On the Edge of the Arctic; Or, An Aeroplane in Snowland

by H. L. Sayler

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SONG OF THE VOYAGEUR

  Hardly seeming to move, the deeply laden scows veered more and more intothe current, until at last the swift flow of the river began to push themforward. But even before La Biche's boat, which was ahead and farthestfrom the shore, was fully in the grasp of a swirling eddy, the bronzedsteersman, his pipe firmly set in his teeth, hurled his body on thesteering oar and plunged the far end of it against the oily current.

  At the same moment Moosetooth dropped his own oar and almost instantlyboth boats straightened out before the onrushing waters. It was a momentlong waited for by Norman and Roy, and at the time no thought was givento any arrangements for comfort. The boys threw themselves on the forwarddeck, their sweaters close about their throats against the chilling fogand the cool breeze, while Colonel Howell sat muffled in his overcoat onthe edge of the deck.

  Such events in the history of the Northern rivers were in the old daysmomentous. Their only ceremony had been the parting "Bon jour" of thepoliceman.

  "In the old days," suggested Norman, "in the days that our friend Paulwould have loved, the voyageurs had a song for a time like this."

  "The riverman's song of farewell," spoke up young Zept with animation. "Iwish I knew one."

  Almost instantly, those on the fast-receding shore heard from the boatthe soft notes of some one in song. Under the conditions, whatever thewords and the air, they floated back as many of those left behind hadheard the old voyageur take his leave. But this song came from neither ofthe weatherworn steersmen, nor from the stolid members of theirhalf-breed crew. Count Zept, his hat in his hand and the cool river windpaling his flushed face, had mounted to the top of the cargo and wassinging something he had learned in far away lands. The fascinating tenorof his voice carried far over the river.

  Even out of the hidden heights on the far side of the current, thestrains of the song came back with a melancholy pathos. Perhaps the youngsinger himself was moved. But to those who listened, it wafted over thewaters as for two centuries the voyageurs into the unknown north hadcelebrated the setting out of the long voyage that might have no return.None in the boat spoke to him, but as he went on, repeating the lines,and his voice gradually dropping lower and lower, the boats, lost in thefog and darkness, swept into the great bend, and the stragglers on shoreturned and left the river.

  Although he did not realize it then, Paul Zept's impromptu tribute infarewell marked the great turning point in his life.

  Three hundred miles of dangerous water lay before the travelers and theirvaluable outfit. On this part of the voyage the river ran wide and deep.At the suggestion of the steersmen, it was at once decided to make nolanding that night but to take advantage of the easy going, as the coldwind would soon sweep the fog away. Strongly touched by the air of Paul'ssong, which the singer laughingly explained was a song without words, ashe had made it up mainly from snatches of Italian opera, the words ofwhich he could not recall, Norman and Roy got Paul on the rear deck andbegan to prepare for the night. The assistance of one of the crew wasnecessary to prepare the blankets in an expert manner. Before midnightColonel Howell and the three young men, snugly wrapped in their new "fourpoints," found no trouble in losing themselves to the world without.

  Long before the sun showed itself above the high poplar-crowned hillsthat lined each bank of the Athabasca, Norman and Roy had slipped out oftheir blankets. It was their first view of an absolute wilderness. Theboats were still drifting silently forward, with no sign of life exceptin the erect forms of Moosetooth and old La Biche, who were yet standingagainst their long steering oars as they had stood through the night.Neither of them gave salutation, Moosetooth's dripping oar following insilence now and then a like sweep of his companion's blade in the waterahead.

  Not arousing their companions, the two boys perched themselves where Paulhad sung the night before and, shivering in the new day, began to drinkin the scene before them.

  What they saw at that moment was a picture repeated for nearly two weeksto come. Although drifting at the rate of four miles an hour, much timewas lost while the boats made their way back and forth across the river,and although it was but three hundred miles to Fort McMurray, there wasconstant delay in camps ashore, and at the beginning of the Grand Rapidsa week was lost in portaging the entire cargo. Colonel Howell did notwelcome another lost outfit and he was quite satisfied when bothMoosetooth and La Biche took their empty scows safely through thenorthern whirlpool.

  Rising almost from the water, the hills, little less than mountains inheight, ran in terraces. Strata of varicolored rock marked the clifflikeheights and where black veins stood out with every suggestion of coal,the young observers got their first impression of the mineralpossibilities of the unsettled and unknown land into which they werepenetrating.

  The first deer which they observed standing plainly in view upon agravelly reef aroused them to excitement. But when Moosetooth, notspeaking, but pointing with a grunt to a dark object scrambling up therocky shelf on the other side of the river and the boys made out a bear,Roy sprang for his new twenty-two.

  "Nothin' doin'," called Norman in a low tone. "That's where we need the.303 and of course that's knocked down."

  "Well, what's the use anyway?" retorted Roy, resuming his seat. "I cansee there's going to be plenty of this kind of thing. And besides, youcan bet our friend here isn't going to stop for a bear, dead or alive."

  From that time on, although they did not find animals so close togetheragain, they saw eagles, flocks of wild geese floating ahead of them onthe river, and three more deer. And continually the magnificent hills,hanging almost over the river, gave them glimpses of vegetation andobjects new to them.

  "I'm glad I came," remarked Norman, "but I wonder how this country lookswhen winter comes."

  "You know how this river'll look," answered Roy. "It'll be a great,smooth roadway and a lot of people waitin' now to get back tocivilization will make it a path for snowshoes and dog sleds."

  "Some trip up here from Fort McMurray," suggested Norman.

  "You said it," exclaimed Roy. "But the colonel won't have to make it onfoot this winter--not with the old _Gitchie Manitou_, and this ice roadto guide us."

  He looked with longing at the crates of the airship, the two smaller onesof which took up one side of their own scow, while the others were lasheddiagonally on top of the crate in the forward boat. The two boats hadkept their relative positions throughout the night.

  Just as the sun began to gild the water in their wake, Paul stuck hisnose out of the blankets. All had slept in their clothes during thenight, Colonel Howell having promised them a chance at their pajamas onthe following evening. There was no dressing to be done and when Pauljoined his companions all made preparation to souse their faces over theedge of the boat.

  "One minute," exclaimed Norman. He dug among his baggage and in a shorttime reappeared with the aluminum basin.

  "Non! Non!" came from the statuelike figure of old Moosetooth. Then hepointed to the abrupt cut bank of the river a few hundred yards ahead andcalled something in the Cree language to La Biche. The latter nodded hishead and in turn called aloud in the Indian tongue.

  Instantly from between the pipes and crates on the forward boat a dozenhalf-breeds crawled sleepily forth. One of these, with a coil of rope,sprang into the bow of the forward scow, and another similarly equippedtook his place in the rear of La Biche, as if ready to spring on thesecond scow when opportunity presented. Both boats were headed for thecut bank.

  The commotion aroused Colonel Howell, and while he gave a nod ofapproval, the scows drifted in under the sweep of the steersmen's oarswhere the deep water ate into the tree-covered shore.

  As La Biche's boat touched the bank and the second scow ran forward, thetwo half-breeds scrambled onto the roots of the trees and before thescows could bump away into the stream once more, they had been skillfullysnubbed around the trunks of the nearest trees, a third Indian springingfrom the forward boat onto Moosetoo
th's craft and making fast a linethrown him from the shore. Then while the two boats bumped and struggledto turn their free ends into the current, the other Indians, with theskill of long experience, swiftly transferred hawsers from the free endsof the scows to other trees.

  "Whew!" shouted Paul, after the first excitement was over. "Whateverwe're going to do, I hope'll be short and sweet," and he waved his armsviolently about his head.

  The close vegetation of the shore was alive with mosquitoes.

  "Don't worry about these," laughed Roy. "This is the breeding place ofthe best mosquitoes in the world. Don't fight 'em--forget 'em."

  Colonel Howell, near by, exclaimed:

  "Don't worry, young men. Mosquito time is about over. You won't see manyof them after the end of July."

  "By the way," interrupted Norman, "what day is this? Is it July yet?"

  "That's another thing you don't need to worry about," went on ColonelHowell with a chuckle. "When the mosquitoes have gone, you'll know thatJuly is gone, and then we won't have anything to trouble us till the icecomes."

  "Bum almanac," commented Roy. "Mostly gaps, I should say."

  "Not so much," continued the colonel still laughing. "It isn't as much ofa gap between the mosquitoes and ice as you might think. But it'sbreakfast time. We've got two cooks with us, one for the crew and one forthe cabin passengers. You'd better take your morning dip and then, if youlike, you can take the canoe and pull over to that gravel reef. You won'tfind so many mosquitoes there and you can stretch your legs."

  The boys put off their swimming until they had reached the island, wherethey had the satisfaction of arousing a young buck from the poplarunderbrush, and the mortification of trying to catch it by chasing ittoward the mainland in a canoe. An Indian fired at the deer from one ofthe scows, but it made the river bank in safety and disappeared in thebush.

  "There, you see," announced Roy at once. "The twenty-two would have beenall right, but you've got to have it with you."

  The colonel's prediction was true and the three young men had a dip inthe shallow water off the island that was certainly bracing. When theyreturned to the shore they found both cooks in full operation a fewhundred yards from the scows and on the open riverbanks.

  The difference in the output of the cooks was considerable, butsatisfactory to each party served. The colonel's party was making thebest of fresh eggs, fresh butter and new bread and a beefsteak, whichwould be their only fresh meat for many days. The crew, out of a commonpan, helped themselves to boiled potatoes and fried pork, to which eachman appeared to add bannock from his own home supplies. The Indians dranktea.

  "Gentlemen," remarked Colonel Howell, as he lifted a tin of steamingcoffee, "here's to a friend of civilization--delicious coffee. We willknow him but a few days longer. He will then give way to the copperkettle and tea."

  "How about fresh eggs and beefsteak?" laughed Paul.

  "Eggs, my dear sir, have always been a superfluous luxury patronizedmostly by the infirm and aged. As for beefsteak, it cannot compare with aluscious cut of moosemeat, the epicurean delight of the Northwest. It isa thing you may not have at the Waldorf, and a delicacy that not even thegold of the gourmet may lure from the land of its origin."

  "How about bear meat?" asked Roy, recalling with some concern his lostopportunity in the early dawn.

  "Rather than starve, I would eat it," responded Colonel Howell, "andgladly. But to it I prefer rancid salt pork."

  In such badinage, the leisurely stop passed while the boys finished theirfirst meal in the wilderness, topping it off with the luscious redraspberries that were just in perfection all around the camp.

  That day the boats drifted fifty miles, luncheon being eaten on the reardeck. A night landing was made on a gravelly island to escape as far aspossible the many mosquitoes. Tents were not erected but alongside a goodfire the blankets were spread on the soft grass beneath the stuntedisland trees and with mosquito nets wrapped about their heads all sleptcomfortably enough.

  Where the Indians slept no one seemed to know. When the boys and theirpatron turned in as dark came on, at eleven o'clock, the half-breeds werestill eating and smoking about their removed camp fire. In this manner,with no accidents, but with daily diversions in the way of shooting,venison now being one of the daily items of food, the voyageurs at lastreached the Grand Rapids.

  From this place, for sixty miles, a tumultuous and almost unnavigablestretch of water reached to the vicinity of Fort McMurray, the end oftheir journey. The greatest drops in the water and the most menacingperils were encountered at the very beginning of the Rapids, where forhalf a mile an irregular island of rock divided the stream. On one sideof this the river rushed in a whirlpool that no craft could attempt. Onthe other side, and the wider, skilled boatmen had a chance of safelyconducting light craft through the many perils. Here it was necessarythat both boats should be unloaded and the entire outfit be portaged tothe far end of the island.

  But travel on the river was so important that those concerned in it had,many years before, constructed a crude wooden tramway which, repaired byevery newcomer, was available for use in transporting the heavy freight.

  Permanent camp was made at the head of the island when this arduous taskbegan. It had taken four days to load the boats and seven days were spenton the island in getting the cargoes of the two boats to the far end. Thesixth day fell on a Sunday, when no Indian does any labor. On theafternoon of the next day Moosetooth and La Biche made their spectacularraces down the Rapids. Not a boy of the party that did not entreatColonel Howell to let him go with the first boat, but in his refusaltheir patron was adamant. The only man to accompany each boat as itstarted on its flight was an experienced member of the crew who sat onthe bow with a canoe practically in his lap. He was ready to launch thisany moment to rescue the steersman, but both attempts were engineered bythe veteran river men with no other bad results than the shipping of agreat deal of water.

  Paul posted himself opposite the most dangerous point and made picturesof the tossing boats and their bareheaded pilots as long as they were insight.

  Then came the laborious task of reloading the boats, but under ColonelHowell's direct attention, this operation now took far less than fourdays. Within ten hours' travel from the foot of the Rapids, the boatsrounded a bend at three o'clock the next afternoon and came in sight of alone cabin on the bare and rocky shore of the river.

  "Look in the trees behind it," exclaimed Colonel Howell.

  Like a gallows, almost concealed behind a fringe of poplar trees, stoodthe familiar lines of an oil derrick.

  "I'm sorry they haven't got a flag out," remarked Colonel Howell, "butthat's the place. All there is of Fort McMurray is just beyond."