Rob and John began to bend over their maps, both those which they had brought with them and that which John was still tracing out upon his piece of paper.
“We can’t be far from the Boat Encampment here,” said Rob, at last.
“It’s just around the corner of the Big Bend here,” rejoined their leader. “Over yonder a few hundred yards away is the mouth of the Wood River, and the Encampment lies beyond that. That’s the end of the water trail of the Columbia going east, and the end of the land trail for those crossing the Athabasca Pass and going west. Many a bold man in the past has gone by this very spot where we now stand. There isn’t much left to mark their passing, even at the old Boat Encampment, but, if you like, we’ll go up there and have a look at the old place.”
Accordingly, they now embarked once more, and, taking such advantage of the slack water as they could, and of the up-stream wind which aided them for a time, they slowly advanced along the banks of the Columbia, whose mighty green flood came pouring down in a way which caused them almost a feeling of awe. Thus they passed the mouth of the more quiet Wood River, coming in from the north, and after a long, hard pull of it landed at last at the edge of a sharp bend, where a little beach gave them good landing-room.
Uncle Dick led them a short distance back toward a flat grassy space among the low bushes. Here there was a scattered litter of old tent-pegs and a few broken poles, now and then a tin can. Nothing else remained to mark the historic spot, which had passed from the physical surface of the earth almost as completely as the old Tête Jaune Cache. Uncle Dick turned away in disgust.
“Some trappers have camped here lately,” said he, “or perhaps some of the engineers sent out by another railroad. But, at any rate, this is the old Boat Encampment. Yonder runs the trail, and you can follow that back clear to Timbasket Lake, if you like, or to the Athabasca Pass.”
“Is this where they came in from the Saskatchewan?” demanded Rob.
“No, the old trail that way really came down the Blaeberry, very far above. I presume after they got on the west side, in the Columbia valley, they took to the trail and came down to this point just the same, for I doubt if any of them ran the Columbia much above here. Many a time old David Thompson stopped here—the first of the great map-makers, my young friends, and somewhat ahead of you, John. And Sir George Simpson, the lord of the fur-traders, came here with his Indian wife, who became a peeress of Great Britain, but who had to walk like any voyageur from here out across the Rockies. I don’t doubt old Doctor Laughlin, of Fort Vancouver, was here, as I have told you. In short, most of the great fur-traders came to this point up to about 1825, or 1826, at which time, as we have learned, they developed the upper trail, along the Fraser to the Tête Jaune Cache.”