CHAPTER VIII.—A WRECK AND A BABY BEAR.
Donald, British Columbia, where the Rambler was introduced to the waters of the Columbia river, is pretty well up toward the Arctic circle, about in the same degree of latitude, in fact, as the Great Glacier of the Cascade range, still it is not so cold there in April as one would naturally suppose. There is splendid summer grazing land between the Fraser river, in that latitude, and the Pacific ocean.
Being so far to the North, one would expect the river, like a well-behaved body of water, to run south at Donald, especially as the mouth of the great stream is hundreds of miles in that direction, near the thriving city of Portland, in the state of Oregon. But rivers in mountainous countries have notions of their own, like wayward boys, as to the proper course to pursue, and so the Columbia pours its waters toward the North Pole for more than a hundred miles beyond Donald.
At Beaver the Canadian Pacific leaves the valley of the Columbia and winds south to cross Dog Tooth mountains, a parallel ridge of the long Rocky mountain system at Glacier House pass, while the Columbia pursues its turbulent way to the northwest for a hundred miles or more, as the river runs, until it rounds a great mountain peak and receives the waters of the Wood and Canoe rivers at Boat Encampment. This is the farthest point north for the Columbia, as the stream turns abruptly to the south there and makes for Arrow lakes.
Between Beaver and Boat Encampment the river valley is narrow, and there are no settlements to speak of. In many places the two ridges of the Rocky mountains press down to the waters of the river. The country is wild, and in April the summits to the east and west show snowy caps, like stalwart nurses out in the city parks, guarding perambulators and leading toddling youngsters.
The Rambler passed Beaver long before sunset and entered the wild region between the crowding mountain ridges. It was dim and uncanny there long before it was time for the sun to withdraw his face from that part of the world for the day, as the western summits shut out much of the light that fell. The three lads, Clay, Case, and Alex who had visited the wild places of Peru during the Amazon trip, were wild with joy at coming back to the heart of Nature, but Gran, who was evidently taking his first degree in the wonderful order of Mountain, Life, did not take so readily to the dark shadows and the swirling eddies which threatened to tear the Rambler into bits in punishment for her intrusion into the secret places.
When it became too dark to see the river for any distance ahead, the boys anchored in a little cove cut out of the foot of a mountain by the beating of waters, covering hundreds of years, and built a roaring fire in the coal stove. As it might be some days before they would be able to secure more gasoline, the motors were shut off, together with the electric generators, and supper was started on the top of the coal stove.
There was plenty of electricity in the accumulators, but the lads thought best to use only the electric lights. Clay gave his attention to the work of cleaning the motors, while Gran led in the preparations for supper. The boys were hungry and tired, and were promising themselves a sound night’s sleep as the supper cooked on top of the little coal heater.
“Bacon and pancakes!” scorned Alex after a time. “I’m getting sick of bacon and pancakes! What’s the matter with having one of the pies out of the cage? I’m hungry for pie! Pumpkin pie! Ouch!”
“I suppose you know how to bake a pie on top of a stove!” commented Case. “Why don’t you go out and catch a fish, if you are so keen for something new for supper. There ought to be plenty of fish in this roaring old river. Get the rowboat out and I’ll go with you.”
“All right,” agreed Alex, “we haven’t used the rowboat yet on this trip, and we’ll see how she behaves in the Columbia. Untie her, and I’ll get in and take the oars. Be careful now, and don’t jump in like a barrel of bones. This current is treacherous! If we get a dip here it may be a long time before we see sunlight again. Careful, now!”
“I don’t think you boys ought to go out in the rowboat,” Clay warned. “Why don’t you fish from the Rambler, or wait until to-morrow for your feast? It is too risky, just at night, and in unknown waters.”
But Alex was already in the rowboat, which was pulling hard at the line in Case’s hands. The boy backed with the oars, and Clay helped Case on the line, but when the latter was ready to jump for the boat the line parted and Alex went swirling down the river at the rate of a score of miles an hour. The boys stood aghast for an instant, and then Case sprang for the motors.
“Wait!” Clay ordered. “You can’t turn on power until I put some of the pieces back! I had it unfastened. Don’t touch it! I’ll see what can be done! Get out your flashlights and guns. We’ll let the boy know where we are, at any rate. I’ll have this motor ready in a minute.”
“Cut the anchor line, then,” cried Case. “We can’t let Alex go off in that way. We’ve just got to follow him! Cast off the anchor!”
The excited lad would have sent the boat adrift in the current, in which case she would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks in a very short time, if Clay had not interfered.
“You must be crazy!” the latter cried. “Alex may be all right. We will have power on in a minute, and then we can catch him, if we don’t bump into a foothill or tumble over a sudden drop. Listen! I thought I heard the boy calling. Answer him, you fog horn! You can beat me when it comes to making a roar.”
For an instant there was only the sweep of the dark water against the Rambler and the call of birds high up in the sky—so high up that the latest pencils of light from the setting sun touched their wings and turned them into burnished gold. Then a long “Ha-l-o-o” came from down the dark river. In a moment the sound was repeated, louder than before.
“That’s Alex!” cried Case. “He’s all right somewhere, it seems.”
“Yes,” Clay agreed, “he must have caught on something, for the current would have carried him beyond hearing long before this. He may have found a rock in the middle of the stream, or a small island. Hope so.”
“Hello, hello!” came the voice again. “Can’t you send down a light or a gun? I’ve got into a mess here. Hurry up!”
“Suppose we send Captain Joe down with a string, and a rope tied to the end of the string,” suggested Gran. “The dog would swim straight to him, wouldn’t he? Then we could pull the boat back and Alex in it.”
“Fine idea!” cried Clay, “especially as the boy doesn’t appear to be very far off. Call the dog and I’ll get a long rope and a string. If the rope and string aren’t long enough to reach Alex we can pull the dog back. Good chance to make Captain Joe earn his food. What?”
Case rushed into the cabin and looked about for Captain Joe. He was not under foot in the middle of the cabin floor, as he frequently was. He was not on his rug under one of the shelf-benches. He was not in the cabin at all, and Case went out to the deck again, calling softly to the dog.
“He isn’t out here,” Clay said. “I’ve found the rope, so hurry up with the dog. He must be around here somewhere. Couldn’t have left the boat without our knowing it, could he? Couldn’t have deserted us?”
“Well,” Case insisted, returning from a search of the boat, “the dog is not here. What do you think of that? Where is he?”
“He was on board not an hour ago,” Gran declared. “I saw him back there by the boat, the rowboat, I mean. Could he have started out after Alex do you think? He certainly has gone somewhere.”
Clay whistled and called to the dog, but for a long time there was no response. The mystery was, for a moment, baffling, and then it was cleared in a breath.
Captain Joe’s voice came from down the river in a succession of deep growls, followed by a different sort of snarling.
“That’s Captain Joe, all right,” cried Case. “He must have leaped into the river and struck out after Alex. That’s it, I guess.”
“Never did in the world,” Clay insisted. “If he is with Alex he sprang into the rowboat when no one saw him. That is one of his old tricks, as he wants to be in the limelight most of the time.”
“Is that Joe?” called Clay, making a trumpet of his hands and calling at the top of his voice. “Is Joe there with you, Alex?”
“Sure,” came back from below. “He is here, all right, and he’s got a baby bear! Can’t you let the Rambler down a little? I’m shipwrecked on a ledge of rock. River turns here and I bunted into it and caught hold. If you don’t take all night to get here, we’ll capture the bear. Captain Joe has him by the leg, I guess.”
“Do you think he has a bear?” asked Gran, in a tone of disbelief.
“Just like him,” Case laughed. “You can’t get Alex into any scrape he can’t get out of. If he should fall into a volcano he’d find an ice box there. Oh, you needn’t laugh, Gran! That is just the kind of a boy he is. We thought we had lost him at Para, Brazil, and he came back lugging Captain Joe, and with a mob at his heels. Now he is cast adrift on the Columbia river and finds a baby bear. But the question now is, how is he going to get back to the Rambler? I’ll bet the rowboat is busted all to flinders!”
“Few of your prophecies of evil have come true lately, Case,” laughed Clay, busy with the motors, “so you may as well quit doing the prophet stunt! Now, if you will come here and hold a searchlight under this frame, I’ll put this burr on and start the machine.”
Case did as requested, and Gran hastened into the cabin to put the last touches on the bacon which was frying in a skillet at the top of the heater. He even grumbled a little because the supper was being delayed by the accident which had broken the rowboat line.
“Alex!” called Clay, in a minute, “is it safe for the Rambler to come down there? What kind of a ledge is it you and the dog and the bear are on? You might look around, while you are there,” he added, with a laugh, “and see if you can find a fish for supper!”
“Oh, come on with the boat!” roared Alex. “I’m getting tired of holding the rowboat, and Captain Joe is worrying the bear to death.”
“Have you honestly got a bear?” asked Gran “What are you going to do with him? He might bite us,” he added, thoughtfully.
The boys heard Alex laughing and so understood that he was in no serious predicament. Captain Joe seemed to be talking confidentially to the bear.
At last the motors were ready, and the Rambler dropped cautiously down stream, under full control of the power and the helm. She passed the ledge where Alex and the dog and the bear were, picking them up with her flashlight as she went by, then pushed slowly up stream again, coming to the ledge with the current against her. At last her prow struck on a rocky bottom, and then she was held against the force of the stream by half power.
What the flashlight revealed was a boy, white bulldog, and a bear cub, all in a huddle on a level surface of rock about six feet in length and about half that width. Alex had evidently been tipped out of the boat when the ledge was struck, but had managed to hang on to the short line, so the boat was safe. Captain Joe was down at the water’s edge with his great paws on the back of the baby bear, which was trying its best to get its teeth into action on the dog’s leg.
The broken boatline was very short, and so Alex was pretty close to the water too. When the flashlight illumined the scene the bear cub gave a savage spring and almost passed from under the paws of the dog.
Alex was heard to laugh and seen to grab at the bear, and then the whole three rolled off into the river and the boat, thus released, swept past the Rambler and went bobbing out of sight. No effort was made to stop it, for Alex and the dog were drifting too, both clinging to the bear!