The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Part 23

"Joe McLimanee he come this far from Revelstruck," said Leo. "Take him twenty-nine day, not on high water."

"Then there must be bad rapids below here," said John.

"Yes," said his uncle, "and, as I went up the Canoe myself from here, I've never seen that part of this river, but they say that at the time of the big gold excitements a generation ago, when the miners tried to get out of this country, they took to rafts. The story is that a hundred and sixty-five men of that stampede were drowned in one year on the Death Rapids."

Leo picked up a stick and began to make a map on the sand, showing the Big Bend of the Columbia and some of its side-streams.

"You start Beaver Mouth," said he, "all right, till you come on Surprise Rapids--all at once, right round bend. Surprise Rapids, him very bad. Much portage there. Very bad to get boat through even on line. Portage three mile there, maybe-so.

"Here was old man Brinkman, his rapid--not so bad, but bad enough for to scare old man Brinkman, so they name it on him, 'Brinkman's Terror.'

"Here is what Walt Steffen calls 'Double Eddy'--bad place sometam in high water. Bime-by we come on Lake Timbasket, up there, maybe thirty mile, maybe-so."

Leo made a tracing of the outline of the lake, then followed his scratch in the sand on around.

"Now begin Twenty-six Mile Rapid, all bad--Gordon Rapids here, Big Eddy here, Rock Canon here. Now we come on Boat Encampment. This way Revelstruck. Death Rapids here; Priest Rapids down here; and then Revelstruck Canon; him bad, very bad, plenty man drown there, too.

That five miles from Revelstruck; we get out and walk there.

"Now here"--and he pointed on his sand map--"is Boat Encampment. Right around corner there is one of most bad places on whole river."

"But you've been through, Uncle d.i.c.k. Tell us about it."

"Yes, I came through once last year, and that's enough for me," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "That's the Rock Canon and the Grand Eddy. Leo has shown it all pretty plainly here. I don't want to make that trip again, myself. But when we got to Lake Timbasket we didn't any of us know how bad it was going to be--the old trapper who acted as our guide had never been through when the water was high. But when we got at the head of the Twenty-six Mile Rapids, below Lake Timbasket, it was like the bottom had dropped out of things, and we had to go through, for we couldn't get back.

"Of course, we could line sometimes, and many of the chutes we did not attempt. The first day below Timbasket we made about ten miles, to a camp somewhere below the c.u.mmins Creek chute. We could hear the water grinding--it sounded like breaking gla.s.s--all night long, right near the place where we slept, and it kept me awake all night. I suppose it is the gravel down at the bottom of the deep water. Then there were growlings and rumblings--the Indians say there are spirits in the river, and it sounded like it.

"There was one Swede that the trapper told us of, who started through the c.u.mmins Rapids on a raft and was wrecked. He got ash.o.r.e and walked back to the settlements. He had only money enough left to buy one sack of flour, then he started down the river again. From that day to this he has never been heard of, and no one knows when or where he was drowned.

"We pa.s.sed one big boulder where the trapper said the name of another Swede was cut on the rock by his friends who were wrecked with him near by. I believe they were some miners trying to get out of this country in boats. That man's body was never found, for the Columbia never gives up her dead. We saw Leo's broken boat, as I told you; and on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Timbasket we found the wrecks of two other boats, washed down. You see, this wild country has no telegraph or newspaper in it. When a man starts down the Big Bend of the Columbia he leaves all sort of communication behind him. Many an unknown man had started down this stream and never been seen again and never missed--this river can hold its own mysteries."

"Well, tell us about this rapid just above here, Uncle d.i.c.k," went on Jesse. "Wasn't it pretty bad?"

"The worst I ever saw, at least. When we stopped above the head of that canon the trapper told me where the trail was down here to the Encampment, but of course I concluded to run on through if the others did. Before we got that far I was pretty well impressed with the Columbia, myself. When we landed at the head of Upper Death Canon I don't believe any of us were very sure that our boat would go through.

No one was talking very much, I'll promise you that.

"The worst part of that long stretch of bad water of the Rock Canon can't be more than four or five miles in all, and there isn't a foot of good water in the whole distance, as I remember it. Of course, the worst is the Giant Eddy--it lies just over there, beyond the edge of the hill from us. In there the water runs three different ways all at once. There is no boat on earth can go up this river through the Giant Eddy, and lucky enough is the one which comes down through it.

"You see, once you get in there, you can't get either up again or out on either side--the rock walls come square down to the river, which boils down through a narrow, crooked gorge. It is like a big letter Z, with all the flood of the Columbia pouring through the bent legs; no one knows how deep, but not half the width which we see here.

"That's the worst water I ever saw myself--it runs so strong that there is a big ridge thrown up in the middle of the river, many feet higher than the water on either side. There is a crest of white water all down the sides of the top of that high ridge. The water looks as though it were hard, so that you couldn't drive a nail through it, it's flung through there at such tremendous pressure.

"You don't have much time to look as you go through, and there is no place where you can see the Giant Eddy except from the Giant Eddy itself. All I can remember is that we were clawing to keep on top of that high rib of the water mid-stream. I can see it now, that place--with green water running up-stream on each side, and the ridge of white water in the middle, and the long bent slope, like a show-case gla.s.s, running on each side from us to the edges of the up-stream currents. It was a very wonderful and terrible sight, and seeing it once was quite enough for me.

"About half-way down that long, bad chute I saw a hole open up in the crown of that ridge and could look down into it, it seemed to me, fifteen feet--some freak in the current made it--no one can tell what.

It seemed to chase us on down, and all our men paddled like mad. If our stern had got into that whirlpool a foot, no power on earth could have saved us. As luck would have it, we kept just outside the rim of the suckhole, and finally escaped it.

"Then we came to the place which lies first around the bend above us--a great deep saucer in the river, below a rock ledge of white water--it is like a shallow bicycle track, higher at the edges, a basin dished out in the river itself. I don't know how we got into it, and have only a pa.s.sing memory of the water running three ways, and the high ridge in the middle, and the suckhole that followed us, and then we slipped down into that basin at the last leg of the Z, and through it and across it, and so right around that bend yonder, and here to the Boat Encampment. You may believe me, we were glad enough.

"So now, adding my story to the one you'll be able to tell from here on down, you may say that you know almost as much about the Big Bend of the Columbia as Gabriel Franchere himself, or even Sir George Simpson, peer of the realm of Great Britain.

"Some day they'll build a railroad around the Big Bend. Then I believe I'll take that journey myself; it's much easier than making it as we are making it now. Not that I wish to frighten you at all, young men, about the rest of our journey, for our men are good, and Leo and George have the advantage of knowing every inch of the river thoroughly--an Indian never forgets a place he once has seen."

"Have you 'got some scares,' Leo?" inquired John, smiling. Leo also smiled.

"No, no get scare--not 'fraid of Columby."

"You Shuswaps are white-water dogs, all right," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I'm not going to let you run all the rapids that you want, perhaps, between here and Revelstoke.

"Now," he continued, "if John has finished his map work I think we can make a few more miles on our way down this evening, and every mile we make is that much done."

"Bime-by below Canoe," said Leo, "come on old man Allison's cabin--him trap there two winters ago, not live there now."

The boys looked inquiringly at Uncle d.i.c.k.

"All right," said he. "We'll stop there for the night." So presently they took boat once more, and, pa.s.sing the tawny flood waters of the Wood and the Canoe rivers, which only stained the edges of the green Columbia, not yet wholly discolored in its course through its snow-crowned pathway, they pulled up at length on a beach at the edge of which stood a little log cabin, roofed with bark and poles.

XXV

HISTORY ON THE GROUND

The boys preferred to spread their mosquito-tent again for the night, but the others concluded to bunk in the old trapper's cabin, where they all gathered during the evening, as was their custom, for a little conversation before they retired for sleep. John found here an old table made of slabs, on which for a time he pursued his work as map-maker, by the aid of a candle which he fabricated from a saucer full of grease and a rag for a wick. The others sat about in the half darkness on the floor or on the single bunk.

"There was one book you once mentioned, Uncle d.i.c.k," remarked Rob, after a time, "which I always wanted to read, although I could never get a copy. I think they call it _The Northwest Pa.s.sage by Land_. Did you ever read it?"

"Certainly, and a very interesting and useful book it is, too. It was done by two Englishmen, Viscount Milton and Doctor Cheadle. They were among the very early ones to take a pack-train across by way of the Yellowhead Pa.s.s."

"And did they come down this way where we are now?"

"Oh, no. They went west just as we did, over the Yellowhead Pa.s.s as far as the Tete Jaune Cache. They crossed the Fraser there, just as we did, and turned south, indeed pa.s.sing up to Cranberry Lake at the summit, just as we did. Their story tells how they crossed the Canoe River on a raft and were nearly swept away and lost, the river being then in flood. From that point, however, they turned west beyond Albreda Lake, for it was their intention not to go down the Fraser or the Canoe or the Columbia, but down the North Thompson. You see, they were trying to get through and to discover a new route to the Cariboo Gold Diggings."

"What year was that?" inquired Jesse.

"That was in 1863. The Tete Jaune Cache was then sometimes called the Leather Pa.s.s. At that time very little was known of this great region between the Rockies and the Pacific. Milton and Cheadle named many of its mountains that we pa.s.sed. The old traders, as I have said, knew nothing of this country except along the trails, and these men even did not know the trails. Just to show you how little idea they actually had of this region hereabout, their book says that they supposed the Canoe River to rise in the Cariboo district!

"Now, in order for the Canoe River to rise in the Cariboo district, it would have to cross a vast range of mountains and two great rivers, the north fork of the Thompson and the Fraser River. Their map would not have been as accurate as John's here, although when their book was printed they had the use of yet other maps made by others working in from the westward.

"None the less, theirs was a great journey. There were only two of them, both Englishmen, in charge of the party, and they had one half-breed and his wife and boy and an inefficient Irishman who was of no service but much detriment, according to their story. To my mind theirs is the most interesting account given of early times in this region, and the book will prove well worth reading.

"These men were observers, and they were the first to realize that the days of wild game were going, and that if the Hudson's Bay Company was to keep up its trade it must feed its people on the products of the soil, and not of the chase. They speak of sixty million acres of land fit for farming in the Saskatchewan Valley, and speak of the country as the future support of this Pacific coast. That is precisely the policy of the Canadian country to-day. They said that the Hudson's Bay Company could not long govern so vast a region--and all the history of the Dominion government and the changes in the western Canadian provinces have taken place almost as if they had prophesied them literally. They speak of the Yellowhead Pa.s.s as being the best one for railroad purposes--and now here is our railroad building directly over that pa.s.s, and yet others heading for it. They said also that without doubt there was a good route down the North Thompson--and to-day there is a railroad line following their trail with its survey, with Kamloops as its objective point. It was at Kamloops that they eventually came out, far below the Cariboo district, for which they were heading.

"These men were lost in a wilderness at that time wholly unknown, and how they ever got through is one of the wonderful things in exploration. They took their horses all the way across, except three, one of which was drowned in the Fraser and two of which they killed to eat--for in the closing part of their trip they nearly starved to death.

"They were following as best they could the path of another party of emigrants who had gone out the year before. But these men grew discouraged, and built rafts and tried to go down the Thompson, where many of them were drowned on the rapids. Perhaps to the wisdom of their half-breed guide is to be attributed the fact that Milton and Cheadle took their horses on through. Had they wearied of the great delay in getting through these tremendous forests with a pack-train, they must either have perished of starvation or have perished on the rapids. But in some way they got through.