“One can do a great deal if he has to,” said Uncle Dick. “But I hope none of us will ever have to try to make the railroad on foot from here. There isn’t any trail, and very often the banks are sheer rock faces running into the river. Get behind such a hill, and you’re on another slope, and the first thing you know you’re clear away from the river and all tangled up. But, still, men have come up here one way or another. On the other side, there used to be a sort of pack-horse trail from Revelstoke up to the Selkirk gold-mines. There are two or three creeks which are still worked along the Big Bend of the Columbia. When we engineers have all done our work it will be easier to get in here than it is to-day.”
“Well, I’m going to be an engineer some day,” said Rob, firmly, once more. “I like this work.”
“Well, you’re all going to bed now at once,” said Uncle Dick. “We must hurry on down to-morrow, for, unless I am mistaken, this roily water of the Canoe means that the spring rise has begun earlier than it should.”
XXVI
DOWN THE COLUMBIA
They did hurry to embark on the next morning, and, as Uncle Dick had predicted, for many miles the river was much more mild, although the current was steady and strong. They had run perhaps four hours when they came to the mouth of a creek which Leo and George said was called either Nagel Creek or End Creek, they did not know which. They went ashore for a time at a little unfinished log cabin which had been started perhaps two years before by some unknown person or persons.
“That way,” said Leo, “up creek ten mile, fine bear country; plenty caribou too. S’pose we hunt?”
“Certainly not,” said Uncle Dick. “It would take us a day to hunt and another day to get back. What do you say about that, boys?”