Part 11 (1/2)

”The riverman's song of farewell,” spoke up young Zept with animation. ”I wish I knew one.”

Almost instantly, those on the fast-receding sh.o.r.e heard from the boat the soft notes of some one in song. Under the conditions, whatever the words and the air, they floated back as many of those left behind had heard the old voyageur take his leave. But this song came from neither of the weatherworn steersmen, nor from the stolid members of their half-breed crew. Count Zept, his hat in his hand and the cool river wind paling his flushed face, had mounted to the top of the cargo and was singing something he had learned in far away lands. The fascinating tenor of his voice carried far over the river.

Even out of the hidden heights on the far side of the current, the strains of the song came back with a melancholy pathos. Perhaps the young singer himself was moved. But to those who listened, it wafted over the waters as for two centuries the voyageurs into the unknown north had celebrated the setting out of the long voyage that might have no return.

None in the boat spoke to him, but as he went on, repeating the lines, and his voice gradually dropping lower and lower, the boats, lost in the fog and darkness, swept into the great bend, and the stragglers on sh.o.r.e turned and left the river.

Although he did not realize it then, Paul Zept's impromptu tribute in farewell marked the great turning point in his life.

Three hundred miles of dangerous water lay before the travelers and their valuable outfit. On this part of the voyage the river ran wide and deep.

At the suggestion of the steersmen, it was at once decided to make no landing that night but to take advantage of the easy going, as the cold wind would soon sweep the fog away. Strongly touched by the air of Paul's song, which the singer laughingly explained was a song without words, as he had made it up mainly from s.n.a.t.c.hes of Italian opera, the words of which he could not recall, Norman and Roy got Paul on the rear deck and began to prepare for the night. The a.s.sistance of one of the crew was necessary to prepare the blankets in an expert manner. Before midnight Colonel Howell and the three young men, snugly wrapped in their new ”four points,” found no trouble in losing themselves to the world without.

Long before the sun showed itself above the high poplar-crowned hills that lined each bank of the Athabasca, Norman and Roy had slipped out of their blankets. It was their first view of an absolute wilderness. The boats were still drifting silently forward, with no sign of life except in the erect forms of Moosetooth and old La b.i.+.c.he, who were yet standing against their long steering oars as they had stood through the night.

Neither of them gave salutation, Moosetooth's dripping oar following in silence now and then a like sweep of his companion's blade in the water ahead.

Not arousing their companions, the two boys perched themselves where Paul had sung the night before and, s.h.i.+vering in the new day, began to drink in the scene before them.

What they saw at that moment was a picture repeated for nearly two weeks to come. Although drifting at the rate of four miles an hour, much time was lost while the boats made their way back and forth across the river, and although it was but three hundred miles to Fort McMurray, there was constant delay in camps ash.o.r.e, and at the beginning of the Grand Rapids a week was lost in portaging the entire cargo. Colonel Howell did not welcome another lost outfit and he was quite satisfied when both Moosetooth and La b.i.+.c.he took their empty scows safely through the northern whirlpool.

Rising almost from the water, the hills, little less than mountains in height, ran in terraces. Strata of varicolored rock marked the clifflike heights and where black veins stood out with every suggestion of coal, the young observers got their first impression of the mineral possibilities of the unsettled and unknown land into which they were penetrating.

The first deer which they observed standing plainly in view upon a gravelly reef aroused them to excitement. But when Moosetooth, not speaking, but pointing with a grunt to a dark object scrambling up the rocky shelf on the other side of the river and the boys made out a bear, Roy sprang for his new twenty-two.

”Nothin' doin',” called Norman in a low tone. ”That's where we need the .303 and of course that's knocked down.”

”Well, what's the use anyway?” retorted Roy, resuming his seat. ”I can see there's going to be plenty of this kind of thing. And besides, you can bet our friend here isn't going to stop for a bear, dead or alive.”

From that time on, although they did not find animals so close together again, they saw eagles, flocks of wild geese floating ahead of them on the river, and three more deer. And continually the magnificent hills, hanging almost over the river, gave them glimpses of vegetation and objects new to them.

”I'm glad I came,” remarked Norman, ”but I wonder how this country looks when winter comes.”

”You know how this river'll look,” answered Roy. ”It'll be a great, smooth roadway and a lot of people waitin' now to get back to civilization will make it a path for snowshoes and dog sleds.”

”Some trip up here from Fort McMurray,” suggested Norman.

”You said it,” exclaimed Roy. ”But the colonel won't have to make it on foot this winter--not with the old _Gitchie Manitou_, and this ice road to guide us.”

He looked with longing at the crates of the airs.h.i.+p, the two smaller ones of which took up one side of their own scow, while the others were lashed diagonally on top of the crate in the forward boat. The two boats had kept their relative positions throughout the night.

Just as the sun began to gild the water in their wake, Paul stuck his nose out of the blankets. All had slept in their clothes during the night, Colonel Howell having promised them a chance at their pajamas on the following evening. There was no dressing to be done and when Paul joined his companions all made preparation to souse their faces over the edge of the boat.

”One minute,” exclaimed Norman. He dug among his baggage and in a short time reappeared with the aluminum basin.

”Non! Non!” came from the statuelike figure of old Moosetooth. Then he pointed to the abrupt cut bank of the river a few hundred yards ahead and called something in the Cree language to La b.i.+.c.he. The latter nodded his head and in turn called aloud in the Indian tongue.

Instantly from between the pipes and crates on the forward boat a dozen half-breeds crawled sleepily forth. One of these, with a coil of rope, sprang into the bow of the forward scow, and another similarly equipped took his place in the rear of La b.i.+.c.he, as if ready to spring on the second scow when opportunity presented. Both boats were headed for the cut bank.

The commotion aroused Colonel Howell, and while he gave a nod of approval, the scows drifted in under the sweep of the steersmen's oars where the deep water ate into the tree-covered sh.o.r.e.