But at last, just when it seemed as though we could not go any farther with our suffering animals, we came out of the poisonous forest upon a broad gra.s.sy bottom where a stream was flowing to the northwest. We raised a shout of joy, for it seemed this must be a branch of the Na.s.se. If so, we were surely out of the clutches of the Skeena. This bottom was the first dry and level ground we had seen since leaving the west fork, and the sun shone. "Old man, the worst of our trail is over," I shouted to my partner. "The land looks more open to the north. We"re coming to that plateau they told us of."
Oh, how sweet, fine, and sunny the short dry gra.s.s seemed to us after our long toilsome stay in the sub-aqueous gloom of the Skeena forests! We seemed about to return to the birds and the flowers.
Ladrone was very ill, but I fed him some salt mixed with lard, and after a doze in the sun he began to nibble gra.s.s with the others, and at last stretched out on the warm dry sward to let the glorious sun soak into his blood. It was a joyous thing to us to see the faithful ones revelling in the healing sunlight, their stomachs filled at last with sweet rich forage. We were dirty, ragged, and lame, and our hands were calloused and seamed with dirt, but we were strong and hearty.
We were high in the mountains here. Those little marshy lakes and slow streams showed that we were on a divide, and to our minds could be no other than the head-waters of the Na.s.se, which has a watershed of its own to the sea. We believed the worst of our trip to be over.
THE FAITHFUL BRONCOS
They go to certain death--to freeze, To grope their way through blinding snow, To starve beneath the northern trees-- Their curse on us who made them go!
They trust and we betray the trust; They humbly look to us for keep.
The rifle crumbles them to dust, And we--have hardly grace to weep As they line up to die.
THE WHISTLING MARMOT
On mountains cold and bold and high, Where only golden eagles fly, He builds his home against the sky.
Above the clouds he sits and whines, The morning sun about him shines; Rivers loop below in shining lines.
No wolf or cat may find him there, That winged corsair of the air, The eagle, is his only care.
He sees the pink snows slide away, He sees his little ones at play, And peace fills out each summer day.
In winter, safe within his nest, He eats his winter store with zest, And takes his young ones to his breast.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE
At about eight o"clock the next morning, as we were about to line up for our journey, two men came romping down the trail, carrying packs on their backs and taking long strides. They were "hitting the high places in the scenery," and seemed to be entirely absorbed in the work. I hailed them and they turned out to be two young men from Duluth, Minnesota. They were without hats, very brown, very hairy, and very much disgusted with the country.
For an hour we discussed the situation. They were the first white men we had met on the entire journey, almost the only returning footsteps, and were able to give us a little information of the trail, but only for a distance of about forty miles; beyond this they had not ventured.
"We left our outfits back here on a little lake--maybe you saw our Indian guide--and struck out ahead to see if we could find those splendid prairies they were telling us about, where the caribou and the moose were so thick you couldn"t miss "em. We"ve been forty miles up the trail. It"s all a climb, and the very worst yet. You"ll come finally to a high snowy divide with nothing but mountains on every side. There _is_ no prairie; it"s all a lie, and we"re going back to Hazleton to go around by way of Skagway. Have you any idea where we are?"
"Why, certainly; we"re in British Columbia."
"But where? On what stream?"
"Oh, that is a detail," I replied. "I consider the little camp on which we are camped one of the head-waters of the Na.s.se; but we"re not on the Telegraph Trail at all. We"re more nearly in line with the old Dease Lake Trail."
"Why is it, do you suppose, that the road-gang ahead of us haven"t left a single sign, not even a word as to where we are?"
"Maybe they can"t write," said my partner.
"Perhaps they don"t know where they are at, themselves," said I.
"Well, that"s exactly the way it looks to me."
"Are there any outfits ahead of us?"
"Yes, old Bob Borlan"s about two days up the slope with his train of mules, working like a slave to get through. They"re all getting short of grub and losing a good many horses. You"ll have to work your way through with great care, or you"ll lose a horse or two in getting from here to the divide."
"Well, this won"t do. So-long, boys," said one of the young fellows, and they started off with immense vigor, followed by their handsome dogs, and we lined up once more with stern faces, knowing now that a terrible trail for at least one hundred miles was before us. There was no thought of retreat, however. We had set our feet to this journey, and we determined to go.
After a few hours" travel we came upon the gra.s.sy sh.o.r.e of another little lake, where the bells of several outfits were tinkling merrily. On the bank of a swift little river setting out of the lake, a couple of tents stood, and shirts were flapping from the limbs of near-by willows. The owners were "The Man from Chihuahua," his partner, the blacksmith, and the two young men from Manchester, New Hampshire, who had started from Ashcroft as markedly tenderfoot as any men could be. They had been lambasted and worried into perfect efficiency as packers and trailers, and were ent.i.tled to respect--even the respect of "The Man from Chihuahua."
They greeted us with jovial outcry.
"Hullo, strangers! Where ye think you"re goin"?"
"Goin" crazy," replied Burton.
"You look it," said Bill.
"By G.o.d, we was all sure crazy when we started on this d.a.m.n trail,"
remarked the old man. He was in bad humor on account of his horses, two of which were suffering from poisoning. When anything touched his horses, he was "plum irritable."
He came up to me very soberly. "Have you any idee where we"re at?"
"Yes--we"re on the head-waters of the Na.s.se."
"Are we on the Telegraph Trail?"
"No; as near as I can make out we"re away to the right of the telegraph crossing."
Thereupon we compared maps. "It"s mighty little use to look at maps--they"re all drew by guess--an"--by G.o.d, anyway," said the old fellow, as he ran his grimy forefinger over the red line which represented the trail. "We"ve been a slantin" h.e.l.lwards ever since we crossed the Skeeny--I figure it we"re on the old Dease Lake Trail."
To this we all agreed at last, but our course thereafter was by no means clear.
"If we took the old Dease Lake Trail we"re three hundred miles from Telegraph Creek yit--an" somebody"s goin" to be hungry before we get in," said the old trailer. "I"d like to camp here for a few days and feed up my horses, but it ain"t safe--we got "o keep movin". We"ve been on this d.a.m.n trail long enough, and besides grub is gittin"
lighter all the time."
"What do you think of the trail?" asked Burton.
"I"ve been on the trail all my life," he replied, "an" I never was in such a pizen, empty no-count country in my life. Wasn"t that big divide h.e.l.l? Did ye ever see the beat of that fer a barren? No more gra.s.s than a cellar. Might as well camp in a cistern. I wish I could lay hands on the feller that called this "The Prairie Route"--they"d sure be a dog-fight right here."