Part 9 (1/2)
Uncle d.i.c.k smiled and led the way into the thick underbrush once more.
They had a stiff climb before they reached the summit of their ridge where the timber broke away and gave them once more their splendid view out over the Miette valley and the mountains beyond. They ran rapidly down this fair slope and soon were in camp, where Moise greeted them with much joy.
”By gar!” said he, ”those boy, she'll get feesh, eh? What I tole you, Monsieur Deek?”
The day was yet young, but at the earnest request of his young companions Uncle d.i.c.k consented to rest one day and allow the horses to graze, as he had promised. Therefore the boys had plenty of time that afternoon to prowl around in the neighborhood of the camp: and that night Moise, having also had abundant time to prepare his supper, offered them boiled trout, fried trout, and griddled trout, until even John at least was obliged to cry ”Enough.”
XI
THE Pa.s.s
It seemed to our Young Alaskans that Uncle d.i.c.k was nothing if not a hard taskmaster on the trail, for before the sun was up he was calling them out of their tents.
”Come now,” he warned them; ”get out of those blankets at once! You've had a good day's fis.h.i.+ng, and now we'll have to make a good day's travel to pay up for it.”
Tired from their tramp of the day before, they all groaned protestingly; but Moise also called out from his fireside, ”h.e.l.lo, young mans! Suppose you'll got up and eat some more trout, eh?”
”I certainly am hungry,” said John, and in their laughter at John's unfailing appet.i.te Rob and Jesse found themselves awake.
”Well, get out and get the horses, young men,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, relentlessly, ”and then back to breakfast while I make up the packs.
You see those three peaks on ahead? Well, we've got to get on the other side of them just as soon as we can. We can't afford to lose a minute at this time of the year, for the fords will be bad enough even as they are.”
When at length their little pack-train began its slow course up the valley of the Miette all the boys turned and looked behind them to say good-by to the great valley of the Athabasca, which had served them as a highway for so long. The excitement of their new adventures, however, kept them keyed up, and certainly the dangers of the trail were not inconsiderable.
The old pa.s.s of the traders now swung away from the river, now crossed high ridges, only to drop again into boggy creek-bottoms and side-hill muskeg. Several times they had to ford the Miette, no easy thing, and at other times small streams which came down from the mountains at the right also had to be crossed. The three white peaks ahead still served as landmarks, but it was not until the second day that they reached the flat prairie through which the Miette River now wandered, broken into many little channels. Even here they found the going very soft and difficult, now impeded by down timber, or again by a rus.h.i.+ng torrent where the ford had to be selected with the utmost care. John and Jesse were tired by the end of their second day of this hard travel; and even Rob, muddy to his knees from wading bogs, was glad when at last their leader halted.
”It's all right, boys,” said Uncle d.i.c.k. ”I don't want to drive you too hard, but I know perfectly well that every day counts with us now.
We've got bad country on ahead as well as bad country behind us, and we must make it through before the spring floods are on. I suppose you've noticed that all the creeks are worse late in the afternoon?
But I've waited at some of these little streams four and five days without being able to ford at all.”
They pushed on up through the open prairie-like country which now lay on about them, continually a panorama of mountains unfolding before them, all strange to them. An angle of the trail seemed to shut off all the valley of the Miette from them, so that they seemed in a different world.
”When will we get to the summit, Uncle d.i.c.k?” inquired Rob, after a time, as they halted at the edge of a wide green valley in whose deep gra.s.s for a time no running stream could be seen.
Uncle d.i.c.k smiled. ”We're at the summit now, you might say,” said he.
”I knew you couldn't tell when we got there.”
”This isn't like the Peace River Pa.s.s at all,” said Rob; ”it doesn't look like a pa.s.s at all, but more like a flat prairie country.”
”Precisely--they call that the Dominion Prairie over yonder. But a mountain pa.s.s is rarely what it is supposed to be. Take the Tennessee Pa.s.s, for instance, down in Colorado; you'll see a wide meadow with a dull creek running through it, something like this. The deep gorges and canons are lower down in the mountains, not on top of them. What you see before you is the old Yellowhead Pa.s.s, and we are now almost at the highest point. The grade rises very little from here to the actual summit.”
”Well,” said John, ”I never thought I'd be in a place like this in all my life. It seems a long way off from everywhere.”
”It comes near being the wilderness,” said his uncle. ”Far north of us is the Peace River Pa.s.s, which you made last year. Just the other way is the Athabasca Pa.s.s. Yonder, south of us, is Mount Geikie, between us and the Athabasca. Over west is Mount Fitzwilliam, and across the lake from him is Yellowhead Mountain; that's the one the early traders through here used to call Mount Bingley. And on every side of us there is all kinds of country where, so far as any one knows, no white man's foot has ever trod. Northwest of the pa.s.s and north of here we don't pretend to map the country, and not one mountain in ten has got its name yet. In short, we are in the wilderness here about as much as you're apt to be in many a long day's journey, no matter where you go.”
”And yet right out in there it looks like a farm meadow,” said Jesse, pointing to the green flats broken with willows and poplar mottes here and there.
”Beaver out there one time, no doubt,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, ”and maybe even now; but sometime there will be farms in here. At least, this is the top of the mountains and the lowest pa.s.s in all the Rockies. I'll show you the actual summit when we come to it.”