“We all were there a few days ago,” replied the leader of the party. “We engaged Leo to bring us down the Canoe and the Columbia, and out to Revelstoke—we’ve crossed the mountains at the Yellowhead Pass, coming west from Edmonton by pack-train.”
“Ye’re jokin’, man!” rejoined O’Brien. “Shure, ye’ll not be tellin’ me those boys came all that way?”
“Him did,” said Leo, with almost his first word of praise. “Boys all right. Kill ’um grizzlum. Not scare’ of rapid.”
They went on now to explain to O’Brien more details of their journey and its more exciting incidents, including the hunt for the grizzlies and the still more dangerous experiences on the rapids. O’Brien listened with considerable amazement.
“But I know Leo,” he added, “and he’ll go annywheres in a boat. ’Tis not the first time he’s run this river, bad cess to her! But come in the house now, and I’ll be gettin’ ye something to eat, for belike ye’re hungry.”
“We are frankly and thoroughly hungry,” said Uncle Dick, “especially John here, who is hungry most of the time. We’ve reached your place just as our grub was about gone. Can we stock up with you a little bit, O’Brien?”
“Shure, if ye need to. But why not take passage on the steamer—she’s due this afternoon at three o’clock, and she’s goin’ down to-morrow. Ye see, we run a wood-yard here, for the steamboat company owns this farm now, and I’m takin’ care of it for them.”
“What do you say, boys?” asked their leader. “Shall we make it on down? Or shall we take to the steamer and leave our boats here?”
“Better take to the steamboat,” said O’Brien. “True, ye could get down mayhap to the head of Revelstoke Cañon all right, but then ye’d have to walk in about five miles annyway. The steamer can’t run the cañon herself, for that matter, and no boat should try it at this stage, nor anny other stage, fer all that. She’s a murderer, this old river, that’s what she is.”
Leo and Moise now helped O’Brien with his preparation of the meal, so that in a little time they were all sitting on real chairs and at a real table, with a real oil-cloth cover—the first of such things they had seen for many a day. Their own tin dishes they left in their boats, and ate from china, coarse but clean. Their meal was well cooked and abundant, and O’Brien gave them with a certain pride some fresh rhubarb, raised in a hotbed of his own, and also fried eggs.