“Well, Moise,” continued Rob, “if we don’t see you many a time again it won’t be our fault, you may be sure.”
“I’m just wondering,” said Jesse, “how Leo and George are going to get back up to the Tête Jaune Cache. They told us they meant to go up the Ashcroft trail and home by way of Fort George and the Fraser River and the ‘choo-choo boat.’ But that seems a long way around. I suppose you’ll come to the hotel with us, down to Revelstoke, won’t you Leo?” he added.
“No like ’um,” said Leo. “My cousin and me, we live in woods till time to take choo-choo that way to Ashcrof’.”
“Well, in that case,” said John, “I think we’d better give you our mosquito-tent; you may need it more than we will, and we can get another up from Seattle at any time.”
“Tent plenty all right,” said Leo. “Thank.” And when John fished it out of the pack-bag and gave it to him he turned it over to George with a few words in his own language.
George carried it away without comment. They were all very much surprised a little later, however, to discover him working away on the tent with his knife, and, to their great disgust, they observed that he was busily engaged in cutting out all the bobbinet windows and in ripping the front of the tent open so that it was precisely like any other tent! John was very indignant at this, but his reproof had little effect on Leo.
“Tent plenty all right now,” said he. “Let plenty air inside! Mosquito no bite ’um Injun.”
When they came to think of it this seemed so funny to them that they rolled on the deck with laughter, but they all agreed to let Leo arrange his own outfit after that.
They passed steadily on down between the lofty banks of the Columbia, here a river several hundred yards in width, and more like a lake than a stream in many of its wider bends. They could see white-topped mountains in many different directions, and, indeed, close to them lay one of the most wonderful mountain regions of the continent, with localities rarely visited at that time save by hunters or travelers as bold as themselves.
Carlson, the good-natured skipper of the Columbia, asked the boys all up to the wheelhouse with him, and even allowed Rob to steer the boat a half-mile in one of the open and easy bends. He told them about his many adventurous trips on the great river and explained to them the allowances it was necessary to make for the current on a bend, the best way of getting off a bar, and the proper method of making a landing.