Part 10 (1/2)

”A great many men crossed the Athabasca Pa.s.s, but not so many took the Yellowhead route. Even as late as 1839 the traders preferred the Athabasca Pa.s.s to this one. Father de Smet took that route in 1846. I shouldn't wonder if the mountain called Pyramid Mountain was the one originally called De Smet Mountain.

”There was an artist by the name of Paul Kane that crossed west by the Athabasca Pa.s.s in 1846. In those days the Yellowhead Pa.s.s was little used. It came into most prominence after the Cariboo Diggings discoveries of gold. Parties came out going east as early as 1860 from the gold-mines. About that time Sir James Hector was examining all this country, and he named a lot of it, too. More than a hundred and fifty miners went west through this pa.s.s in '62 bound for the Cariboo Diggings. They didn't stop to name anything, you may be sure, for they were in a hurry to get to the gold; but in 1863 Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle went across here and wrote a book about it which is very useful even yet. They named a lot of mountains. I don't know who named that wonderful peak Mount Robson, but it was named after Premier Robson of British Columbia in 1865.

”n.o.body knows much about this country, for the early travelers did not make many maps or journals. But about 1872 they began to explore this country with a view to railway explorations, and from that time on it has been better known and more visited, although really very few persons have ever been right where we are sitting now.”

”Well,” said Rob, thoughtfully, after a time, ”after all, the best way to learn about a country is to go and see it yourself. You can read all about it in books, but still it looks different when you come to see it yourself.”

”Wait till I get my map done,” said John, ”and many a time after this we'll talk it all over, and we can tell on the map right where we were all the time.”

”Well, you're at the summit now at this camp,” said Uncle d.i.c.k.

”Yonder to the east is Miette water. Over yonder is the Fraser. It's downhill from here west, and sometimes downhill rather faster than you'll like. We've come a couple of hundred miles on our journey to the summit here, and in a little more than fifty more we'll be at the Tete Jaune Cache. That's on the Fraser--and a wicked old river she is, too.”

”How's the trail between here and there, Uncle d.i.c.k?” asked Jesse, somewhat anxiously.

”Bad enough, you may depend.”

”And don't we get any more fis.h.i.+ng?”

Uncle d.i.c.k smiled. ”Well, I'll tell you,” said he; ”we'll probably not have a great many chances for trout as good as we'll have to-morrow.

It's only two or three miles from here to Yellowhead Lake, and I think we'll find that almost as good a fis.h.i.+ng-place as Rainbow Lake was the other day.”

XII

THE WILDERNESS

”It's cold up here, just the same,” said Jesse, when he rolled out of his blanket early on the following morning, ”and the woods and mountains make it dark, too, on ahead there. Somehow the trees don't look just the same to me, Uncle d.i.c.k.”

”They're not the same,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, ”and I am glad you are so observing. From here on the trees'll get bigger and bigger. They always are, on the Pacific side of the Rocky Mountains. The east side is far more dry and barren. When you get down into the Columbia valley or the Fraser country you'll see Douglas firs bigger than you ever thought a tree could grow.”

”Yes, and devil's-club, too,” said Rob. ”I stepped on one just a little while ago, and it flew up and hit me on the knee.”

Uncle d.i.c.k laughed. ”You'll see devil's-club aplenty before you get done with this trip,” said he. ”In fact, I will say for all this upper country, it doesn't seem to have been laid out for comfort in traveling. The lower Rockies, in our country, say in Wyoming and Colorado, are the best outdoor countries in the world. It's a little wet and soft up here sometimes, although, fortunately, we've had rather good weather.

”From now on,” he continued, ”you'll see a change in the vegetation.

You can still see the fireweed--it seems a universal plant all the way from the Saskatchewan to the Peace River and west even to this prairie here. That and the Indian paint--that red flower which you all remember--is common over all the north country. Then there is a sort of black birch which grows far up to the north, and we have had our friends the willows and the poplars quite a while. Now we'll go downhill into the land of big trees and devil's-club.”

”So that's the last of the Yellowhead Pa.s.s for this trip,” said Rob, turning back, as within the hour after they had arisen they were in saddle once more for the west-bound trail.

”Yes,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, ”one of the most mysterious of all the pa.s.ses.

I often wonder myself just what time it was that old Jasper Hawse first came through here.”

”Was it really named after him, and who was he?” inquired John.

”Some say he was an Iroquois Indian who had red hair--in which case he must have been part white, I should say. Others say he was a Swede. Yet others say that 'Tete Jaune,' or 'Yellowhead,' was an old Indian chief who had gray hair. Now, I've seen a few white-haired Indians--for instance, old White Calf, down in the Blackfoot reservation--and their hair seems rather yellow more than pure white when they are very old. At any rate, whoever the original Tete Jaune was, we are bound now for his old bivouac on the Fraser, fifty miles below, the Tete Jaune Cache.

”Every man who wants to do mountain exploring has heard of the Tete Jaune Cache on the Fraser River. It has been one of the most inaccessible places in the Rockies. But now it will be easy to get there in a year or so, and I am sure on this beautiful Yellowhead Lake just ahead of us somebody will put up a hotel one day or other, and they will make trails around in these mountains and kill all these goats and bear.”