The Young Alaskans in the Rockies by Emerson Hough (100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT) 📕

went ashore at a beach and signified their intention of resting one hour, quite as though they were members of a labor-union in some city; so nothing would do but the kettle must be boiled and a good rest taken.

“How’ll you and George get back up this stream, Leo?” inquired Rob, seating himself by the Indians as they lolled on the sand.

“That easy,” said Leo. “We go Revelstruck two, three tam, my cousin and me. Come up Columby those wind behind us all right. Sometam pull boat on rope, mos’ tam pole. Sometam pull ’um up on bush, little bit at time. But when we come on Columby, up Canoe, we get horse fifty miles this side Cranberry Lake and go out on trail. It most easy to go down and not come up.”

“Well, I should say so,” said Rob, “and on the whole I’m glad we don’t have to come back at all.”

“We not come back this way,” said Leo, calmly lighting his pipe.

“But I thought you just said that you did.”

“Not this tam. My cousin and me we go on railroad from Revelstruck west to Ashcroft. Plenty choo-choo wagon Ashcroft near Fort George. At Fort George two, three choo-choo boat nowadays. We get on choo-choo boat and go up to Tête Jaune. That’s more easy. Bime-by railroad, then heap more easy.”

“Well, will you listen to that!” said John, as Leo concluded. “Automobiles and powerboats up in this country, and a railroad coming in a couple of years! It looks to me as though we’d have to go to the north pole next time, if we get anywhere worth while.”

“Bime-by grizzlum,” said Leo, rising after a while and tightening his belt, as he walked down to the boats. “I know two, three good place. We camp this night, make hunt there.”

XXI THE FIRST BEAR CAMP

As they advanced to the southward the boys all felt that they were, in spite of all these threats of an advancing civilization, at last in the wilderness itself. 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. Giant firs whose trunks were six feet or more in diameter were everywhere. Sometimes they would find one of these giants fallen in the woods, crashing down through the other trees, even great trunks spanning little ravines or gullies as bridges.

They were willing enough to make their path along any of these trunks which lay in their way, for below them lay the icy floor of the forest, covered with wet moss, or with slush and snow, since the sun hardly ever shone fair upon the ground in these heavy forests. Dense alders and thickets of devil’s-club also opposed them, so that they were at a loss to see how any one could make his way through such a country as this, and were glad enough to reach even the inhospitable pathway of their mountain river and to take to the boats again.

Unquestionably they made a long run that afternoon, for Leo evidently was in a hurry to reach some certain point. Late as the sun sank in that northern latitude, it was almost dark when at length they pulled inshore on an open beach at the mouth of the brawling stream which came down from the west out of a deep gorge lined with the ancient and impenetrable forest growth.

“I wish we had some fish to eat,” said John. “Couldn’t we catch any in this creek, or in the river?”

“No catch ’um trout,” said Leo. “Too much ice and snow in water. Some trout in Columby. In summer salmon come.”

“And in spring mosquito come,” said Jesse, slapping at his face. “I think we’d better put up our new mosquito-tents from this time on.”

“All right,” said John. “That’s a good idea. We haven’t needed them very much yet, but it looks as though the warm weather was going to hatch out a lot of fly.”

They now proceeded to put up on the beach one of the tents which had earlier been brought along to the Cache by their uncle from Seattle, where much of the Alaskan outfitting is done. This tent was a rather curious affair, but effective in its way. It had about a three-foot wall, and the roof extended for two inches beyond the sides, as well as the two inches above the top, or ridge, where a number of grommets allowed the passage of a rope for a ridge-pole. The boys pitched the tent by means of a ridge-pole above the tent, supported by crotched poles at each end, and lashed the top firmly to the ridge-pole.

The interior of the tent was like a box, for the floor was sewed to the bottom of the walls all around and the front end of the tent did not open at all. Instead it had a round hole large enough to admit a man’s body, and to the edges of this hole was sewed a long sleeve, or funnel, of light drilling, with an opening just large enough to let a man crawl through it to the interior of the tent. Once inside, he could, as John explained it, pull the hole in after him and then tie a knot in the hole. The end of the sleeve, or funnel, was tied tight after the occupant of the tent had gotten inside.

In order to secure ventilation, ample windows, covered with bobbinet, or cheese-cloth, were provided in each end and in the sides, each with a little curtain of canvas which could be tied down in case of rain. Their engineer uncle, who had aided in the perfection of this device, declared it to be the only thing which made engineering possible in this far northern country, which was impassable in the winter-time, and intolerable in the summer-time for the man who has no defense against the insect pests which make life so wretched for the inexperienced traveler in the north.

Leo looked with considerable interest at this arrangement after the boys had crawled in and made their beds inside ready for the night’s rest. The boys offered him the use of their old tent, if he liked, but he seemed a trifle contemptuous about it.

“Fly no hurt Injun,” said he. And indeed he, George, and Moise all slept in the open by preference, with only their blankets drawn over their heads to protect them against the onslaughts of the mosquitoes.

They were now at their first hunting-ground, and our young friends were keen enough to be about the business soon after the sun had begun to warm up their little valley the next day. Leo swept a hand to the steep gorge down which the little creek came tumbling. “Plenty slide up there,” said he. “Maybe-so three mile, maybe-so five.”

“Well, now, how about that, Leo?” inquired Uncle Dick. “That’s quite a climb, perhaps. Shall we come back here to-night, or stay up in the hills? We might pack up a camp outfit, and let Moise and George come back here to spend the night.”

“All right,” said Leo. “That’s most best way. High up this creek she come flatten down—little valley there, plenty slide, plenty grizzlum.”

“No mosquito-tent now, fellows,” said Rob, laughing. “That’ll be too heavy to pack up—we’ll take the light silk shelter-tent, and get on the best we can to-night, eh?”

“Precisely,” said Uncle Dick, “and only one blanket for two. That, with our rifles and axes and some bacon and flour, will make all the load we need in a country such as this.”

Equipped for the chase, early in the day they plunged into the dense forest which seemed to fill up completely the valley of the little stream which came tumbling down out of the high country. Leo went ahead at a good pace, followed by Moise and George with their packs. Uncle Dick and the young hunters carried no packs, but, even so, they were obliged to keep up a very fast gait to hold the leaders in sight. The going was the worst imaginable, the forest being full of devil’s-club and alder, and the course—for path or trail there was none—often leading directly across the trunk of some great tree over which none of the boys could climb unassisted.

At times they reached places along the valley where the only cover was a dense growth of alders, all of which leaned downhill close to the ground, and then curved up strongly at their extremities. 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 they curve at the ends and why they lie so flat to the ground. Mixed in with devil’s-club, I must say these alders are enough to try a saint.”

In the course of an hour or so they had passed the heaviest forest growth and gotten above the worst of the alder thicket. On ahead they could now begin to see steep mountainsides, and their progress was up the shoulder of a mountain, at as sharp an angle as they could well accomplish. After a time they came to a steep slope still covered with a long, slanting drift of snow which ran down sharply to the tumbling creek below them. Across this the three men with the packs already made their way, but the boys hesitated, for the snow seemed to lie at an angle of at least forty-five degrees, and a slip would have meant a long roll to the bottom of the slope.

“It’s perfectly safe,” said Uncle Dick, “especially since the others have stamped in footholds. You just follow me and step in my tracks. Not that way, Jesse—don’t lean in toward the slope, for that is not the way to cross ice or snow on a side-hill. If you lean in, don’t you see, you make yourself most liable to slip? Walk just as straight up as though you were on level ground—that’s the safest position you can take.”

“Well,” said Jesse, “I can understand how that theory works, but it’s awfully hard not to lean over when you feel as though your feet were going to slip from under you.”

They gained confidence as they advanced on the icy side-hill, and got across without mishap. Soon they came up with the three packers, who were resting and waiting for them.

“Make camp soon now,” said Leo. “Good place. Plenty slide not far.”

Indeed, within half a mile the men threw off their packs at a grunted word or so from Leo, and at once began to make their simple preparations for a camp. It was now almost noon, and all the party were well tired, so that a kettle of tea seemed welcome.

“Which way do we hunt from here, Leo?” inquired Uncle Dick, as they sat on a rock at the comfortable little bivouac they had constructed.

“Walk one mile,”