The Young Alaskans in the Rockies(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：Hough, Emerson

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I

ROB, JOHN, AND JESSE IN CAMP

“Well, here we are, fellows,” said Jesse Wilcox, 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 Pass, over yonder, is the place I’ve always wanted to see. It’s an old pass 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 Pass, which you know is between here and Banff.”

“I know,” said Jesse, eagerly. “Uncle Dick 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 Pass 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 Pass. 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 Dick lays out sometimes,” said Jesse. “A fellow sort of has to read about the country and the men who found it first.”

“Yes,” John assented, “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 pass 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 Dick 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 Dick 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

“Well, well, young men!” broke out a hearty voice, not long after our young friends had completed their evening’s work and were seated near the fire. “How are you getting on? Are the mosquitoes pretty bad?”

“Hello, Uncle Dick!” answered John. “We thought it was about time for you to be coming up.”

“And about mosquitoes,” answered Jesse, brushing at his face, “I should say they were pretty bad for early spring.”

“Well, I’m glad to be in for the day,” remarked the tall, lean-looking man they all called Uncle Dick—the friend to whom they owed so many pleasant and adventurous journeys in out-of-the-way parts of the country. He was dressed as the men of the engineers usually were in the rough preliminary survey work. He wore a wide white hat, flannel shirt, loose woolen clothing, and high laced boots. His face was burned brown with the suns of many lands, but his blue eyes twinkled with a kindly light, which explained why all of these boys were so fond of him.

“Where’s Moise?” asked Rob, after a time, assisting Uncle Dick at unsaddling his riding-pony.

“Just back on the trail a way,” replied the older member of the party. “Stuck in the mud. Considerable muskeg in here, believe me.”

Presently they could hear the voice of Moise, the remaining member of their party, who was to go along as cook and assistant with the pack-train. He was singing in a high voice some odd Indian tune, whose words may have been French; for Moise Richard, as all our readers will remember who followed the fortunes of our young adventurers in their trip along the Peace River, was a French half-breed, and a man good either with boats or horses.

“Hello, Moise!” cried the three companions, as he came into view, driving ahead of him the remainder of the pack-train. They pronounced his name as he did, “Mo-èes”.

“Hello, young mans,” exclaimed Moise, smiling as usual as he slipped out of his saddle. “How was you all, hein? I’ll bet you was glad to see old Moise. You got hongree, what?”

“Certainly we are,” replied John for all three. “We always are.”

“That’s the truth,” laughed Uncle Dick. “Lucky we’ve got a couple of pack-horses apiece, and lucky the engineers have got some supplies cached over there in the Rockies.”

“Well, some of those new horse, she was fool horse,” said Moise. “She’ll want to go back on his home, or run off on the bush. She’s like any fool pack-horse, and don’t want to do what he knows is right worth a cent, him.”

“Well, never mind,” said Uncle Dick, carelessly. “I imagine our train will be like all pack-trains, better when they get settled down to work. It’s always a lot of trouble until they get straightened around and shaken down to the work.”

“I’ll goin’ to put some bell on those old gray mare Betsy,” said Moise. “Maybe those fool horse will follow him, Betsy. All the time six height hour, I’ve chase those fool horse where she’ll break out and eat grass. They make more trouble for Moise than all his eleven, ten children up on Peace River.”

“I don’t believe your children are troubling you very much now, Moise,” said Uncle Dick.

“No, my hooman, she’ll know how to herd those childrens,” said Moise, calmly. “S’pose those baby start out for eat grass, she’ll told him, no, not do that, and he’ll learn pretty soon. Now if a little baby can learn, why can’t a three-year-old horse with white eye—I’m going to talk to that fool yellow horse, me, before long.”

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “we’ll get all the packs off now and finish the camp.”

“Whoa, there!” called out Moise to the offending claybank cayuse which had caused him most of his trouble that afternoon. “Hol’ still now, or Moise, she’ll stick his foot in your eye.”

But Uncle Dick only laughed at the threatening Moise, knowing that in his heart he was kindly. Indeed, he smoothed down the warm back of the cayuse with a gentle hand when he took off the pack. Soon all the packs were in a row on the ground, not far from the fire, each with a cover thrown over the saddle. Our three young companions helped put hobbles on the fore-legs of the horses, and soon all the horse band, twelve in number, were hopping away from the camp in search of grass and water. They found the latter in a little slough a short distance back on the trail, and did not attempt the steep descent to Wolf Creek.

The three young friends assisted in unpacking the animal which carried their tent and blankets. They had lashed on the cow-saddles of their own riding-horses the little war-bags or kit-bags of soft leather in which each boy carried his own toilet articles and little things for personal use. Their rifles and rods they also slung on their riding-saddles. Now, with the skill of long training, they put up their own tent, and spread down their own blanket beds, on the edge of which they placed their guns and rods, making pillows out of their folded sweaters. Soon they were helping Moise with his cooking at the fire and enjoying as usual their evening conversation with that cheerful friend.

It did not take Moise, old-timer as he was, very long to get his bannocks and tea ready, and to fry the whitefish and grouse which the boys now brought to him.

Uncle Dick looked at his watch after a time. “Forty minutes,” said he.

“For what?” demanded Jesse.

“Well, it took us forty minutes to get off the packs and hobble the horses and get supper ready. That’s too long—we ought to have it all done and supper over in that time. We’ll have to do better than this when we get fully on the trail.”

“What’s the use in being in such a hurry?” demanded John, who was watching the frying-pan very closely.

“It’s always a good thing to get the camp work done quickly mornings and evenings,” replied the leader of the party. “We’ve got a long trip ahead, and I’d like to average twenty-five miles a day for a while, if I could. Maybe we’ll have to content ourselves with fifteen miles a good many days. The best way is to get an early start and make a long drive, and an early camp. Then get your packs off as early as you can, and let your horses rest—that’s always good doctrine.”

“Well, one thing,” said Jesse, “I hope the mosquitoes won’t be any worse than they are now.”

“Well,” Uncle Dick replied, “when we get higher up the nights will get cool earlier, but we’ll have mosquitoes all the way across, that’s pretty sure. But you fellows mustn’t mind a thing like that. We’ve all got our mosquito bars and tents, and very good ones too.”

“No good for fight mosquito,” said Moise, grinning. “He’s too many.”

“Oh, go on, Moise, they don’t hurt you when they bite you,” said John.

“Nor will they hurt you so badly after a time,” Uncle Dick said to him. “You get used to it—at least, to some extent. But there is something in what Moise has told you—don’t fight mosquitoes too hard, so that you get excited and nervous over it. Don’t slap hard enough to kill a dog—just brush them off easy. Take your trouble as easy as you can on trail—that’s good advice. This isn’t feather-bed work, exactly; but then I don’t call you boys tenderfeet, exactly, either. Now go and finish the beds up for the night before it gets too dark.”

Jesse crawled into the back part of the tent and fished out three specially made nets, each of cheese-cloth sewed to a long strip of canvas perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. At each corner of this canvas a cord was sewed, so that it could be tied to a tent-pole, or to a safety-pin stuck in the top of the tent. Then the sides, which were long and full, could be tucked in at the edges of the bed, so that no mosquitoes could get in. Each boy had his own net for his own bed, so that, if he was careful in getting in under the net, he would be pretty sure of sleeping free from the mosquitoes, no matter how bad they were. Uncle Dick had a similar net for his own little shelter-tent. As for Moise, he had a head-net and a ragged piece of bar which he did not use half the time, thinking it rather beneath him to pay too much attention to the small nuisances.

“You’ll better go to bed pretty soon, young mans,” said Moise, speaking to his young friends after they had finished their supper. “If those fly bite me, he’ll got sick of eating so much smoke, him. But those fly, he like to bite little boy.” And he laughed heartily, as he saw the young companions continually brushing at their faces.

Uncle Dick drew apart from the camp at the time and went out to the edge of the bank, looking down at the water far below.

“You can bet that’s a steep climb,” commented John—“two hundred feet, I should think. And I don’t see how we’ll get the horses down there in the morning.”

“At least one hundred and fifty feet,” assented his uncle. “But I reckon we can get across it somehow, if the engineers can get a railroad and trains of cars over it—and that’s what they’re going to do next year. But, as I have told you, never worry until the time comes when you’re on the trail. The troubles’ll come along fast enough, perhaps, without our hurrying them up any. Take things easy—that’s what gets engineers and horses and railroads across the Rockies.”

“How long before we get to the Rockies, Uncle Dick?” inquired John, pointing to the west, where the clouds had now hidden the distant range from view.

“All in due time, all in due time, my son,” replied the engineer, smiling down at him. “A good deal depends on how quickly we can make and break camp, and how many miles we can get done each day through muskeg and bush and over all sorts of trails and fords. For instance, if we lost half our horses in Wolf Creek here to-morrow, we might have to make quite a wait. But don’t worry—just turn in before the mosquitoes get you.”

III

HITTING THE TRAIL

“Look on the tent, fellows!” exclaimed Jesse, the first thing next morning, just as dawn was beginning to break. “It’s almost solid mosquitoes!”

“About a million,” said John, sitting up in his blankets. “All of them with cold feet, waiting for the sun to come up.”

They were looking at the top of the tent, where in the folds of the netting a great cloud of mosquitoes had gathered in the effort to get through the cheese-cloth.

“Did any bite you in the night, Jesse?” asked Rob, from his bed.

“No, but I could hear them sing a good deal until I went to sleep.”

“Well, come ahead; let’s roll out,” said Rob. “All those mosquitoes will come to life when it gets warm.”

They kicked off the blankets, slipped into their clothing, and soon were out in the cool morning air. The spring night had been a dewy one, and all the shrubs and grasses were very wet.

“Hello there, young mans!” they heard a voice exclaim, and saw Moise’s head thrust out from beneath his shelter. “You’ll got up pretty early, no?”

“Well, we’ve got to be moving early,” said Rob. “Anyway, we beat Uncle Dick up this morning.”

“That’s right,” called out the voice of Uncle Dick, from his tent, “but the quicker we get started the quicker we’ll get over Wolf Creek. Now you boys go over there where you hear the gray mare’s bell and see if you can round up all the pack-train. You’ll learn before long that half the campaign of a pack-train trip is hunting horses in the morning. But they’ll stick close where the pea-vine is thick as it is here.”

Our three young Alaskans were used to wet grass in the morning, and after the first plunge, which wet them to the skin, they did not mind the dew-covered herbage. Soon, shouting and running, they were rounding up the hobbled pack-horses, which, with the usual difficulty, they finally succeeded in driving up close to the camp, where by this time Moise had his fire going. The wilder of the horses they tied to trees near by, but some of the older ones stood unhitched with heads drooping in the chill morning air, as though unhappy, but resigned to their fate. Moise, as usual, rewarded old gray Betsy, the bell-mare, with a lump of sugar as she passed by. The others, with the strange instinct of pack-horses to follow a leader, grouped themselves near to the old white mare. The boys put the blankets over the backs of some of the horses while waiting for Moise to finish his breakfast.

“Grub pile!” sung out Moise, after a while; and soon, in the damp morning air, with white mist hanging over the low land about them, they were eating their morning meal.

“Tea for breakfast,” said Rob, smiling. “Well, I suppose it’s all right up here, but in our country we mostly have coffee.”

“We’d have it here if we could get it good,” said Uncle Dick; “but, you see, we’re a good ways from home, and coffee doesn’t keep as well as tea on the trail, besides being much bulkier.”

“Now,” said Jesse, his mouth full of bacon, “as soon as I get done breakfast I’m going to try that diamond hitch all over again. Moise says the one I did yesterday slipped on him.”

“That’s happened to many a good packer,” said Uncle Dick. “Sometimes a pack gets snagged in the bush, or all sorts of other things may happen to it. They tell me that a mule will look at two trees and not try to go between them if it sees the pack won’t squeeze

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