“Ten or twelve miles ahead, I suppose,” said Uncle Dick. “That’s the McLeod River, and I confess I’ll be happy when we get beyond it. The railway survey runs on this side, but the old trail crosses it and runs on the north side, and we have to follow the trail.”
“Suppose we get to Moose Creek in two or three hour,” said Moise. “Then in about one or two hour we come on the McLeod where we’ll ford it. Then seven or height mile good trail, we’ll come on those Big Eddy. Those was good place for camp to-night, s’pose we’ll all get there and not any of us drowned.”
“I don’t think any of us’ll drown, Moise,” said Uncle Dick, quietly; “we’re not going to take any chances unless we have to. Well, if you’re all ready we might push on.”
Uncle Dick now once more led the way, followed close by old Betsy, Billy following her close and next in order. The young claybank horse, which made Moise so much trouble, now undertook to usurp a place just back of Betsy instead of falling to the rear of the train where he belonged. But as he approached meek-looking old Billy, the latter laid back his ears and kicked violently at the claybank, hitting him in the shoulder a resounding thwack.
“Aha! you fool horse,” said Moise to the offending claybank, “that’s what you’ll get for not know your place on the train. S’pose you got back now where you belong, eh?”
By this time the horses for the most part, however, were learning their places on the trail, and in a very few days later each horse had his own place, of which he was very jealous, resenting any attempt to take it away from him by vicious bites or kicks. How or why pack-horses regulate their own affairs in this way no one can tell, but our young friends had occasion to see it proved in their own travel.
Their trail now led through rather sharply rolling country, covered with poplar or jack-pine groves, with now and then a bit of soft bog at the foot of little valleys. At times from little heights of land they could get a glimpse of the wide flat country extending on either side, for the most part covered with dark forest growth. Not meeting any serious trouble with muskegs, they were all pretty well used to the trail by the time they had crossed Moose Creek.
“We won’t stop here,” said Uncle Dick. “Get up, Danny,” and he urged his saddle-horse forward. “I want to see about that McLeod crossing.”
It was afternoon, and in truth every one was a little tired when at length they came to the deep valley of the McLeod River, the next stream to run north into the Athabasca. They found the banks steep, more than one hundred feet to the narrow valley below; but, thanks to the earliness of the season, the river itself was not very deep, and the point of the ford was so well chosen by the old trail-makers that they got across the river without having to swim and scarcely wetting the packs. Uncle Dick was exceedingly glad of this, for he knew the sudden rises which come in all of these streams. “Now,” he said, “we’re all right, and it’s good going to the Big Eddy—not more than eight miles, I think.”
They found the trail easier here for a time, passing over grassy glades, where the horses very much wanted to stop to eat, but after a long and a rather hard day’s drive they finally pulled up in the early evening at the double bend of the McLeod River, known as the Big Eddy.