“By the time we’re done this trip,” ventured Rob, “we’ll begin to be voyageurs ourselves, and will know how to make our living in the country.”
“That’s the talk!” said Alex, admiringly. “The main thing is to learn to do things right. Each country has its own ways, and usually they are the most useful ways. An Injun never wants to do work that he doesn’t have to do. So, you’ll pretty much always see that the Injun ways of keeping camp aren’t bad to follow as an example, after all.
“But now,” said he at length, after they had finished cleaning and washing off their trout, “we’ll have to get on across to the other lake.”
As before, Moise now took the heavier pack on his own broad shoulders, and Alex once more picked up the canoe.
“She’s a little lighter than the other boat, I believe,” said he, “but they’re both good boats, as sure’s you’re born—you can’t beat a Peterborough model in the woods!”
The other boys noticed now that when he carried his canoe, he did so by placing a paddle on each side, threaded under and above the thwarts so as to form a support on each side, which rested on his shoulders. His head would have been covered entirely by the boat as he stood, were it not that he let it drop backward a little, so that he could see the trail ahead of him. Rob pointed out to Jesse all these different things, with which their training in connection with the big Alaskan sea-going dugouts had not made them familiar.
“Have we got everything now, fellows?” asked Rob, making a last search before they left the scene of their disembarkation.
“All set!” said John. “Here we go!”
It required now but a few moments to make the second traverse of the portage, and soon the boats again were loaded. They found this most easterly of the three lakes on the summit to be of about the same size as the one which they had just left. It was rather longer than it was wide, and they could see at its eastern side the depression where the outlet made off toward the east. Again taking their places at the paddles in the order established at the start of the day, they rapidly pushed on across. They found now that this lake discharged through a little creek which rapidly became deep and clear.
“It’s going to be just the way,” said Rob, “that Sir Alexander tells. I say, fellows, we could take that boat and come through here in the dark, no matter what Simon Fraser said about Sir Alexander.”