No one explained to him what all this meant. François sprang to his steering-oar and gave some swift orders. The boat swung out from the bank, and under the sweeps made straight out midstream, where the black object now bobbed at the edge of the slack water. Rob could see what had stopped it now—it was made fast by a long rope, which was in turn made fast somewhere up-stream, he could not tell where.
With a swift pass of his pole the bowman caught the rope as the boat swung near. Rapidly he pulled in the short log and made fast the rope to the bow of the boat. The scow now swung into the current, its head pointed up-stream, and hung stationary there, supported against the current by some unseen power. To Rob’s surprise, the oarsmen now took in their oars.
“Well, now, what’s going to happen?” he asked of Uncle Dick.
But the latter only shook his head and motioned for silence.
Slowly but steadily the scow now began to ascend the river, to breast the white waters which came rolling down, to surmount the full force of the current of the Athabasca River in its greatest rapids!
Rob glanced on ahead. He could see a long line of men bending under the great rope which had been floated down to them in this curious way. They walked inshore, steadily following the line of the railroad track for almost a quarter of a mile, as it seemed to the other boys who watched this proceeding ashore.
Steadily the boat climbed up the river, and now, with the aid of the oarsmen and the steersman, it finally came to rest at a sheltered little cove at the foot of the island, in slack water, where the landing was good and cargo could easily be transhipped.
Rob and his older companions stepped ashore, and each smiled as he looked at the other.
“Don’t tell me, son,” said Uncle Dick, “that these people don’t know their business! That’s the finest thing I’ve ever seen in rough-neck engineering in all my life—and I’ve seen some outdoor work, too.”
He stood now looking up the white water down which they had come, and at the rough hillside beyond where the old portage had lain in earlier days.