The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Part 5

It took a great deal of shouting and whipping to get the poor brutes to take to this treacherous mora.s.s, but one after the other they were driven in, until at length the whole dozen of the pack-train were distributed, half-submerged, over the hundred yards of the mucky trail. Uncle d.i.c.k, not stopping to think of his clothes, followed Moise in; and Rob, pluckily as either of the others, also took to the mud. Thigh-deep, plunging along as best they could, in the churned up ma.s.s, they worked along the animals, exhorting or encouraging them the best they could. It was piteously hard for all concerned, and for a long time it seemed doubtful if they would get the whole train across.

Sometimes a horse, exhausted by its struggles, would lie over on its side, and the three of them would have to tug at him to get him started again.

The last horse in the train was the unhappy claybank. Within a few yards of the farther side this horse bagged down, helpless, and fell over on its side, its pack down in the mud, and after plunging viciously for a time lay flat, with its head out, so that Rob had to cut some brush to put under it.

"Broken leg, I'm afraid," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "It's that rotten corduroy down in the mud there. What shall we do, Moise, cut off the packs and--but I hate to shoot a horse."

"S'pose you'll wait some minute," said Moise, after a time, coming up plastered with mud from head to foot. "Those horse, she'll want for rest a little while."

"Feel down along his hind leg if you can, Moise," said Uncle d.i.c.k; "that's the one that seems helpless."

Moise obediently kneeled in the mud and reached his arm along down the cayuse's legs.

"Those legs, she always there," said he, arising. "Maybe those horse, she'll just fool us." Then he began to exhort the helpless animal.

"_Advance donc, sacre cochon diable cheval! En avant la--whoop!_"

Moise continued his shouts, and, to the surprise of all, the disabled horse began to flounder once more; and as they all lifted at his pack and pushed him forward he gave a series of plunges and finally reached firm ground.

"So," said Moise, calmly, "tha.s.s all right. She was French horse, tha.s.s all--you'll been spoke English on him, and he wasn't understood it."

Uncle d.i.c.k, grimed as he was from head to foot, could not help laughing at Moise's explanation. Then they all stood and laughed at one another, for they, as well as the saddles and packs, were black with muck.

"I told you, young men," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "that we wouldn't make a clean camp to-night. You see now why we have covers on the packs, don't you, and why we roll everything in canvas? Well, anyhow, we're across that one, and I hope there's nothing any worse ahead, although you never can tell."

The pack-horses seemed to have very short memories of their troubles, for when the line of march was again resumed they went on peacefully enough, even the claybank bringing up the rear as though nothing had happened to him.

It was a stiff climb which confronted them now, on the eastern slope of the big Athabasca divide; but as they rose the terrors of the trail were in some part compensated by the splendid views of the country which now were disclosed as they pa.s.sed into this or that opening along the jack-pine ridge. A wide panorama lay off to the east, the country from which they had come; and at last, when finally they had arrived at the top of the divide, they could see the barren slopes of the Rockies, now apparently so close as to be within a half-day's travel. It was a savage and desolate scene which lay about them, the more gloomy because of the wide areas of dead and half-burned timber which stretched for miles beyond. Weary and travel-stained as the young travelers were, a feeling of depression came upon them, seeing which Uncle d.i.c.k did his best to cheer them up.

"Never mind," said he; "that much is behind us at least. We're nearly a thousand feet above the McLeod River here, and it's over thirteen hundred feet down to the Athabasca yonder. There's bad going between here and there, although the valley itself isn't so bad. So I tell you what I think we'll do--we'll make an early camp, and Moise and I will go off to the south of the main trail and see if we can't work over the heads of some of the creeks. It may be rougher country, but it ought not to be quite so soft."

They were glad enough to follow this counsel, and when at last they came to a little open glade with running water they pulled up and began the unpleasant work of removing the muddy packs.

"I've got mud in my hair and my eyes and my mouth yet," said Rob, laughing.

"And my stirrups are full, and my rifle scabbard and everything else,"

added Jesse.

"Well, I don't call this any fun," said John; "I don't like to be dirty."

"Nonsense!" said Rob. "It'll all wash off. And once we are clean and have a cup of tea, we'll be just as good as new."

VI

THE ATHABASCA AT LAST

"Well, what luck did you have, Uncle d.i.c.k?" inquired Jesse, the next morning, when, a little later than usual, they were once more ready to take the trail.

"Do you mean what luck I had in finding a new trail? Well, none too good, but better, I think, than the one on ahead. Anyway, we'll try it. If we can make the mouth of Hardisty Creek, we can't complain.

Besides, talking of adventures, you can't think of anything that has more chance in it than finding a new trail down the Athabasca side of this divide--no telling how many muskegs or hills or creeks we may run into."

Uncle d.i.c.k, however, proved to be a very practical wilderness guide, for he now led the party considerably to the south of the old trail into country broken and covered with down timber, but with little or none of bad muskeg in it. By noon they were well down toward the water-grade of the Athabasca itself, and at night, after a long, hard day's work, they made their encampment at a point which to the eye seemed almost within touch of the Rocky Mountains themselves. They counted on much better going in the flat valley of the Athabasca than they had had in crossing the country back of them, broken as it had been with many little waterways and by the deep, troughlike valleys of the bolder streams making northward into the Athabasca.

By this time their camp work seemed less like a picnic and more like routine work, but on the other hand they were settling down to it in steady and businesslike fas.h.i.+on, so that it did not take them long either to make or to break camp. Nor did their weary bodies leave them time to enjoy the splendid mountain view which now lay about them.

On the next day, leaving the big peak of Mount Hardisty behind them, they made a swift climb up the valley of a little creek called Prairie Creek, the beaten trail leaving the main valley and heading off parallel to the big shallows of the Athabasca, known as Brule Lake.

Now the great shoulders of the Rockies seemed to come close about them. They were following the general course of the Athabasca valley southward to the point where it breaks out through its gate of the hills. Folding Mountain now rose to the left of them, and when finally they pitched their camp on the next night in a little glade near its foot they felt the pleasing a.s.surance that at last they were getting to the Rockies themselves. Their leader pointed out to them that they were now within the original lines of the great Dominion reserve known as Jasper Park, five thousand square miles in extent, and reaching from the place where they were to the summit of the Rockies themselves, and to the eastern edge of the province of British Columbia.

"From where we are," said Uncle d.i.c.k, that night, "it is seven or eight miles to the Athabasca River at the end of Brule Lake. Once more we are at a place where we have the choice of two evils."

"I know," said Rob, once more pulling out his map; "you mean we'll have to go over the Roche Miette--that big hill on ahead there."

"Yes, if we keep this side the Athabasca we will," said Uncle d.i.c.k.

"The Roche Miette is a historic landmark on this trail of the fur-traders, and I never heard that any of them ever loved it, either.

There's no way of getting between it and the Athabasca, and the trail over it certainly is bad enough. There are places where a pack-horse might slip off, and if so it would go many a hundred feet before it stopped."

"What would we do if that sort of thing happened?" demanded John.

"Well," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "we'd do precisely what other fellows have done when that happened to them. But it hasn't happened yet, and maybe won't at all."

"It's over a thousand feet high," said Rob, standing and looking at the face of the big cliff ahead of them.

"Yes, and that means a thousand feet down on the other side, too.

Worse than that, it means fording the Rocky River on beyond, and she's a wild one. Then you've got to ford the Maligne, as well as a lot of little creeks. After that you've got to ford the Athabasca--because we've got to get across the Athabasca in order to go up the Miette River to the Yellowhead Pa.s.s."

The boys stood silent, looking at one another, none too happy at these hards.h.i.+ps and dangers which confronted them.

"Don't look so glum," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I've been over this trail three times each way, and the old traders used to cross here dozens of times each way and thought nothing of it. You must learn to be like soldiers, and be contented if you have a good supper and a good place to sleep. Besides, I've got a plan that I'll tell you about in the morning."

VII

CROSSING THE ATHABASCA

The boys felt a little more cheerful the next morning after they had had their breakfast, and Rob finally asked the noncommittal leader of their party what he had meant the night before when he mentioned his plan for avoiding the Roche Miette.

"Well, some of us may get wet again," said Uncle d.i.c.k; "but if we can make it through, we can save a little time and a little risk, I think."

"I know," said Rob; "you mean to ford the Athabasca--or swim it."

Uncle d.i.c.k nodded. "The horses will have to swim, but I hope we will not. For that matter, we might have to swim the Rocky River, on ahead.

Of course, the higher up the Athabasca we go the less water there is in it, but down in this country she spreads out on gravel-bars and sand-flats. If we can make it across here, it'll be a good thing, the way I figure it."

"The streams are not as high now as they will be a month from now,"