Andy swore that he had told “Bill” that we had brought “Tommy” back, and that “Bill” had heard him, and replied that he hoped the cat would stay this time. But even if this was true, it no longer signified. “Bill” had forgotten all about it, and knew that there ought to be only one tiger-striped tomcat about the place, whereas his eyes told him there were two. So he kept counting them, and stopping every now and then to hold up two fingers at us in pathetic puzzlement. Finally he began to chase them—or rather “it”—now one of “it” and now the other. The last we saw of him, as the current swept the boat round a point, he had caught “Tommy’s” twin brother and was still trying to enumerate “Tommy.” Very likely by that time there were two of him in fancy as well as in fact—possibly mauve and pink ones.
Blackmore took a last whiff at the neck of the rum bottle and then tossed it gloomily into the river. “The next time you ask a man to take a ‘swallow,’” he said, “probably you’ll know enough to find out how big his ‘swallow’ is in advance.”
We pulled hard against a head wind all morning, and with not much help from the current. The latter began to speed up at Rocky Point Rapids, and from there the going was lively right on through Revelstoke Canyon. Sand Slide Rapid, a fast-rolling serpentine cascade near the head of the Canyon, gave us a good wetting as Blackmore slashed down the middle of it, and he was still bailing when we ran in between the sides of the great red-and-black-walled gorge. Between cliffs not over a hundred feet apart for a considerable distance, the river rushes with great velocity, throwing itself in a roaring wave now against one side, now against the other. As the depth is very great (Blackmore said he had failed to get bottom with a hundred-and-fifty-foot line), the only things to watch out for were the cliffs and the whirlpools. Neither was a serious menace to a boat of our size at that stage of water, but the swirls would have made the run very dangerous for a skiff or canoe at any time. Unfortunately, the drizzling rain and lowering clouds made pictures of what is one of the very finest scenic stretches of the Big Bend quite out of the question. If it had been the matter of a day or two, we would gladly have gone into camp and waited for the light; but Blackmore was inclined to think the spell of bad weather that had now set in was the beginning of an early winter, in which event we might stand-by for weeks without seeing the sky. It was just as well we did not wait. As I have already mentioned, we did not feel the touch of sunlight again until we were on the American side of the border.
From the foot of the Canyon to Blackmore’s boat-house was four miles. Pulling down a broadening and slackening river flanked by ever receding mountains, we passed under the big C. P. R. bridge and tied up at four o’clock. In spite of taking it easy all the time, the last twenty miles had been run in quite a bit under two hours.
CHAPTER IX
REVELSTOKE TO THE SPOKANE
The voyage round the Big Bend, in spite of the atrocious weather, had gone so well that I had just about made up my mind to continue on down river by the time we reached Revelstoke. A letter which awaited me at the hotel there from Captain Armstrong, stating that he would be free to join me for my first week or ten days south from the foot of the lakes, was all that was needed to bring me to a decision. I wired him that I would pick him up in Nelson as soon as I had cleaned up a pile of correspondence which had pursued me in spite of all directions to the contrary, and in the meantime for him to endeavour to find a suitable boat. Nelson, as the metropolis of western British Columbia, appeared to be the only place where we would have a chance of finding what was needed in the boat line on short notice. While I wrote letters, Roos got his exposed film off to Los Angeles, laid in a new stock, and received additional instructions from Chester in connection with the new picture—the one for which the opening shots had already been made at Windermere, and which we called “The Farmer Who Would See the Sea.”
As there was no swift water whatever between Revelstoke and Kootenay Rapids, I had no hesitation in deciding to make the voyage down the Arrow Lakes by steamer. Both on the score of water-stage and weather, it was now a good month to six weeks later than the most favourable time for a through down-river voyage. Any time saved now, therefore, might be the means of avoiding so many days of winter further along. I was hoping that, with decreasing altitude and a less humid region ahead, I would at least be keeping ahead of the snows nearly if not quite all the way to Portland. I may mention here that, all in all, I played in very good luck on the score of weather. There were to be, however, a few geesly cold days on the river along about Wenatchee, and two or three mighty blustery blows in the Cascades.
The Arrow Lakes are merely enlargements of the Columbia, keeping throughout their lengths the same general north-to-south direction of this part of the river. The upper lake is thirty-three miles in length, and has an average width of about three miles. Sixteen miles of comparatively swift river runs from the upper to the lower lake. The latter, which is forty-two miles long and two and a half wide, is somewhat less precipitously walled than the upper lake, and there are considerable patches of cultivation here and there along its banks—mostly apple orchards. There is a steamer channel all the way up the Columbia to Revelstoke, but the present service, maintained by the Canadian Pacific at its usual high standard, starts at the head of the upper lake and finishes at West Robson, some miles down the Columbia from the foot of the lower lake. This is one of the very finest lake trips anywhere in the world; I found it an unending source of delight, even after a fortnight of the superlative scenery of the Big Bend.