Takeoff

“ A barbed wire, behind it a deep, wide ditch, beyond that a plowed field, were in front of us.
The human mind is a queer contrivance. We had just negotiated some rather ugly ground. We had not bothered about, hardly become aware of, the risks we had taken. Now we were hesitating for a few moments in front of a ditch with firm sides which, at the worst, we could [Pg 345] easily have waded. At last we jumped, landing in the water half-way up to our knees. I lost my precious aluminium water-bottle there. Then across the field, across another ditch, and so four times. ”

“ I started up in the greatest haste imaginable; and, in a trice, clapped my ladder to the middle place of the rock, and pulled it after me; and mounting it the second time, got to the top of the hill the very moment that a flash of fire bid me listen for a second gun, which, accordingly, in about half a minute I heard; and by the sound, knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was driven down the current in my boat. ”

“ In the few precious minutes when the ship stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your house, that is to say, your state room, as much in order as if you were going to be hanged; place every thing in the most convenient position to be seized without trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half an hour after sailing an infinite desperation will seize you, in which the grasshopper will be a burden. If any thing is in your trunk, it might almost as well be in the sea, for any practical probability of your getting to it. ”

“ If we did, we should have a good start; and pulling fast, as we could do, we might escape, should they not continue firing at us; but how could we expect them to be so lenient? On they came; narrow, indeed, grew the space between them. We dashed on. With a cry of dismay, we saw that our efforts were of no avail! With such force did they come on, that they literally almost cut our boat in two; and as she sunk between them, we had to jump out—some into one boat, some into the other—to save ourselves from drowning, and to find ourselves prisoners. ”

“ The trunk which furnished me with provisions and a resting-place above the water, I have every reason to think, was necessary to save my life; without it I must have passed the whole time in the water, and been exhausted with cold and hunger. When the people on shore saw our boat take the wrong channel, they predicted our destruction: the floating luggage, by supporting us for a time, enabled them to make an exertion to save us; but as it was not supposed possible to survive the passage of the Cascades, no further exertions were thought of, nor indeed could they well have been made. ”

“ I sprang upon the poop, and saw ahead, two tottering masts sink like phantoms under our lee bow, and in another instant, the wreck of a brig we had cleft in two, was swept past me, and sank astern. I saw a few miserable men, half naked, or just as they had sprung from bed, clinging to the tophamper, while the crushed and shattered hull went down into the trough of the midnight sea, and from its dark and horrid valley, their cries of death and despair rose mournfully to the lofty poop, from whence I surveyed them. ”

“ The passage of the Split Rock Rapids seems dangerous, as indeed it would be were the pilot to forget for a moment the grave responsibility of his trust, and fail to swerve the boat at just the right moment to avoid some rock or ledge that threatens destruction to the craft. ”

“ Then its self-approval became too much for it; it burst into a bright red smile in the centre. It was exactly like the opening of a mouth. It laughed with a gust of flames. They were reflected redly in the observant goggles of the gentleman who owned the tarpaulin. Everybody recoiled.
“Save the trailer!” cried some one, and that was the last round in the battle. But the trailer could not be detached; its wicker-work had caught, and it was the last thing to burn. A sort of hush fell upon the gathering. The petrol burnt low, the wicker-work trailer banged and crackled. ”

“ Oh, if the recollection of it be so appalling, what must have been the reality?
Some of the men were actively employed in endeavouring to clear away the wreck of the mizzenmast; others cutting adrift the small booms and spars, and all such light articles as might be instrumental in bearing them to the shore; and the passengers, and those who were unemployed, were gazing, in the gloomy silence of despair, upon their approaching destruction. ”

“ And even when you are just putting one foot in front of another, moving so slowly that it maddens you, there are halts and hitches every few yards: a man misses his footing and slides down into a crater with his awful load; the hole is full of foul green water, and he must be hauled out quickly lest he drown. Half-way down the line a man halts to ease his load, or shift his rifle, or scratch his nose; when he goes on he can see no one ahead of him, and the cry 'Not in touch' comes sullenly up to the front. Or you cross the path of another party, burdened as yours. ”

“ At the same instant every boat imitated our execrable example; and wishing to shun the approach of the shallop, which sought for assistance, stood off from the raft, abandoning, in the midst of the ocean, and to the fury of the waves, the miserable mortals whom they had sworn to land on the shores of the Desert.
Scarcely had these cowards broken their oath, when we saw the French flag flying upon the raft. The confidence of those unfortunate persons was so great, that when they saw the first boat which had the tow removing from them, they all cried out the rope is broken! the rope is broken! ”

“ At these words he ordered the sails to be lowered, but all the ropes broke, and the current carried the ship to the foot of a mountain, where she struck and went to [pg 397] pieces, but in such a way that we saved our lives, our provisions, and the best of our goods.
The foot of the mountain was covered with wrecks, with a vast number of human bones, and goods and riches of all kinds beyond belief. In all other places it is usual for rivers to run into the sea; but here a river of fresh water runs from the sea into a dark cavern, with a very high and spacious entrance. ”

“ Still they are near enough to enable us to hear, above the fighting winds, the shrill cries of the men to 'Let draw,' or 'Hold on, Pat,' the rattling of blocks, the vicious flap of the canvas and shock of the heavy boom as each vessel goes about, and soon the rattling of cables as anchors are dropped, followed by such silence as the gale permits, while the men seek some rest after a heavy battle with nature. ”

“ The trap, being fastened to the pole, resists all his efforts to drag it to the shore; the chain by which it is fastened defies his teeth; he struggles for a time, and at length sinks to the bottom and is drowned. ”

“ We should have sacrificed half our cargo rather than be taken as long as there appeared any probability of the man-of-war heaving-to to pick up the unfortunate wretches, but the breeze falling light, we had an advantage over the heavier vessel, and darkness coming on, we at length lost sight of her. ”

“ Arriving as near our destination as the vessel can take us, we disembark, landing on a strong platform built far out from the shore. For a half hour we are busy getting our traps from the bait—guns, dogs, ammunition, boxes, bags, bales, bundles, baskets and barrels. We had left nothing unpurchased which could contribute to the comfort of the inner or outer man—especially the former. ”

“ Some leaped into the sea, anticipating that death which was about to reach them; others, more successful, swam to fragments of the wreck; while the shrouds, yards and ropes, along the side of the vessel, were covered with the crew crowding upon them, and hanging there, as if hesitating which alternative of destruction to choose, equally imminent and equally terrible. ”

“ The bad hold which one man had of the trunk, to which we were adhering, subjected him to constant immersion; and, in order to escape his seizing hold of me, I let go the trunk, and, in conjunction with another man, got hold of the boom, (which, with the gaff, sails, &c., had been detached from the mast, to make room for the cargo,) and floated off. I had just time to grasp this boom, when we were hurried into the Cascades ”

“ Now, too, many of those who attain advanced years are battered, water-logged, leaky derelicts without cargo or crew, chart, rudder, sail, or engine, remaining afloat only because they have struck no fatal rocks or because the storms have not quite yet swamped them ”

“ In the van of every battle is a train of fugitives. We had at the time 32,000 men, of which, say five or six thousand were at the steamboat landing, but what of the others? A braver, finer set of men never existed on earth. The reporters dwelt on the fugitives, because they were of them, but who is to stand up for the brave men at the front? ”

“ I like to rear great air-castles; by the time they tumble down, as tumble down they always do, I am prepared for it, and have removed my valuables to a place of safety, so the wreck is nothing but moonshine after all; and, as the materials are always at hand, costing nothing, I can build another, in a brief space of time, grander than the first. ”

“ They may hide the cargo they leave ashore, and if we don’t capture it, so much the worse, but our work is to crush up the gang more than to capture a few barrels and bales. We’ll look out to-night, and, as soon as it is daylight, you shall make sure of the bearings of your prison, then we’ll land a strong boat’s crew, and go along the top of the cliff to the place, and put an end to that game. ”

“ A shadow is above the ice, a wraith of destruction—the figure of a man standing at the dam with his axe and club—waiting.
Where to go now? They can't find their bank shelters, for the man has staked them up. The little fellows lose their presence of mind and their heads and their courage, and with a blind scramble dash up the remaining open runway. ”

“ I have known a man killed just falling a few feet, and others, like those we have been speaking about, falling from aloft, and yet not the worse for it. I remember once going round the Horn when a man fell from the fore-topsail-yard. The ship was running eight knots or so before a strong breeze, over a long, heavy swell, though the sea was not breaking. ”

“ Crash—“There, my lads, down goes his main-topmast—pepper him well, while they are blinded and confused among the wreck. Fire away—there goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the throat. Don’t cease firing, although his flag be down—it was none of his doing. There, my lads, there he has it again; you have shot away the weather fore topsail sheet, and he cannot get from under you.” ”

“ The other great danger was just a plain crush, getting nipped between two icepans rearing and plunging like fighting stallions, with the ice blocks going off like pistol shots or smashed glass. No child’s play is such navigating either for the old sailing vessels of the fur traders or the modern ice-breakers propelled by steam! Yet, the old sailing vessels and the whaling fleets have navigated these straits for two hundred years. ”

“ Wearied with incessant exertions at the pumps, many gave out and retired to the cabins, seeming to prefer rest to escape from the watery grave into which they were fast sinking. Some were even forced into the hold, to fill barrels and pails, and new efforts were put forth to induce the suffering crew and passengers to hold out an hour longer, with the assurance that we could reach land in that time. ”

“ The bow of the vessel stuck fast in the sand, her stern swung around, and she lay with her broadside exposed to the breakers, which swept over her with each returning rise,–a wreck to be saved by no human power. ”

“ The weather continued calm, and they came on apace towards us, so I gave orders to come to an anchor, and furl all our sails; as for the savages, I told them they had nothing to fear but fire, and therefore they should get their boats out, and fasten them, one close by the head and the other by the stern, and man them both well, and wait the issue in that posture: this I did, that the men in the boats might he ready with sheets and buckets to put out any fire these savages might endeavour to fix to the outside of the ship. ”

“ You can detect their impatience by watching the sway of the mastheads against the motionless, the soulless gravity of mortar and stones. As you pass alongside each hopeless prisoner chained to the quay, the slight grinding noise of the wooden fenders makes a sound of angry muttering. ”

“ We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three of them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was, that while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as much danger as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows in upon us so thick, that we were fain to barricade the side of the boat up with the benches and two or three loose boards, which to our great satisfaction we had by mere accident, or providence rather, in the boat. ”

“ Down, down, down, through a vast alert tension of flight, down it will swoop, and, if its swoop is successful, slash explosively at last through a suffocating moment. Rifles will crack, ropes tear and snap ”

“ The scope of our volume not only embraces the arts of trapping and trap-making, but extends further into the subject of the wild life of a trapping campaign,—containing full directions for building log cabins, and shanties; boats and canoes; hints on food and cooking utensils; also full directions for the curing and tanning of fur skins,—in short, a complete repository of all useful information pertaining to the life and wants of a professional trapper. ”