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

twenty-eighth, as they were coming up they passed two rivers coming in from the east. That can’t be very far below here, and the first stream on the west side must be pretty close, from all I can learn. Below there, on the twenty-seventh, there was another river which they passed coming in from the east, and Simon says near its mouth there was a rapid. He doesn’t seem to mention any rapids between there and here—probably it had to be a pretty big one for him to take any notice of it. That’s two or three days down-stream, according to his journal, and, as Alex says, it was high water, and they made slow time coming up—not as fast as Sir Alexander did, in fact.”

“Plenty good water,” said Moise, looking out over the rapid little stream with professional approval. “She’s easy river.”

“Then we ought to make some sort of voyage,” said Rob. “You see, Sir Alexander took thirty-four days coming up to this point from the place where he started, far east of the Rockies, but going downhill it only took him six days.”

“That was going some,” nodded John, emphatically, if not elegantly.

“But not faster than we’ll be going,” answered Rob. “You see, it took him a sixth of the time to go east which it needed to come west. Then, what they did in three days coming up, we ought to run in a half-day or less going down.”

Alex nodded approvingly. “I think it would figure out something like that way,” said he.

“So if we started now, or a little after noon,” resumed Rob, “and ran a full half-day we ought to pass all these rivers which Simon mentions, and get down to the first big rapid of which he speaks. They were good and tired coming up-stream, but we won’t have to work at all going down.”

“Well, don’t we eat any place at all?” began John again, amid general laughter.

“Sure,” said Moise, “we’ll stop at the first little beach and make boil the kettle. I’m hongree, too, me.”

They did as Moise said, and spent perhaps an hour, discussing, from time to time, the features of the country and the probable time it would take them to make the trip.

“The boat goes very fast on a stream like this,” said Alex. “We could make fifty or sixty miles a day without the least trouble, if we did not have to portage. I should think the current was four to six miles an hour, at least, and you know we could add to that speed if we cared to paddle.”

“Well, we don’t want to go too fast,” said Jesse. “We have all summer for this trip.”

This remark from the youngest of the party caused the old voyageur to look at him approvingly. “That’s right,” said he, “we’ll not hurry.”

Moise was by this time examining the load of the Mary Ann, arranging the packs so that she would trim just to suit his notion when Rob was in place at the bow. Alex paid similar care to the Jaybird. The boats now ran practically on an even keel, which would give them the greatest bearing on the water and enable them to travel over the shallowest water possible.

“En roulant?” said Moise, looking at Alex inquiringly.

Alex nodded, and the boys being now in their proper places in the boats, he himself stepped in and gave a light push from the beach with his paddle.

“So long, fellows,” called out Rob over his shoulder as he put his paddle to work. “I’m going to beat you all through—if I’m bow paddle in the first boat I’ll be ahead of everybody else. En roulant, ma boule!”

The Mary Ann, swinging fully into the current, went off dipping and gliding down the gentle incline of the stream. “Don’t go too fast, Moise,” called out Alex. “We want to keep in sight of the cook-boat.”

“All right!” sang out Moise. “We’ll go plenty slow.”

“Now,” said Alex to John and Jess as he paddled along slowly and steadily; “I want to tell you something about running strange waters in a canoe. Riding in a canoe is something like riding a horse. You must keep your balance. Keep your weight over the middle line of the canoe, which is in the center of the boat when she’s going straight, of course. You’ll have to ease off a little if she tilts—you ride her a little as you would a horse over a jump. Now, look at this little rough place we’re coming to—there, we’re through it already—you see, there’s a sort of a long V of smooth water running down into the rapid. Below that there’s a long ridge or series of broken water. This rapid will do for a model of most of the others, although it’s a tame one.

“In this work the main thing is to keep absolutely cool. Never try a bad rapid which is strange to you without first going out and getting the map of it in your mind. Figure out the course you’re going to take, and then hang to it, and don’t get scared. When I call to you to go to the right, Mr. John, pull the boat over by drawing it to your paddle on that side—don’t try to push it over from the left side. You can haul it over stronger by pulling the paddle against the water. Of course I do the reverse on the stern. We can make her travel sidewise, or straight ahead, or backward, about as we please. All of us canoemen must keep cool and not lose our nerve.

“Well, I’ll go on—usually we follow the V down into the head of a rapid. Below that the highest wave is apt to roll back. If it is too high, and curls over too far up-stream, it would swamp our boat to head straight into it. Where should we go then? Of course, we would have to get a little to one side of that long, rolling ridge of white water. But not too far. Sometimes it may be safer to take that big wave, and all the other waves, right down the white ridge of the stream, than it is to go to one side.”

“I don’t see why that would be,” said Jesse. “I should think there would be the most dangerous place for a canoe.”

“It is, in one way,” said Alex. “Or at least you’re surer to ship water there. But suppose you are in a very heavy stream like the Fraser or the Columbia. At the foot of the chute there is very apt to be some deep swells, or rolls, coming up from far down below. Besides that, there’s very apt to be a strong eddy setting up-stream just below the chute, if the walls are narrow and rocky. Now, that sort of water is very dangerous. One of those big swells will come up under a boat, and you’d think a sledge-hammer had hit her. Nothing can stop the boat from careening a little bit then. Well, suppose the eddy catches her bow and swings her up-stream. She goes up far enough, in spite of all, so that her nose gets under some white water coming down. Well, then, she swamps, and you’re gone!”

“I don’t like this sort of talk,” said Jesse. “If there’s any place where I could walk I’d get out.”

“I’m telling you now about bad water,” said Alex, “and telling you how to take care of yourself in case you find yourself there. One thing you must remember, you must travel a little faster than the current to get steerageway, and you must never try to go against your current in a rapid—the water is stronger than all the horses you ever saw. The main thing is to keep cool, to keep your balance, and sometimes not to be afraid of taking a little water into the boat. It’s the business of the captain to tell whether it’s best to take the ridge of water at the foot of the chute or to edge off from it to one side. That last is what he will do when there are no eddies. All rapids differ, and of course in a big river there may be a dozen different chutes. We always go ashore and look at a rapid if we think it’s dangerous.

“Now, you hear that noise below us,” he added, “but don’t be alarmed. Don’t you see, Moise and Rob are already past it? I’ll show you now how we take it. Be steady, John, and don’t paddle till I tell you. On your right a little!” he called out an instant later. “That’s it! So. Well, we’re through already!”

“Why, that was nothing,” said Jesse. “It was just as smooth!”

“Exactly. There is no pleasanter motion in the world than running a bit of fast water. Now, there was no danger in this, and the only trouble we had was just to get an inch or so out of the way of that big rock which might have wrecked us. We always pick a course in a rapid which gives us time to turn, so that we can dodge another rock if there’s one on ahead. It usually happens pretty fast. You’ll soon learn confidence after running a few pieces of white water, and you’ll learn to like it, I’m sure.”

Moise had turned his boat ashore to see the second boat come through, and after a moment Alex joined him at the beach, the canoes being held afloat by the paddles as they sat.

“She comes down fast, doesn’t she, fellows?” asked Rob.

“I should say so!” called John. “I don’t see how they ever got a big boat up here at all.”

“Well, Sir Alexander says that this was part of the worst water they found,” said Rob. “Sometimes they had to pull the boat up by hanging on to the overhanging trees—they couldn’t go ashore to track her, they couldn’t get bottom with their setting-poles, and of course they couldn’t paddle. Yet we came down like a bird!”

The boats dropped on down pleasantly and swiftly now for some time, until the sun began to sink toward the west. A continually changing panorama of mountain and foothill shifted before them. They passed one little stream after another making down from the forest slopes, but so rapid and exhilarating was their movement that they hardly kept track of all the rivers and creeks which came in. It was late in the evening when they heard the low roar of a rapid far on ahead. The men in the rear boat saw the Mary Ann slacken, pause, and pull off to one side of the stream.

“That must be the big rapid which Fraser mentions,” commented John.

“Very likely,” said Alex. “Well, anyhow, we might as well pull in here and make our camp for the night. We’ve made a good day’s work for a start at least.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if it was a hundred miles from where we started down to the outlet of the McLeod River,” began Rob again, ever ready with his maps and books. “I think they call it the Pack River now. There is a sort of wide place near there, where the Mischinsinclia River comes in from the east, and above that ten or fifteen miles is the Misinchinca River, on the same side. I don’t know who named those rivers, but we haven’t passed them yet, that’s sure. Then down below the mouth of the McLeod is the Nation River, quite a good stream, I suppose, on the west side. The modern maps show another stream called the Manson still farther. I don’t know whether Mackenzie knew them by these names, or whether we can tell them when we see them, but