The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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Priest Rapids. Here they built their little fire of driftwood, as they had been instructed; and, climbing up on another pile of driftwood which was massed on the beach, they began eagerly to look up-stream.
“The worst waves are over on the other side,” said Rob, after a time. “Look, I can see them now — they look mighty little — that’s the boats angling across from where we left them! It’ll soon be over now, one way or the other.”
They all stood looking anxiously. “They’re out of sight!” exclaimed Rob. And so, indeed, they were.
“That’s only the dip they’ve taken,” said Rob, after a time. “I see them coming now. Look! Look at them come! I believe they’re through.”
They stood looking for a little time, and then all took off their hats and waved them with a yell. They could see the boats now plunging on down, rising and falling, but growing larger and blacker every instant. At last they could see them outlined against the distant white, rolling waves, and knew that they were through the end of the chute and practically safe.
In a few moments more the two boats came on, racing by their point, all the men so busy that they had not time to catch the excited greetings which the boys shouted to them. But once around the point the boats swung in sharply, and soon, bow up-stream, made a landing but a few hundred yards below where they stood. Soon they were all united once more, shaking hands warmly with one another.
“That’s great!” said Uncle Dick. “I’ll warrant there was one swell there over fifteen feet high — maybe twenty, for all we could tell. I know it reared up clear above us, so that you had to lean your head to see the top of it. If we’d hit it would have been all over with us.”
“She’s bad tam, young men,” said Moise. “From where we see him she don’t look so bad, but once you get in there — poom! Well, anyway, here we are. That’s more better’n getting drowned, and more better’n walk, too.” And Moise, the light-hearted, used to taking chances, dismissed the danger once it was past.
“Well, that’s what I call good planning and good work,” said Rob, quietly, after a while. “To find the best thing to do and then to do it — that seems to be the way for an engineer to work, isn’t it, Uncle Dick?”
“Yes, it is, and all’s well that ends well,” commented the other. “And mighty glad I am to think that we are safe together again, and that you don’t have to try to make your way alone and on foot from this part of the country. I wasn’t happy at all when I thought of that.”
“And we weren’t happy at all until we saw you safely through that chute, either,” said Rob.
“Now,” resumed the leader, “how far is it to a good camping-place, Leo? We’ll want to rest a while to-night.”
“Good camp three mile down,” said Leo, “on high bank.”
“And how far have we come to-day, or will we have come by that time?”
“Not far,” said Leo; “’bout ten mile all.”
Uncle Dick sighed. “Well, we’re all tired, so let’s go into camp early to-night, and hold ourselves lucky that we can camp together, too. Maybe we’d better bail out first — it’s lucky, for we only took in three or four pails of water apiece.”
“No man I ever know come through Priest Rapids on the high water like this,” said Leo. “That’s good fun.” And he and George grinned happily at each other.
They pulled on in more leisurely fashion now, and soon reached the foot of a high grassy bluff on the left-hand side of the river. They climbed the steep slope here, and so weary were they that that night they did not put up the tents at all, but lay down, each wrapped in his blanket, as soon as they had completed their scanty supper.
“Better get home pretty soon now,” said Moise. “No sugar no more. No baking-powder no more. Pretty soon no pork, and flour, she’s ’most gone, too.”
XXVIII
IN SIGHT OF SAFETY
Once more, as had now been their custom for several days, in their anxiety to get as far forward as possible each day, our party arose before dawn. If truth were told, perhaps few of them had slept soundly the night through, and as they went about their morning duties they spoke but little. They realized that, though many of their dangers now might be called past, perhaps the worst of them, indeed, they still were not quite out of the woods.
Moise, who had each night left a water-mark, reported that the river during the night had risen nearly a foot. Even feeling as they did that the worst of the rapids were passed, the leaders of the party were a trifle anxious over this report, Leo not less than the others, for he well remembered how the rising waters had wiped out such places as the Death Eddy, which once he had known familiarly. They all knew that the rise of a foot here in the broader parts of the river would mean serious trouble in any cañon.
“How far now, Leo?” asked John once more of the Indian guide, on whom they placed their main reliance.
“Maybe-so forty mile, maybe fifty,” said Leo. “Maybe not run far now. Down there ten mile, come Tom Boyd farm. Steamboat come there maybe. Then can go home on steamboat, suppose our boat is bust.”
“Well, the Bronco isn’t quite busted,” said Uncle Dick, “but she has sprung something of a leak, and we’ll have to do a little calking before we can start out with her this morning. Come on, Moise, let’s see what we can do.”
So saying, they two went down to repair an injury which one of the boats had sustained on a rock. Of course, in this lining down, with the boats close inshore in the shallower water, they often came in contact with the rocks, so that, although both the boats were practically new, the bottom boards were now ragged and furry. A long crack in the side of the Bronco showed the force with which a boat sometimes could be driven by the swift current, even when the men were taking the best of care to keep it off the rocks.
“Leo doesn’t tell much about his plans, does he?” remarked Rob. “I was thinking all the time we’d have to run the whole fifty miles to Revelstoke.”
Uncle Dick laughed. “Leo believes in saving labor even in talking,” said he, “but I am not complaining, for he has brought us this far in safety. I’m willing to say he’s as good a boatman as I ever saw, and more careful than I feared he would be. Most of these Indians are too lazy to line down, and will take all sorts of chances to save a little work. But I must say Leo has been careful. It has been very rarely we’ve even shipped a little bit of water.”
“One thing,” said John, “we haven’t got much left to get wet, so far as grub’s concerned. I’m pretty near ready to go out hunting porcupines or gophers, for flour and tea and a little bacon rind leave a fellow rather hungry. But I’m mighty glad, Uncle Dick, that you came through that rapid all right with the boats and found us all right afterward. Suppose we had got separated up there in some way and you had gone by us, thinking that we were lower down — what would you have done in that case — suppose we had all the grub?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied his uncle, “but I fancy we’d have got through somehow. Men have done that in harder circumstances. Think of those chaps Milton and Cheadle we were talking of the other night; they were in worse shape than we were, for they had no idea where they were or how far it was to safety, or how they were to get there, and they had no guide who had ever been across the country. Now, although we have been in a dangerous country for some days, we know perfectly where we are and how far it is to a settlement. The trail out is plain, or at least the direction is plain.”
“Well, I’m glad we didn’t have to try to get out alone, just the same.”
“And so am I, but I believe that even if you had been left alone you’d have made it out