Long before the sun showed itself above the high poplar-crowned hills that lined each bank of the Athabasca, Norman and Roy had slipped out of their blankets. It was their first view of an absolute wilderness. The boats were still drifting silently forward, with no sign of life except in the erect forms of Moosetooth and old La Biche, who were yet standing against their long steering oars as they had stood through the night. Neither of them gave salutation, Moosetooth’s dripping oar following in silence now and then a like sweep of his companion’s blade in the water ahead.
Not arousing their companions, the two boys perched themselves where Paul had sung the night before and, shivering in the new day, began to drink in the scene before them.
What they saw at that moment was a picture repeated for nearly two weeks to come. Although drifting at the rate of four miles an hour, much time was lost while the boats made their way back and forth across the river, and although it was but three hundred miles to Fort McMurray, there was constant delay in camps ashore, and at the beginning of the Grand Rapids a week was lost in portaging the entire cargo. Colonel Howell did not welcome another lost outfit and he was quite satisfied when both Moosetooth and La Biche took their empty scows safely through the northern whirlpool.
Rising almost from the water, the hills, little less than mountains in height, ran in terraces. Strata of varicolored rock marked the clifflike heights and where black veins stood out with every suggestion of coal, the young observers got their first impression of the mineral possibilities of the unsettled and unknown land into which they were penetrating.
The first deer which they observed standing plainly in view upon a gravelly reef aroused them to excitement. But when Moosetooth, not speaking, but pointing with a grunt to a dark object scrambling up the rocky shelf on the other side of the river and the boys made out a bear, Roy sprang for his new twenty-two.
“Nothin’ doin’,” called Norman in a low tone. “That’s where we need the .303 and of course that’s knocked down.”
“Well, what’s the use anyway?” retorted Roy, resuming his seat. “I can see there’s going to be plenty of this kind of thing. And besides, you can bet our friend here isn’t going to stop for a bear, dead or alive.”
From that time on, although they did not find animals so close together again, they saw eagles, flocks of wild geese floating ahead of them on the river, and three more deer. And continually the magnificent hills, hanging almost over the river, gave them glimpses of vegetation and objects new to them.
“I’m glad I came,” remarked Norman, “but I wonder how this country looks when winter comes.”
“You know how this river’ll look,” answered Roy. “It’ll be a great, smooth roadway and a lot of people waitin’ now to get back to civilization will make it a path for snowshoes and dog sleds.”