Emerson Hough

“ The boys waved their hats to one another as Jesse approached, smiling and panting.
“I saw it all,” said Jesse, “right in the field-glasses, close up. That’s fine, isn’t it?”
Rob and John both began to talk at once, while Uncle Dick stood smilingly looking down at the dead goat.
“I could have killed two or three big ones,” said John. “What heads they had, too!”
“What could we have done with them?” asked his uncle. “No, you did quite right in killing this yearling—it’s all we want. And I think Rob had the hardest task of any of us; it’s easier to shoot a goat with a rifle than with a camera.” ”

“ Uncle Dick smiled. “We’re at the summit now, you might say,” said he. “I knew you couldn’t tell when we got there.”
“This isn’t like the Peace River Pass at all,” said Rob; “it doesn’t look like a pass at all, but more like a flat prairie country.”
“Precisely—they call that the Dominion Prairie over yonder. But a mountain pass is rarely what it is supposed to be. Take the Tennessee Pass, for instance, down in Colorado; you’ll see a wide meadow with a dull creek running through it, something like this. The deep gorges and cañons are lower down in the mountains, not on top of them. ”

“ Jesse put his rifle to the ground and stood trembling all over. “Well, Uncle Dick,” said he, “I don’t know whether or not the bear was scared, but I know I am right now.”
“It’s just as well to be honest,” said his uncle, putting a hand kindly on his shoulder. “Any man has a right to be anxious in as close a corner as this.”
They heard the loud hallo of John now, a little way above them; and presently Leo came slipping down toward them, smiling broadly.
“Kill ’um two bear!” said he. “Plenty good hunt, eh?” He looked at the little heap of empty shells lying so close to the dead bear. ”

“ After a while, with considerable trouble and a little study, Rob turned to Uncle Dick. “How’s that for the cinch, sir?” he asked.
Uncle Dick tried to run his finger under the lash-hook and nodded approvingly.
“Didn’t it hurt him awfully?” asked Jesse. “He groaned as though it did.”
“Don’t believe all the groans of a pack-horse in camp,” said Uncle Dick. “Try the girth a half-mile out on trail. But now hurry up with the next ones. That’s right, John, you’re throwing the cross loop all right. That’s right—just remember to fix the hitch so it draws every way—and don’t forget to pull it tight.” ”

“ It’s time you’re learning about that diamond hitch.”
“All right,” said Rob, “we’ll take half the horses, and you and Moise take the other half. Mollycoddles are no good on the trail.”
“They’re no good anywhere. And the way to learn to do a thing is to do it. Rob, take the off side of the first horse, and let John see if he can remember how to throw the hitch on the near side.”
“I’ll tell you what you are, Uncle Dick,” said John, leaving the fire with a piece of bannock still in his hand.
“Well, what then?” smiled Uncle Dick.
“You’re not an engineer—you’re a contractor! That’s what you are.” ”

“ John and Jesse were tired by the end of their second day of this hard travel; and even Rob, muddy to his knees from wading bogs, was glad when at last their leader halted.
“It’s all right, boys,” said Uncle Dick. “I don’t want to drive you too hard, but I know perfectly well that every day counts with us now. We’ve got bad country on ahead as well as bad country behind us, and we must make it through before the spring floods are on. I suppose you’ve noticed that all the creeks are worse late in the afternoon? ”

“ He pointed out to them the most dangerous part of the Death Rapids, where the strong current, running down in a long V, ended at the foot of the rapids in a deep, back-curving roller or “cellar-door” wave, sure to swamp any boat or to sweep over any raft.
“S’pose raft go through there, round bend,” said Leo, “it must go down there in that big wave. Then her nose go under wave, and raft she sink, and all mans come off in the water. No can swim. No can hang on raft. Many men drowned there. ”

“ V HIGHER THAN THE ROCKIES “
How far to-day, sir?” asked Rob of the leader of their party, when, having left their camp on the bank of the McLeod at the spot known as the Leavings, they had headed straight west toward the steep divide which rose before them.
“That all depends on luck,” said Uncle Dick. “We’ve got to climb that divide and get down off the top of it. By noon we’ll be higher than the Rocky Mountains!”
“That isn’t possible, of course.”
“I didn’t say higher than the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ In fact, I shouldn’t wonder if he got broke here and walked back up to O’Brien’s and took his boat there up the Columbia. They always get back home some way, the beggars, and I’ll warrant you that when we all go to the Tête Jaune Cache by rail, a couple of years from now, we’ll see Leo and George waiting for us at the train as happy as larks!”
“I wonder if my pony’ll be there too?” said John.
“He will, unless something very unusual should happen to him. You’ll find the word of an Indian good; and, although Leo does not talk much, I would depend on him absolutely in any promise that he made. ”

“ It’s always best for two men to go up together on a grizzly, no matter how good a hunter either may be. It isn’t often that you get as good a chance as Rob had on his bear. You leave that to Leo and me. And, Leo, mind now, give your boy the first shot at the bear if it’s a possible thing to do it. I’ll do the same way with Jesse.”
They began now their steady climb under cover, sometimes in the edge of the forest, and sometimes on the face of the slide itself. ”

“ That good-natured man grinned and showed his white teeth. “Sometam she’ll ron pretty fast, this river on Columbia valley?” said he.
“Well, at any rate, we turn in our horses with Leo here at the Cache and get them the next time we come through—next year or some other year, perhaps. A horse takes his chance of getting a permanent residence in this part of the world. But our train has come through in fine shape—not a sore back in the lot. That speaks well for your care in packing, young men, and for Moise’s skill in making saddles.” ”

“ XXIV THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT Our party of adventurers were now in one of the wildest and most remote regions to be found in all the northern mountains, and one perhaps as little known as any to the average wilderness goer—the head of the Big Bend of the Columbia River; that wild gorge, bent in a half circle, two hundred miles in extent, which separates the Selkirks from the Rockies. There are few spots on this continent farther from settlements of civilized human beings.
To the left, up the great river, lay a series of mighty rapids, impossible of ascent by any boat. ”

“ Uncle Dick thought that it would be best to cross the horses at once, as any mountain stream is lower in the early part of the day than it is in mid-afternoon, when the daily flood of melting snow is at its height.
The boys had often heard of this way of getting a pack-train across a river too deep to ford, and now they were to see it in actual practice. The Indian, wading out, showed that there was a shallow hard bar extending some distance out and offering good footing. He pushed the boat out some distance from shore and sat there, holding it with an oar thrust into the sand. ”

“ That’s no sort of place to hunt.”
“No, not for anything unless it was a porcupine,” said Uncle Dick. “We may have to come to that. But even with a little grub we can last for a hundred miles or so, can’t we? Can’t we make forty or fifty miles a day, Leo?”
Leo laughed and shook his head. “Some day not make more than ten or twelve mile,” said he.
“Well, I know that there’s a good deal of slack water for quite a way below here. At least, I have heard that that is the case. So for a time, if we don’t meet bad head-winds, we can put a good deal of this country back of us.” ”

“ Uncle Dick went on, “there never has been an original passage of the Rocky Mountains made by a white man, from the time of Lewis and Clark and Mackenzie up to the modern engineers, which was not conducted, in reality, by some native who pointed out the way.
“Now here we are, with Leo and George. I trust them perfectly. Leo’s map, there on the sand at the Boat Encampment, showed me that he was perfectly accurate, and that he knew the places of all the streams and rapids. So I feel no fear about our getting down the Big Bend from here with him as our guide. ”

“ Yonder, south of us, is Mount Geikie, between us and the Athabasca. Over west is Mount Fitzwilliam, and across the lake from him is Yellowhead Mountain; that’s the one the early traders through here used to call Mount Bingley. And on every side of us there is all kinds of country where, so far as any one knows, no white man’s foot has ever trod. Northwest of the pass and north of here we don’t pretend to map the country, and not one mountain in ten has got its name yet. ”

“ You don’t have to saddle up a boat every morning and hustle around to keep from getting tramped on.”
“Ah, but there’s nothing like the mountains, fellows,” said Rob; “and a pack-train will take us right into the middle of them.”
“Well, the nights are so short away up here north in Canada and Alaska that a fellow has to go to bed in the daylight and get up in the dark. If you don’t watch out you’ll get fooled out of your night’s sleep.”
“You will if you don’t watch Uncle Dick,” said Rob, smiling. ”

“ Perhaps no going is worse than side-hill country covered with bent alders, and sometimes the boys almost lost their patience. They could not stoop down under the alders, and could hardly crawl over or through them.
“This is the worst ever, Uncle Dick,” complained Jesse. “What makes them grow this way?”
“It’s the snow,” replied his uncle. “All this country has a very heavy snowfall in the winter. It packs down these bushes and slides down over them until it combs them all downhill. Then when the snow melts or slides off the ends of the bushes begin to grow up again toward the light and the sun. ”

“ That’s why we fastened the last end of the hitch with a loop easy to pull out.
“A good pack-master,” said Uncle Dick, “is worth as much as a colonel in an army. He never has sore-backed horses, because he makes up his packs well and keeps them tight. A shifting, wabbling pack is bad for the horse. Why, you can pack almost anything on a horse—they even took pianos on slings between four pack-horses in some of the mountain mining-camps in Montana. And what do you suppose was the hardest thing the old pack-train men had to carry in those days?” ”

“ The second grizzly, lower down on the slide, went earnestly to work, and apparently was interested in something which he thought was underneath a certain large rock. They later found that this rock must have weighed three or four hundred pounds at least, although they saw where the bear, putting his mighty forearm under it, had rolled it out of its bed as easily as though it had been a pebble. There is no animal in the world more powerful for its size than the mountain grizzly. ”

“ THE BIG BEND OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER
“It’s just around the corner of the Big Bend here,” rejoined their leader. “Over yonder a few hundred yards away is the mouth of the Wood River, and the Encampment lies beyond that. That’s the end of the water trail of the Columbia going east, and the end of the land trail for those crossing the Athabasca Pass and going west. Many a [Pg 249] bold man in the past has gone by this very spot where we now stand. There isn’t much left to mark their passing, even at the old Boat Encampment, but, if you like, we’ll go up there and have a look at the old place.” ”

“ Besides, it’s such a glorious morning, and this country is so beautiful, that for one I don’t much care whether or not we shoot anything for a day or two.”
“Well, I like a free country,” said John, loudly.
“So do I, but you can say one thing; when a railroad comes into a country and it begins to settle up, you can’t have free hunting forever.”
“We can have good fishing before long, [Pg 79] young gentlemen,” said Uncle Dick. “In fact, I’ll show you a lake or two up above here where you shall have all the fun you want. This used to be a great fur country. ”

“ That will open up all this country from the points along the Canadian Pacific. Then all these names—the Thompson, the Fraser, and the Canoe—will be as familiar to the traveling public as the Missouri and the Mississippi. Yet as we stand here and look at that country it is a country as yet unknown and unnamed! I couldn’t map it, John, myself, for, although that country south of us is one of the most interesting of the continent, it is one of the least known. In short, that’s the game country we’ve been heading for, and I’ll promise you a grizzly when we get south of that flat divide. ”

“ But good hunters in the high country always take care not to pitch their camp where a slide can possibly come down on them. We wouldn’t have been more than so many straws under that mass of snow and rocks.”
They sat for some time in the bright morning sun, their wet clothing gradually becoming dryer upon them as they moved about a little now and then, or resumed their wait with Leo on the log. The young Indian sat motionless, apparently indifferent to all discomforts, and with no interest in anything except the controlling impulse of the hunt. ”

“ We’ll just leave the raft business and try for some trout down here in the creek.”
“There’ll ain’t no trout on those creek,” objected Moise. “I’ll try him myself, and not get no bite. Besides, M’sieu Deek, feesh is all right for woman and dog, but meat she is more better for strong man.”
“That’s the way I feel about it,” said John, his mouth half full of bacon. “I wouldn’t mind a little fresh meat once in a while. But where are we going to get it?”
“No moose up in here,” volunteered Jesse, “and I don’t suppose any caribou either. ”

“ Uncle Dick rode his saddle-pony out a little way, and led the white bell-mare, old Betsy, along behind him, passing Betsy’s rope to the Indian as he sat in the boat. Betsy, as may be supposed, was a sensible and courageous horse, well used to all the hardships of mountain work.
It is the way of all pack-horses to be given [Pg 72] to sudden frights, but, still, if they see that another horse has gone ahead they nearly always will try to follow. All the other horses now stood looking out at Betsy. ”

“ But, still, men have come up here one way or another. On the other side, there used to be a sort of pack-horse trail from Revelstoke up to the Selkirk gold-mines. There are two or three creeks which are still worked along the Big Bend of the Columbia. When we engineers have all done our work it will be easier to get in here than it is to-day.”
“Well, I’m going to be an engineer some day,” said Rob, firmly, once more. “I like this work.”
“Well, you’re all going to bed now at once,” said Uncle Dick. ”

“ Where the stream swept in close to the mountain range they could see dense, heavy forest, presenting an unbroken cover almost to the tops of the peaks themselves. At times when obliged to leave the bed of the stream for a little while, when the men lined down the boat on a bad passage, the boys would find themselves confronted, even when going a hundred yards or so, with a forest growth whose like they had never seen. ”

“ Over yonder is the Albreda Pass, by which you reach the Thompson—glaciers enough there to suit any one. And over in that way, too, rises the Canoe River, which [Pg 187] runs conveniently right toward us here, within a mile of our lake, inviting us to take its pathway to the Columbia.
“Over that way on the left, as you know, lie the Rockies, and outside of two or three passes between the Kicking Horse Pass and the Yellowhead Pass no one really knows much about them. You see, we’ve quite a little world of our own in here. The white men are just beginning to come into this valley.” ”

“ I only hope the rain will be done by that time, so that the sun will shine and give us a fair view. It’s very rarely that one ever sees Mount Robson clear to the top. But sufficient for to-day are the evils, I presume. Let’s see if we can make ourselves comfortable in camp to-night.”
“One thing,” said John, that night, “this horse business isn’t going to last forever. I hope the Canoe River isn’t as bad as the Fraser, for I’m getting ready to get into a boat once more. I’ve changed my mind a little.”
“I wonder where the Canoe River got its name, Uncle Dick?” queried Rob. ”

“ Their camp was rather a bivouac than a regular encampment, but they now scorned any discomfort, and, indeed, exulted in their primitive condition.
“Now, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “what do you think about these boys as hunters?”
“One boy heap shoot,” grunted Leo. “Kill ’um one bear when mans along. Don’t know about other boys.”
“But let me tell you they have killed bear before now, and big ones, too. Why, two years ago, up in Alaska, all by themselves, they killed a Kadiak bear a good deal bigger than this one whose hide we have here for our mattress to-night.” ”

“ Now you boys go over there where you hear the gray mare’s bell and see if you can round up all the pack-train. You’ll learn before long that half the campaign of a pack-train trip is hunting horses in the morning. ”

“ But tell me, why do ye come down to this country from so good a place as Alaska?”
“Well, we were just traveling about, you know,” said Rob, “and we wanted to see some of this country along the Rockies before it got too common and settled up. You see, this isn’t our first trip across the Rockies; we ran the Peace River from the summit down last summer, and had a bully time. The fact is, every trip we take seems to us better than any of the others. You must come up some time and see us in Alaska.”
“It’s that same I’ll be doin’, ye may depend,” said O’Brien, “the first chance I get. ”