The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Part 28

"The Priest Rapids is another murderer, and I'll not say how many have perished there. You tell me that your boats ran it at this stage of water? 'Twas wonderful, then, that's all. Men have come through, 'tis true, and tenderfeet at that, and duffers, at that. Two were once cast in the Priest, and only one got through, and he could not swim a stroke! They say that sixty miners were lost in that rapid in one year.

"To be sure, maybe these are large tales, for such matters grow, most like, as the years go by, but ye've seen the river yerselves, and ye know what the risk is. Take a band of miners, foolhardy men, and disgust them with tryin' to get out of this country afoot--and 'tis awful going on foot through here--and a raft is the first thing they think of--'tis always a tenderfoot's first idea. There's nothing so hard to handle as a raft. Now here they come, singin' and shoutin', and swing around the bend before they see the Death Rapids, or the Priest, we'll say. They run till the first cellar-door wave rolls back on them and the raft plunges her nose in. Then the raft goes down, and the men are swept off, and there's no swimming in the Columbia for most men. There's not annything left then fer anny man to do except the priest--and belike that's why they call it the Priest Rapids."

"I've often wondered," said Rob, "when we were coming down that stream, whether some of those Alaska Indians with their big sea-canoes could not run this river--they're splendid boats for rough water, and they go out in almost any weather."

"And where'll ye be meanin', my boy?" asked O'Brien.

"Along the upper Alaska coast. You see, we live at Valdez."

"Alaska? Do ye hear that now! And that's the place I've been wanting to see all me life! They tell me 'tis foine up there, and plenty of gold, too. But tell me, why do ye come down to this country from so good a place as Alaska?"

"Well, we were just traveling about, you know," said Rob, "and we wanted to see some of this country along the Rockies before it got too common and settled up. You see, this isn't our first trip across the Rockies; we ran the Peace River from the summit down last summer, and had a bully time. The fact is, every trip we take seems to us better than any of the others. You must come up some time and see us in Alaska."

"It's that same I'll be doin', ye may depend," said O'Brien, "the first chance I get. 'Tis weary I get here, all by myself, with no one to talk to, and no sport but swearin' at a lot of pig-tailed c.h.i.n.ks, and not time to go grizzly-huntin' even--though they do tell me there's fine grizzly-huntin' twelve miles back, in the Standard Basin.

So 'tis here I sit, and watch that mountain yonder that they've named for pore Sam Boyd--Boyd's Peak, they call it, and 'tis much like old a.s.siniboine she looks, isn't it? Just that I be doin' day by day, and all the time be wantin' to see Alaska. And now here comes me friend Leo from the Cache, and brings a lot of Alaskans ye'd be expectin'

annywhere else but here or there! 'Tis fine byes ye are, to come so far, and I'll be hopin' to meet ye in Alaska one of these fine days, for I'm a bit of a miner myself, as most of us are up here."

"She's good boy," said Moise, who took much pride in his young friends. "She ain't scare' go anywhere on the _riviere_ with Moise and his oncle, or even with Leo and George. I s'pose next year she'll come see Moise again, maybe-so."

The boys laughed and looked at Uncle d.i.c.k. "I don't know about that,"

said Rob, "but we'll be wanting to go somewhere next summer."

"That's a long time off," said their uncle.

O'Brien, after they had spent some time in this manner of conversation, began to look at his watch. "Carlson's pretty prompt,"

said he--"that's the skipper of the _Columbia_. We'll be hearin' her whistle before long."

"Then this about ends our trip, doesn't it, Uncle d.i.c.k?" said John once more; and his uncle nodded.

"I'm going to give O'Brien one of the boats," said he, "and I'll let the t.i.tle to the other and the cook outfit rest in Leo and George--they may be coming through here again one way or the other some day. As for us, we've been lucky, and I think we would better wait here a day rather than go on with our boats."

They pa.s.sed out into the bright sunlight to look about at the fine mountain prospect which stretched before them from the top of the bluff. They had not long to wait before they heard the boom of the steamboat's whistle, and soon the _Columbia_, thrust forward by her powerful engines, could be seen bucking the flood of the Columbia and slowly churning her way up-stream. She landed opposite the wood-chute of the wood-yard, where a crowd of jabbering Chinamen gathered. Soon our party walked in that direction also, and so became acquainted with Carlson, the skipper of the boat, who agreed to take them down to Revelstoke the following day.

x.x.x

THE END OF THE TRAIL

Although O'Brien offered them beds in his house, and Carlson bunks on board the _Columbia_, Rob, John, and Jesse all preferred to sleep out-of-doors as long as they could, and so made their beds on the gra.s.s-plot at the top of the bluff, not putting up any tent, as the mosquitoes here were not bad. They were rather tired; and, feeling that their trip was practically over, with little excitement remaining, they slept soundly and did not awake until the sun was s.h.i.+ning in their faces.

"Come on, fellows," said Jesse, kicking off his blankets. "I suppose now we'll have to get used to was.h.i.+ng in a real wash-basin and using a real towel. Somehow I feel more sorry than happy, even if it was rather rough work coming down the river."

This seemed to be the feeling of both the others, and they were not talkative at the breakfast-table, where O'Brien had supplied them with a fine meal, including abundance of fresh-laid eggs from his own farm-yard.

After breakfast they employed themselves chiefly in making themselves as tidy as they could and in packing their few personal possessions in shape for railway transportation. Most of their outfit, however, they gave away to the men who were to remain behind them. Toward noon the whistle of the steamboat announced that she was ready to take up her down-stream trip; so the young Alaskans were obliged to say good-by to O'Brien, in whose heart they had found a warm place.

"Good luck to ye, byes," said he, "and don't be diggin' all the gold up in Alaska, for 'tis myself'll be seein' ye wan of these days--'tis a foine country entirely, and I'm wis.h.i.+n' fer a change."

Leo and George, without any instructions, had turned in to help the boat crew in their work of pus.h.i.+ng off. Moise, once aboard the boat, seemed unusually silent and thoughtful for him, until Rob rallied him as to his sorrowful countenance.

"Well," said Moise, "you boy will all go back on Alaska now, and Moise she's got to go home on the Peace River. I'll not been scare of the horse or the canoe, but this steamboat and those railroad train she'll scare Moise plenty. All the time I'm think she'll ron off the track and bust Moise."

"You mustn't feel that way," said Rob, "for that's Uncle d.i.c.k's business--finding places for railroads to run. That's going to be my business too, sometime, as I told you. I think it's fine--going out here where all those old chaps went a hundred years ago, and to see the country about as they saw it, and to live and travel just about as they did. Men can live in the towns if they like, but in the towns anybody can get on who has money so he can buy things. But in the country where we've been, money wouldn't put you through; you've got to know how to do things, and not be afraid."

"S'pose you boys keep on," said Moise, "bime-by you make _voyageur_.

Then you come with Moise--she'll show you something!"

"Well, Moise," continued Rob, "if we don't see you many a time again it won't be our fault, you may be sure."

"I'm just wondering," said Jesse, "how Leo and George are going to get back up to the Tete Jaune Cache. They told us they meant to go up the Ashcroft trail and home by way of Fort George and the Fraser River and the 'choo-choo boat.' But that seems a long way around. I suppose you'll come to the hotel with us, down to Revelstoke, won't you Leo?"

he added.

"No like 'um," said Leo. "My cousin and me, we live in woods till time to take choo-choo that way to Ashcrof'."

"Well, in that case," said John, "I think we'd better give you our mosquito-tent; you may need it more than we will, and we can get another up from Seattle at any time."

"Tent plenty all right," said Leo. "Thank." And when John fished it out of the pack-bag and gave it to him he turned it over to George with a few words in his own language.

George carried it away without comment. They were all very much surprised a little later, however, to discover him working away on the tent with his knife, and, to their great disgust, they observed that he was busily engaged in cutting out all the bobbinet windows and in ripping the front of the tent open so that it was precisely like any other tent! John was very indignant at this, but his reproof had little effect on Leo.

"Tent plenty all right now," said he. "Let plenty air inside! Mosquito no bite 'um Injun."

When they came to think of it this seemed so funny to them that they rolled on the deck with laughter, but they all agreed to let Leo arrange his own outfit after that.

They pa.s.sed steadily on down between the lofty banks of the Columbia, here a river several hundred yards in width, and more like a lake than a stream in many of its wider bends. They could see white-topped mountains in many different directions, and, indeed, close to them lay one of the most wonderful mountain regions of the continent, with localities rarely visited at that time save by hunters or travelers as bold as themselves.

Carlson, the good-natured skipper of the _Columbia_, asked the boys all up to the wheelhouse with him, and even allowed Rob to steer the boat a half-mile in one of the open and easy bends. He told them about his many adventurous trips on the great river and explained to them the allowances it was necessary to make for the current on a bend, the best way of getting off a bar, and the proper method of making a landing.

"You shall make good pilot-man pratty soon," he said to Rob, approvingly. "Not manny man come down the Colomby. That take pilot-man, too."

"Well," said Rob, modestly, "we didn't really do very much of it ourselves, but I believe we'd have run the rapids wherever the men did if they had allowed us to."

"Batter not run the rapid so long you can walk, young man," said Carlson. "The safest kind sailorman ban the man that always stay on sh.o.r.e." And he laughed heartily at his own wit.

The boat tied up at the head of the Revelstoke Canon, and here the boys put their scanty luggage in a wagon which had come out to meet her, and started off, carrying their rifles, along the wagon-trail which leads from above the canon to the town, part of the time on a high trestle.

When they came abreast of the canon they were well in advance of the men, who also were walking in, and they concluded to go to the brink of the canon and look down at the water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REVELSTOKE CAnON]

It was a wild sight enough which they saw from their lofty perch.

The great Columbia River, lately so broad and lakelike, was compressed into a narrow strip of raging white water, driven down with such force that they could see very plainly the upflung rib of the river, forced above the level of the edges by the friction on the perpendicular rock walls. From where they peered over the brink they could see vast white surges, and could even distinguish the strange, irregular swells, or boils, which without warning or regularity come up at times from the depths of this erratic river. They quite agreed that it would have been impossible for a boat to go through Revelstoke Canon alive at the stage of the water as they saw it. Rob tried to make a photograph, which he said he was going to take home to show to his mother.

"You'd better not," said John. "You'll get the folks to thinking that this sort of thing isn't safe!"