“Well,” said Rob to John, as they stood apart at one time, watching this wild labor, “Uncle Dick was right. We are in the wilderness now. This is a land of chance—every fellow has to take his risks without grumbling, and his work, too. I like to see these men work; they are so strong.”
“They tell me that they are not going to drag all the scows across,” said John. “They’re going to try to run that bad chute below our landing with a couple of scows. The men say it takes too long to wagon them across, and they would much rather take the chance.”
“Fine!” said Rob. “We’ll go make some pictures of them as they go through.”
“Hurry on, then,” rejoined John, “and get Jesse. We ought to get some fine pictures there. I’ve been down and seen that place, and the water drops higher than the roof of a house and goes through a narrow place where you could touch both sides with the oars.”
It was indeed as they had said—the half-breeds, careless ever of danger, and willing only to work when work was necessary, actually did run two scows down the narrow chute of the Middle Rapids. The boys, cameras in hand, did their best to make pictures of the event, and stood hardly breathing as they saw the boats go down the toboggan-like incline between two great boulders which the poles of the boatmen touched on either side.
As the scow struck the level water at the foot of this chute or cascade, her bow was submerged for almost a third of the length, and the men in front were wet waist-high. She still floated, however, as she swung into the strong current below, and the men with shouts of excitement rowed and poled her ashore. To them it seemed much better to take a half-hour of danger than a half-day of work. As a matter of fact, both boats came through not much the worse for wear, and perhaps not as badly damaged as they would have been if dragged on the rollers across the rocky hillside.
“Well, boys,” said Uncle Dick to them, as at length he found them returning from this exciting incident, “it’s time to eat again. It ought to please you, John. These men have to work so hard that they are fed four times a day. This is meal Number Four we’re going to have now.”
John laughingly agreed to this, and soon their party were seated cross-legged, with their tin plates, around the stove which the contractor’s cook had set up on the shore. The delay was not very long, for now, after finishing the second portage of the boats, the men fell to and slid the last of the scows down a twenty-five-foot bank and once more into the current of the stream.
The next great labor of this short but strenuous sixteen miles was, so they were informed, to come at the Mountain Portage, a spot historic in all the annals of the north-bound Hudson’s Bay traffic.
The boats, now assembled safely and once more reloaded, followed their leader through a number of blind channels which caused the boys to marvel, across the Slave River to the left, rowed up in slack water for a time, and at last dropped down below the Pelican Rapids. Now, under the excited cries of the pilot, the men rowed hard. The boats crossed the full flood of the Slave River for a mile and a half, then slipped down on fast water, using the eddies beautifully, and at last dropped into the notch in a high barrier which seemed to rise up directly ahead of them. Off to the right, curving about the great promontory, foamed the impassable waters known as the Mountain Rapids.