“And how many bear have you ever killed, Alex?”
“Twenty-odd grizzlies I have killed or helped kill,” said Alex. “We rarely hunt them alone. Of black bear I don’t know how many—we don’t count them at all, there are so many of them in this country. But now I suppose pretty soon we will have to go over on the Hay River, or the Liard, farther north, to get good hunting. The farms are bringing in mowing-machines and threshing-machines into this country now. The game can’t last forever at this rate.”
“Well, I’m glad we made our trip this year,” said Rob.
“We haven’t made it yet!” smiled Alex. “But I think to-morrow we’ll see what we can do.”
They made an early start in the morning, their first task being that of trying to get the Jaybird up the steep face of the bluff which rose back of the camp, on top of which the trail, such as it was, made off through the shoulders of the mountains in a general course toward the east, the river sweeping in a wide elbow, thirty miles around, through its wild and impassable gorge, far to the south of them.
Taking a boat, even a little one, overland is no easy task, especially up so steep an ascent as this. Powerful as was the old hunter, it was hard enough to make much progress, and at times they seemed to lose as much as they gained. None the less, Alex was something of a general in work of this sort, and when they had gained an inch of progress he usually managed to hold it by means of snubbing the boat’s line around the nearest stump or rock.
“That’s awfully strong line, isn’t it?” said Rob. “You brought that over with you—we didn’t have that in our country. We use rope. I was noticing how thin the line was which those two breeds had on their dugout yesterday.”
“That’s the sort they use all through the trade in the North,” answered Alex. “It has to be thin, or it would get too waterlogged and heavy. You’ll see how long it needs to be in order that the men on shore can get it over all the rocks and stumps and still leave the steersman headway on the boat. It has been figured out as the right thing through many years, and I have seen it used without change all my life.”
“Well, it hasn’t broken yet,” said Rob. “But I think we had better piece it out by doubling it the best we can. We don’t want to break it up at this work.”