“Well,” went on Rob, bringing out his map, and also that which was found in his copy of Mackenzie’s Voyages, “it must have been just about in here that Mackenzie met the first Indians that he saw in this country—the ones who told him about the carrying place, and about the big river and the salt water beyond it. They were the Indians who had iron spears, and knives, and things, so that he knew they had met white men off to the west. They had a big spoon which Mackenzie says was made out of a horn like the buffalo horn of the Copper Mine River. I suppose Mackenzie called the musk-ox buffalo, and very likely he never had seen a mountain-sheep.”
“That’s right,” said Alex, “those Injuns used to make big spoons out of the horns of the mountain-sheep—all the Injuns along the Rockies always have done that. It seems strange to me that Mackenzie didn’t know that, although at that he was still rather a new man in the north.”
“You never have been in here yourself, have you, Alex?” asked John.
“No, and that’s what is making the trip so pleasant for me. I’m having a good time figuring it out with you. I know this river must run north between those two ranges of mountains, and it must turn to the east somewhere north of here. But I’ve never been west of Fort St. John.”
“I don’t like the look of this river down there,” said Jesse, stepping to the point of the bar, and gazing down the stream up which came the sullen roar of heavy rapids.
“Those rapeed, she’ll been all right,” said Moise. “Never fear, we go through heem all right. To-morrow, two, three, day we’ll go through those rapeed like the bird!”
“We can walk around them, Jesse, if we don’t want to run them,” said Rob, reassuringly. “Of course it’s rather creepy going into heavy water that you don’t know anything about—I don’t like that myself. But just think how much worse it must have been for Sir Alexander and his men, who were coming up this river, and on the high water at that. Why, all this country was overflowed, and one time, down below here, all the men wanted to quit, it was such hard work. He must have been a brave man to keep them going on through.”
“He was a great man,” added Alex. “A tired man is hard to argue with, but he got them to keep on trying, and kept them at their work.”
“Grub pile!” sang Moise once more, and a moment later all were gathered again around the little fire where Moise had quickly prepared the evening meal.
“I’m just about starved,” said John. “I’ve been wanting something to eat all afternoon.”