Young Alaskans in the Far North Part 5

About half-way down the side of the island came the most dangerous part of the run. Suddenly the bowman sprang erect and cried out something in Cree, pointing sharply almost at right angles to the course of the boat. Francois gave a few quick orders and the oarsmen swung hard upon one side. The head of the scow swung slowly into the current. The channel here, however, pa.s.sed between two great boulders, over the lower one of which the river broke in a high white wave. It was the duty of the steersman to swing the boat between these giant rocks, almost straight across the course of the river, a feat of extreme difficulty with such a craft or indeed with any craft. This was the bad place in the channel always known as "The Turn."

It seemed to Rob as if the whole river now was eager to accomplish their destruction. He was certain that the scow would be dashed upon the rocks and wrecked.

It was dashed upon the rocks! The turn was not made quite successfully, because of the too great weight of the cargo left in this boat. With a crash the scow ran high up on the lower rock, and lay there, half out of water, apparently the prey of the savage river.

Rob felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

"Steady, old chap!" said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Keep quiet now. We're still afloat."

This accident seemed to be something for which the men were not altogether unprepared. If they were alarmed they did not show it.

There were a few quick words in Cree, to be sure, but each man went about his work methodically. Under the orders of Francois they s.h.i.+fted the cargo now to the floating side of the boat. All of the men except two or three pole-men took that side also. Then, under command, with vast heaving and prying on the part of the pole-men, to the surprise of Rob at least, the boat began to groan and creak, but likewise to slide and slip. Little by little it edged down into the current, until the bow was caught by the sudden sweep of the water beyond and the entire craft swung free and headed down once more! It seemed to these new-comers as an extraordinary piece of river work, and such indeed it was. A stiffer boat than this loose-built scow might have broken its back and lost its cargo, and all its crew as well. As it was, this boat went on down-stream, carrying safely all its contents.

Rob drew a long breath, but he would not show to the men any sign that he had been afraid.

Here and there among the rocks the oarsmen, under the commands of the steersman, picked their way, the lower half of the pa.s.sage being much more rapid. On ahead, the river seemed to bend sharply to the left.

Now Rob saw once more the bowman spring to his feet on his short forward deck. Calling out excitedly, he pointed far to the left with his shaft. Rob looked on down-stream, and there, a mile and a half below, he saw erected against a high bank a diamond-shaped frame or target. At this the bowman was pointing directly with his lance. It was the target put up there after the Klondike disasters by the Mounted Police, and indicated the course of the safe channel at the lower end of the chute.

Francois, pipe in mouth, calmly swung his sinewy body against the steering-oar. The bow of the boat crawled around to the left, far off from the island, toward the sh.o.r.e, where was a toboggan-like pitch of very fast but safe water for a distance of some hundreds of yards.

As they entered the head of this chute, the bowman still crouching with his pole poised, it seemed to Rob that he heard shouts and cries from the island, where, indeed, all those left behind were gathered in a body, waiting for the first boat in the annual brigade to go through--something of an event, as they regarded it.

But Rob's eyes were on ahead. He saw the boat hold its course straight as an arrow toward the great target on the farther bank. With astonis.h.i.+ng speed it coasted down the last incline of the Grand Rapids. Then, under the skilful handling of steersman and oarsmen, the boat swung to the right, around a sort of promontory which extended around the right-hand bank. Rob looked around at Uncle d.i.c.k, who was curiously regarding him. But neither spoke, for both of them knew the etiquette of the wilderness--not to show excitement or uneasiness in any unusual or dangerous circ.u.mstances.

Francois, who had narrowly regarded his young charge, now smiled at him.

"Dot leetle boy, she is good man," he said to Uncle d.i.c.k. "He'll is not got some scares."

Rob did not tell him whether or not this was the exact truth, but only smiled in turn.

"Well, here we are," said he. "But what good does it do us? There's the foot of the island up there, three or four hundred yards away at least. And how can we get a boat up against these rapids, I'd like to know? Right here is where both the big chutes join. It would take a steamboat to get up there."

Francois, who understood a little English, did not vouchsafe any explanation, but only smiled, and Uncle d.i.c.k gravely motioned silence as well. Rob could see the eyes of Francois fixed out midstream, and, following his gaze, he presently saw some dark object bobbing about out there, going slowly down-stream.

"Look, Uncle d.i.c.k!" he cried. "What's that? It looks like a seal."

The latter shook his head. "No seals in here," said he. "That must be a log."

"So it is," said Rob. "But look at it--it's stopped now."

No one explained to him what all this meant. Francois sprang to his steering-oar and gave some swift orders. The boat swung out from the bank, and under the sweeps made straight out midstream, where the black object now bobbed at the edge of the slack water. Rob could see what had stopped it now--it was made fast by a long rope, which was in turn made fast somewhere up-stream, he could not tell where.

With a swift pa.s.s of his pole the bowman caught the rope as the boat swung near. Rapidly he pulled in the short log and made fast the rope to the bow of the boat. The scow now swung into the current, its head pointed up-stream, and hung stationary there, supported against the current by some unseen power. To Rob's surprise, the oarsmen now took in their oars.

"Well, now, what's going to happen?" he asked of Uncle d.i.c.k.

But the latter only shook his head and motioned for silence.

Slowly but steadily the scow now began to ascend the river, to breast the white waters which came rolling down, to surmount the full force of the current of the Athabasca River in its greatest rapids!

Rob glanced on ahead. He could see a long line of men bending under the great rope which had been floated down to them in this curious way. They walked insh.o.r.e, steadily following the line of the railroad track for almost a quarter of a mile, as it seemed to the other boys who watched this proceeding ash.o.r.e.

Steadily the boat climbed up the river, and now, with the aid of the oarsmen and the steersman, it finally came to rest at a sheltered little cove at the foot of the island, in slack water, where the landing was good and cargo could easily be trans.h.i.+pped.

Rob and his older companions stepped ash.o.r.e, and each smiled as he looked at the other.

"Don't tell me, son," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "that these people don't know their business! That's the finest thing I've ever seen in rough-neck engineering in all my life--and I've seen some outdoor work, too."

He stood now looking up the white water down which they had come, and at the rough hillside beyond where the old portage had lain in earlier days.

"It's the only way it could have been done!" said he. "You see, these fellows don't carry a pound that they don't have to, but they don't risk losing a cargo by trying to run through with full load when the water won't allow it. They don't get rattled and they know their business. It's fine--fine!"

"That's what it is, sir," said Rob. "I never saw better fun in all my life."

By this time Jesse and John came running up, and the boys fell into one another's arms, asking a dozen questions all at once.

"Weren't you awfully scared?" said Jesse, somewhat awed at Rob's accomplishment.

"Well," said Rob, truthfully, "I did a good deal of thinking when we went fast on that rock out there in the middle. That was pretty bad."

"Uncle d.i.c.k," called out John, excitedly now. "Say, now, it's no fair for Rob to go through and us others not. Can't we go with the next boat?"

Uncle d.i.c.k stood looking at them quietly for a time, his hands in his pockets.

"You wait awhile," said he. "There'll be forty or fifty boats going through here. Time enough later to see whether it's safe for you two youngsters to risk it."

V

WHITE-WATER DAYS

For three days the work of portaging on the Grand Island continued steadily, boat after boat going down to the head of the island to discharge, then taking the run through the channel of the right-hand side. Some excitement was shown when in the still water at the head of the murderous left-hand chute, which never was attempted by the _voyageurs_, a roll of bedding with a coat tied to it was seen floating in the current. It was supposed that somewhere up the river an accident had occurred, but, as it was impossible to tell when or where, no attempt was made to solve the mystery, and the labor of advancing the brigade northward went on without further delay.

As the boys watched the river-men at their hard and heavy work, they came more and more to respect them. Throughout long hours of labor--and in this northern lat.i.tude the sun did not set until after nine o'clock--there was never a surly word or a complaint heard from any of them.

John, who seemed to care for facts and figures, began to ask about the wages which these men received for this hard labor. He was told that they were paid by the trip from Athabasca Landing to McMurray, which covered the bad water to the head of steamboat transport. The steersmen for the round trip received about eighty dollars and their board, and the river-men forty to fifty dollars. All walked back across country, a shorter distance than that by water. Some of the men had along on the scows the large dogs which they used in the winter-time, and which they now purposed to employ in packing a part of their loads on the return journey.

John also discovered that the cargo of a scow averaged about twenty-five hundred dollars in value, and that it would cost sometimes almost a third of that amount to deliver the freight at its destination. For instance, the charge of the Hudson's Bay Company for freight from Athabasca Landing to Fort McPherson was thirteen dollars and fifty cents per hundred pounds. For the use of the little railroad a quarter of a mile in length on the island itself the charge to outsiders was one dollar a ton, and ten dollars for every boat taken across on the cars.

All the boys now began to learn more of the extreme risk and waste of this, the north-bound transit. It was not unusual, as they learned, for a scow to be lost with all its cargo, in which case the post for which it was destined would need to go without supplies until the brigade came north in the following year. Damage to goods from wetting, damage to boats from collisions--all these things went into the large figures of cost which were to be set against the figures of the large gain in this commerce of the Far North.

John got many of his figures from the Hudson's Bay Company clerk, a young man stationed here on Grand Island throughout the season, who was very friendly to all the strangers in the country. He expressed himself as very glad to see the brigade come north, for it was the only interesting time in his season's work. He and one a.s.sociate remained here, cut off from the world, all through the summer season, and he was not very happy, although, as he said, he was president and general traffic-manager, as well as superintendent and board of directors, of his railroad, and section boss as well. His duties were to have general charge of the transport of cargoes at the island, and to keep a record of the day's doings.

Boat after boat now went through, as has been said, but without accident, although one or two hung up at The Turn, as the dangerous pa.s.sage between the two great rocks in midstream now was called by all. Below that, as Rob expressed it, the bottom dropped out of the river and the boat traveled very fast.

John timed some of the boats through, and found that it took about eight minutes from the head of the eddy to the bottom of the chute.

This Rob could hardly believe, as he said that when he went through it seemed not more than two minutes at the outside.