“Well, they’re welcome to that grizzly meat,” grinned Alex. “I didn’t think they’d eat it. They must be starving. Make them up a little package of tinned stuff, Moise, and put it in their boat. I think we’ll need about all the bacon we’ve got, and they can use the fat of the bear better than we can. Give them some tea, and a little flour too. What do they say about the river below here at the big cañon?”
“Says bad water,” said Moise. “She’ll rose perhaps four, three, two inches to-day, maybe so, here, and that’s all same so many foots in the cañon. She’ll say best way to do is to take portage trail and leave those boat on west end of those cañon.”
“Yes, but we want to get our boats through,” said Alex, “although it must be a dozen miles anyhow by way of the carrying trail, and not too good at that.”
“He’ll say,” resumed Moise, “s’pose we take those boat through to the big mountain—through big water, ver’ wide, with many islands—we’ll come on a place where boats can go up the bank, if plenty men carry them up. Then she’ll been ten mile, eight mile, to some place below the mountain. All the tam she’ll say best way is to go by horse, on the north side of the river, on the police trail from Fort St. John, s’pose we’ll could find that trail, an’ s’pose we’ll had some horse.”
“What do you say, Mr. Rob?” asked Alex. “We ought to get our boats down. Shall we haul out at the west end, or try for Hudson’s Hope?”
“I’d be in favor of getting down as far as we can,” said Rob. “We can reach the head of the mountain in a couple of days. I’m for moving on down and taking a chance on the rest of it! Of course we’ll have to portage the cañon somehow.”
“That suits me,” said John. And even Jesse, the youngest of the three, was all for continuing the journey as originally planned.
“All right,” said Alex, “I’m with you. We’re learning the game now, certainly, and I don’t think we’ll find this part of the river any worse than it has been up above. There isn’t anything bad marked on the map, anyhow, for quite a way.”
At about this time, as they were all busied about the camping place, the boys noticed Alex and Moise step a little apart and begin to converse in low tones. From their looks and gestures, the boys gathered that the men were speaking of something in which they themselves were concerned, in just what way they could not tell. Presently Moise smiled and nodded vigorously. Approaching the camp-fire, he took up his short-handled ax and slung it at his back by a bit of thong. Then he stepped over to the tallest and straightest pine-tree which grew close to the water’s edge thereabout. Active as a cat, he soon had climbed the lower branches, where, without pausing, he began to hack off, close to the trunk, every branch within his reach. Having done so, he climbed yet higher up and repeated the operation, as though it were his purpose to cut off nearly all the branches to the top of the tree. At first the boys thought he was gathering boughs for the beds, but as they were almost ready to break camp they could not understand this.