The Young Alaskans in the Rockies.
by Emerson Hough.
I
ROB, JOHN, AND JESSE IN CAMP
"Well, here we are, fellows," said Jesse Wilc.o.x, as he threw down an armful of wood at the side of the camp-fire. "For my part, I believe this is going to be about the best trip we ever had."
"That"s what I was telling Rob to-day," said John Hardy, setting down a pail of water near by. "But I hope I won"t have to carry water up a bank a hundred feet high every night."
"We are not as far north this time as we were last summer," said Jesse, "but the country looks something the same."
"Yes," replied John, "but last year we were going east and farther away from home every day. Now we"re going west to the Rockies and across them, getting closer to home all the time."
Rob McIntyre, the oldest of our friends who had made so many trips together in the wilderness, sat silent, as was often his custom, smiling out of his frank blue eyes at his companions.
"What do you think about it, Rob?" asked Jesse.
"I agree with you, Jess," replied Rob. "I"ve always wanted to get into this part of the Rocky Mountains. The Yellowhead Pa.s.s, over yonder, is the place I"ve always wanted to see. It"s an old pa.s.s across the Rockies, but no one seems to know much about it."
"Besides," went on Jesse, "we ought to get plenty of game and good fishing."
"Surely we will, for this is a country that no one visits, although we are now on the trail of the old fur-traders who came here often enough more than a hundred years ago. On the high ridges in here you can see the old trail cut down a foot deep. And it was made in part by the feet of men, more than a hundred years ago."
"Besides," added John, "we can see where the engineers have gone ahead of us."
"Yes," said Rob, "they"ve pretty much followed the trail of the old fur-traders."
"Didn"t they come by water a good way up here?" asked John.
Rob answered by pulling out of his pocket a long piece of heavy paper, a map which they three had worked over many days, laying out for themselves in advance the best they knew how the route which they were to follow and the distances between the main points of interest. "Now, look here," said he, "and you"ll see that for once we are at a place where the old voyageurs had to leave their boats and take to the land.
We"re going to cross the Rockies at the head of the Athabasca River, but you see it runs away northeast from its source at first, at least one hundred miles north of Edmonton. That used to be called Fort Augustus in the old days, and the voyageurs went all the way up there from Montreal by canoe. Sometimes they followed the Saskatchewan from there. That brought them into the Rockies away south of here. They went over the Kootenai Plains there, and over the Howse Pa.s.s, which you know is between here and Banff."
"I know," said Jesse, eagerly. "Uncle d.i.c.k told us they used to go down the Blaeberry Creek to the Columbia River."
"Exactly; and there was a way they could go near the Wood River to the Columbia River. For instance, here on the map is a place near the head of the Big Bend of the Columbia. That"s the old Boat Encampment, of which the old histories tell so much."
"You don"t suppose we"ll ever get there?" said John, doubtfully. "It looks a long ways off from here."
"Of course we will," said Rob, firmly. "When we"ve pushed up to the head of the Athabasca River and gone over the Yellowhead Pa.s.s it will all be downhill. We"ll go fast when we hit the rivers running south.
And we"ll come in but a little way from the Boat Encampment, which was a rendezvous for all the old traders who crossed by the Saskatchewan trail below us. But, you see, we"ll be taking a new way; and I agree with Jess that it will be about the best trip we ever had."
"Those old fur-traders were great fellows to travel, weren"t they?"
said Jesse, looking curiously at the deep-worn, ancient trail which ran close by their camp.
"Yes," said Rob, "they weren"t afraid of anything. When they got to Fort Augustus they had three choices of routes west over the Rockies.
They could go away north to the Peace River--old Sir Alexander McKenzie"s trail, which we followed last summer; or they could go up the Saskatchewan the way David Thompson used to go to the Columbia River; or they could strike west by cart or pack-horse from Fort Augustus and cross this rolling country until they struck the Athabasca, and then follow up that to the Yellowhead Pa.s.s. I shouldn"t wonder if old Jasper Hawse was one of the first trail-makers in here.
But, as I was saying, those who came this route had to leave their boats at Edmonton. Here at Wolf Creek we are about one hundred and thirty miles west of there. For a long while they used to have a good wagon trail as far as Saint Anne, and, as you know, it has been pretty much like a road all the way out here."
"I like the narrow trail best," said John; "one made by feet and not wheels."
"Yes," went on Rob, "perhaps that"s why we"re so anxious to get on with this trip. The water does not leave any mark when you travel on it, but here is the trail of the old traders worn deep into the soil.
A fellow can almost see them walking or riding along here, with their long rifles and their buckskin clothes."
"That"s what I like about these trips Uncle d.i.c.k lays out sometimes,"
said Jesse. "A fellow sort of has to read about the country and the men who found it first."
"Yes," John a.s.sented, "reading about these old places makes you begin to see that there is quite a world besides the part of the world where we were born. It seems as though these old fellows in the past weren"t making these trails just for themselves."
"Pshaw! I"ll bet they just wanted furs, that was all," ventured Jesse.
"But, anyhow, they found the paths, all right."
"The Indians found the paths ahead of the traders," said Rob. "I fancy the white men did not have such hard times learning which way to go.
The Indians must have worked backward and forward across almost every pa.s.s in the mountains before the white men came. It makes me feel kind of strange to be here, just where the great-grandfathers of white people used to travel, and then to think that before their grandfathers were born this country was all old to the red men, who held it long before the white men came."
"Well," said John, who was of a practical turn of mind, "it"s starting in pretty well. We"ve got some whitefish left that we caught at Lake Waubamun, and the grouse which we killed this afternoon will make up a good supper. I s"pose if we were the first to cross over we might have got antelope in here, or, anyhow, deer."
"I"m glad Uncle d.i.c.k is going along," said Jesse. "He went over with the first engineer party, so he knows about all the bad places. We certainly had muskeg enough yesterday and the day before. If it"s any worse ahead than it is behind it"s going to be pretty tough."
"Look yonder, fellows!" said Rob, suddenly rising and pointing to the westward.
They followed his gesture and for a moment stood silent with him.
"It"s the Rockies!" said they, almost in unison.
The clouds had now broken away late in the afternoon, and for the first time they could see across the wide expanse of forest lands which stretched unbroken to the northward and westward, the low white line of the great backbone of the continent--the Rockies, land of mystery and adventure for bold souls since history began in this part of our continent. The boys stood silent for quite a while, absorbed in the vision of the distant hills and the thoughts which the sight awakened in their hearts.
"I"d like to take the trail again to-night," said Rob, as though to himself. "I can hardly wait."
"They"re fine little old hills, aren"t they?" said John. "I wish we could go farther toward them, every day. I want to get over to where the water starts west."
"Yes," added Jesse, "and see where old Yellowhead himself made his camp a hundred years ago."
"Well, Jess," said John, "you can go as Yellowhead, Junior, maybe, because your hair is sort of red, anyway. But I wonder where Uncle d.i.c.k and Moise have got to; they ought to be in by now, with the extra horses from the village."
"Trust Moise to be in on time for supper," said Rob. "Come on and let"s get the rest of the wood for to-night."
They turned now toward the tasks of the camp, work with which they were familiar, Jesse carrying some more wood, and John, whose turn it was to bring in the water, starting once more down the steep slope to the little creek which lay below them. Rob, who had completed his portion of the camp labor, still stood silent, apparently forgetful of all about him, staring steadily at the low broken line of white which marked the summit of the Rockies and the head of the great Athabasca River which lay on beyond to the westward.
II
AT THE FIRESIDE