For the last five miles they were in a broad, gra.s.sy valley where many hoofs had worn a plainly marked trail. On ahead they could see the Fraser swinging in from its southwest bend to meet them. The courses of many other small streams, outlined by green bushes, also could be seen coming in from almost every direction. Farther to the west and south lofty mountains rose, broken by caps which seemed to be of no great alt.i.tude. The Selwyns, on the other side of the Fraser, stood behind them, and off on the right gradually rose the high, sweeping hills which climbed to the shoulders of Mount Robson itself. The whole made an extraordinary landscape.
"We"re in the Tete Jaune Valley," said Uncle d.i.c.k, halting at the edge of the gra.s.sy expanse which seemed quite flat for five miles or so ahead of them. "We"re coming now to one of the most interesting points in all the Rocky Mountains, and one of the least known. Some day, where we are here, there will be a town, perhaps a good one. Yonder is the original pathway of the Fraser--five hundred feet across here already, and a great river before it gets much farther toward the Pacific. We leave it here, so let"s not give it a worse name than we have to, for, take it all in all, it hasn"t harmed us thus far.
"On across the Fraser, to the south, is the North Thompson," he continued. "Not very much known by any except a few of our explorers.
It"s rather rough-looking in there, isn"t it? The Albreda Pa.s.s makes up from the Thompson, over yonder where you see the big mountains rising."
"Is that where we go to get to the Canoe River?" said John. "It"s over in there somewhere."
"No, the pa.s.s to the Canoe River is a wonderful thing in its way for this high country. Look over there to the south twenty miles or so, and you"ll see Cranberry Lake. The McLennan River runs out of that to join the Fraser right here, and that lake is just twenty-one feet above the level of this ground where we stand! You could pole a boat up there if you liked. Just over Cranberry Lake it"s only a mile to where the Canoe River bends in from the west. That country is just made for a pa.s.s from the Fraser to the Columbia, and to my mind it"s quite as interesting as any of these great mountain pa.s.ses. I don"t know of any divide as low as this between two waterways as great as those of the Fraser and the Columbia. It"s only two thousand five hundred and sixty-three feet above sea-level at the summit, and, as I said, is only twenty-one feet above the Fraser."
"We must have come down quite a way," said Rob, "since we left the pa.s.s."
"More than a thousand feet. And in that thousand feet the Fraser has grown from a trickle to a great river--in fifty miles downhill."
"Well, I can see," said Rob, looking about the pleasant valley which lay before them, "that this is a good place for a town."
"Certainly," said the leader of their party. "There"ll be more than one railroad come through here across the Yellowhead Pa.s.s, very likely, and already they are making surveys down the Fraser and Thompson and the Canoe River. Sometime there will be a railroad down the Big Bend of the Columbia below us, and it will have a branch up here, as sure as we"re standing here now. That will open up all this country from the points along the Canadian Pacific. Then all these names--the Thompson, the Fraser, and the Canoe--will be as familiar to the traveling public as the Missouri and the Mississippi. Yet as we stand here and look at that country it is a country as yet unknown and unnamed! I couldn"t map it, John, myself, for, although that country south of us is one of the most interesting of the continent, it is one of the least known. In short, that"s the game country we"ve been heading for, and I"ll promise you a grizzly when we get south of that flat divide."
"Well," said John, "that"ll satisfy me, all right. We"ve had mighty little shooting this far."
"All in good time, all in good time, John, my boy. Maybe we"ll show you as good sport as you"re looking for, at least, what with rapids and grizzly bears.
"But now we must go on and find Leo, if we can. I sent word to him last fall for him to meet me here at the Cache this month. We"ll see what luck there is in the wilderness despatch."
They pa.s.sed on rapidly along and across the sunlit valley, exulting in a sense of freedom in getting out of the dark and gloomy mountains into an open country where they could see all about them. Soon they saw smoke rising above the tops of the low trees, and discovered it to come from a number of tepees, tall and conical, built with long poles, precisely like the tepees of the tribes east of the Rockies.
"That"s the Shuswap village," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Leo lives there with his people. Some good canoemen and hunters in there, too. First, let"s go on down to the end of the trail. I want you to see the actual location of the old Tete Jaune Cache."
When they pulled up at the bank of the Fraser it was on an open flat shut in by low pines and poplars. They could see no building at all; only a few poles and tent-stakes littered the ground.
"This is the Cache," said Uncle d.i.c.k.
"It isn"t so much of a place as I expected," said John. "Weren"t there any houses here?"
"Over there, no doubt, were some log buildings once upon a time," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "No doubt the old trappers built their cache well and strong, for plenty of good furs came through here--marten and ermine and beaver and otter--for the ladies of Great Britain to wear nearly a hundred years ago. But, you see, in this climate logs rot rather early, and the fires have run all through here, as well. So when the traders left these old trails Nature soon claimed her own and wiped out all traces of them. The cache has gone the way of Jasper House and Henry House."
"What became of all of those old fellows?" inquired Rob. "We only hear of the ones that wrote books."
"They are gone and forgotten," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "No one knows even where old Tete Jaune himself--whether he was Iroquois or Swede or plain Injun--lies buried to-day. There is no record of where he laid his bones to rest. He was a brave man, whoever he was, and he lived in a great age of adventure. Think of what he must have seen, spending all his life in a country like this!
"But each to his own day, I suppose. Here we are at the end of our trail. We"ll have to cross the Fraser. I must see Leo, and learn what he has done about the boats--I"ve told him to build a couple of good big boats--bateaux--to take us down the Canoe River over yonder.
"Here, you see, we leave the trail," he continued. "Yonder is the Fraser trail down to Fort George. Once at Fort George, you know, you can take an automobile down the old Ashcroft trail to the Canadian Pacific."
"Automobile! What do you know about that!" exclaimed Jesse. "I didn"t know we were within a thousand miles of one."
"Yes, within two hundred miles. It doesn"t look much like it, does it?
You see, we"re living in rather a wonderful age. This country which looks so wild will not be wild very much longer. That"s the only reason I"ve allowed you to take so dangerous a journey as this, this spring, with me. Before long all these things will be common. People will come out here on the cars by thousands, and complain about the sleepers and the dining-car, when they are crossing the Rocky Mountains, very likely. One day they"ll have horseback trails through here, as they do around Banff, and I suppose even old Mount Robson will get more or less common one time or another. But at least we"ve seen this country before those things happened.
"This is all there is to the old Cache. It"s mostly a memory, but history has written it down as one of the important places in the Rockies. John, you must bring your map up to date here, at the Tete Jaune Cache. And here your trail bends to the south, for now we"re going to follow the Columbia, and not the Fraser, after this, although my railroad goes on down the Fraser.
"We"ll ride over now to the village and see if we can find Leo," he concluded, as he turned his horse back and started off in the direction of the tepees.
XVII
LEO THE GRIZZLY-HUNTER
As our party of adventurers approached the Shuswap village, a little bit removed from the bank of the Fraser, they were greeted with a chorus of barking dogs. A number of children who had been playing in the gra.s.s fled in fright into the tepees, from the doors of which, none the less, presently appeared many heads alike of young and old.
As the hors.e.m.e.n pulled up in front of the central tepee there came out to meet them a slight but hardy figure, not very tall, but erect and strong, dressed in ordinary western garb, and a wide hat such as is common in that part of the country. His face was dark, and his hair, worn long, was braided, and fell to his shoulders on his neck. Grave and unsmiling like most of his people, none the less his eyes wrinkled a little bit about the corners as now he recognized the leader of the band of hors.e.m.e.n. Advancing, he extended his hand to Uncle d.i.c.k and greeted him very pleasantly.
"How-do," said he.
The party now dismounted, and their leader turned to his young companions. "This," said he, "is Leo Tennes, the man I told you would be our guide down the Canoe River. When I tell you that he has run the Big Bend of the Columbia more than once I have said all there is to say about his fitness."
He now introduced each of his young comrades in turn to Leo, who shook hands with them gravely and with dignity, but looking at them keenly meantime. He was evidently surprised at their youth, and perhaps none too well pleased, although obliged to admit to himself that these boys already had undergone many hardships to get this far on their journey.
Moise himself, usually light-hearted and talkative, now became silent and dignified also as he and Leo stood looking at each other. They shook hands, and each spoke to the other in his own tongue. Then both laughed.
"Me Shuswap!" said Leo.
"Cree!" rejoined Moise--"North Cree, me."
Then, to the surprise and interest of the others, these two, unable to converse in any common tongue except English, which neither seemed to fancy at the time, began to employ the singular sign language of the savage tribes, more or less universally known throughout the American continent. Moise put his two forefingers together parallel to show that he and Leo were friends. He pointed back across the mountains, and, placing his head on his hands and raising his fingers several times, signified that he had come, so many sleeps, to this place. He said they had come horseback--straddling his left forefinger with two fingers on his right hand. Then smilingly he pointed to the boys and to his own heart, and made a motion as though trying to break a stout stick, thus saying to Leo that their hearts were strong.
Leo stood looking at him unsmiling, and when he had finished threw out his right hand in front of him, palm down, by which he said: "That is all right. It is good. I am satisfied."
"Oh, pshaw! Moise," said Uncle d.i.c.k, laughing, "you and Leo can both talk English a great deal better than you let on. I"ll say, Leo, that our man Moise is as good in a boat as you are yourself, so you need not be uneasy. As for the rest of us, we"ll undertake to keep up our end. When will you be ready to start?"
"Maybe-so to-night, maybe-so to-morrow," said Leo.
"And can you take care of our horses for us as I wrote you last fall?"
"Yes. Horse all right here. You get "um next year all right."
"Very well," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "We"ll just unpack and turn them over right here."
The boys were very regretful at saying good-by to their faithful animals, especially the saddle-ponies which had carried them safely so far. They stood looking at them rather ruefully.
"Never mind," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Leo has got some hay for them, and they will winter well here. I"ll warrant you they"ll be very glad to trade the trail for this pleasant valley here, where they can live in idleness and get fat for a year.
"Now, about the boat, Leo," he resumed.
"All right. Got two boats," said Leo. "I make "um." And he led the way to an open spot in the bushes where there stood two newly completed boats, flat-bottomed and double-ended, with high sides, the material all made of whip-sawed lumber gotten out by Leo and his people.