After an hour the boat came to a point where the river takes a turn to the right, on rounding which the boat's pace increased. Looking over its side into the clear water, John saw the stones at the bottom flash by, and noted the scurrying greyling affrighted.
The boat swept by sunken boulders, or grazed the curving shores, but held its swift course without pause or incident. For four hours their rapid progress continued; then the current died away, and the boat floated upon the dead water that marks the junction of the Hootalinquia River with the Thirty Mile, henceforth to be called the Lewis, till Lewis is joined by the Pelly to become the Yukon.
Now that the necessity for vigilance was past, Hugh entertained his friends with reminiscences of his first trip there, and the story of the entrance of the gold-seekers to the Upper Yukon. They would soon be at Cassiar Bar, and the mouth of the Big Salmon River. In 1881 miners had crossed the Passes, and descended the lakes and rivers, to the mouth of the Big Salmon, which they ascended, and obtained gold by washing the bars. Cassiar Bar was not discovered till 1886, five years after the Big Salmon party had done their mining. The men who mined Cassiar Bar had wintered here, and their cabin came in useful for others who "mushed out" over the ice to give word about Howard Franklin's discovery of coarse gold on the Forty Mile, and to order more grub to be sent "up river" by the Alaska Commercial Company's steamer. In 1880 some fellows from Sitka had gone over, and prospected up the Hootalinquia; but they did not strike much; while the first white man over the Passes looking for gold was George Holt, who found a few "colours" around Lake Bennett. In 1873 Arthur Harper and a British Columbia outfit came up the Liard and over the Divide; but though they found "prospects" almost everywhere in the Yukon, they did not make a real strike, so they floated to the mouth of the Yukon and went to work for the Alaska Commercial Company.
Hugh thus told the history of Yukon—so far as the white man knows it.
Although the ice still clung along the river banks, the land was free of snow, and vegetable life was asserting itself. The mosquito was very little behind the grass-shoot in realizing that summer was at hand, and that it had but a few short months in which to play its part!
It was because sleep on shore would be difficult, through the mosquitoes, that Hugh suggested their continuing the journey through the night. One watched and steered while the others slept. So Hugh, George, and Frank divided the night between them. John asserted that the rest and change of scene had done him a world of good and that he was able to steer; but the others squashed his proposals.
"Heap dam dood! heap sick all same baby, he! he!" sniggered Frank Corte.
They had now dropped away from the great mountains, not a snow-topped peak was in sight; but the hills stretched majestically on either side of the river.
The routine of watches having been decided, the party settled down to silence at nine o'clock. Towards midnight John awoke. It was now merging upon the season of perpetual light, and the hills and the great river were weirdly visible. George was on watch, sitting on the thwart ahead of him, his back towards him.
The boat quietly, swiftly glided on. No effort was needed from the man at the look-out, save an occasional stroke to keep the head straight. John glanced at his watch and saw the hour. The fact startled him, though he had schooled himself. In the lands where his previous existence had been passed the haunts of men were always at this hour illuminated by artificial light and filled with—artificiality! Here was the opening of the months-long day; and reality—Reality, the Eternal Verities. In that wonderful silence he needs must think, and overhaul his spiritual condition. He could—and he would—take Holy Orders. He would first fight the issue in the goldfields, for, if he made money, that power would be useful. So he came to his decision; and at last he slept.