CHAPTER XV.—THE RAMBLER TAKES TO WHEELS.
“Straight through?” asked Alex who did not like the idea of overlooking the hunting and fishing along the river. “I’d like to get a shot at a bear and a deer before we strike tidewater.”
“You have already had a shot at a bear!” laughed Clay.
“Oh, yes, but that didn’t count. I was too high up in the air to take good aim, and I lost my gun, too. No, that doesn’t count.”
There was a long silence, during which Clay watched the moon coming up over the Rocky mountains, plating the rippling river and the brown crags with silvery light. The air was still, only the murmur of the water and an occasional protest from a bird breaking the silence.
“It’s glorious!” Alex declared, presently. “We’ve got to the point where we can appreciate a little quiet. If Gran could come walking in on us now, things would be about right, don’t you think?”
“Just about right—provided Case could catch another fish like the last one,” was the reply. “I don’t know what to think about Gran.”
“I don’t think about him at all,” Alex hastened to say. “I’ve got rid of it all! I’m waiting for the puzzle to solve itself.”
“Where did the boy come from, and where is he going, and why did he come to us at the pass, and who is he, and why is he meeting strangers in the woods without our knowledge, and has he been carried off by force? And many other wheres and whys,” Clay laughed.
“I give it up!” was Alex’s reply. “As I said before, I’m waiting for the puzzle to solve itself. When it does, we’ll know where my films went to, and that will help some. That’s the key to the whole thing—the film robbery heads the list.”
There was nothing more to talk about, for no amount of guesswork could unravel the mystery, and no combination of words seemed capable of throwing a single ray of light on the matter. The Rambler ran on through the night, carrying prow lights and side lights, and covered many miles before the morning sun lifted over the mountains and looked down on the river.
“What about loitering around for a time in the hope of finding Gran?” asked Case, as he came from the cabin, rubbing his eyes, and noted that the Rambler was under full speed. “We ought to look for him, anyway.”
“We’ve given that up,” Alex answered. “We’re going right on about our business, fishing and hunting, and having all the fun we can, regardless of all mystery. We might look for Gran a thousand years, in this wilderness, and never find him. Also we might hunt for our lost rowboat until sheep grow wings, and never set eyes on it. Some one stole the boat, and some one abducted Gran. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes,” Clay said, comings to the assistance of the boy, “that is all there is to it By to-morrow morning, if we keep on at this rate, we’ll strike the place where the Columbia skirts a mountain and turns squarely to the south. At that place there is a human habitation or two, and we may hear something of the boy there. In the meantime, it is you to catch another fish.”
“For breakfast, too,” chimed in Alex who seldom was out of healthy appetite. “I’m tired of pancakes and bacon, and fried mush, and boiled potatoes, and canned beans. Oh, oh,” he shouted, jumping to his feet, “there’s the bear meat!”
“I don’t know whether the grizzly will make good eating?” Clay said, “but we can soon find out If you’ll get Captain Joe and Teddy out of the way, I’ll fry a few slices.”
“I bar that!” Alex exclaimed. “I don’t like fried bear meat. Say, what’s the matter of parboiling the meat and making a bear stew? That will be all right. We’ve got potatoes, onions, turnips, rice, and lots of things to put into it.”
“I wish we had a cabbage!” Case observed. “There never was a good stew that wasn’t part cabbage. Don’t they can cabbage?”
“Never heard of canned cabbage, but when we come to the salmon canneries down the river we can find out about it. You go and get the fish for breakfast, and we’ll have the bear stew for dinner. Just take the canoe and paddle ashore and fish in some quiet pool.”
Case clapped his hands to his sides in quick remembrance.
“The canoe?” he repeated. “Who’s seen the old trough since the run we made through the rapids? Of course it was all banged to bits. Now, what are we going to do?”
“Make another,” Clay responded. “We can make another in a day, or we can wait until we get to Boat Encampment and buy one.”
“Then we’ll buy one,” Alex put in. “It is too much of a job to burn one out. We can buy one for a few cents, of an Indian.”
“And another thing,” Case observed, “where is that bearskin rug you were going to have?”
“Back there in the woods,” was the slow reply.
“Fish off the back end of the boat,” suggested Clay. “There are fish in the middle of the river as well as in the quiet pools.”
The loss of the primitive canoe was seriously felt, for there were not many places where the Rambler could get close to the shore. Also Alex mourned the loss of his bearskin. Finally Case caught a five-pound fish, and the choice parts of it were soon frying on the stove.
After breakfast Alex proceeded to make his bear stew, and Clay tinkered at the motors to make sure that they were in good order.
“If they had gone back on us when we were in the rapids,” he explained, “we should have been drowned, every one of us. It was the headway of the boat that kept us going right. I’m strong for these motors.”
It was a beautiful morning in one of the most picturesque districts in the world. There were white caps on many of the peaks, and the dark green of the cedar foliage and the brown of the rocks contrasted well with the sun-kissed waters of the river. There were bird-songs in plenty, and here and there a great fish leaped above the surface, as if to inspect this strange thing which rode upon the waves instead of, like a gentleman, diving under them!
After a time the valley of the river broadened out on the west until a great stretch of forest lay between the shoreline and the distant elevations. Perhaps the word valley has been used wrongfully. The country in that part of British Columbia is really an upland plateau, with mountain ridges lifting still higher.
From its source near the Kootenay lakes the Columbia falls hundreds of feet in rapids and foaming cascades before it reaches the Pacific. It is a vagrant stream, winding this way and that, washing mountains and sweeping past high levels of tableland. There are salmon in the river and all kinds of wild game in the canyons and forests it skirts, so it is an ideal water course for such a trip as the boys had started out on.
About noon, when the sun shone hot above the dancing waters, the Rambler came to another drop in the valley. The boys could hear the water tumbling over rocks, and the growing current told them that the falls, or rapids, whichever they were, were not far away.
“I think we’d better get to shore here,” Clay observed, “and take a look ahead. I don’t want another experience like that of last night. It is only by the greatest of good luck that we are alive this morning.”
“That’s the truth,” Case exclaimed. “And somebody is mourning over a plan that didn’t work. I wonder if they think we are dead?”
“We’ve cut out all that!” Alex broke in. “We can’t have any fun if we keep our minds bent up into exclamation points all the time. Look!” he continued, changing the subject, “there’s a place where we ought to be able to bring the Rambler right up to the shore.”
The place at which the boy pointed did look inviting, and so Clay headed the boat in that direction. There was a break in the high bank of the stream, and it looked as if there might be a pool inside which would make a desirable harbor.
When they came to the broken bank they saw that a small rivulet entered the Columbia there, and that its waters, in some period of flood, undoubtedly, had carried a quantity of soil away, leaving a pond west of the river line—a pond which seemed to be deep enough for the Rambler to float in. Also this pond was almost shut in from the river, the scrubby trees growing there filling in between the two bodies of water except where the channel cut the natural levee.
“This is a beauty!” Alex cried, as the Rambler felt her way through the opening. “We might hide away from a fleet of police boats here!”
Captain Joe seemed to agree perfectly with this expressed opinion of the locality, for no sooner was the Rambler within reach of the shore than he sprang out and began investigating the situation. Teddy climbed to the railing of the deck and would have followed the dog only for the fact that he was tied to the prow by a long rope.
Alex was off the deck almost as soon as the dog, and the two engaged in a wrestling match on the grass, a contest in which the boy came off an easy victor on account of the dog not being posted on tricks of knocking an opponent’s feet out from under him. This over, the dog started off into the forest, looking back as if to inquire why Alex was not coming along with him for a romp in the jungles.
“I believe I will take a turn in the forest while you look over the rapids,” Alex said, his eyes following the dog longingly. “We can have a run for half an hour, and then get back in time for the start. Anyway, why not remain here all night? That would be fine.”
Before Clay or Case could offer objections, the boy and the dog were out of sight in the thicket. Their brush-tramping footsteps were heard for a time, and then there were no indications that they had ever entered the woods at all. Clay smiled as he looked at Case, following the course the two had taken with his eyes.
“After we have a look at the rapids,” Clay promised, “we’ll go hunting in there. Unless I am much mistaken, we’ll find deer not far away from this valley. Venison would make a hit with me just now.”
“That sounds good to me,” Case answered. “We ought to get fresh meat before long, for our bacon is giving out. Now for the rapids!”
The rapids were more formidable than the boys had expected to find them. The bed of the river seemed to drop away several feet to the north, and the narrowing channel was spotted with boulders which fretted the current into foaming eddies. There seemed to be no main channel, such as Clay had followed through the peril above.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to put on the wheels,” Clay observed as he stood looking over the swirling surface of the broken river. “We can never sail the Rambler through there. Anyway, suppose we look for a place level enough to run the boat through. This bank looks good and level, and it seems to remain so for some distance, skirting the rapids like a highway. Do you know where the wheels are?”
“Certainly,” replied Case. “They are under the floor in the prow.”
The boys returned to the Rambler and lifted a hatch in the deck close to the forward stem. From the cavity underneath Case drew four wheels of about two feet in diameter. They were of iron, light as possible, with broad tires. Next came two long iron rods, with fittings at each end for the wheels. These were the axles. Then came great staples, shaped like a horseshoe, washers, and screws.
“How we ever going to get them on?” asked Case. “We neglected to hold dress rehearsals with these things!”
“I’ve studied that all out,” Clay said, proudly. “We’ll have to take to the water to screw these horseshoe staples onto the sides of the boat. There are four iron plates with screwholes where they go on. Oh, come on! I’ll show you as we go along.”
The boys worked steadily, understanding, and fortune favored them, so, in a couple of hours the wheels were in place, and the prow of the Rambler was out of water.
“Now, when Alex comes,” Clay said, “we’ll pull her out.”