Picheu he"ll keel two bear this last week, an" he"ll say plenty bear now all on river, on the willows."
"Well, at any rate," said Alex, "old Picheu himself is coming."
"How do you know?" asked Jesse.
"I hear the setting-pole."
Presently, as Alex had said, the dugout showed its nose around the bend. At-tick and Billy, Jesse"s two friends, were on the tracking line, and in the stern of the dugout, doing most of the labor of getting up-stream, was an old, wrinkle-faced, gray-haired and gray-bearded man, old Picheu himself, in his time one of the most famous among the hunters of the Crees, as the boys later learned. He spoke no English, but stood like some old j.a.panese war-G.o.d on the bank, looking intently from one to the other as they now finished their preparations for re-embarking. He seemed glad to take the money which Rob paid him for the dugout and shook hands pleasantly all around, to show his satisfaction.
The boys saw that what Moise had said about the dugout was quite true. It was a long craft, hewed out of a single log, which looked at first crankier than it really was. It had great carrying capacity, and the boys put a good part of the load in it, which seemed only to steady it the more. It was determined that Rob and Moise should go ahead in this boat, as they previously had done in the _Mary Ann_, the others to follow with the _Jaybird_.
Soon all the camp equipment was stowed aboard, and the men stood at the edge of the water ready to start. Their old friends made no comment and expressed little concern one way or the other, but as Rob turned when he was on the point of stepping into the leading boat he saw Billy standing at the edge of the water. He spoke some brief word to Alex.
"He wants to say to Mr. Jess," interpreted Alex, "that he would like to make him a present of this pair of moccasins, if he would take them from him."
"Would I take them!" exclaimed Jesse; "I should say I would, and thank him for them very much. I"d like to give him something of mine, this handkerchief, maybe, for him to remember me by."
"He says," continued Alex, "that when you get home he wishes you would write to him in care of the priest at St. John. He says he hopes you"ll have plenty of shooting down the river. He says he would like to go to the States when he gets rich. He says his people will talk about you all around the camp-fire, a great many times, telling how you crossed the mountains, where so few white men ever have been."
"I"ll tell you what, boys," said Rob, "let"s line up and give them all a cheer."
So the three boys stood in a row at the waterside, after they had shaken hands once more with the friends they were leaving, and gave them three cheers and a tiger, waving their hats in salutation. Even old Picheu smiled happily at this. Then the boys sprang aboard, and the boats pushed out into the current.
XXIV
THE WHITE MAN"S COUNTRY
They were pa.s.sing now between very high banks, broken now and then by rock faces. The currents averaged extremely strong, and there were at times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before.
The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very tractable, and made a splendid boat for this sort of travel.
"You"d think from the look of this country," said John to Alex, "that we were the first ever to cross it."
"No," said the old hunter, "I wish we were; but that is far from the truth to-day. This spring, before I started west to meet you, there were a dozen wagons pa.s.sed through the Landing on one day--every one of them with a plow lashed to the wagon-box. The farmers are coming.
If you should stop at Dunvegan you"d hardly know you were in Mackenzie"s old country, I"m afraid. And now the buffalo and the elk are all gone, where there used to be so many. It is coming now to be the white man"s country."
"You"ll have to come up to Alaska, where we live, Alex," said John.
"We"ve got plenty of wild country back inside of Alaska yet. But even there the outside hunters are killing off the bear and moose mighty fast."
"Yes," said Alex, "for sport, for their heads, and not for the meat!
My people kill for meat alone, and they could live here forever and the game would still be as thick as ever it was. It"s the whites who destroy the new countries."
"I"m beginning to like this country more and more," said Jesse, frankly. "Back in the mountains sometimes I was pretty badly scared, the water roared so much all the time. But here the country looks easier, and the water isn"t so strong. I think we"ll have the best part of our trip now."
At that instant the sound of a rifle-shot rang out from some point below them on the river. The dugout had just swung out of sight around the bend. "That"s Rob"s rifle!" exclaimed John.
"Very likely," said Alex. "Bear, I suppose."
The crew of the _Jaybird_ bent to their paddles and presently pa.s.sed in turn about the sharp bend and came up alongside the dugout, which lay along sh.o.r.e in some slack water. Rob was looking a trifle shamefaced.
"Did you miss him?" asked John, excitedly.
"Well," said Rob, "I suppose you"d call it a miss--he was running up the bank there about half a mile away. You can see him going yet, for that matter."
Sure enough, they could, the animal by this time seeming not larger than a dog as it scrambled up among the bushes on the top of the steep precipice which lined the bank of the river.
"He must have been feeding somewhere below," said Rob, "and I suppose heard us talking. He ran up that bank pretty fast. I didn"t know it was so hard to shoot from a moving boat. Anyhow, I didn"t get him."
"He"ll was too far off," said Moise. "But those boy she"ll shoot right on his foot all the time. I think she"ll hit him there."
"Never mind, Mr. Rob," said Alex. "We"ve got plenty of river below us, and we"re sure to see more bear. This river is one of the best countries for black bear there is this side of the Hay or the Liard."
Both boats proceeded at a leisurely pace for the remainder of this stage, no one being anxious to complete the journey to the Peace River Landing any earlier than was necessary, for the journey down the river was of itself interesting and pleasant. All the landscape continued green, although it was late in the summer. The water, however, was now less brilliant and clear than it had been in the mountains, and had taken on a brownish stain.
They encamped that night at a little beach which came down to the river and offered an ideal place for their bivouac. Tall pines stood all about, and there was little undergrowth to harbor mosquitoes, although by this time, indeed, that pest of the Northland was pretty much gone. The feeling of depression they sometimes had known in the big mountains had now left the minds of our young travelers, and they were disposed, since they found themselves well within reach of their goal, to take their time and enjoy themselves.
"Moise, tell us another story," demanded Jesse, after they had finished their evening meal.
"What kind of story you"ll want?" inquired Moise.
"I think we"d rather have something about your own country, about animals, the same as you told us back in the mountains, perhaps."
"Well," said Moise, "I"ll told you the story of how the ermine he"ll got the end of his tail black."
XXV
HOW THE ERMINE GOT HIS TAIL BLACK
"Long tam "go," said Moise, "before my onkle he"ll been born, all peoples lived in the woods, and there was no Companee here for trade.
In those day there was no tobacco an" no rifle--those was long tam "go--I don" know how long.
"In those tam all the people he"ll talk with Wiesacajac, an"
Wiesacajac he"ll be friendly all tam with these peoples. All the animal that"ll live in the wood he"ll do all right, too. Only one animal he was bad animal, and those was what you call wissel (weasel).
This wissel is what you call ermine some tam. He"ll be mighty smart animal. In summer-tam, when gra.s.s an" rock is brown, he"ll go aroun"
brown, sam as the rock an" the leaf. In summer-tam the wissel he"ll caught the hare an" the partridge, an" he"ll live pretty good, heem.
"Now, in the winter-tam most all the animals in the wood he"ll go white. Those hare, he"ll get white just same color as the snow. Those _picheu_, those lynx, he"ll get gray, almost white. The ptarmigan, he"ll get white, too, so those owl won" see heem on the snow; an" the owl he"ll get white, so nothing will see heem when he goes on the snow. Some tam up north the wolf he"ll be white all over, an" some fox he"ll also be white all same as the snow.
"But the _Cigous_, or wissel, he"ll stay brown, with white streak on his neck, same like he"ll been in the summer-tam. When he"ll go on the hont, those rabbeet, she"ll saw _Cigous_ come, an" he"ll ron off, so _Cigous_ he"ll go hongree.
"Now, _Cigous_ he"ll get this on his min", an" he"ll sit down one tam an" he"ll make a pray to Kitchai-Manitou, an" also to Wiesacajac, an"
he"ll pray that some tam he"ll be white in the winter-tam, the same as the snow, the same as those other animal, so he"ll catch the meat an"