“You may look at him, March (Mrs Marston spoke of him as if he were a caged wild beast!) and you may speak to him, but you must not fight with him, except in self-defence. If he lets you alone, you must let him alone. Promise me that, boy.”
“I promise, mother.”
Not long after this promise was made, a light bark canoe was launched upon the river, and into it stepped our hero, with his friend Bounce, and Big Waller, Black Gibault, Hawkswing, and Redhand, the trappers. A cheer rang from the end of the little wharf at Pine Point, as the frail craft shot out into the stream. The wild woods echoed back the cheer, which mingled with the lusty answering shout of the trappers as they waved their caps to the friends they left behind them. Then, dipping their paddles with strong rapid strokes, they headed the canoe towards the Rocky Mountains, and soon disappeared up one of those numerous tributary streams that constitute the head waters of the Missouri river.
Chapter Three.
The Beauties of the Wilderness—Portages—Philosophy of Settling Down—An Enormous Footprint—Supper procured, and a Bear-hunt in prospect.
After paddling, and hauling, and lifting, and tearing, and wading, and toiling, and struggling, for three weeks, our hero and his friends found themselves deep in the heart of the unknown wilderness—unknown, at least, to the civilised world, though not altogether unknown to the trappers and the Red Indians of the Far West.
There is something inexpressibly romantic and captivating in the idea of traversing those wild regions of this beautiful world of ours which have never been visited by human beings, with the exception of a few wandering savages who dwell therein.
So thought and felt young Marston one splendid afternoon, as he toiled up to the summit of a grassy mound with a heavy pack on his shoulders. Throwing down the pack, he seated himself upon it, wiped his heated brow with the sleeve of his hunting-shirt, and gazed with delight upon the noble landscape that lay spread out before him.