The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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down here, and we had better all make it together. Anyhow, I’ll go ahead on Danny and see how it works. Moise, you’ll bring up the rear; Rob, you go next ahead of Moise, and you, John and Jesse, follow just behind me a little way back. If Danny loses his footing, all of you stop at once and wait for further orders. Well, here goes.”
He spurred his plucky little horse into the roily, turbulent flood, closely followed by the others as he had instructed. Fortunately, the pack-train, by this time well broken into the work of the trail, made no disturbance, but followed along stolidly in the rear of the leader. Thus, little by little, they edged on across and at last crossed the dangerous middle part of the river. Here Uncle Dick angled a little down, following the shallow water indicated by the light ripples. As the boys saw Danny begin to show more and more above the surface of the water, until he was walking no deeper than his knees, they swung their hats and shouted exultantly, for now they were safely to cross one of the most dangerous rivers on the whole trail.
“Well,” said Uncle Dick, as at last they pulled up on the farther side, “that’s done, at any rate. From here it’s only a couple of miles or so to the head of Moose Lake. The trail is fierce along there, but once beyond that lake we can safely call the worst of our whole journey past and done with. We can make it in a few hours’ steady work if we have luck.”
They pushed on, and after a time paused at a point near the head of Moose Lake, from which they could see it lying before them, seven miles or so of slaty gray water, now wrinkled under the downpouring rain. It was a prospect not in the least cheerful, to be sure.
“The Fraser River runs straight through this lake,” said Uncle Dick, “and, as you see, it is getting more water every mile out of these hills. This is the only quiet place on the whole Fraser River that I know of. But we can’t get across it, couldn’t even if we had boats, for here are the horses.
“But if we could cross the lake here, and if we could cross the Selwyn Mountains over there on the other side of it, we would find a little creek up there which heads up just opposite Price Creek. You see, Price Creek runs down into the Canoe River, which is the stream we’re going to follow below Tête Jaune Cache. They say the Indians used to take horses up this little creek and down Price Creek on the other side. If so, they must have had horses born on the other side of the Fraser, for I’ll warrant they couldn’t get them across from the north side where we are.”
“Did any white man ever go over that way?” asked Rob, curiously.
“Not that I know of. I don’t know when the Indians went there, but there’s a story that some of them took horses across the Selwyns over yonder. As for us, we’ve got to keep on down this valley. We are twenty miles west from the Yellowhead Pass, and have thirty miles more to go yet to the Tête Jaune Cache.”
“What are these big mountains over on the right?” inquired Rob.
“That’s the Rainbow range. We make our way right along their feet. On beyond the lake for some distance the river is a little more quiet, then she drops; that’s all. There’s a strip of water in here twenty miles or so that no boat could live in at all. There were two rattle-headed engineers who did try to take a boat down a part of the Fraser in here, and in some miraculous way they ran maybe ten or twelve miles of it, part in and part out of the water. Then their boat smashed on a rock, and they both were drowned. One body was found, the other was never heard of.”
“Well,” said John, “we’re complaining a good deal about going along on horses, but I believe I like that better than taking a boat on that river.”
“When we’ll make camp to-day, M’sieu Deek?” asked Moise, pushing up alongside the leader’s horse. They all sat in the rain, dripping like so many drowned rats.
“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “this is pretty bad, isn’t it? It seems to me that we had better use all the daylight we can to-day, for we’re wet as we can get anyway. There are no bad streams now, but the trail is awful of itself — side-hills and brûlè, and in and out of the water all along the lake side. But we’ve got to pass it some time. Suppose we make the best of a bad bargain, and see if we can get to the lower end of the lake to-day?”
The boys all agreed to this, and so the party pushed on, but they found later that the prediction of their leader was quite true, for none of them had ever seen so fearful a trail as that along the north shore of Moose Lake. But even as it grew darker in the deep valley at last they broke through the farther edge of the heaviest timber, picked their way through a wide strip of brûlè, crossed the last dangerous face of rock side, and emerged into an open area where some sort of camp at last was possible. Here they dismounted, all ready to agree that this was the worst day any of them had ever seen on the trail.
“Well,” said Uncle Dick, chuckling, “I pushed pretty hard to-day, but I had to make up for that lost day we spent hunting goats. To tell the truth, I didn’t think we could get this far on to-day, and so I just count we’re even on the goat-hunt. Besides, we are now past the worst part of our troubles. To-morrow I promise you something worth all the hard work we’ve undergone.”
“What’s that?” demanded Jesse. “Some more hunting?”
“Certainly not. You’ve another guess, Jesse. Something better than that.”
“You don’t mean sheep or grizzly?”
“Something bigger than grizzly, even.”
“That,” said Rob, “must be a mountain.”
“Quite right. I’m going to show you the greatest mountain in all the Canadian Rockies, and one of the greatest mountains on this continent. It isn’t known very much to-day, but soon Mount Robson will be one of the show-places of this whole country. The Indians have always called it the biggest of all these mountains, time out of mind.”
“What time shall we see it?” inquired Rob.
“That depends a great deal. It’ll be about fourteen miles down the trail to the Grand Fork Valley. Looking right up that, we’ll be staring into the face of old Robson. I only hope the rain will be done by that time, so that the sun will shine and give us a fair view. It’s very rarely that one ever sees Mount Robson clear to the top. But sufficient for to-day are the evils, I presume. Let’s see if we can make ourselves comfortable in camp to-night.”
“One thing,” said John, that night, “this horse business isn’t going to last forever. I hope the Canoe River isn’t as bad as the Fraser, for I’m getting ready to get into a boat once more. I’ve changed my mind a little.”
“I wonder where the Canoe River got its name, Uncle Dick?” queried Rob.
“That I cannot tell you. There are some canoes on the Fraser which came up from the Pacific way, and there are some canoe birches in these woods, this side of the summit. Now, whether some of the old traders one day made a birch-bark canoe and ran that stream I can’t tell. But that is the name given to it by the traders, and I suppose they got it from the earlier traders who crossed this country.
“John,” he added, “this is a hard place for you to bring up your map. I’ll excuse you from your map-making until we have a drier camp than this.”
XV
THE GREAT MOUNTAIN
Happily on the next day the weather relented and the sun greeted them when they were ready for their breakfast, although all the trees were dripping wet. Uncle Dick was very much rejoiced.
“We’ll see Robson to-day if this sun holds,” said he. “Let’s hurry on.”
“There you go!” grumbled John. “Uncle Dick, you always are finding one reason or other for being in a hurry.”
“Well, everything in here is in a hurry,” was his uncle’s answer. “All the water’s in a hurry,