“But will the banks be always like this?” I said.
“Of course not. I should say that we shall find everything, from piled-up masses of rock to pleasant patches of meadow, and no two miles alike.”
“But no steamers could ever come up here,” said Esau.
“Oh yes, out there in the broad channel in the middle, but they will need very powerful engines and careful pilots. Ah, they are getting ready for a fresh start.”
“But it will take us a long time to get up to where we are to stop for to-night,” I said.
“Twelve miles at the outside,” replied Gunson. “Yes, I am beginning to be in doubt as to whether we shall get there to-night.”
The leader of the Indians shouted, they plunged in their paddles, and the next minute we were again struggling with a rapid bit of the river between two rocks; but they soon got into smooth water again, and, evidently quite at home in the intricacies of the navigation, they took advantage of every sheltering clump of rocks, and cut across swift rapids to get into eddies here, there, and everywhere. Now we were right in the middle of the stream, now crossing under the left bank, now making for the right, but always advancing slowly, with the sides of the river growing grander every hour, and Gunson smiling at our ecstasies, as we kept getting glimpses of ravines down which tumbled silvery streams, whose spray moistened the gigantic pines which shot up like spires.
“Wouldn’t have ketched me sitting on the stool in old Dempster’s office all that mizzable time,” cried Esau, “if I’d known there were places like this to come and live at.”
“It is a grand valley,” said Gunson thoughtfully, and looking at me as he spoke; “but as it is, what is it? Only something beautiful to be admired. You couldn’t live on waterfalls and pine-trees here. Suppose I landed you two lads in that lovely gorge, where the water comes down like a veil of silver, and—yes, look, there’s a rainbow floating in that mist just above the big fall. Look at the ferns, and perfect shape of that great fir-tree, with its branches drooping right to the ground. You could sleep under its spreading boughs, and find a soft bed of pine-needles; but I don’t think it would be possible to climb up the sides of the gorge, and in a short time you would starve.”
“Oh would we?” cried Esau. “We’d soon build a hut, and we could catch the salmon.”