Andrew returned to Canada satisfied with his English visit. He had not convinced his relatives that his judgment was entirely to be trusted, but he knew that he stood higher in their esteem than he had done; and that was something to be thankful for. Leonard, he thought, would find it more difficult to prejudice them against his plans. On reaching the Lake of Shadows, he found Graham recovering and learned that the Frobishers had left for their home in Denver. After remaining a few days at the Landing he went up to the mine, where the ore showed no sign of improvement. For all that, he spent a month there, waiting until the thaw came and maturing his plans for his second journey to Dream Mine.
At last the rotting ice began to yield, and Andrew sat outside Watson's shack one day, watching an impressive spectacle. The river broke up with violence, the ice ripping and rending with a sound like the roar of artillery, and as the great torn masses swept away, the water pent up in the higher reaches poured into the gorge, swollen with melting snow. It rolled by in savage flood, laden with tremendous blocks of ice, some of which, cemented together near falls and rapids, were the size of small frame houses. Among them drove huge floes into which the floating cakes had solidified during the earlier frosts. Here and there one stranded upon a point, or swung in an eddy, until another crashed into it and both were shattered amid a bewildering uproar. Then, for a while, the stream was filled with massive, driving sheets of ice, which ground the banks with a tremendous din and scored the tops of projecting boulders, while waterlogged pines and stumps sunk in the river-bed were crushed to pulp.
Andrew had never seen any display of natural forces to equal this, and when he went into the shack for supper he found that he could not get the recollection of it out of his mind. The lonely North is a savage country, very grim and terrible in some of its moods. Andrew, however, had carefully considered and endeavored to guard against its dangers, and when a canoe which had been especially built for him in Toronto arrived, he set out on his journey with Carnally and Graham. There was now no risk of frostbite and the gray trout would help out their food supply, but they knew the trip would cost them much exhausting labor.
For some days they poled and paddled up the swollen river, spending hours in dragging the canoe and provisions across rocky portages to avoid furious rapids, and often wading waist-deep in icy water with the tracking line. At night they slept, generally wet through, among the stones, though there was often sharp frost and the slack along the bank was covered with fresh ice in the morning; but they made steady progress until the stream broke up into small forks and they must cross the height of land. This was singularly toilsome work. In some places they were forced to hew a path through scrub spruce bush; in others there were slippery rocks to be scrambled across, while two in turn carried the canoe, borne upside-down upon the shoulders. Then there were the provisions to be brought up, and in relaying them each difficult stage had to be traversed several times, so that once or twice, when they had made only a mile or two in an exhausting day, Andrew almost despaired of getting any farther.
At last, however, they found a creek rushing tumultuously down the back of the divide. They followed it, one of them checking the canoe by the tracking line while the others kept her off the rocks with pole and paddle. Their provisions were secured, so far as possible, from damage by water, but there was danger of losing them in a capsize, and boiling eddies and roaring rapids made caution needful. For a while the creek led them roughly where they wished to go, and then turned off, and they crossed a high ridge in search of another. Lakes and rivers abound in those wilds, which are almost impassable on foot during the short summer. As they worked north the sun grew warmer, but the temperature fell sharply at night, and now and then the waste was swept by piercing winds.
One of these was raging when they scudded down a lake on a cold and lowering evening. Gray vapor blurred the rocky shore, but here and there a few dark pines stood out, harshly distinct. The water was leaden-colored between the lines of foam, and short, slashing seas broke angrily about the canoe, which ran before them with a small lugsail set. Carnally knelt astern, holding the steering paddle; Andrew lay down amidships, out of the wind; and Graham, crouching forward, fixed his eyes ahead.
"There seems to be a creek abreast of us," Carnally said. "We're in shoaling water; watch out for snags."
A violent gust struck them and the canoe drove on furiously, lifting her bows on a foaming ridge while the water lapped level with her stern.
"Shoot her up!" Graham called out sharply. "Log right ahead!"
Andrew seized the sheet and Carnally plied the paddle; but the warning had come too late. While the canoe slanted over until her lee side was under water as she altered her course, there was a sharp crash. Her speed slackened for a moment or two. Then she lifted as a white wave surged by; and when she drove on again the water poured in through a rent in her side.