As Rob had said, they had ample time the next day to look about them in this strange and interesting environment into which they had now come. The unloading of the boat went on steadily, the slow stream of breeds, stooping under their heavy loads, passing up the steep bluff from the boat landing to the trading-post. The boys had time to prowl along the beach and watch the natives run their nets, and even pursue their native art of hunting; for that morning, hearing shots from the bank, they looked out to see a half-dozen native kayaks hurrying to a point out in the river where a black object bobbing up was seen now and then. It was, in fact, a beaver which had been spied. On the bank a half-breed was shooting at it with a rifle, while the Huskies were crowding around, endeavoring to spear it when it came to sight. At last a lucky shot from the rifleman brought an end to the chase. A Husky drove a spear into the body of the dead beaver, and they came ashore with it, all of them shouting and singing and flinging up their paddles or their spear-shafts as they raced ahead.
“Look at those boats,” said Rob, always observant. “In the last five hundred miles we have seen the birch-bark canoe change into a kayak, haven’t we?”
“That’s right,” said John. “First there was the Cree canoe, with the high bow and stern rolling in—much as you could see in Canada anywhere. Then, as the trees got smaller, birch bark scarcer, in the Dog Rib and Rabbit country, the boats got narrower. I wouldn’t have liked to get into one. But they didn’t waste any bark rolling the ends in; the ends came up sharp, as in the kayak.”
“Yes, and at Arctic Red River,” said Jesse, remembering, “they had just a little deck—not much of a one. And now here they are made out of skin and decked all over except a little hole in the middle.”
“And if you’ll look at these Eskimos,” said Rob, again, “and then think of how those Chippewyans looked, you’ll have to admit that they both have the same look and that they both look Japanese. I saw Chippewyans that looked like Japs to me, and that was ’way south of here. I suppose maybe some writers are correct, and that a good many of the tribes, if not all of them, came across the Bering Sea once upon a time, long ago.”
“Uncle Dick is going to get a couple of Indian boys here, Loucheux, to help us up to the divide,” said John. “He told me that to-day. He’s out of patience with the delay here and crazy to get started, but he couldn’t get any supplies. The Hudson’s Bay say that they lost a scow somewhere which ought to have come in here and didn’t come. The Northwest Mounted Police claim that all their bacon is missing. The Indians say they are starving and have to have something for their children. How we’ll get beans enough to carry us across Uncle Dick can’t say.”
“Well, leave it to Uncle Dick,” said Jesse. “I know he’ll fix it all right some way, and we’ll get through, too.”
“That’s the talk, Jesse,” said Rob, slapping a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got more nerve than you had when you started, and you weigh ten pounds more, too. I’ll warrant that you’ll be the lead dog on the tow-line going up the Rat.”
Thus occupied, they passed the time all too rapidly. In the late evening of their second day the boys noticed a strange hurrying among all the population at the crest of the bluff and on the beach below. Some sort of warning seemed to be in the air; an instant later it became audible in the deep, booming whistle of the steamboat which lay moored below.