Little by little, Alex lifting the main portion of the weight, and the boys shoving at the stern the best they could, they did edge the Jaybird at last clear to the top of the bank, where finally she sat on level keel on a little piece of green among the trees.
While they were resting John idly passed a little way to one side among the trees, when, much to his surprise, he almost stepped into the middle of a bunch of spruce-grouse. These foolish birds, although perhaps they had hardly seen a white man in all their lives, did no more than to fly up in the low branches of the trees. Alex called out in a low tone to John to come back. Then he fumbled in his pockets until he found a short length of copper wire, out of which he made a noose, fastening it to the end of a long stick.
“Now, Mr. John,” said he, “there’s lunch and supper both if you can get it. Let’s see how good you are at snaring grouse.”
John cautiously stepped up under the tree, expecting every minute that the birds would fly. Yet to his amazement they sat there stupidly looking down at him. Cautiously he raised the pole among the lower branches of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession—a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very fond of good things to eat.
They left the birds at the top of the bank, and, turning, brought up in a trip or so all the remainder of their scanty amount of baggage from the waterside below.
“I suppose it might be a good plan, now, to make a trip over to the east,” said Alex, “and see what we can see.”
They found after a long investigation that the trail, as nearly as they could trace it, soon swung away quite a distance from the course of the stream, rising steadily for three miles to a sort of high bench. It held this for several miles, finally approaching a steep slope and dropping sharply toward the level of the water, which was much lower than at the head of the cañon.
They discovered the eastern end of the portage to be close at the foot of a high and precipitous bank back of which grew scattered clumps of poplar-trees. This journey, which only Alex made throughout, took them several miles from the place where they had left the Jaybird, and they were tired enough by the time they had returned to their supplies. They made no further progress on that day. Alex told them they would find water at only one place on the portage, so they must camp here in any case for the night.