The men, half in and half out of the water, began to unload this cargo and to pile it in a great heap at the head of the wooden railroad. There were two flat-cars, and rapidly these were loaded and pushed off to the foot of the island, half or three-quarters of a mile. There every pound of the baggage had to be unloaded once more, and after that once more carried from the landing into the boats at the foot of the island.
“Well, are they going to take the boats down on the cars, too?” demanded Jesse.
“They have done that for others,” answered Uncle Dick, “and charged them ten dollars a boat for doing it, too. But as I said, we’ll have to run our scows down on the right-hand passage. That’s the fun I was talking about.”
Rob came up to him now excitedly. “Tell me, Uncle Dick, can’t I go through—couldn’t I go through with you in the very first boat?”
His uncle looked at him for a time soberly before he replied. “Well, I don’t like to mollycoddle any of you,” said he, “but I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have to leave John and Jesse here on the island. If François says it’s safe I’ll let you go through with me on the first boat. It’s no place for us to be in this country if we’re going to sidestep every little bit of risk there is. That isn’t a manly thing to do. But the other two boys will have to wait for a while.
“There’s bad news,” he said to Rob, a little later, aside. “Word has just come up by canoe from the Long Rapids below here that four men were drowned day before yesterday. They were going down to McMurray, and although they had a native pilot they got overturned in the rapids and couldn’t get out. The Mounted Police are looking for the bodies now.”
It was with rather sober faces that our young travelers now watched the boatmen at their portage-work, although the latter themselves were cheerful as always, and engaged, as before, in friendly rivalry in feats of strength. Everything was confusion, yet there was a sort of system in it, after all, for each man was busy throughout the long hours of the day. As a scow came in its cargo was rapidly taken out, as rapidly piled up ashore, and quite as rapidly flung on top of the flat-cars for transport across the great portage.
Our young adventurers saw with interest that a good many of the boatmen were quite young, boys of fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years of age. Some of these latter did the full work of a man, and one slight chap of seventeen, with three sacks of flour, and another youth of his own weight on top of it all, stood for a time supporting a staggering weight of several hundred pounds while Jesse fumbled with his camera to make a picture of him.
At about eleven o’clock in the morning of the second day Uncle Dick came to Rob and drew him aside.