“Parle Pas!” cried Moise. “On shore, queek!”
Swiftly they paddled across, to the north side of the river, where presently they were joined by the other boat.
“She’s the Parle Pas, all right,” laughed Moise; “look at heem!”
From their place of observation they could see a long ridge, or rim, the water falling in a sort of cascade well out across the stream. There seemed to be a chute, or channel, in midstream, but the back-combing rollers below it looked ominously large for a boat the size of theirs, so that they were glad enough to be where they were, on dry land.
Moise was once more for running the boats through the chute on the north shore, but Alex’s cautious counsel prevailed. There was not more than thirty or forty feet of the very worst water, rather a cascade than a long rapid, but they discharged the cargo and lined both boats through light. This sort of work proved highly interesting and exciting to all hands, and, of course, when superintended by such men as Alex and Moise had no great danger, although all of them were pretty wet when at length they had their boats reloaded at the foot of the rapids.
“I know how Sir Alexander got across the mountains,” said John. “He had good voyageurs to do the work! About all he had to do was to write the story each night, and he didn’t do that any too well, it seems to me—anyhow, when you come to read his story backward you can’t tell where you are very well.”
“That’s right,” said Rob. “I don’t much blame Simon Fraser for finding fault with Mackenzie’s narrative. But maybe if we had written the story they’d have found fault with us the same way. The same country doesn’t look alike to different people, and what is a mile to one man may be two miles to another when both are guessing. But anyhow, here we are below the ‘Polly’ rapids—as the traders call them to-day—and jolly glad we ought to be we’re safe, too.”
“Plain sailing again now for a while,” said Jesse. “Let’s see the map.”
They all bent over the different maps they had, especially one which Rob had made up from all the sources of information he had.