“Those boat she’ll be all same like ducks,” exclaimed Moise, admiringly. “I’ll bet not even my onkle Pete Fraser he’ll have better boat like those.”
“Sir Alexander’s boat was twenty-five or thirty feet long, all made out of birch-bark,” said Rob. “Ours aren’t much over sixteen feet.”
“They had eight or ten men in their boats,” began John, “and the most we’ll have in either of ours will be three—that is, if you count Jess as a full-sized man!”
“Yes,” said Alex, “and they had a number of packs, each weighing ninety pounds. Now, all our packs won’t weigh a great deal more than that for each boat, counting in what we’re going to eat. We’ll have to get something in the way of meat as we go on through. Fine boats these, and much better than birch-bark. Perhaps you may remember that Sir Alexander was having trouble to find good bark to mend his boats before he got in here. We’ll not need to trouble about that.”
“No,” said Rob, “we’ve got plenty of canvas, and rubber cement, and shellac, and tacks, and cord, and wire. We’ll make it through, even if we do have some little breaks.”
“I don’t think we’ll have any,” replied Alex in a reassuring way. “Moise, don’t you think your load settles your canoe just a little deeper than she ought to go?”
“Non! Non!” said Moise, in reply, casting a judicial look at the low freeboard of the Mary Ann. “She’ll go, those boat.”
“She’ll be getting lighter all the time,” ventured Jesse. “John gets awfully hungry, and he’ll eat a lot!”
They all laughed heartily at this reference to John’s well-known appetite. All were in good spirits when the real progress down the tangled creek began.
“En roulant, ma boule, roulant!” began Moise, as he shoved out his boat—the words of the old Canadian voyageurs’ boat song, known for generations on all the waterways of the North.