The Arctic Prairies Part 25

Later, as we pa.s.sed the American who lives at Fort McMurray, Jiarobia said to me: "Dat man is the biggest awful liar on de river. You should hear him talk. 'One day,' he said, 'dere was a big stone floating up de muddy river and on it was tree men, and one was blind and one was plumb naked and one had no arms nor legs, and de blind man he looks down on bottom of river an see a gold watch, an de cripple he reach out and get it, and de naked man he put it in his pocket.' Now any man talk dat way he one most awful liar, it is not possible, any part, no how."

CHAPTER XLIV

THE RIVER

Now we resumed our daily life of tracking, eating, tracking, camping, tracking, sleeping. The weather had continued fine, with little change ever since we left Resolution, and we were so hardened to the life that it was pleasantly monotonous.

How different now were my thoughts compared with those of last Spring, as I first looked on this great river.

When we had embarked on the leaping, boiling, muddy Athabaska, in this frail canoe, it had seemed a foolhardy enterprise. How could such a craft ride such a stream for 2,000 miles? It was like a mouse mounting a monstrous, untamed, plunging and rearing horse. Now we set out each morning, familiar with stream and our boat, having no thought of danger, and viewing the water, the same turbid flood, as, our servant. Even as a skilful tamer will turn the wildest horse into his willing slave, so have we conquered this river and made it the bearer of our burdens. So I thought and wrote at the time; but the wise tamer is ever alert, never lulled into false security. He knows that a heedless move may turn his steed into a deadly, dangerous monster. We had our lesson to learn.

That night (October 15) there was a dull yellow sunset. The morning came with a strong north wind and rain that turned to snow, and with it great flocks of birds migrating from the Athabaska Lake.

Many rough-legged Hawks, hundreds of small land birds, thousands of Snow-birds in flocks of 20 to 200, myriads of Ducks and Geese, pa.s.sed over our heads going southward before the frost. About 8.30 the Geese began to pa.s.s in ever-increasing flocks; between 9.45 and 10 I counted 114 flocks averaging about 30 each (5 to 300) and they kept on at this rate till 2 P. M. This would give a total of nearly 100,000 Geese. It was a joyful thing to see and hear them; their legions in flight array went stringing high aloft, so high they looked not like Geese, but threads across the sky, the cobwebs, indeed, that Mother Carey was sweeping away with her north-wind broom. I sketched and counted flock after flock with a sense of thankfulness that so many, were left alive. Most were White Geese, but a twentieth, perhaps, were Honkers.

The Ducks began to pa.s.s over about noon, and became more numerous than the Geese as they went on.

In the midst of this myriad procession, as though they were the centre and cause of all, were two splendid White Cranes, bugling as they flew. Later that day we saw another band, of three, but these were all; their race is nearly run.

The full moon was on and all night the wild-fowl flew. The frost was close behind them, sharp and sudden. Next morning the ponds about us had ice an inch thick and we heard of it three inches at other places.

But the sun came out gloriously and when at ten we landed at Fort McMurray the day was warm and perfect in its autumnal peace.

Miss Gordon, the postmaster, did not recognise us at first. She said we all looked "so much older, it is always so with folks who go north."

Next morning we somehow left our tent behind. It was old and of little value, so we did not go back, and the fact that we never really needed it speaks much for the sort of weather we had to the end of the trip.

A couple of Moose (cow and calf) crossed the river ahead of us, and Billy went off in hot pursuit; but saw no more of them.

Tracks of animals were extremely abundant on, the sh.o.r.e here.

Large Wolves became quite numerous evidently we were now in their country. Apparently they had killed a Moose, as their dung was full of Moose hair.

We were now in the Canyon of the Athabaska and from this on our journey was a fight with the rapids. One by one my skilful boatmen negotiated them; either we tracked up or half unloaded, or landed and portaged, but it was hard and weary work. My journal entry for the night of the 18th runs thus:

"I am tired of troubled waters. All day to-day and for five days back we have been fighting the rapids of this fierce river. My place is to sit in the canoe-bow with a long pole, glancing here and there, right, left, and ahead, watching ever the face of this snarling river; and when its curling green lips apart betray a yellow brown gleam of deadly teeth too near, it is my part to ply with might and main that pole, and push the frail canoe aside to where the stream is in milder, kindlier mood.' Oh, I love not a brawling river any more than a brawling woman, and thoughts of the broad, calm Slave, with its majestic stretches of level flood, are now as happy halcyon memories of a bright and long-gone past."

My men were skilful and indefatigable. One by one we met the hard rapids in various ways, mostly by portaging, but on the morning of the 19th we came to one so small and short that all agreed the canoe could be forced by with poles and track-line. It looked an insignificant ripple, no more than a fish might make with its tail, and what happened in going up, is recorded as follows:

CHAPTER XLV

THE RIVER SHOWS ITS TEETH

"Oct. 20, 1907.--Athabaska River. In the Canyon. This has been a day of horrors and mercies. We left the camp early, 6.55--long before sunrise, and portaged the first rapid. About 9 we came to the middle rapid; this Billy thought we could track up, so with two ropes he and Rob were hauling us, I in bow, Preble in stem; but the strong waters of the middle part whirled the canoe around suddenly, and dashed her on a rock. There was a crash of breaking timber, a roar of the flood, and in a moment Preble and I and, all the stuff were in the water.

"'My journals,' I shouted as I went down, and all the time the flood was boiling in my ears my thought was, 'My journals,'--'my journals.'

"The moment my mouth was up again above the water, I bubbled out, 'My journals,--save my journals,' then struck out for the sh.o.r.e.

Now I saw Preble hanging on to the canoe and trying to right it.

His face was calm and unchanged as when setting a mousetrap. 'Never mind that, save yourself,' I called out; he made no response, and, after all, it was safest to hang on to the canoe. I was swept into a shallow place at once, and got on my feet, then gained the sh.o.r.e.

"'My journals--save them first!' I shouted to the two boys, and now remembered with horror, how, this very morning, on account of portaging, I had for the first time put all three journals in the handbag, that had disappeared, whereas the telescope that used to hold two of them, was floating high. It is the emergency that proves your man, and I learned that day I had three of the best men that ever boarded a boat. A glance showed Preble in shallow water coolly hauling in the canoe.

"Rob and Billy bounded along the rugged sh.o.r.es, from one ice-covered rock to another, over piles of drift logs and along steep ledges they went; like two mountain goats; the flood was spotted with floating things, but no sign of the precious journal-bag. Away out was the grub-box; square and high afloat, it struck a reef. 'You save the grub,' yelled Billy above the roaring, pitiless flood, and dashed on. I knew Billy's head was cool and clear, so I plunged into the water, ice-cold and waist deep--and before the merciless one could s.n.a.t.c.h it along, I had the grub-box safe. Meanwhile Rob and Billy had danced away out of sight along that wild canyon bank.

I set out after them. In some eddies various articles were afloat, a cocoa tin, a milk pot, a bag of rare orchids intended for a friend, a half sack of flour, and many little things I saved at cost of a fresh wetting each time, and on the bank, thrown hastily up by the boys, were such bundles as they had been able to rescue.

"I struggled on, but the pace was killing. They were young men and dog-runners; I was left behind and was getting so tired now I could not keep warm; there was a keen frost and I was wet to the skin. The chance to rescue other things came again and again. Twelve times did I plunge, into that deadly cold river, and so gathered a lot of small truck. Then knowing I could do little more, and realising that everything man could do would be done without me, turned back reluctantly. Preble pa.s.sed me at a run, he had left the canoe in a good place and had saved some bedding.

"'Have you seen my journal-bag?' He made a quick gesture down the river, then dashed away. Alas! I knew now, the one irreplaceable part of our cargo was deep in the treacherous flood, never to be seen again.

"At the canoe I set about making a fire; there was no axe to cut kindling-wood, but a birch tree was near, and a pile of shredded birch-bark with a lot of dry willow on it made a perfect fire-lay; then I opened my waterproof matchbox. Oh, horrors! the fifteen matches in it were damp and soggy. I tried to dry them by blowing on them; my frozen fingers could scarcely hold them. After a time I struck one. It was soft and useless; another and another at intervals, till thirteen; then, despairing, I laid the last two on a stone in the weak sunlight, and tried to warm myself by gathering firewood and moving quickly, but it seemed useless a very death chill was on me. I have often lighted a fire with rubbing-sticks, but I needed an axe, as well as a buckskin thong for this, and I had neither. I looked through the baggage that was saved, no matches and all things dripping wet. I might go three miles down that frightful canyon to our last camp and maybe get some living coals.

But no! mindful of the forestry laws, we had as usual most carefully extinguished the fire with buckets of water, and the clothes were freezing on my back. 1 was tired out, teeth chattering. Then came the thought, Why despair while two matches remain? I struck the first now, the fourteenth, and, in spite of dead fingers and the sizzly, doubtful match, it cracked, blazed, and then, oh blessed, blessed birch bark!--with any other tinder my numbed hands had surely failed--it blazed like a torch, and warmth at last was mine, and outward comfort for a house of gloom.

"The boys, I knew, would work like heroes and do their part as well as man could do it, my work was right here. I gathered all the things along the beach, made great racks for drying and a mighty blaze. I had no pots or pans, but an aluminum bottle which would serve as kettle; and thus I prepared a meal of such things as were saved--a sc.r.a.p of pork, some tea and a soggy ma.s.s that once was pilot bread. Then sat down by the fire to spend five hours of growing horror, 175 miles from a settlement, canoe smashed, guns gone, pots and pans gone, specimens all gone, half our bedding gone, our food gone; but all these things were nothing, compared with the loss of my three precious journals; 600 pages of observation and discovery, geographical, botanical, and zoological, 500 drawings, valuable records made under all sorts of trying circ.u.mstances, discovery and compa.s.s survey of the beautiful Nyarling River, compa.s.s survey of the two great northern lakes, discovery of two great northern rivers, many lakes, a thousand things of interest to others and priceless to me--my summer's work--gone; yes, I could bear that, but the three chapters of life and thought irrevocably gone; the magnitude of this calamity was crus.h.i.+ng. Oh, G.o.d, this is the most awful blow that could have fallen at the end of the six months' trip.

"The hours went by, and the gloom grew deeper, for there was no sign of the boys. Never till now did the thought of danger enter my mind. Had they been too foolhardy in their struggle with the terrible stream? Had they, too, been made to feel its power? My guess was near the truth; and yet there was that awful river unchanged, glittering, surging, beautiful, exactly as on so many days before, when life on it had seemed so bright.

"At three in the afternoon, I saw a fly crawl down the rocks a mile away. I fed the fire and heated up the food and tea. In twenty minutes I could see that it was Rob, but both his hands were empty.

'If they had found it,' I said to myself, 'they would send it back first thing, and if he had it, he would swing it aloft,' Yet no, nothing but a s.h.i.+ny tin was in his hands and the blow had fallen.

The suspense was over, anyway. I bowed my head, 'We have done what we could.'

"Rob came slowly up, worn out. In his hand a tin of baking-powder.

Across his breast was a canvas band. He tottered toward me, too tired to speak in answer to my unspoken question, but he turned and there on his back was the canvas bag that held labour of all these long toilsome months.

"'I got 'em, all right,' he managed to say, smiling in a weak way.

"'And the boys?'

"'All right now.'

"'Thank G.o.d!' I broke down, and wrung his hand; 'I won't forget,'

was all I could say. Hot tea revived him, loosened his tongue, and I heard the story.

"I knew,' he said, 'what was first to save when I seen you got ash.o.r.e. Me and Billy we run like crazy, we see dat bag 'way out in the deep strong water. De odder tings came in de eddies, but dat bag it keep 'way out, but we run along de rocks; after a mile it came pretty near a point, and Billy, he climb on a rock and reach out, but he fall in deep water and was carried far, so he had to swim for his life. I jump on rocks anoder mile to anoder point; I got ahead of de bag, den I get two logs, and hold dem between my legs for raft, and push out; but dat dam river he take dem logs very slow, and dat bag very fast, so it pa.s.s by. But Billy he swim ash.o.r.e, and run some more, and he make a raft; but de raft he stick on rock, and de bag he never stick, but go like h.e.l.l.

"'Den I say, "Here, Billy, you give me yo' sash," and I run tree mile more, so far I loss sight of dat bag and make good raft. By'mebye Billy he come shouting and point, I push out in river, and paddle, and watch, and sure dere come dat bag. My, how he travel! far out now; but I paddle and push hard and b.u.mp he came at raft and I grab him. Oh! maybe I warn't glad! ice on river, frost in air, 14 mile run on snowy rocks, but I no care, I bet I make dat boss glad when he see me."

"Glad! I never felt more thankful in my life! My heart swelled with grat.i.tude to the brave boys that had leaped, scrambled, slidden, tumbled, fallen, swum or climbed over those 14 perilous, horrible miles of icy rocks and storm-piled timbers, to save the books that, to them, seemed of so little value, but which they yet knew were, to me, the most precious of all my things. Guns, cameras, food, tents, bedding, dishes, were trifling losses, and the horror of that day was turned to joy by the crowning mercy of its close.

"'I won't forget you when we reach the Landing, Rob!' were, the meagre words that rose to my lips, but the tone of voice supplied what the words might lack. And I did not forget him or the others; and Robillard said afterward, 'By Gar, dat de best day's work I ever done, by Gar, de time I run down dat h.e.l.l river after dem dam books!'"