After that, of course, it was simply a question of freighting over the remainder of the supplies and the others of the party, and of rounding up the scattered horses from the grazing-places in the woods. Moise insisted on having tea before the last trip was made; and by this time the boys realized that at no time in these operations had they been left alone with no one older than themselves to care for them in case of accidents, nor had they been left without supplies close at hand.
“You’re a pretty good manager, Uncle Dick,” said John, while they sat on a long log by the fireside before the last trip across the river. “I’m willing to say that you’re a pretty good engineer as well as a pretty good contractor.”
“Nothing venture, nothing have,” said Uncle Dick. “You have to use your head on the trail a little bit, as well as your nerve, however. We’d have had to swim the Athabasca anyhow, and I’d about as soon swim a train over a broad, steady river as to try to cross a rough mountain river with a loaded train, and maybe get a horse swept under a log-jam. Anyway, we can call the river crossed, and jolly glad I am of it, too.”
“When do we get any fishing?” asked Jesse. “That water looks too muddy for trout.”
“We won’t get any fishing for a couple of days yet, probably,” said Uncle Dick. “And as to shooting, you must remember that we are now in Jasper Park, and if we struck a game warden he would seal all our guns for us.”
“Well,” said Rob, “I see there’s a lake over here called Fish Lake.”
“Yes. The old traders’ trail runs between Fish Lake and Brule Lake, and a great piece of sand it is in there, too—we engineers will have to put blankets on that country to keep it from blowing away when we build the railroad through. But we’ll miss all that, and to-morrow we’ll stop at Swift’s place, on the other side of the river.”
“Whose place?” asked John. “I didn’t know anybody lived in here.”