The shock with which we struck into the mass of breakers seemed but the prelude to total wreck, and the first sensation I experienced was one of surprise that the canoe was still under us. But, after the first plunge she rose well, and amidst the surge and spray we could see the black walls of the cañon flitting by us as we glanced through the boiling flood. All this was but the work of a moment, and lo! breathless and dripping, with canoe half filled, we lay safe in quiet eddies where, below the fall, the water rested after its strife.
Behind the rock we lay for a few minutes silent, while the flooded canoe rose and fell upon the swell of the eddy.
If, after this escape, we felt loth to try the old road again, to venture a third time upon that crossing above the rapid, let no man hold our courage light.
We deliberated long upon what was best to be done. Retreat seemed inevitable; Kalder was strongly opposed to another attempt; the canoe was already broken, and with another such blow she must go to pieces. At last, and reluctantly, we determined to carry all our baggage back from the camp, to load up the boat, and, abandoning the Black Cañon and the Ominica altogether, seek through the Parsnip River an outlet towards the South. It was our only resource, and it was a poor one. Wearily we dragged our baggage back to the canoe, and loaded her again. Then, casting out into the current, we ran swiftly down the remainder of the cañon, and shot from beneath the shadows of its sombre walls. As we emerged from the mouth into the broader river, the sheen of coloured blankets struck our sight on the south shore.
In the solitudes of the North one is surprised at the rapidity with which the eye perceives the first indication of human or animal existence, but the general absence of life in the wilderness makes its chance presence easily detected.
We put to shore. There was a camp close to the spot where we had built our first raft on the night of the disaster; blankets, three fresh beavers, a bundle of traps, a bag of flour, and a pair of miner’s boots. The last item engaged Jacques’s attention. He looked at the soles, and at once declared them to belong to no less an individual than Pete Toy, the Cornish miner; but where, meantime, was Pete? A further inspection solved that question too. Pete was “portaging” his load from the upper to the lower end of the cañon—he evidently dreaded the flooded chasm too much to attempt its descent with a loaded canoe. In a little while appeared the missing Pete, carrying on his back a huge load. It was as we had anticipated—his canoe lay above the rapids, ours was here below. Happy coincidence! We would exchange crafts; Pete would load his goods in our boat, we would once again carry our baggage to the upper end of the cañon, and there, taking his canoe, pursue our western way. It was indeed a most remarkable meeting to us. Here were we, after long days of useless struggle, after many dangers and hair-breadth escapes amid the whirlpools and rapids of the Black Chasm, about to abandon the Ominica River altogether, and to seek by another route, well known to be almost impassable at high water, a last chance of escape from the difficulties that beset us; and now, as moody and discouraged, we turned our faces to begin the hopeless task, our first glance was greeted, on emerging from the dismal prison, by a most unlooked-for means of solving all our difficulties. Little wonder if we were in high spirits, and if Pete, the Cornish miner, seemed a friend in need.
But before anything could be done to carry into effect this new arrangement, Pete insisted upon our having a royal feast. He had brought with him from the mining camp many luxuries; he had bacon, and beans, and dried apples, and sugar, and flour, and we poor toilers had only moose-meat and frozen potatoes and sugarless tea in our lessening larders. So Pete set vigorously to work; he baked and fried, and cut and sliced, and talked all the time, and in less than half an hour laid out his feast upon the ground. I have often meditated over that repast in after-time, and wondered if Pete really possessed the magic power of transmuting the baser victuals known to us as pork, beans, and molasses into golden comestibles, or had scarcity and the wilderness anything to say to it? It was getting late when we broke up from the feast of Toy, and, loading once more all our movables upon our backs, set out to stagger for the last time to the west end of the portage. There the canoe of the Cornish miner stood ready for our service; but the sun was by this time below the ridges of the Ominica Mountains, and we pitched our camp for the night beneath the spruce-trees of the southern shore.
At break of day next morning we held our way to the west. It was a fresh, fair dawn, soft with the odours of earth and air; behind us lay the Black Cañon, conquered at last; and as its sullen roar died away in distance, and before our canoe rose the snow-covered peaks of the Central Columbian range, now looming but a few miles distant, I drew a deep breath of satisfaction—the revulsion of long, anxious hours.