“Well,” said Alex, “here’s where we start. For me, I don’t care whether we go to the Pacific or the Arctic!”
“Nor me no more,” added Moise. “Only I’ll rather go downheel as upheel, me — always I’ll rather ron the rapeed than track the boat up the rapeed on the bank. Well, en roulant, eh, M’sieu Alex?”
“Roulant!” answered Alex, briefly. Moise, setting his paddle into the water with a great sweep, began once more the old canoe song.
“Le fils du roi s’en va chassant
En roulant, ma boule!
Avec son grand fusil d’argent
En roulant, ma boule!”
So they fared on merrily, the strong arms of the two skilled boatmen pushing the light canoes rapidly through the rippling water. Moise, a strong and skilful paddler, was more disposed to sudden bursts of energy than was the soberer and quieter Alex, who, none the less, came along not far in the rear with slow and easy strokes which seemed to require little exertion on his part, although they drove the boat straight and true as an arrow. The boys at the bow paddles felt the light craft spring under them, but each did his best to work his own passage, and this much to the approval of the older men, who gave them instructions in the art of paddling.
“You’ll see, M’sieu Rob,” said Moise, “these paddle she’ll be all same like fin of those feesh. You’ll pull square with heem till she’ll get behind you, then she’ll turn on her edge just a little bit — so. That way, you paddle all time on one side. The paddle when she’ll come out of water, she’ll keep the boat running straight.”
The distance from their point of embarkation to the eastern edge of the little lake could not have been more than a couple of miles, for the entire distance from the western to the eastern edge was not over three miles. In what seemed no more than a few moments the boats pulled up at the western end of what was to be their first portage.
“Now,” said Moise, “we’ll show those boy how a Companee man make the portage.” He busied himself arranging his packs, first calling for the tent, on which he placed one package after another. Then he turned in the ends of the canvas and folded over the sides, rolling all up into a big bundle of very mixed contents which, none the less, he fastened by means of the strap which now served him as support for it all.
“I know how you did that,” said Rob — “I watched you put the strap down inside of the roll.”
“Yes,” said Moise, smiling, “she’ll been what Injun call tump-strap. White man he’ll carry on hees shoulder, but Injun an’ voyageur, she’ll put the tump-band on her head, what? That’s best way for much load.”
Moise now proceeded to prove the virtue of his remarks. He was a very powerful man, and he now swung up the great pack to his shoulders, although it must have weighed much over a hundred and fifty pounds and included almost the full cargo of the foremost boat.
“Throw something on top of her,” said Moise. “She’ll been too light! I’m afraid I’ll ron off, me.”
“Well, look at that man,” said Jesse, admiringly. “I didn’t know any man was so strong.”
“Those Companee man, she’ll have to be strong like hox!” said Moise, laughing. “You’ll ought to seen heem. Me, I’m not ver’ strong. Two, three hondred pounds, she’ll make me tire.”
“Well, trot on over, Moise,” said Alex, “and I’ll bring the boat. Young gentlemen, each of you will take what he can conveniently carry. Don’t strain yourselves, but each of you do his part. That’s the way we act on the trail.”
The boys now shouldered their small knapsacks and, each carrying his rifle and rod, started after the two stalwart men who now went on rapidly across the portage.
Moise did not set down his pack at all, but trotted steadily across, and Alex followed, although he turned at the summit and motioned to Rob to pause.
“You’d hardly know it,” said Rob, turning to John and Jesse, who now put down their packs, “but here we are at the top of this portage trail and the top of the Peace River pass. Here was where old Sir Alexander really turned toward the west, just as we now are turning toward the east. It’s fine, isn’t it?”
“I’m glad I came,” remarked John.
“And so am I,” added Jesse; “I believe we’re going to have a good time. I like those two men awfully well — they’re just as kind, and my! how strong!”
Presently they all met again at the eastern edge of the dim trail. “I stepped it myself,” said John, proudly. “Both Sir Alexander and old Simon Fraser were wrong — she’s just six hundred and ninety-three paces!”
“Maybe they had longer legs than you,” smiled Alex. “At any rate, there’s no doubt about the trail itself. We’re precisely where they were.”
“What made them call that river the Parsnip River?” demanded Jesse of Alex, to whom he went for all sorts of information.
“I’ll show you,” said Alex, quietly, reaching down and breaking off the top of a green herb which grew near by. “It was because of the wild parsnips — this is one. You’ll find where Sir Alexander mentions seeing a great many of these plants. They used the tops in their pemmican. You see, the north men have to eat so much meat that they’re glad to get anything green to go with it once in a while.”
“What’s pemmican?” asked Jesse, curiously.
“We used to make it out of buffalo meat, or moose or caribou,” said Alex. “The buffalo are all gone now, and, in fact, we don’t get much pemmican any more. It’s made by drying meat and pounding it up fine with a stone, then putting it in a hide sack and pouring grease in on top of it. That used to be the trail food of the voyageurs, because a little of it would go a good way. Do you think you could make any of it for the boys, Moise?”
“I don’ know,” grinned Moise. “Those squaw, she’ll make pemmican — not the honter. Besides, we’ll not got meat. Maybe so if we’ll get moose deer we could make some, if we stop long tam in camp. But always squaw make pemmican — not man.”
“Well, we’ll have to give some kind of imitation of the old ways once in a while,” commented Alex, “for though they are changed and gone, our young friends here want to know how the fur-traders used to travel.”
“One thing,” said John, feeling at his ankle. “I’ll be awfully glad when we get out of the devil’s club country.”
“Do you have those up in Alaska?” asked Alex.
“Have them? — I should say we have! They’re the meanest thing you can run across out of doors. If you step on one of those long, snaky branches, it’ll turn around and hit you, no matter where you are, and whenever it hits those little thorns stick in and stay.”
“I know,” nodded Alex. “I struck plenty of them on the trail up north from the railroad. They went right through my moccasins. We’ll not be troubled by these, however, when we get east of the divide — that’s a plant which belongs in the wet country of the western slope.”
All this time Moise was busy rearranging the cargoes in the first boat, leaving on the shore, however, such parcels as did not belong in