Through many a devious path and tortuous way did Batiste guide us, until his hunting-ground was gained. On a knoll we made our camp; and while Kalder remained to look after it, Batiste and I sallied forth to hunt.
Batiste’s gun was an excellent weapon, were it not for a tendency to burst about the left barrel. This was made observable by two or more ominous bulges towards the centre of the piece; but Batiste appeared to have unlimited confidence in the integrity of his weapon, and explained that these blemishes were only the result of his having on two or three occasions placed a bullet over a charge of shot, and then directed the united volley against the person of a beaver. When loading this gun, Batiste had a risky method of leaning it against his chest while drawing a charge of shot from his shot-bag. I pointed out to him that this was not a safe method of loading, as it was quite possible the other barrel might explode while the gun thus rested against his side. It was true, he said, for only last year the gun under similar treatment had exploded, carrying away the brim of his hat, and causing no slight alarm to the rest of his person.
Our success that afternoon was not great; ducks and geese but lately arrived from the peopled south were yet wild and wary, and had not learned to look on man in any light save that of an enemy; and altogether Batiste’s hunter’s paradise did not justify his glowing accounts of it. To do him justice, however, it must be stated that the wet ground was literally ploughed up with moose-tracks; and the golden willows lay broken down and bruised by the many animals which had browsed upon them during the winter.
It was mid-day on the 24th of April when we reached the banks of the Half-way River, whose current, swollen by the melting snow, rolled swiftly from the north, between banks piled high with ice-floe. This was the first serious obstacle to the journey, and as soon as dinner was over we set to work to overcome it. From a neighbouring grove of pines Kalder and Batiste got dry trees; half a dozen of these lashed together formed the groundwork of a raft. Three other pine-trees tied on top completed the craft, and with a long pole and a rough paddle, all fashioned by the axe, the preparations were declared finished. This craft was put together in a sheltered part of the river; and when all was completed, the goods and chattels were placed upon it. But one more piece of work remained to be accomplished ere we set sail upon our raft—the horses had to be crossed. By dint of driving and shouting we forced them across the boulders of ice into the water. It was cold as ice, and they stood knee-deep, afraid to venture farther. But Kalder was a very demon when work had to be done. In an instant he was across the ice-floe, and upon the back of one of the horses; then with knees and hands and voice and heels he urged the brute into the flood. The horse reared and snorted and plunged, but Kalder sat him like the half-breed that he was, and in another second, horse and rider plunged wildly into the torrent. Down they went out of sight, and when they reappeared the horse was striking out for the far shore, and Kalder was grappling with the projecting ice. The other horses soon followed their leader, and all four went swimming down the current. Gradually the back eddy near the farther shore caught them, and, touching ground, they disappeared in the forest. Now came our turn to cross. We towed the crazy raft up the bordering ice, and, mooring her for a moment in an eddy, took our places on the upper logs. Scarcely had we put out from the shore than the fastening gave way, and the whole fabric threatened instant collapse. We got her back to the eddy, repaired the damage, and once more put out. Our weight and baggage sunk us down, so that the body of the raft was quite submerged, and only the three trees on top showed above the water; upon these we crouched. Old Batiste waved a good-bye. Kalder was at the bow with a pole. I worked a paddle on the stern. Once out of the sheltering eddy, the current smote our unwieldy platform, and away we went. Another instant and the pole failed to reach the bottom. With might and main I worked the paddle; down we shot, and across; but ten yards down to every one across. Would we save the eddy? that was the question; for if we missed it, there was nought to stay our wild career. Far as eye could reach, the current ran wild and red. For an anxious minute we rushed down the stream, and then the eddy caught us, and we spun round like a teetotum. “The other side!” roared Kalder; and to the other side went the paddle to keep us in the eddy. Then we headed for the shore; and, ere the current could catch us again, Kalder was breast-deep in the water, holding on with might and main to the raft.
We were across the Half-way River. To unload the raft, build a fire, to dry our wet garments, and shout good-bye to old Batiste, who stood on an ice boulder, anxiously watching our fortunes from the shore we had quitted, took us but a short time.
The horses were captured and saddled, and, ascending through tangled forest into a terraced land of rich-rolling prairies, we pushed on briskly towards the west.
Thus, trotting through a park-like land of wood and glade and meadow, where the jumping deer glanced through the dry grass and trees, we gradually drew near the Rocky Mountains. At times the trail led up the steep face of the outer hill to the plateau above, and then a rich view would lie beneath—a view so vast with the glories of the snowy range, and so filled with nearer river and diamond-shaped island, that many a time I drew rein upon some lofty standpoint to look, as one looks upon things which we would fain carry away into the memory of an after-time.
About the middle of the afternoon of the 25th of April we emerged from a wood of cypress upon an open space, beneath which ran the Peace River. At the opposite side a solitary wooden house gave token of life in the wilderness. The greater part of the river was still fast frozen, but along the nearer shore ran a current of open water. The solitary house was the Hope of Hudson!