By eight o'clock the next morning the party had embarked on the tiny steamer "Senator" on their way up Burrard Inlet. The little craft carried them swiftly along past the Indian village on the north bank, past wooded hills and low grassy points, past rough granite mountain faces, where the few scattering trees found scarcely earth enough to support them, and were forced to drive their roots deep down into the crevices of the rocks, until, six miles above Hastings, the boat turned sharply to the left and up the North Arm of the inlet. Here the hills on either side were nearer together and appeared higher and more rugged. Their summits were capped with snow, which, in many of the gorges and ravines, extended far down toward the water's edge. The steep rock faces were covered with a harsh brown moss, which, except when wet, gave an excellent foothold to the climber. Where the mountains were not too steep, and soil was not utterly wanting, there was a dense forest of Douglas firs and cedars, some of the timber being very large. The various shades of green of the different trees gave a variety to the aspect of the forest, as a whole, which had almost the effect of cloud shadows, and added greatly to the beauty of the scene. Jack and Hugh did not weary in watching the constantly changing view. Now and then the round head of a seal emerged from the quiet waters, looked for a moment at the boat and then disappeared. Little groups of water birds, disturbed in their fishing or their resting, rose on wing and flew up or down the inlet. From the shores and mountains on either side, birds, large and small, were constantly flying across the inlet; and now and then a great fish sprang from the water, and fell back with a splash which could be heard.
"I tell you, Hugh," said Jack, "we'll have things enough to talk about if we ever get back to the ranch and tell the cow-punchers there what we have seen on this trip."
"You're dead right, son; they never imagined anything like this any more than I ever did; and what's more, we won't be able to tell it to them so that they can understand what it is like. That's the worst of going off and seeing things,—that when you go back you can't make other people see as you saw, or have the same feelings that you had when you took them in with your eyes."
"Yes," said Jack, "talk is a pretty poor thing compared with seeing anything for yourself."
"Now, look at those waterfalls!" said Hugh. "Do you suppose it would be possible to tell anybody about those things so that they could really understand how they look?"
"No," said Jack, "I do not believe anybody could do that."
Down almost every slope within their view, and constantly changing as the boat's position changed, poured beautiful cascades, some of which deserved the title of waterfall. Though now they carried but little water, their wide beds of naked rock showed that in the spring and early summer, when the snows were melting, they must be mighty torrents, sweeping everything before them with resistless power. Even now they were very beautiful, and their delicate streams, stretching like white threads far up the mountain sides, could scarcely be distinguished in the distance from the lines of snow in the ravines; though, with the glasses, the leaping, wavering motion of the water could be discerned which distinguished the white hurrying flood from the unmoving snowdrift.
They had passed up the Arm and were just rounding a little point and beginning to get a view of some low grassy meadows running up from the water's edge, when Hugh suddenly said to Jack: "Son, I believe that's a bear in that grass"; and Jack, bringing his eyes down to the meadow's level, saw a small black object moving about in the grass. Whatever it was, it had not yet seen the steamer. Jack rushed into the cabin where Fannin and Mr. James were talking to the Indian Seammux and, grasping his rifle, said: "Mr. Fannin, I believe there is a bear out on the shore." In a moment all were looking at the animal, and there was now no doubt as to what it was. Fannin stepped around to the pilot house and asked the captain to steer close to the shore, and also to see that the boat made as little noise as possible. They rapidly crept up toward the bear; but long before they had come within rifle-shot the animal saw them, stood up, looked for a moment or two, and then, turning about, bolted through the grass and disappeared in the forest.
"Well," said Jack to Mr. Fannin, "that beats anything yet. I believe if anybody had been in a canoe and paddled along quietly, that bear would never have noticed him, and he might have got within gunshot."
"Yes," said Mr. Fannin, "of course he might. That's just what I've told you. It's quite possible that you will see something of that kind more than once before you get back."