Young Alaskans in the Far North - Emerson Hough (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📗

which it was destined would need to go without supplies until the brigade came north in the following year. Damage to goods from wetting, damage to boats from collisions—all these things went into the large figures of cost which were to be set against the figures of the large gain in this commerce of the Far North.

John got many of his figures from the Hudson’s Bay Company clerk, a young man stationed here on Grand Island throughout the season, who was very friendly to all the strangers in the country. He expressed himself as very glad to see the brigade come north, for it was the only interesting time in his season’s work. He and one associate remained here, cut off from the world, all through the summer season, and he was not very happy, although, as he said, he was president and general traffic-manager, as well as superintendent and board of directors, of his railroad, and section boss as well. His duties were to have general charge of the transport of cargoes at the island, and to keep a record of the day’s doings.

Boat after boat now went through, as has been said, but without accident, although one or two hung up at The Turn, as the dangerous passage between the two great rocks in midstream now was called by all. Below that, as Rob expressed it, the bottom dropped out of the river and the boat traveled very fast.

John timed some of the boats through, and found that it took about eight minutes from the head of the eddy to the bottom of the chute. This Rob could hardly believe, as he said that when he went through it seemed not more than two minutes at the outside.

John and Jesse grew very grumpy over the prestige Rob had gained by his journey through the rapids, and besought Uncle Dick to allow them also to make the passage. Late in the third day, when most of the boats were through, they renewed their importunities, and he finally replied:

“Well, young men, I’ve about concluded to let you go through with the last boat. François says that he has been watching you all, and believes that you would not get ‘some scares.’ He says he will take you through in your own boat, which will be the last one of the brigade. The river has come up three or four inches since we struck in, and he says we can run through without unshipping much, if any, of our cargo, which doesn’t amount to very much. Rob has made the trip, and I figure now that we are all in the same boat together. Sometimes it is necessary to be either a man or a mouse. I want to see you grow up men. Well, are you ready now?”

All the boys gladly said that they were, Rob insisting on accompanying the boat once more, as indeed was necessary, since there would be no transport after that.

They took ship at the head of the island, and were tooled across the shallow water to the head of the rapids on the farther shore. Here the men all disembarked and sat silently along the edge of the bluff, taking one of the pipe-smokes which make so regular a part of the voyageur’s day’s employment. They seemed to get some sort of comfort out of their pipes, and almost invariably when undertaking any dangerous enterprise a quiet smoke was a part of the preparation.

François talked to them, meantime, seeing that they were eager to learn about the customs of this strange and wild country into which they now were going. He told them, motioning to the steep hillside on the right of the channel, that in the old times he used to pack stuff across the mile-and-a-half portage there for fifty cents a hundred pounds. It was hard work, and yet he made it pay. When they began to portage on the island, and not along the mountain-side, he had made as much as fifty dollars a day, for he got five dollars for taking a boat through the rapids, or thirty dollars for running it down to Fort McPherson; so that a season’s work would bring him, in very good years, over a thousand dollars, if he worked.

“But yong man, she spend the mon’,” said he, smiling.

John set down in his book the facts and figures, the date of 1871, which was the time when old Cap. Shott first ran a boat through the Grand Rapids. Since that time a few other pilots had come on who proved able to handle scows in white water. But old Cap. Shott and his long-time friend, Louis La Vallee, were now both of them old—“h’almost h’eighty year, she is, each of him,” said François.

“Well, now,” he added at length, “we will ron h’on the rapide.”

He rose and motioned to his men, who once more took their places at the oars, as they had in the boat which carried Rob through. Again the bowman squatted on his short fore deck. François, the steersman, stood on his plank walk at the handle of the great steering-oar. Gently they pushed out from shore, the last boat of the brigade.

“Here goes the Midnight Sun!” cried Jesse, waving his hat.

Uncle Dick watched them closely as the boat advanced. The boys spoke little or not at all, and John later accused Jesse of trying to pinch a piece out of the side of the boat, he held on so tight. But not one of them showed the white feather, nor made any trouble for the men in their work of running the fast water.

The boat at first ran along gently, the little waves lapping along the sides smartly, but not excitingly. Then at the end of the lower third the water gained in speed very much. At The Turn the waves were no doubt ten feet high. François, with a great sweep of his oar, fairly flung the boat athwart the current here, and the passage was made with no more than a scraping on the dangerous lower rock—the one which Uncle Dick called Scylla. The upper one he called Charybdis.

“You’ll learn what those two words mean when you go to school a little later,” said he, smiling.

Once beyond The Turn John and Jesse understood perfectly well what Rob had meant by saying that the bottom fell out of the river. They were excited, but had no thought of fear by the time they entered the last chute where the scow tobogganed down to the foot of the island. A moment later it was at rest once more in the eddy below the promontory.

Rob explained now about the log float which had carried the rope down to their boat when he first went through. There was, however, no longer need for the float to carry down a line to the boat. The brigade was through and the last scow below the island. The clerk and his taciturn companion were left alone. They stood now, both of them, waving their hats to the occupants of the Midnight Sun as, after a little, at the command of François, she pushed out from the eddy and took her place in the long procession of the north-bound brigade, every man of which now felt a sense of relief, since the most dangerous part of the early journey, the portage of the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, had been safely accomplished.

The flotilla was now strung out over many miles of water, but it was the intention to make several miles additional before stopping for the night. In the late twilight, here strangely long and bright, Rob went on with his notes in his diary, while John worked at his map, charting as best he could the right-hand channel through which they had made their exciting journey. Rob’s notes later proved of interest to his friends, as they explained very much about the journey of this dangerous two hundred and fifty miles of the white-water transport.