Emerson Hough

“ 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.” ”

“ At about the same time, one of the deck-hands at the bow deck below picked up a piece of plank and began to beat loudly with it upon the side structure of the boat.
“What’s the matter?” asked Rob. “Has everybody gone crazy, Alex?”
“No; they’re just trying to beat up the game,” said Alex, smiling. “You see that island below? It nearly always has bears feeding on it, where the berries are thick. When the boat comes down above them the men try to scare the bears out into the river. Just wait a minute, and perhaps you’ll see some of the strangest bear hunting you ever heard of in your life.” ”

“ ON THE TRAIL I TAKING THE TRAIL It was a wild and beautiful scene which lay about the little camp in the far-off mountains of the Northwest. The sun had sunk beyond the loftier ridges, although even now in the valley there remained considerable light. One could have seen many miles over the surrounding country had not, close at hand, where the little white tent stood, the forest of spruce been very dense and green. At no great distance beyond its edge was rough and broken country. ”

“ XXVII THE END OF THE OLD WAR-TRAIL It is possible to make twenty-five miles a day with pole and tracking-line against a current even so strong as that of the Peace River. Twice or thrice that distance down-stream is much easier, so that no greatly difficult journey remained ahead of our travelers between their last camp and the old Hudson Bay post known as Peace River Landing, which perhaps Moise would have called the end of the old war-trail from Little Slave Lake—the point near the junction of the Peace and Smoky rivers which has in it so much strategic value, whether in war or in peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After a time, without saying anything, Moise got up, tightened his belt, filled his pipe once more, and departed into the bush.
“Are you sure he’ll find that meat?” demanded John, “and bring down that bighorn head?”
“He certainly will,” said Alex; “he’ll run that trail like a dog, and just about as fast. Moise used to be a good man, though he says now he can’t carry over two hundred pounds without getting tired.”
“Well, listen at that!” said Jesse. “Two hundred pounds! I shouldn’t think anybody could carry that.”
“Men have carried as much as six hundred pounds for a little way,” said Alex. ”

“ An Injun has to make his living with his rifle. Chopping with an ax is a sound that frightens game more than any other. The bear and deer will just get up and leave when they hear you chopping. So when we come into camp [Pg 19] we build our fire as small as possible, and without cutting any more wood than we are obliged to. You see, we’ll be gone the next morning, perhaps, so we slip through as light as possible. A white man leaves a trail like a wagon-road, but you’d hardly know an Injun had been there. You soon get the habit when you have to live that way. ”

“ We’ll take it under advisement.”
“What I believe I like best about this country,” said Rob, soberly, “is the kindness of the people in it. Everywhere we have been they’ve been as hospitable as they could be. We don’t dare admire anything, because they’ll give it to us. It seems to me everybody gets along pleasantly with everybody else up here; and I like that, you know.”
“It’s a man’s country,” said Uncle Dick, “that’s true, and I don’t know that you’ll be the worse for a little trip into it, although you come from a man’s country back there in Alaska yourselves, for the matter of that. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moise and Rob, of course, retained their position in the lead boat, the Mary Ann.
“I believe I’ll get the hang of it after a while,” said Rob, as they paused at the head of a rapid lying ahead of the two canoes. “The main thing is to map out your course before you go through, and then hang to it. You can’t take any too sudden turns, and you have to be careful not to strike on a rock—that’s the most dangerous thing, after all, except the big swells at the foot of a fast drop.” ”

“ They were trembling now, although they did not know it, and jabbered excitedly as they started on down the slope to their game. Alex followed slowly, calmly filling his pipe and smiling his approval.
“That’s good work for young hunters,” said he. “I couldn’t have done better. Mr. John, you missed your first shot. Do you know why?”
“I know,” said Rob. “He didn’t allow for shooting downhill. A fellow nearly always shoots too high when he shoots at anything away down below him.”
“Quite right,” nodded Alex, “and a very common fault in mountain hunting.” ”

“ I know this river must run north between those two ranges of mountains, and it must turn to the east somewhere [Pg 73] north of here. But I’ve never been west of Fort St. John.”
“I don’t like the look of this river down there,” said Jesse, stepping to the point of the bar, and gazing down the stream up which came the sullen roar of heavy rapids.
“Those rapeed, she’ll been all right,” said Moise. “Never fear, we go through heem all right. To-morrow, two, three, day we’ll go through those rapeed like the bird!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ But either a moose or a caribou has very keen scent, and if you follow straight on after them, and don’t circle once in a while and pick up the trail again, you’re not apt to come up with either one or the other. A caribou, however, is a strange animal—it isn’t nearly as wild as a moose or a bighorn. A grizzly bear has very keen scent but very bad eyes, and I don’t suppose a grizzly can see you half a mile at best. Now, a caribou has good eyes, ears, and nose, but he hasn’t got any head. Sometimes he is very shy, and sometimes he’ll stand and look at you, and let you keep on shooting. ”

“ Wilcox.
“When did I ever fail to keep one?” demanded Uncle Dick of her. “And where can you find three sounder lads in Valdez than these we’re talking about now?”
“But it’s so far, Richard—you’re talking now about the Peace River and the Athabasca River and the Arctic Ocean—why, it seems as though the boys were going clear off the earth, and we certainly would never see them again.”
“Nonsense!” replied Uncle Dick. “The earth isn’t so big as it used to be in Sir Alexander’s time. Let them alone and they’ll come through, and be all the more men for it. There’s no particular hardship about it. ”

“ An Injun never wants to do work that he doesn’t have to do. So, you’ll pretty much always see that the Injun ways of keeping camp aren’t bad to follow as an example, after all.
“But now,” said he at length, after they had finished cleaning and washing off their trout, “we’ll have to get on across to the other lake.”
As before, Moise now took the heavier pack on his own broad shoulders, and Alex once more picked up the canoe.
“She’s a little lighter than the other boat, I believe,” said he, “but they’re both good boats, as sure’s you’re born—you can’t beat a Peterborough model in the woods!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It isn’t any trouble if you once get the meat all scraped off. That seems to be what spoils a hide.”
“In keeping all our valuable furs,” said Alex, “we never touch them with salt or alum. We just stretch them flesh side out, and let them dry in the shade, not close to a fire. This keeps the life all in the fur. Alum makes the hair brittle and takes away the luster. For a big bear hide, if I were far back in the mountains, I would put lots of salt on it and fold it up, and let it stay away for a day. ”

“ Jesse remained silent for a time. “Do you know what I am thinking about now? It’s about our ‘lob-stick’ tree that our men [Pg 322] trimmed up for us. We’ll put one on every river we ever run. What do you say to that?”
“No,” replied Rob, “we can’t do that for ourselves—that has to be voted to us by others, and only if we deserve it. ”

“ But we’ll be hunters for this time, sure, with meat in camp and two fine heads as well. I wish we could eat some to-night.”
“Why, why can’t we?” demanded John, who looked as though he could eat a good-sized piece quite raw.
[Pg 103]
“We could if we had to,” said Alex, “but the meat will be better if we let it hang over night. If we ate too much of the very fresh meat it might make us sick.”
“Men eat bear liver the day it is killed.”
“Yes, white men do, but not many Indians will eat bear liver at all. We can try some of the sheep liver, if you like, for I’ve brought it down in the packs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This great abundance of sunlight is the reason, also, that we raise such excellent vegetables—as I’m sure you will have reason to understand, for here we always lay in a supply for our return voyage. I am thinking, however,” added the captain, presently, as the boat, screaming with her whistle, swung alongside of her landing-place, “that you’ll see some one in this crowd here that you ought to know.”
All along the rim of the bank there was rather a gaily-clad line of Indians and half-breeds, men and women, many of whom were waving salutations to members of the boat’s crew. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it isn’t too far, she’ll take her pack-strap then and start out to bring in some of the meat. Every people, you see, will have different ways.”
“But the man who doesn’t kill something goes hungry, and his family, too?”
“Not in the least!” rejoined Alex, with some spirit. “There, too, the ‘First People’ are kinder than the whites who govern them now. Suppose in my village there are twenty lodges. Out of the twenty there will be maybe four or five good hunters, men who can go out and kill moose or bear. ”

“ Certainly they started with their Uncle when he left Valdez by steamer for Vancouver. And, finishing that part of their journey which was to be made by rail, wagon, and boat, here they were, in the twilight of a remote valley at the crest of the great Rocky Mountains; near that point, indeed, properly to be called the height of land between the Arctic and the Pacific waters. Moreover, they were for the time quite alone in camp.
“Well, fellows,” said Rob at last, “I suppose we’d better get some more wood together. The men’ll be back before long, and we’ll have to get something to eat.” ”