On the Edge of the Arctic Part 11

"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.

As La b.i.+.c.he's boat touched the bank and the second scow ran forward, the two half-breeds scrambled onto the roots of the trees and before the scows could b.u.mp away into the stream once more, they had been skillfully snubbed around the trunks of the nearest trees, a third Indian springing from the forward boat onto Moosetooth's craft and making fast a line thrown him from the sh.o.r.e. Then while the two boats b.u.mped and struggled to turn their free ends into the current, the other Indians, with the skill of long experience, swiftly transferred hawsers from the free ends of the scows to other trees.

"Whew!" shouted Paul, after the first excitement was over. "Whatever we're going to do, I hope'll be short and sweet," and he waved his arms violently about his head.

The close vegetation of the sh.o.r.e was alive with mosquitoes.

"Don't worry about these," laughed Roy. "This is the breeding place of the best mosquitoes in the world. Don't fight 'em--forget 'em."

Colonel Howell, near by, exclaimed:

"Don't worry, young men. Mosquito time is about over. You won't see many of them after the end of July."

"By the way," interrupted Norman, "what day is this? Is it July yet?"

"That's another thing you don't need to worry about," went on Colonel Howell with a chuckle. "When the mosquitoes have gone, you'll know that July is gone, and then we won't have anything to trouble us till the ice comes."

"b.u.m almanac," commented Roy. "Mostly gaps, I should say."

"Not so much," continued the colonel still laughing. "It isn't as much of a gap between the mosquitoes and ice as you might think. But it's breakfast time. We've got two cooks with us, one for the crew and one for the cabin pa.s.sengers. You'd better take your morning dip and then, if you like, you can take the canoe and pull over to that gravel reef. You won't find so many mosquitoes there and you can stretch your legs."

The boys put off their swimming until they had reached the island, where they had the satisfaction of arousing a young buck from the poplar underbrush, and the mortification of trying to catch it by chasing it toward the mainland in a canoe. An Indian fired at the deer from one of the scows, but it made the river bank in safety and disappeared in the bush.

"There, you see," announced Roy at once. "The twenty-two would have been all right, but you've got to have it with you."

The colonel's prediction was true and the three young men had a dip in the shallow water off the island that was certainly bracing. When they returned to the sh.o.r.e they found both cooks in full operation a few hundred yards from the scows and on the open riverbanks.

The difference in the output of the cooks was considerable, but satisfactory to each party served. The colonel's party was making the best of fresh eggs, fresh b.u.t.ter and new bread and a beefsteak, which would be their only fresh meat for many days. The crew, out of a common pan, helped themselves to boiled potatoes and fried pork, to which each man appeared to add bannock from his own home supplies. The Indians drank tea.

"Gentlemen," remarked Colonel Howell, as he lifted a tin of steaming coffee, "here's to a friend of civilization--delicious coffee. We will know him but a few days longer. He will then give way to the copper kettle and tea."

"How about fresh eggs and beefsteak?" laughed Paul.

"Eggs, my dear sir, have always been a superfluous luxury patronized mostly by the infirm and aged. As for beefsteak, it cannot compare with a luscious cut of moosemeat, the epicurean delight of the Northwest. It is a thing you may not have at the Waldorf, and a delicacy that not even the gold of the gourmet may lure from the land of its origin."

"How about bear meat?" asked Roy, recalling with some concern his lost opportunity in the early dawn.

"Rather than starve, I would eat it," responded Colonel Howell, "and gladly. But to it I prefer rancid salt pork."

In such badinage, the leisurely stop pa.s.sed while the boys finished their first meal in the wilderness, topping it off with the luscious red raspberries that were just in perfection all around the camp.

That day the boats drifted fifty miles, luncheon being eaten on the rear deck. A night landing was made on a gravelly island to escape as far as possible the many mosquitoes. Tents were not erected but alongside a good fire the blankets were spread on the soft gra.s.s beneath the stunted island trees and with mosquito nets wrapped about their heads all slept comfortably enough.

Where the Indians slept no one seemed to know. When the boys and their patron turned in as dark came on, at eleven o'clock, the half-breeds were still eating and smoking about their removed camp fire. In this manner, with no accidents, but with daily diversions in the way of shooting, venison now being one of the daily items of food, the voyageurs at last reached the Grand Rapids.

From this place, for sixty miles, a tumultuous and almost unnavigable stretch of water reached to the vicinity of Fort McMurray, the end of their journey. The greatest drops in the water and the most menacing perils were encountered at the very beginning of the Rapids, where for half a mile an irregular island of rock divided the stream. On one side of this the river rushed in a whirlpool that no craft could attempt. On the other side, and the wider, skilled boatmen had a chance of safely conducting light craft through the many perils. Here it was necessary that both boats should be unloaded and the entire outfit be portaged to the far end of the island.

But travel on the river was so important that those concerned in it had, many years before, constructed a crude wooden tramway which, repaired by every newcomer, was available for use in transporting the heavy freight.

Permanent camp was made at the head of the island when this arduous task began. It had taken four days to load the boats and seven days were spent on the island in getting the cargoes of the two boats to the far end. The sixth day fell on a Sunday, when no Indian does any labor. On the afternoon of the next day Moosetooth and La b.i.+.c.he made their spectacular races down the Rapids. Not a boy of the party that did not entreat Colonel Howell to let him go with the first boat, but in his refusal their patron was adamant. The only man to accompany each boat as it started on its flight was an experienced member of the crew who sat on the bow with a canoe practically in his lap. He was ready to launch this any moment to rescue the steersman, but both attempts were engineered by the veteran river men with no other bad results than the s.h.i.+pping of a great deal of water.