The Young Alaskans on the Trail Part 27

Surely enough, they had hardly gone another hundred yards before Moise, stepping back quietly, pointed through an opening in the bushes. There, lying before them in a little glade, lay a vast, black body, motionless.

Rob grounded his rifle-b.u.t.t, almost in disappointment, but later expressed his satisfaction.

"Now, boys, I got him," said he, "and I guess it's just as well he didn't have to wait till now for us to come. But speaking of trailing, Moise, you certainly know your business."

"Oh yes," said Moise, "every man in this country he'll mus' know how to trail, else he'll go hongree some tam. My onkle she'll taught me how for follow trail."

"Well," said Alex, "here's some more meat to get down to the boat, I suppose, and we need meat badly, too. We ought not to waste it, but if we take it all on board we'll have to hurry to get down to Peace River Landing with it, because it is more than we can possibly eat."

The two older hunters now drew their big buffalo knives and fell to work skinning and dismembering the carca.s.s of the bear, the boys helping as they could. It was plainly the intention of Alex and Moise to make one trip with meat and hide.

In order to carry the green bear hide--always a slippery and awkward thing to pack--Moise now showed a little device often practised, as he said, among the Crees. He cut two sharpened sticks, each about a couple of feet in length, and placing these down on the hide, folded the hide around them, so that it made a sharp, four-cornered pack. He lashed the hide tightly inside these four corners, and then lifting it up and down, smilingly showed the boys that the green hide now would not slip, but would remain in place, thus making a much better pack.

He slung his belt at the corners of the pack, and then motioned to Alex to throw up on top of his pack one of the hams of the bear which had been detached from the carca.s.s. When Moise got his load he started off at a trot, taking a course different from that on which they had come.

Alex in turn used his belt and some thongs he had in making a pack of the remainder of the meat, which, heavy as it seemed, he managed to shoulder, leaving the boys nothing to carry except the skull of the bear, which they had expressed a wish to retain with the robe.

"Do you suppose we'll ever get to be men as strong as that?" asked Rob in a whisper, pointing to the solitary figure of the breed now pa.s.sing rapidly down the slope.

"I didn't know anybody was so strong," admitted Jesse. "They must be pretty good men, I'm thinking."

"But which way are they going?" asked John. "Do you suppose they're lost?"

"We'll follow and see," answered Rob. "They seem to know their own way pretty well."

They now kept Alex in sight, and in the course of about fifteen or twenty minutes came up with Moise, who was sitting down, resting his back against the root of a tree.

"I suppose you'll know where we are now?" he asked of Rob.

Rob shook his head. "No, I don't recognize the place."

Moise pointed with a thumb to a point just back of the tree. Rob stepped over, and gazing down, saw a deep hole in the ground.

"Why, I know!" said he. "This is one of the holes the bear dug--one of the first ones, I should think."

"Oh, I see, you cut across-lots and didn't follow the back trail."

John was as much surprised as Rob.

"No," said Alex, "we saved perhaps half a mile by coming straight across, for, you see, the bear was wandering all around on the hillside as he was trying to get away. You'll find the boats are directly below us here, and not very far away."

"This," said Rob, "seems to me pretty wonderful! You men certainly do know how to get along in this country. I'd never have thought this was the direct course, and if I had been in there alone I certainly would have followed the bear's trail back--if I could have found it."

Yet it all came out quite as Alex and Moise had planned, for in less than ten minutes more they scrambled down the steep bank to the rocky beach where the two boats lay. The men distributed the hide and meat between the two, covering up both with green willow boughs.

"Now," said Alex, "for a fast run down this river. We've got more meat than we can use, and we must get to the Landing."

XXVII

THE END OF THE OLD WAR-TRAIL

It is possible to make twenty-five miles a day with pole and tracking-line against a current even so strong as that of the Peace River. Twice or thrice that distance down-stream is much easier, so that no greatly difficult journey remained ahead of our travelers between their last camp and the old Hudson Bay post known as Peace River Landing, which perhaps Moise would have called the end of the old war-trail from Little Slave Lake--the point near the junction of the Peace and Smoky rivers which has in it so much strategic value, whether in war or in peace. The two boats, pausing only for the briefest possible encampments, now swung on down, day after day, not pausing at the ultimate western settlements, St. John and Dunvegan, but running on down, between high and steep banks, through a country clean and beautiful with its covering of poplar growth. At last, well wearied with steady paddling, they opened up a great "V" in the valley, so that they knew they were at the junction of the Smoky and the Peace, and hence at the end of this stage of their journey.

It was evening at the time of their arrival, and Rob was much for finis.h.i.+ng the journey that day, yet yielded to the wish of Moise, who thought it would be better to camp some few miles above the town, although almost within sight of the great ferry which here crosses the main river from the wagon trail of the north bank.

"We'll must go in like real _voyageurs_," insisted Moise. "We'll not look good to go in to-night--too much tire an' dirt."

In the morning Moise appeared at the breakfast table attired in his best. He had in some way managed a clean shave, and now his long, black hair was bound back with a gaudy handkerchief, his old s.h.i.+rt replaced by a new and bright one, and his old moccasins discarded for a pair of new and brilliantly beaded ones, so that in all he made a brave figure of a voyageur indeed. Alex also in a quiet way had followed the lead of Moise. The boys themselves, falling into the spirit of this, hunted through their war-bags for such finery as they could compa.s.s, and decked themselves out in turn with new moccasins, new gloves, and new kerchiefs for their necks. Moise looked on them all with the utmost approbation.

"It's the best for return like some _braves hommes_," said he. "Well, _en avant_!"

They all bent gaily to the paddles now, and sped down the flood of the great stream until at length they sighted the buildings of the Hudson Bay post, just below the ferry. Here, finis.h.i.+ng with a great spurt of speed, they pulled alongside the landing bank, just below where there lay at mooring the tall structure of the Hudson Bay steamboat, _Peace River_, for the time tarrying at this point. Moise rolled his paddle along the gunwale, making the spray fly from the blade after the old fas.h.i.+on of the _voyageurs_ ending a journey, and the boys followed his example. Many willing hands aided them to disembark. A little later they found themselves ready for what seemed apt to be one of their last encampments.

A tall breed woman stood at a little distance up the bank, silently awaiting their coming. Moise pointed to her with no great emotion.

"He's my womans," said he. "He'll fix the camp for us an' take care of those meat, yes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOISE AT HOME]

Moise and his wife met, undoubtedly glad to see each other, though making no great show at the time. Pretty soon the breed woman came down and lifted the bear hides and the meat from the boats.

"She'll fix up the hides for you, all right," said Alex, quietly. "As we don't need the meat, and as I don't live here, but a hundred miles below on Little Slave, I think we had better give Moise all of the meat for himself and his people--he probably has fifty or more 'uncles' and 'cousins' in this village. Meantime, I think it might be well for us to make a little camp over here in the cottonwoods just back of the lodges."

They saw now on the flat between the river and the Company post quite a little village of Indian conical tepees, from which now came many Indians and half-breeds, and a mult.i.tude of yelping dogs.

The boys, aided by one or two taciturn but kindly natives, who seemed to know who they were, and so lent a hand without any request, soon had their simple little camp well under way. At about this time they were approached by a stalwart man wearing the cap of the Hudson Bay Company's river service.

"I'm Saunders, of the Hudson Bay Company," said he, "and I suppose you're the nephews of Mr. Wilc.o.x, an engineer, who has gone down the river?"

"Yes, sir," said Rob; "we have just come down, and we expected to meet him below here."

"I have a letter for you," said Captain Saunders. "Mr. Wilc.o.x came up from Little Slave awhile back, and went down to Fort Vermilion with us on our last trip--I'm the captain of the boat over yonder. He asked me to bring you down to Vermilion on our next run. I suppose the letter explains it all."

"Yes, sir," said Rob, after reading it and handing it to the others.

"That's about the size of it. We thought our trip was ended here, but he asks us to come on down and meet him at Fort Vermilion! It seems a long way; but we're very glad to meet you, Captain Saunders."

They all shook hands, and the grizzled veteran smiled at them quizzically.

"Well, young gentlemen," said he, "I hardly know what to think about your trip, but if you really made it, you're lucky to get through in as good shape as you have."

"We had a perfectly bully time, sir," said Rob. "We lost one of our boats west of the canon, but we got another this side, and we're all safe and sound, with every ounce of our property along."

"You have the best of me, I must admit," said the Hudson Bay man, "for I have never been west of St. John myself, although we make the Dunvegan run regularly all the time, of course. They tell me it is pretty wild back there in the mountains."

"Yes, sir," said Rob. "The water's pretty fast sometimes; but, you see, we had two good men with us, and we were very careful."

"You had pretty fair men with _you_, too, didn't you, Alex?" smiled Saunders, as the tall half-breed came up at that time.