The Young Alaskans on the Trail - Emerson Hough (best free novels TXT) 📗

supplies—we’re going to need a little tea and flour for ourselves before we get out of here. You can tell these men there’s plenty of game in this part of the country, so they can easily make a hunt if they like.”

“Sure,” said Moise, “I’ll dream last night you’ll catch grizzly this time. But how we’ll go to put heem in boat, hein? S’pose we put that hide in canoe, she’ll sink unless we eat up all the grub pile.”

Alex told Moise to unroll the bear hide so that it might dry as much as possible. He then set all of them at fleshing the hide, a task none of them seemed to relish. Afterward, he also added some sort of counsel in the Cree language which presently resulted in the three visitors tightening up their belts, taking their solitary rifle, and passing out of sight in the bush at the top of the bank.

“Where are they going?” asked John, curiously, of Moise.

“She’ll say she’ll go after bear meat,” said Moise. “Not got much meat, for she’ll ain’t seen much moose yet.”

“Well, they’re welcome to that grizzly meat,” grinned Alex. “I didn’t think they’d eat it. They must be starving. Make them up a little package of tinned stuff, Moise, and put it in their boat. I think we’ll need about all the bacon we’ve got, and they can use the fat of the bear better than we can. Give them some tea, and a little flour too. What do they say about the river below here at the big cañon?”

“Says bad water,” said Moise. “She’ll rose perhaps four, three, two inches to-day, maybe so, here, and that’s all same so many foots in the cañon. She’ll say best way to do is to take portage trail and leave those boat on west end of those cañon.”

“Yes, but we want to get our boats through,” said Alex, “although it must be a dozen miles anyhow by way of the carrying trail, and not too good at that.”

“He’ll say,” resumed Moise, “s’pose we take those boat through to the big mountain—through big water, ver’ wide, with many islands—we’ll come on a place where boats can go up the bank, if plenty men carry them up. Then she’ll been ten mile, eight mile, to some place below the mountain. All the tam she’ll say best way is to go by horse, on the north side of the river, on the police trail from Fort St. John, s’pose we’ll could find that trail, an’ s’pose we’ll had some horse.”

“What do you say, Mr. Rob?” asked Alex. “We ought to get our boats down. Shall we haul out at the west end, or try for Hudson’s Hope?”

“I’d be in favor of getting down as far as we can,” said Rob. “We can reach the head of the mountain in a couple of days. I’m for moving on down and taking a chance on the rest of it! Of course we’ll have to portage the cañon somehow.”

“That suits me,” said John. And even Jesse, the youngest of the three, was all for continuing the journey as originally planned.

“All right,” said Alex, “I’m with you. We’re learning the game now, certainly, and I don’t think we’ll find this part of the river any worse than it has been up above. There isn’t anything bad marked on the map, anyhow, for quite a way.”

At about this time, as they were all busied about the camping place, the boys noticed Alex and Moise step a little apart and begin to converse in low tones. From their looks and gestures, the boys gathered that the men were speaking of something in which they themselves were concerned, in just what way they could not tell. Presently Moise smiled and nodded vigorously. Approaching the camp-fire, he took up his short-handled ax and slung it at his back by a bit of thong. Then he stepped over to the tallest and straightest pine-tree which grew close to the water’s edge thereabout. Active as a cat, he soon had climbed the lower branches, where, without pausing, he began to hack off, close to the trunk, every branch within his reach. Having done so, he climbed yet higher up and repeated the operation, as though it were his purpose to cut off nearly all the branches to the top of the tree. At first the boys thought he was gathering boughs for the beds, but as they were almost ready to break camp they could not understand this.

“Let’s go up and help him, fellows!” exclaimed John.

Alex restrained them. “No, you mustn’t do that.” John stopped rather abashed.

“You see,” explained the old hunter, “you are concerned in this, so you must not help.”

“I don’t understand—” began John.

“Well, the truth is, we are going to give you a celebration. In short, we are making a monument for you young gentlemen, all of you.”

Rob broke into the conversation. “A monument? But we’re not dead, and aren’t going to be soon!”

“This is a monument of the Far North. It is not necessary to die. We are making you what we call a ‘lob-stick,’ or ‘lop-stick.’”

“I never heard of anything like that.”

“Very likely not. Nor do I suppose there is one this far to the west, although there are some which we may see down the Peace River. Had Mackenzie and Fraser got their dues, each of them would have had a ‘lob-stick’ somewhere in here. Probably they were too busy in those days. But if either of them had had a ‘lob-stick’ made for him it would very likely be standing to-day. In that case every man who went past on the river would know why it had been given.”

The boys were very much excited over this and demanded of Alex that he should explain more precisely these matters.

“Well,” said the old hunter, kindly, “each country has its own ways. When I was in London with General Kitchener I went to Westminster Cathedral, and saw there engraved in brass the names of men who had done deeds worth commemorating. It is our way in this country also to perpetuate the memory of deeds of goodness or of bravery, anything which is remarkable and worth remembering. Here and there along the Peace River, and far to the north on the Athabasca, you will see a tree trimmed like this, different from the others, and noticeable to all passers-by. Perhaps one tells where a man has saved the life of another man, or where a party have divided their food until all starved, or where some great deed was done, such as a fight with some animal. Any great event in our history we may keep in mind in this way. When the men go by on the river they think of that. We believe it may make their hearts stronger, or make them more disposed to do good or brave things themselves. It is our custom.”

“But what have we done to deserve this?” demanded Rob.

“Moise and I and those other men who were here have the right to decide in regard to that,” said Alex. “We would not be foolish enough to leave a ‘lob-stick’ for any light reason. To us it seemed that you were brave, considering your years, in facing the grizzly this morning as you did; also, that you are brave to undertake this trip, young as you are, and with us whom you did not know, across this wild country, which daunted even Mackenzie and Fraser in the old days. Having met in council, Moise and I have determined to do this. We think there is no other ‘lob-stick’ on the river above here, and that there is not apt to be.”

By this time Moise had lopped off all the branches of the tree except the top ones, which stood out like an umbrella. Descending from stub to stub, he now trimmed off all the remaining branches clear to the ground. As Alex had said, the tree stood straight and unmistakable, so that any voyageur on the river must notice it.

Rob took off his hat, and the others did the same. “We do not know how to thank you for this honor, Alex and Moise,” said he, “but we will try never to do anything which shall make you ashamed of us. If we do, you may come and cut down this tree.”

“I believe it will stand,” smiled Alex. “Not many men pass here in these days, but by and by every man who does come here will know where this tree stands and why it was made a ‘lob-stick.’ They will measure distances by it on the river. And always when the voyageurs pass, or when they camp here near the tree, they will know your story. That is the way history is made in this country. I think that a hundred years from now, perhaps, men will know your story as well as you do that of Mackenzie and Fraser, although theirs was written in books. This is our custom. If it pleases you, we are very glad.”

Hats still in hand, the boys now stepped up one by one and shook hands with Alex and Moise. When they left this camp they looked back for a long time, and they could see their commemorative tree standing out tall, slender, and quite distinct from all the others. No doubt it stands there to-day just as it was left in the honor of our young voyageurs.

XVIII BAD LUCK WITH THE “MARY ANN”

Alex now went down to the boats and began to rearrange the cargo, from which the boys saw that in his belief it was best to continue the journey that evening, although it now was growing rather late. Evidently he was for running down ahead of the flood-water if any such should come, although it seemed to all of them that after all they need have no great fear, for the river had risen little if any since morning.

They determined to put the big bear hide in the Mary Ann, and shifted some of the burden of that boat to the Jaybird, folding up the long hide and putting it at the bottom of the canoe under the thwarts, so that the weight would come as low as possible. When the Mary Ann had received the rest of her necessary cargo she showed most of her bundles and packages above the gunwale, and Alex looked at the two boats a little dubiously, even after Moise had carried down to the dugout of his cousins such of the joint supplies as even his liberality thought proper.

“We’ll try her, anyhow,” said Alex, taking a look up the river, which came rolling down, tawny now, and not white and green in its colors. So saying, they pushed off.

They must, at this camp, have been somewhere between twelve and twenty miles east of the mouth of the Parle Pas rapids, and they had made perhaps a dozen miles more that evening when they began to come to a place where again the mountains approached the stream closely. Here they could not see out at all from their place at the foot of the high banks which hedged them in. At nightfall they encamped in a wild region which seemingly never had known the foot of man. The continuous rush of the waters and the gloom of the overhanging forests now had once more that depressing effect which sometimes is not unknown even to seasoned voyageurs. Had they been asked, the young travelers must truthfully have replied that they would be glad when at last the mountains were passed and the prairie country to the eastward reached.

On the next day they continued among the high hills for several