Part 7 (2/2)
Rob smiled as he answered: ”The Hudson's Bay Company is a big monopoly and it keeps its own secrets. You'll have to ask a good many questions before you find out much about its business. And if you should try to buy even one skin of an ermine or a marten or a fox or a mink in here, you couldn't do it. They wouldn't sell you anything at all. Perhaps some of the independent traders who are coming in might sell you some furs for yourself--at a very good price. But the old Company stands pat and runs its affairs the way it used to. It doesn't tell its secrets.”
The boys stood, hands in pockets now, toward the close of their interesting day at Chippewyan, looking in silence at the squared logs of the whitewashed Company buildings. A certain respect came into their minds.
”It's old,” said John, after a time. ”They don't seem to rustle very much now, but they have done things--haven't they?”
VII
THE WILD PORTAGE
According to Rob's diary, it was on Friday, June 13th, that the steamer _Grahame_ left the ancient trading-post of Chippewyan on the rocky sh.o.r.es of Athabasca Lake. Rob also made the curious entry that as the boat left sh.o.r.e two ravens flew across its bow, and that the Indians and half-breeds were very much distressed over what they considered a bad omen. Uncle d.i.c.k and his two companions, Jesse and John, laughed with Rob at this, and, indeed, no ill fortune seemed to attend them.
By this time the great brigade had begun to thin and scatter. Several scows were unloaded and left at Chippewyan. Yet others were despatched for the post at the eastern side of the lake. The legal party and the Indian Commissioner now parted company with our travelers. But occasionally, as the steamer swept away from the high and bold sh.o.r.es on which the old trading-post lay, and pa.s.sed the vast marshes where the wild-fowl nest in millions every year, they found in the main current of the river scattered odds and ends of river traffic, now and then a brigade scow, or the shapeless boat of some prospector going north, he knew not how or where.
Continually, however, the impression of the deepening of the wilderness fell upon our party as they pushed on steadily down-stream between the low timbered banks of the river. John now noted on his map that this river, the outlet of Lake Athabasca, which received the combined floods of the Peace and the Athabasca, was known as the Slave River, or sometimes the Little Slave River.
As had been the Athabasca all the way down, this river was very much discolored and stained by the high waters of the spring.
”Now, young men,” said Uncle d.i.c.k to his charges as they stood on the fore deck of the steamer in the hot sun of midafternoon, ”you can say that you are getting into the real wilderness. It runs every way you can look--west, north, south, and east. From where we are now, draw a circle large as you like, and you will embrace in it thousands of miles of country which no man really knows. Trust not too much even in the Dominion maps. I'd rather trust John's map, here, because he doesn't have to guess.”
”Well,” said John, looking up from his own work with his papers, ”it doesn't seem such a very wild trip now, traveling along on the steamboat. It might as well be along the Alaska sh.o.r.e, or even on the Hudson River--if the things we had to eat were better.”
”Never you mind about all that,” rejoined his uncle. ”If you want to see wild work with a thrill to it, you shall have all you care for within the next few days. To-morrow we'll be at Smith's Landing, which marks the sixteen-mile portage of the Slave River. I suppose in there you'll see the wildest water in the world, so far as boating is concerned. I'll warrant you you'll think you are in the wilderness when you see the Ca.s.sette Falls and any of a hundred others between Smith's Landing and the Mountain Portage. I've been talking with the boat captain about those things.”
Rob looked up from the book which he was reading. ”It says,” remarked he, ”that Sir Alexander Mackenzie knew all this country as far down as the big portage here.”
”Quite likely,” replied Uncle d.i.c.k. ”The truth is that all of this early exploration which comes down to us in history was perhaps not so difficult as it sounds. There is continual trading back and forward among the Indian tribes, even when they are hostile to one another. Sir Alexander no doubt heard from each of these various tribes all about their country as far north as the next tribe. Then that tribe in turn could give him advice and guidance. So he was pa.s.sed on, much as Lewis and Clark were, or Major Long, or Captain Pike, in our own explorations. Nearly all the time he had a native guide to tell him what he might expect on ahead.
”One thing sure,” he added, ”from all they tell me about the rapids of the Slave at Smith's Landing, he would have had a hard time if he had run directly into the big current at the head of the falls without any warning. But I suppose for hundreds of years the natives hereabouts have known about those falls, and naturally that would be the first thing they would tell any new man in the country.”
It was seven o'clock in the evening of June 14th, at the end of a cold and dull day's travel, that the boys found themselves in the Big Eddy along the bank of the post known as Smith's Landing. This spot is directly above the Great Falls of the Slave River, and marks the place for unloading of the cargoes of the boats which must be portaged across the sixteen miles of land, or taken down by the hazardous pa.s.sage through the rapids themselves.
As the boat with its warning whistle drew up alongside the sh.o.r.e there thronged down to the side of the landing the usual crowd of natives, a few white men, many half-breeds, and countless dogs. On the bank above stood the usual row of whitewashed buildings which marked the Hudson's Bay post, not very many in all, even counting the scattered cabins of the population which had drawn in about this upper post.
”Two things you will observe here,” said the leader of our young adventurers. ”Smith's Landing has a sidewalk, and Smith's Landing also has a team of horses! You may mark this place as farthest north for the domestic horse--you will not see another one north of here. They have to have this team to get the goods across by wagon. Sometimes, too, they track a scow over, I believe, although the road is not very good.”
”Well, how did they come to have that sidewalk?” asked John, pointing to the narrow and unimportant strip of walk which lay in front of one of the warehouses.
Uncle d.i.c.k smiled. ”The captain of the boat told me that they wanted some telephone-poles to string a wire from here across to Fort Smith, over the portage. So the wise authorities of the Company had Montreal send out enough square-sawed four-inch joists to make poles for fifty miles of telephone--and right in a country where there are better telephone-poles than you could get at Montreal! So they were all brought through, with what trouble you can imagine, since you have seen the sort of transport they must have had coming this far. The factor could not use them all, so he put up a few and laid the others in the form of a sidewalk. I'll say it's lasting, at least!
”As for those horses, however,” he continued, ”we'll take a crack at them ourselves if we have luck. You've been complaining that things are not exciting enough, and I propose to give you a touch of life.
After we get done our work here--that is to say, after everybody has drunk up all the Scotch whisky that has come north on this boat--we'll be getting on about our business. We'll take our scow through.
”I'm going to contract with old Johnny Belcore, the traffic-handler here, to take our boat and an extra scow around through the rapids of the Slave River. You'll see he'll s.h.i.+p his horses along to use on the portages, and there'll be more than one of them. It would take a lot of men to track one of these boats up the bank and along a mile or so of dry ground. They tell me that he uses rollers and pulls the boats by horse power. So, as that is one more example of the way the brigade gets its goods north, we'll use that, if only for the sake of our own information.”
”That'll be fine,” said Rob. ”I'd much rather do that than climb on top of a lumber-wagon and ride across sixteen miles of muskeg. If we did that we'd miss all the excitement of seeing the Big Rapids of the Slave. I've been reading about them. You're right, this is perhaps as bad boat water as any actually used by men.”
”Do you suppose it is worse than the White Horse Rapids up on the head of the Yukon?” asked John, looking up.
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