I suppose we were some five or ten minutes making the passage, although it seemed more like as many hours. We came out with the raft into open water and paddled with our shovels to the side, soaking wet through, although that condition was more or less normal. Mackintoshes and umbrellas are not exactly part of an outfit. When it rains you get wet, and when the sun shines you get dry, and you are lucky if you are dry when you go to bed. Yet such a thing as rheumatics or illness is unknown.
Having landed, we automatically started on the usual procedure with gold pan and shovel. Colours as usual — quite good colours, but not good enough to justify packing food from Edmonton. As we couldn’t get back that night we prospected a bit further down on the opposite bank, but with the same result. The raft would have to be abandoned, likewise, everything else, except bare necessities, for the climb back.
Peep of day next morning we were off, up and up, colder and colder, as hour after hour of steady climbing took us up higher and higher and at last into the show line. Then down the other side, with always the sporting chance of making a slip and starting a non-stop slide to eternity; or even meeting a grizzly. The result would be the same in both cases! There are not many grizzlies left, any more than there are buffaloes, but there are still quite a few, and a grizzly is about the most cussed customer that one can run across, in all the Nor’-West. As a rule he’ll attack on sight, and nothing short of a 45-90 hs the slightest effect, and even then it has got to be planted carefully, in exactly the right spot and followed up quickly, or you are going out. Once a grizzly gets its paws on a man, he has far less chance than with a lion, and that’s little enough, by all accounts. Admittedly they have not the speed of a lion, but whereas a lion is not difficult as a rule to bring down, a grizzly seems to have about ten times more vitality. We should have been a sorry pair if we had met one, for all we had was our shovels. We thought, when we launched our craft that we were only going a couple of miles there and back on the river, so we had not even taken our usual inseparable friend, the rifle.
When, at long last, we did get back to the camp, we found the pros and cons of advance or retreat had been settled by the rest of the chaps packing their traps and clearing out. They had left us, what at any rate they considered was our share of the grub — a tent, our horses, rifles, and blankets.
Well, we had each other to swear at, and that was something; although, as a matter of fact, when we did hit the camp we were far too hungry and played out to consider the merits of the other chaps’, shall we say, desertion, or even our own loneliness. That came later. It was a fair taste of just what it must be like to be absolutely alone in these mountains. One could well believe all the tales one heard about chaps who, from one cause or another, have been left on their own, going stark, staring mad. There is sound advice in that caution, “Don’t lose heart in the mountains.”
The actual loneliness didn’t worry us a great deal, our sea training took care of that, but it was the fact of turning back.
To turn back spelt utter failures of the whole expedition. Going on, no matter how slowly, was to break fresh ground, with always the possibility of making a strike. If we did decide to go on then we must make up our minds to kill one horse and smoke the meat; that would have to be done and we were both just as enthusiastic on that programme as we should have been over a suggestion to kill either of ourselves. Your horse becomes your pal, and treats you as such, and he expects the same treatment from you. He will nose round you on the trail, and stand around where you are cooking, in the hopes of getting a lick at the gold pan for salt remaining, when you have finished baking.
No, we didn’t enthuse over the idea one bit, yet there was no alternative that we could see, if we were to make the Smokey River, get in a satisfactory prospect along the course, and finally fetch Peace River Landing. Even supposing for one instant that we could bring ourselves to kill one of our old pals, apart from feeling like murderers, and something far worse when we sat down to grub, the chances of ever making the Landing with a cumbersome raft were about a thousand to one against. However, some decision had to be made, and that right quickly, for the share left us consisted of less than a week’s supply. It seemed as though the others must have had it in their minds, that after taking perhaps a day to make a decision — which is exactly what we did — -it might take four or five days to catch them up, and we should have food, for just that time.
To make a long story short, we stacked our packs, cached our tools, and hit the trail back with three days’ grub between us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE RETURN TRAIL.
We’d no worry about catching up with the others. We knew only too well that the first river would bring their outfit up all standing. They were all downright good fellows, but never cut out for this sort of thing.
Sure enough, there they all were, sitting on the banks of the Athabaska, contemplating that uninviting flood. They looked a bit sheepish, but it was no use grousing, the only thing to do was to make the best of a bad job and get on, so we scouted up river until we found a canoe, which we brought down and started the ferrying. A hundred pounds at a time was the maximum load when shooting these rapids.
We had found a very suitable spot, where the canoe would lie snugly under the bank whilst we loaded her up, and a nice little bay lower down on the opposite side for an eddy. It was a bad spot as far as the river went, for it was in full flood, but it was in excellent shoving off place, and a good spot for landing. Furthermore, there was a level bank, without tree or scrub for towing the canoe up river on the far side ready for the shoot back.
Having got half the provisions over, and two or three of the chaps, I thought now was the moment to strike a bargain for provisions. Somehow, I did not feel quite the same towards these fellows, and I determined to get my whack out of them, so that Bill and I could pull out on our own. I told them, quite frankly when I got half of them parked on one side and half on the other side of the river, that they could have the canoe and welcome, but in view of the few provisions then had left us two, I did not feel obliged to waste any more time ferrying them back. (I still think I took rather a mean advantage.) Anyhow, it was soon happily settled — as far as I was concerned. We got our fair whack of grub, and they got safely over the worst river in the Nor’-West in one of its worst moods.
To take a man over, he had to lie in the bottom of the canoe, underneath the little wooden spreaders. The whole canoe is as light as a feather, built of bark, and stitched with hide. Even with only one man lying in the bottom and the other on his knees paddling, she is pretty deeply loaded, and needs careful handling.
After the provisions and horses were all over, two fellows were left. To save a journey I told them both to get into the canoe, and we would make the final shoot. It was a ticklish job, and as I required every inch of room, I had unwisely put the paddle on the bank, until they settled themselves in the bottom. “Being in all respects ready for sea,” or, as in this case, for the river, having her nicely, if somewhat deeply trimmed, I turned her bow off with a hand on each gunwhale at the stern, ready as she took the fast water, to vault in — and it is a bit of a job vaulting into one of these tiny craft, particularly as at the same moment you strike white water. A shove, a jump, and I was in, at the same instant reaching down for the paddle, which, to my horror, was not there. I had left it on the bank. How it was managed, I really don’t know, but I was over the side in about half a split second, and gave the canoe a terrific tug that stopped her way, and actually, by some miracle brought her back out of the rapids and into the eddy. The chaps lying in the bottom did not realise what had happened, until I told them. They both looked a bit green, and I’ll say it gave me some jar. In any case, I decided to take more time, and more care, so I left one on the beach, and made two journeys of it, this time with safety.