VI

      THE ATHABASCA AT LAST

       Table of Contents

      “Well, what luck did you have, Uncle Dick?” 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 Dick, 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 fashion, 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 assurance 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 Dick, 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 Dick. “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 Dick, “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 Pass.”

      The boys stood silent, looking at one another, none too happy at these hardships and dangers which confronted them.

      “Don’t look so glum,” said Uncle Dick. “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.”