"I had now been travelling twenty days and knew that I must be getting close to the cabin. My grub was all gone, and I could hardly stagger along; but I still clung to my toboggan, for I knew that without that I couldn't take food back to my partner; and the thought of him back there at work on short allowance, and sure to starve to death unless I got back to him, added to my trouble.
"At last one day about noon I came in sight of the cabin, just able to stagger, but still dragging the toboggan, which had nothing on it except my blanket and a little package of ammunition. I went up to the cabin door, opened it, went in and partly closed the door, leaving a crack through which I could watch for the eagle. I hoped that he would stop on one of the big trees near the cabin, and watch for me to come out. He did so, lighting on a limb about a hundred yards from the door. He made a big mark. I put the rifle through the crack, steadied it against the jamb, took as careful a sight as I ever took at anything, and pulled the trigger. When the gun cracked, the eagle spread his wings, soared off, and taking one turn over the valley, threw back his head, laughing at me. He sailed away over the mountains, and I never saw him again.
"Two or three full meals put heart into me once more, and with a good load of food, I started back to my partner. Although the way was all uphill, I got to him in about two weeks. On the way back I killed two deer and some rabbits, and did not have to break into the load of provisions on my toboggan. When I reached him, I found that he was living in plenty. He had killed four caribou that had wandered down close to the cabin one night, and still had the carcases of two hung up, frozen. Since that time I have never had any use for eagles."
[CHAPTER XIV]
BUTE INLET
Bute Inlet is the most remarkable as well as the most beautiful of the larger fiords of the British Columbia coast. Its great length and the height of the mountains that wall it in make it unequalled. Nowhere at the sea-level can such stupendous mountains be seen so near at hand, nor such sublime views be had.
At its mouth the Inlet is only about a mile in width, and in its widest portion it is not more than two and a half miles. At the entrance, the hills are not especially high or rugged, but rise from the water in a series of rounded undulations. Densely wooded to their summits, they roll away in smooth green waves to the higher more distant mountains of the interior. No sharp pinnacles of granite nor dark frowning precipices interrupt the green of the forests. The dome-shaped hills come into view one after another, always smooth and ever green. The scene is one of quiet picturesque beauty. A little farther up the inlet the scenery changes. The shores rise more abruptly from the water's edge, but though the mountains increase in height the soft green foliage of firs and cedars still rises toward the summits in an unbroken sweep. Then masses of rock lift themselves above the timber line, glittering in the sunlight as though studded with jewels, or when shadowed by clouds frowning down cold, black, and forbidding. Soon patches of snow begin to appear on the mountains; at first visible only as narrow white lines nestling in the deeper ravines, but farther along large snow banks came into view and before long extensive snow fields are seen, glittering white on the summits, or even down among the green of the mountain sides.
The canoe started early and a fair wind enabled them to set the sail and to sit back at ease all through the long day and view undisturbedly the enchanting scenery which they were passing.
Jack had often heard his uncle describe a trip that he had made to Norway, and his journey up some of the fiords of that rock-bound coast. As he now watched the shore and the mountains of Bute Inlet slip by, these descriptions were constantly brought to his mind. Scarcely less impressive than the wonderful cliffs and mountains that he was seeing, were the beautiful streams, fed by the melting of the perpetual snow high upon the hills. These streams plunged over the precipices in beautiful falls and cascades. Long before the water reached the rocks below, it was broken up into finest spray; and a white veil of mist waved to and fro before the black rocks, in fantastic and ever changing shapes.