The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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just the way you said — they didn’t seem afraid at all. I’ve got one picture, square front end, of that old fellow, and I don’t think he was twenty feet away from me. He seemed to think the camera was something that was going to hurt him, and he showed fight.”
“Now,” said Uncle Dick, “the next thing is to get our meat down the mountain.”
Rolling up his sleeves, he now prepared to skin out such meat as he wanted from the dead goat. He cut off the head and neck, and cut off the legs at the knee-joints. Then he skinned back only the fore quarters, leaving the hide still attached to the hind quarters and the saddle. Using his belt, he folded the skin over the saddle, and then, tying the sleeves of his coat so that it covered his shoulders, he hoisted the saddle astride of his neck.
“I don’t fancy this smell very much,” said he, “but I guess it will be the easiest way to get our meat down the mountain. Come on now, boys, every fellow for himself, and be careful not to get a fall.”
It was hard and sometimes rather slow work scrambling down the steep face of the mountain, especially high up where the rocks were bare. But after a time they came to the small green trees, and then to the tall pines under whose shade the ground was softer and gave them a better footing. It did not take them so long to come down as it had to ascend, but they were all tired when late that afternoon they arrived at their camp on the little promontory.
Moise was overjoyed at their success, and was all for cooking some of the meat at once; but Uncle Dick checked him.
“No,” said he, “it’s too fresh yet. Skin it out, Moise, and hang it up overnight, at least. You may set a little of it to stew all night at the fire, if you like. Soak some more of it overnight in salt and water — and then I think you’d better throw away all the kettles that you’ve used with this goat meat. It may be all right, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a long time before I learn to like goat. If this were a mountain sheep, now, I could eat all that saddle myself.”
Moise asked who killed the goat, and when told that it was John he complimented him very much. For Rob’s work with the camera he had less praise.
“I s’pose she’s all right to make picture of goat,” said he, “but s’pose a man he’s hongree, he couldn’t eat picture, could he?”
Rob only laughed at him. “You wait, Moise,” said he. “When I get my pictures made maybe you’d rather have one of them than another piece of goat meat.”
In spite of Uncle Dick’s disgust, Moise that evening broiled himself a piece of the fresh goat meat at the fire, and ate it with such relish that the boys asked for a morsel or so of it themselves. To their surprise, they found the tenderloin not so bad to eat. Thus, with one excuse or another, they sat around the fire, happy and contented, until the leader of the party at last drove them all off to bed.
“I like this place,” said John, “even if I did come pretty nearly getting drowned out there in the lake.”
And indeed the spot had proved so pleasant in every way that it was only with a feeling of regret that they broke camp on Yellowhead Lake and proceeded on their westward journey.
XIV
DOWN THE FRASER
Up to this time on their journey the weather had continued most favorable, there having been little rain to disturb them either on the trail or in camp. Now, however, they were on the western slope of the Rockies and in the moister climate of the Pacific region. When they left camp on Yellowhead Lake it was in a steady downpour which left them drenched thoroughly before they had gone a mile.
The trail, moreover, now proved not only uncomfortable, but dangerous, the rain making the footing so soft that in many cases on steep slopes they were obliged to dismount and lead their horses up or down. Indeed, the trail scarcely could be called a trail at all, all trace of the original traders’ paths now being lost. Many persons, mostly engineers or prospecting adventurers, had passed here, each taking his own way, and the sum of their selections served only to make bad very much worse. In the level places the trail was a quagmire, on some of the steeper slopes simply a zigzag of scrambling hoof tracks.
They kept on, in spite of their discomforts, throughout the forenoon without pause. It was their purpose to get on the farther side of as many of these mountain streams as possible. They were now in a bold mountain country, where numerous small tributaries came down to the great Fraser which roared and plunged along beside their trail. “The Bad River,” old Sir Alexander Mackenzie called one of the headwaters of the Fraser, and bad enough it is from its source on down.
They were now near the forks of the two main tributaries of the Fraser, one roaring torrent coming down from the south. The trail held to the north bank of the Fraser, following down from the lake along the rapid but harmless little river which made its outlet. To ford the Fraser was, of course, impossible. Time and again the young adventurers paused to look down at the raging torrent, broken into high, foaming waves by the numerous reefs of rock which ran across it. Continually the roar of the angry waters came up to them through the trees. More than ever they realized that they now were on the shores of one of the wickedest rivers in all the Rockies, as their Uncle Dick had told them of the Fraser.
They now observed that the trees of the forest through which they traveled were much larger than they had been. But, splendid as this forest growth had been, they found that in a large area fire had gone through it in some previous year, and this burned country — or brûlè, as Moise called it — made one of the worst obstacles any traveler could encounter. This hardship was to remain with them almost all the way down the Fraser to the Tête Jaune Cache, and it added immeasurably to the trials of pack-train travel.
At last they pulled up alongside of a broad and brawling stream, turbulent but shallow, a little threatening to one not skilled in mountain travel, but not dangerous to a party led as was this one, by a man acquainted with the region.
“Here we are at Grant Creek,” said Uncle Dick, as they paused on the hither side of the stream. “This is one of the many swift tributaries on the north side of the Fraser, but I am glad we’ve got to ford it, and not the Fraser itself. You see, we have to keep on the north bank all the way down now.”
Uncle Dick carefully located his landmarks and examined some stones and stumps to get some idea of the stage of the water.
“It’s all right,” said he. “Come on across. Follow me closely now.”
Soon they were belly-deep in the tawny flood of the stream, which came down noisily all about them. The sturdy horses, however, seemed not to be in the least alarmed, but followed old Danny, Uncle Dick’s pony, as he slowly plodded on across, angling down the stream and never once losing his footing in the rolling stones of the bottom. The stream was not over a hundred and twenty feet wide at this point, and the ford was made with no difficulty at all.
“This is easy,” said Uncle Dick, as they emerged on the western side. “But three miles ahead we come to the Moose River, and that’s apt to be a different proposition. You can’t tell anything about any of these rivers until you try them. One thing is sure, we can’t get any wetter than we are.”
“I’ve noticed all these streams are highest in the afternoon,” said Rob — “a lot higher, too. We’ve often mentioned that.”
“Yes; that’s because the snow melts in the morning and starts the water down the high slopes. It takes some time for it to get down to the lower levels. Morning is the best time to ford any of these mountain rivers, as I have told you.”
The trail was none too good on to the Moose River, and they were none too cheerful as they paused to look over the situation at the bank of this stream.
“When I crossed here the last time I marked a stump with an ax,” said Uncle Dick. “That was barely below swimming-line. Ah, there it is, I see — we’ve got