll got her through? S'pose you take wings an' fly over those rock, hein? Mon Dieu!"

"We couldn't wait any longer, Moise," said Rob, "and we thought we had better be busy than idle. It was hard work, but Alex carried her over, and we didn't have much left to pack except our rifles and ourselves."

"Then you'll not need any mans for help on the portage? All right. We'll get some boat below."

"How far is it back to your camp, Moise?" demanded John.

"Maybe five, seex mile, maybe more—I'll not keep track of heem."

"Can we go back there to-night with you? I'd like to see Jess. May we go, Alex?"

"If you like," answered the old hunter, quietly. "I'll stay here and sleep, and if you care to, you can sleep there. I don't doubt you will be glad to see your friend again, and he'll be glad to see you."

Tired as the boys had been, they were now so excited that they forgot their fatigue, and trotted along close to Moise as he now turned and struck a steady pace back on the portage trail. It was quite dark when at last they came out on a high bank above a level, at which a camp-fire was glowing. John and Rob put their hands to their mouths and gave a loud "Halloo!" They saw the smaller of the three figures at the fire jump to his feet. Then came the answering "Halloo!" of Jesse, who came scrambling up to meet them as they hurried down.

"You're safe, then," said Jesse. "Oh, but I'm glad you got here all right."

"We're glad to meet you safe and sound, too," said Rob. "Yes, we finished the trip—we even carried our boat through by ourselves, and she's there now on the bank of the stream, ready to go on down."

"That's fine," said Jess. "These two men, the cousins of Moise, have been as nice as you please. They said they could fix up the Mary Ann, and they were very glad to have her—there she is, all in a bundle. They are taking her across in sections. It was hard work getting up the river, for it was all dirty and high. But we made it—I think we worked eighteen hours a day all the way round. Moise is a hustler, all right, besides being a cook."

"So is Alex a hustler, you may depend," rejoined Rob. "We couldn't have two better men. Well, here we are, together once more, safe and sound."

"What's the programme now, Rob?" asked John.

"We're to sleep here to-night—although it doesn't seem as though we'd have very many blankets," answered Rob. "And then in the morning I suppose Moise would better go and help Alex get the boat down to the river. But where's the other dugout we were to have, Moise?"

Moise talked awhile further with the two reticent breeds.

"My cousin Billy, he'll say there's old man about five, seex mile below there, an' he'll got dugout," he said at last. "He'll say twenty dollar for dugout."

"That's cheaper than Peterboroughs," said Rob, smiling. "Anyhow, we've got to have it, because you can't buy canoes in shops here on the Peace River. You tell these two men, Moise, to go down there in the morning and have the old man, whoever he is, bring his canoe up as soon as he can to the port. We'll meet, I should say, about noon to-morrow, if all goes well. And as we're now through the worst of it and seem to have pretty fair weather yet, I shall be surprised if we don't get quite a bit farther east inside of the next twenty-four hours."

"Then hurrah for Uncle Dick!" said John. "He's somewhere down this river, and maybe it won't be so very long before we run across him."

"Hurrah! for all those boy also!" smiled Moise. "Pretty lucky, hein?"



XXIII

THE LAND OF PLENTY

Rob's plans were approved by Alex and Moise, and worked out so well that by noon of the next day the entire party had reassembled at the rendezvous. The Jaybird was the first boat to be loaded, the men getting her down the steep bank with small delay and taking a rapid run of a couple of miles or so down the river soon thereafter. After a little time they concluded to wait for the other men who had gone down the river-bank to secure the dugout of an old Indian, who, it seems, was known as Picheu, or the Lynx.

"I don't know about a dugout, Moise," said Rob. "There may be bad water below here."

"No, not very bad water," said Moise. "I'll ron heem on steamboat many tam! But those dugout she'll been good boat, too. I s'pose she'll been twenty foot long an' carry thousand pound all right."

"Well," Rob answered, "that will do us as well as a steamboat. I wonder why the old voyageurs never used the dugout instead of the birch-bark—they wouldn't have had to mend it so often, even if they couldn't carry it so easily."

"I'll tell you, fellows," said Jesse, who was rather proud of his overland trip by himself, "the fur trade isn't what it used to be. At those posts you don't see just furs and traps, and men in blanket-coats, and dog-trains. In the post here they had groceries, and axes, and calico dresses, and hats, just like they have in a country store. I peeked in through the windows."

Alex smiled at them. "You see," said he, "you've been looking at pictures which were made some time ago perhaps. Or perhaps they were made in the winter-time, and not in the summer. At this season all the fur packets have gone down the trail, and they don't need dog-trains and blanket-coats. You ought to come up here in the winter-time to get a glimpse of the old scenes. I'll admit, though, that the fur-posts aren't what they were when I was a boy. You can get anything you like now, from an umbrella to a stick of toffy."

"Where?" asked John, suddenly, amid general laughter.

"The toffy? I'm sure we'll find some at Peace River Landing, along with plows and axes and sewing-machines, and all that sort of thing!"

"But the people pay for them all with their furs?" inquired Rob.

"For the most part, yes. Always in this part of the country the people have lived well. Farther north the marten have longer fur, but not finer than you will find here, so that they bring just as good prices. This has always been a meat country—you'll remember how many buffalo and elk Mackenzie saw. Now, if the lynx and the marten should disappear, and if we had to go to farming, it still would be the 'Land of Plenty,' I'm thinking—that's what we used to call it. If we should go up to the top of these high banks and explore back south a little bit, on this side of the Smoky, you'd see some of the prettiest prairies that ever lay out of doors, all ready for the plow. I suppose my people some time will have to use the plow too."

"Yes," assented Rob, "I remember Mackenzie's story, how very beautiful he found this country soon after he started west on his trip."

"My people, the Crees, took this country from others long ago," said Alex, rather proudly. "They came up the old war-trail from Little Slave Lake to the mouth of the Smoky, where the Peace River Landing is now. They fought the Beavers and the Stoneys clear to the edges of the Rockies, where we are now. They've held the land ever since, and managed to make a living on it, with or without the white man's help. Some of us will change, but men like At-tick, the old Indian who brought Jess across the trail, and like old Picheu, below here, aren't apt to change very much."

John was once more puzzling at the map which the boys had made for themselves, following the old Mackenzie records. "I can't figure out just where Mackenzie started from on his trip, but he says it was longitude 117 deg. 35' 15", latitude 56 deg. 09'. Now, that doesn't check up with our map at all. That would make his start not very far from the fort, or what they call the Peace River Landing to-day, I should think. But he only mentions a 'small stream coming from the east,' although Moise says the Smoky is quite a river."

"Most people think Mackenzie started from Fort Chippewayan," said Alex, "but as a matter of fact, he wintered far southwest of there, on the Peace River, somewhere between three hundred and four hundred miles south and west of Fort Vermilion, as I gather from the length of time it took him to get to the edge of the Rockies, where we are now. He mentions the banks getting higher as he went south and west. When you get a couple of hundred miles north of the Landing the banks begin to get low, although at the Landing they're still almost a thousand feet high above the water-level, at least eight hundred feet, I should say."

"Well," said Rob, "we know something about this country ourselves now, and we'll make a map of it some time, perhaps—a better one than we have now."

"Yes," said Jesse, "but who can draw in that horse-trail from Hudson's Hope to the head of the steamboat transport? I'd like to see that trail!"

"I suppose we could get on the steamboat some time before long if we wanted to," said John.

"No," said Alex, "hardly again this summer, for she's made her last trip with supplies up to Fort St. John by now."

"We don't want any steamboat, nor anything else," said Rob, "except to go on down on our own hook, the way we started. Let's be as wild as we can!"

"We're apt to see more game from here down than we have any place on the trip," said Alex. "You know, I told you this was the Land of Plenty."

"Bimeby plenty bear," said Moise. "This boy Billy, he'll tol' me ol' Picheu he'll keel two bear this last week, an' he'll say plenty bear now all on river, on the willows."

"Well, at any rate," said Alex, "old Picheu himself is coming."

"How do you know?" asked Jesse.

"I hear the setting-pole."

Presently, as Alex had said, the dugout showed its nose around the bend. At-tick and Billy, Jesse's two friends, were on the tracking line, and in the stern of the dugout, doing most of the labor of getting up-stream, was an old, wrinkle-faced, gray-haired and gray-bearded man, old Picheu himself, in his time one of the most famous among the hunters of the Crees, as the boys later learned. He spoke no English, but stood like some old Japanese war-god on the bank, looking intently from one to the other as they now finished their preparations for re-embarking. He seemed glad to take the money which Rob paid him for the dugout and shook hands pleasantly all around, to show his satisfaction.

The boys saw that what Moise had said about the dugout was quite true. It was a long craft, hewed out of a single log, which looked at first crankier than it really was. It had great carrying capacity, and the boys put a good part of the load in it, which seemed only to steady it the more. It was determined that Rob and Moise should go ahead in this boat, as they previously had done in the Mary Ann, the others to follow with the Jaybird.

Soon all the camp equipment was stowed aboard, and the men stood at the edge of the water ready to start. Their old friends made no comment and expressed little concern one way or the other, but as Rob turned when he was on the point of stepping into the leading boat he saw Billy standing at the edge of the water. He spoke some brief word to Alex.

"He wants to say to Mr. Jess," interpreted Alex, "that he would like to make him a present of this pair of moccasins, if he would take them from him."

"Would I take them!" exclaimed Jesse; "I should say I would, and thank him for them very much. I'd like to give him something of mine, this handkerchief, maybe, for him to remember me by."

"He says," continued Alex, "that when you get home he wishes you would write to him in care of the priest at St. John. He says he hopes you'll have plenty of shooting down the river. He says he would like to go to the States when he gets rich. He says his people will talk about you all around the camp-fire, a great many times, telling how you crossed the mountains, where so few white men ever have been."

"I'll tell you what, boys," said Rob, "let's line up and give them all a cheer."

So the three boys stood in a row at the waterside, after they had shaken hands once more with the friends they were leaving, and gave them three cheers and a tiger, waving their hats in salutation. Even old Picheu smiled happily at this. Then the boys sprang aboard, and the boats pushed out into the current.



XXIV

THE WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY

They were passing now between very high banks, broken now and then by rock faces. The currents averaged extremely strong, and there were at times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before. The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very tractable, and made a splendid boat for this sort of travel.

"You'd think from the look of this country," said John to Alex, "that we were the first ever to cross it."

"No," said the old hunter, "I wish we were; but that is far from the truth to-day. This spring, before I started west to meet you, there were a dozen wagons passed through the Landing on one day—every one of them with a plow lashed to the wagon-box. The farmers are coming. If you should stop at Dunvegan you'd hardly know you were in Mackenzie's old country, I'm afraid. And now the buffalo and the elk are all gone, where there used to be so many. It is coming now to be the white man's country."

"You'll have to come up to Alaska, where we live, Alex," said John. "We've got plenty of wild country back inside of Alaska yet. But even there the outside hunters are killing off the bear and moose mighty fast."

"Yes," said Alex, "for sport, for their heads, and not for the meat! My people kill for meat alone, and they could live here forever and the game would still be as thick as ever it was. It's the whites who destroy the new countries."

"I'm beginning to like this country more and more," said Jesse, frankly. "Back in the mountains sometimes I was pretty badly scared, the water roared so much all the time. But here the country looks easier, and the water isn't so strong. I think we'll have the best part of our trip now."

At that instant the sound of a rifle-shot rang out from some point below them on the river. The dugout had just swung out of sight around the bend. "That's Rob's rifle!" exclaimed John.

"Very likely," said Alex. "Bear, I suppose."

The crew of the Jaybird bent to their paddles and presently passed in turn about the sharp bend and came up alongside the dugout, which lay along shore in some slack water. Rob was looking a trifle shamefaced.

"Did you miss him?" asked John, excitedly.

"Well," said Rob, "I suppose you'd call it a miss—he was running up the bank there about half a mile away. You can see him going yet, for that matter."

Sure enough, they could, the animal by this time seeming not larger than a dog as it scrambled up among the bushes on the top of the steep precipice which lined the bank of the river.

"He must have been feeding somewhere below," said Rob, "and I suppose heard us talking. He ran up that bank pretty fast. I didn't know it was so hard to shoot from a moving boat. Anyhow, I didn't get him."

"He'll was too far off," said Moise. "But those boy she'll shoot right on his foot all the time. I think she'll hit him there."

"Never mind, Mr. Rob," said Alex. "We've got plenty of river below us, and we're sure to see more bear. This river is one of the best countries for black bear there is this side of the Hay or the Liard."

Both boats proceeded at a leisurely pace for the remainder of this stage, no one being anxious to complete the journey to the Peace River Landing any earlier than was necessary, for the journey down the river was of itself interesting and pleasant. All the landscape continued green, although it was late in the summer. The water, however, was now less brilliant and clear than it had been in the mountains, and had taken on a brownish stain.

They encamped that night at a little beach which came down to the river and offered an ideal place for their bivouac. Tall pines stood all about, and there was little undergrowth to harbor mosquitoes, although by this time, indeed, that pest of the Northland was pretty much gone. The feeling of depression they sometimes had known in the big mountains had now left the minds of our young travelers, and they were disposed, since they found themselves well within reach of their goal, to take their time and enjoy themselves.

"Moise, tell us another story," demanded Jesse, after they had finished their evening meal.

"What kind of story you'll want?" inquired Moise.

"I think we'd rather have something about your own country, about animals, the same as you told us back in the mountains, perhaps."

"Well," said Moise, "I'll told you the story of how the ermine he'll got the end of his tail black."



XXV

HOW THE ERMINE GOT HIS TAIL BLACK

"Long tam 'go," said Moise, "before my onkle he'll been born, all peoples lived in the woods, and there was no Companee here for trade. In those day there was no tobacco an' no rifle—those was long tam 'go—I don' know how long.

"In those tam all the people he'll talk with Wiesacajac, an' Wiesacajac he'll be friendly all tam with these peoples. All the animal that'll live in the wood he'll do all right, too. Only one animal he was bad animal, and those was what you call wissel (weasel). This wissel is what you call ermine some tam. He'll be mighty smart animal. In summer-tam, when grass an' rock is brown, he'll go aroun' brown, sam as the rock an' the leaf. In summer-tam the wissel he'll caught the hare an' the partridge, an' he'll live pretty good, heem.