"That, Mr. Rivers," said the boy, as Bulson quietly threw his impromptu crowbar into the river, "is one of the things I did not learn to do."
"Bulson's very good at that sort of thing," was the chief's quiet comment.
But the river below the jam was far less kind to the travelers than it had been above. Progress was only possible by careful paddling and short portages. Half the time was spent in the icy water and half on the frozen bank, and though the water was cold beyond belief, and hands and feet were heavy and numb, the sun burned fiercely upon head and shoulders as though it were the height of midsummer, a condition the harder to be borne because it was so early in the season that no one was as yet acclimatized to the heat.
It was the most fatiguing day Roger had yet spent on the Survey, not even excepting the famous trip across the Grand Canyon, for in the latter the pace had been his own, while in this he had to play an equal part with exceptionally vigorous and seasoned men, coping with a mountain torrent. The dusk was falling as, once more in boats, and passing through a small gorge, the party reached the confluence of the Jack and Cantwell Rivers. Although the distance traversed had been but twenty-eight miles, and the party had been traveling with the current, so arduous and rough had been the way that eleven hours had been spent in making the journey.
After supper Rivers came to Roger and said to him, not with criticism, but in a kindly manner:
"Are you tired, Doughty?"
The boy would have longed to be able to reply "No," but he knew he could not do so with any pretense at honesty, and so he replied fairly:
"Yes, Mr. Rivers, I am a little tired, but I'll soon get toughened up."
"Well," said the chief of the party, "I just wanted to let you know that this really has been a hard day, and that no one need be ashamed of feeling tired. We are all conscious of having done a day's work. I thought perhaps you might worry a little at the thought that, if it was to be all like this, you would not be able to keep up. But it won't, and you did well."
So Roger lay down to sleep and tucked himself in his sleeping bag with absolute happiness. The next day proved to the boy how right the chief had been. For the first forty miles of its passage the boy found the Cantwell River, into which they had run, to have a fair channel and good banks; and of course, at this season of the year it was full to overflowing, so that the only difficulty of its upper reaches, shoals, was set aside by the volume of water in the stream. That day's trip was rapid and easy. Camp was made that night beside the river, just where another tributary called the Yanert joins, leaping a twenty-foot fall just before reaching the main stream.