Chapter XXIV: Downstream

As they descended by imperceptible degrees towards the river, they could no longer make out the line of its valley ahead. The bald-headed prairie now began to take on a parklike aspect. Groups of graceful, full-grown poplars with their greenish yellow bark became more and more numerous, gradually leading them into a well-grown forest of aspen trees, interspersed with spruce. But there were still grassy openings of all sizes, from pretty glades to miniature prairies. Through the trackless forest it was very slow going; giant raspberry bushes, now in blossom, barred the way; rotting trunks lay prone in every direction; and vivid moss treacherously masked the holes where the ancient stems had rotted clean out of the ground.

As the afternoon wore on, and there was no end to this, no sign of any river, a feeling of discouragement attacked them again. Could they have been mistaken? And then without warning, they issued out of the trees on to a grassy knoll; and there, with a magnificent effect of dramatic surprise, lay the long-sought river at their very feet.

It was a thrilling moment. That view, so cunningly masked by the belt of forest, was one of the finest views imaginable. It was a first-class river. It flowed in the bottom of a valley at least six hundred feet deep, and no more than half a mile across from rim to rim. From the opposite rim, the prairie rolled on to the horizon. It was not so much a valley as a deep, clean gash in the prairie. The side upon which they stood was mantled with the deep green of spruce, while the other side rolled up in fantastic knobs and terraces of buffalo grass.

The river poured a smooth, yellowish green flood through the bottom of this mighty trough; just the color of poplar bark. It was broken by several high islands, covered with spruce trees, which stemmed the current like majestic ships. The point upon which they stood was on the outside of a great bend, and they could look far up-stream, where the river seemed to flatten out, and to issue dazzling and molten from the afternoon sun itself.

Conacher’s first thought was: “Plenty of water! I’ll be able to make a raft. We’ll have some easy days now.”

They gazed at the noble prospect with full hearts. Conacher in particular was bursting with pride. He felt like the creator of that river, because they had found it where he had said it would be.

“We happen to have hit it just right,” he said with a transparent air of carelessness. “In years to come when there is a trail it will strike the river here. Above here, you see, it flows east of north, and at this point it swings around to the westward. That agrees with the Indian reports. It is the only river east of the Rockies that has a westward trend.”

“It is too beautiful to be called the Mud River,” said Loseis.

“After this it shall be Laurentia’s River.”

“Suppose there are rapids,” suggested the matter-of-fact Mary-Lou.

“It will probably flow smooth for two hundred miles,” said Conacher. “Then it will strike the limestone outcrop that crosses the whole country. We’ll find rapids, maybe cascades, there.”

“And we are the first whites to see it!” murmured Loseis.

“If I can bring him a good sketch map of it, it will put my boss in a good humor,” said Conacher.

They made their way down to the water’s edge; and chose a camping spot on a curious tongue of land pointing downstream. At the highest stage of water it was an island; but it was now connected with the shore by a bar of dried mud. On one side of them the resistless brown flood swept down silently, its silken surface etched with eddies; on the other side there was a quiet back-water which Conacher said would be ideal for constructing the raft. He spent the remaining hours of daylight in searching for the three big, dead trees that he required for that purpose.

They slept in great comfort on heaps of spruce boughs, with a generous fire between them. Even in July the nights were cold. In the silence of the night they discovered that the smoothly flowing river had a voice. It was neither a roar nor a whisper, but partook of the nature of both sounds. Though scarcely audible, it was tremendous; like the breathing and stirring of a mighty bed-fellow.

The entire following day was devoted to the construction of the raft. Conacher cut down his trees; lopped off the branches; and chopped the trunks in two. He then launched his logs, and floated them together. During the earlier stages of his labor, he was often obliged to wade thigh deep into the icy water. Since he had neither spikes to fasten the logs, nor rope to lash them together, he was forced patiently to burn holes in them with his ramrod, heated in the fire. Twenty-four such holes had to be burned; and twelve neatly fitting wooden pegs shaped with the ax. Two short lengths were laid across the six logs and pegged down. The peg at each corner was allowed to stick up a few inches. A flooring of poles was then laid on the crosspieces to keep the passengers and their slender baggage dry. These poles were not fastened down, but were held in place by the pegs at each corner. Conacher’s last act was to burn a hole in each of the outside logs into which he drove a stout forked branch to serve as a rowlock. The oars were merely small spruce poles flattened with the ax at the broad end.

The builder surveyed his completed effort with a pride that was difficult to conceal. “After all this work,” he said with his offhand air, “I shall be good and sore if we have to abandon it in a few miles.”

“It is beautiful!” said Loseis.

For a touch of bravura Conacher made a little hearth of clay tiled with flat stones on one end of his raft; and laid a fire ready to light. “So we can boil our meat as we travel,” he explained.

“It is like a steamboat!” said Loseis.

They turned in early; and were ready to push off soon after sunrise the following morning. This was the fourteenth morning after their departure from the slough where their enemies had turned back. The raft proved to possess ample buoyancy; they could move about on it with a certain freedom. The floor of poles held them safely above danger of a wetting. Mary-Lou lighted the fire, and put the breakfast on to cook.

Loseis and Conacher sculled out of the back-water. At the foot of the island the current seized them as in a giant hand and drew them along. They took their oars inboard. There was nothing further to do. The tendency of the current itself was to draw them into the center of the stream, and keep them there. They sat down on their blankets to survey the scenery. The raft gyrated slowly in the eddies, giving them views up and down stream without so much as having to turn their heads.

“This is better than walking,” said Conacher.

Loseis agreed that it was; nevertheless she looked with some trepidation to see what each new bend of the unknown river had to show.

Conacher assured her on the word of a geologist that as long as it ran between dirt banks there could be no serious obstruction to navigation; when rocks appeared, then look out! He had note-book and compass out to make memoranda of its course. He calculated that the current was running about five miles an hour.

The sun was hot to-day; basking deliciously in its rays, the girl fell into a comfortable doze. The scenery was beautiful and monotonous; they looked at it, only partly aware of what they were looking at, a half smile fixed on their lips. Thus they recuperated from the fatigues of the past few days. Since the raft did not move through the water, but with the water, it came to seem as if it was not moving at all. The raft was the fixed point, and the shores were being slowly rolled past them like a panorama on great spools.

This pleasant dream was rudely broken into by the sound of a hoarse roar downstream.

“Rapid!” said Mary-Lou, moving towards an oar.

Loseis looked reproachfully at Conacher.

They edged the raft close inshore where they could land quickly if need be.

“Let’s have a look at it before you call me a liar,” said Conacher.

Rounding the outside of a bend, they came in view of the white horses leaping below. An exclamation of fear broke from the girls. Conacher caught hold of a fallen tree to stay their progress while he studied the white water.

“Nothing but a riffle,” he announced. “Its bark is worse than its bite. This is a sharper bend than usual, and it’s just the water backing up on the outside that makes all the fuss. Notice that all the waves are regular and unbroken. Deep water. It will be perfectly safe to run it if you are willing.”

“All right if you say so,” said Loseis.

They cast off from their tree. Conacher and Mary-Lou each stood up with an oar, and Loseis crouched behind them.

“Head for the roughest part near the shore,” said Conacher, “and keep her straight; that’s all.”

Their hearts beat fast as the shores began to slip by with ever-increasing swiftness. The voice of the rapid was like that of a ravening beast. There is no other feeling quite like that upon the brink of a rapid. The feeling is: No power on earth can save me from it now—well, what the hell! They were gripped by an exquisite fear. Finally the heavy raft wriggled over the first and the biggest of those strange, fixed billows and stuck her nose in the trough. A sheet of spray flew back over them, whereupon they were seized by a mad exhilaration, and all three yelled like demons. The raft bucked over the short, steep billows like a rogue horse. Conacher and Mary-Lou were forced to their knees; and the latter lost her oar. A moment later they found themselves in smooth water, roaring with laughter.

As soon as they had eaten their supper that night, they pushed off again. The girls slept while Conacher watched throughout the long twilight. The sunset glow alternated with the cold eastern sky as the raft waltzed gracefully in the eddies. They grounded her on a bar during the few hours of darkness; and at dawn they pushed off again; the girls watching now while Conacher slept. He awakened in the sunshine to find them laughing at the antics of the bears on the steep banks.

For three days they traveled in this pleasant fashion. Mooseberries and black currants were ripening now. The bushes grew thickly along the edges of the water and wherever there were berries there were bears. Drifting down silently on the raft, Conacher could always get a shot in the early mornings. The berries made a welcome change from a diet of meat exclusively.

As they traveled north the steep high banks gradually flattened down, and the current of the river slackened. Finally the high banks disappeared altogether; they could see nothing over the tops of the poplars and pines that lined the water’s edge. The course of the stream became very tortuous, and progress was slow.

“We’re evidently coming to something,” Conacher remarked. “This country is a vast belt of silt deposited by the river as the result of some obstruction ahead.”

On the fourth day the obstruction appeared in the form of a low wall of limestone through which the river had finally succeeded in forcing a passage. The rock walls were but three or four feet high, and the river slipped between them very swiftly and smoothly with a curious growling sound. On the other side the whole character of the country was changed. Rock appeared everywhere; and the lush vegetation of the prairies was gone.

They had not gone far before they came to a rapid, a real rapid this one, with great bowlders sticking up out of it, that tore the current to white tatters. Landing at a safe distance above, they walked down along the shore to see if there was a possible channel through. Conacher was naturally averse to abandoning the raft which had cost him such pains.

After a little study, he pointed out to the girls how it might be done. “It would be foolish, though, to risk the guns and ammunition and the ax. You girls carry the things along the shore, and I’ll take the raft down.”

“Suppose you hit a rock?” said Loseis, paling.

“Why, I’d get a ducking, that’s all.”

He accomplished the feat without accident. To the watching Loseis he made an extraordinarily gallant figure, standing on the raft, braced and swaying to every movement; his resolute glance fixed ahead, while he paddled madly to steer it around obstructions.

In the next rapid, an hour or so later, he was not so fortunate. The raft, in spite of his efforts, slid up on a submerged shelf of rock, and rearing on end, flung the loose poles in every direction. Conacher, jumping clear of the wreck, went down with the current. The frame of the raft followed him down; and he contrived to bring it ashore below; and the paddle too. With some new poles the raft was as good as ever.

However, the rapids seemed to grow successively worse; and Loseis forbade him to risk his neck in the next one. They sent the raft down empty. After a mad voyage, battered back and forth on the bowlders, it came through minus its poles, somewhat loosened up but still practicable. They then camped for the night.

On the following day they were nosing along close to the shore with the disquieting roar of a rapid in their ears, but apparently still at some distance. The view down river was cut off by a low, stony hill, sparsely covered with trees, around the base of which the stream wound its way. Suddenly Conacher perceived that the current was sucking ominously along-shore. That part of the shore was much cumbered with old down trees. He drove the raft into the naked branches.

“Grab hold!” he said sharply to the girls.

They missed the first tree. Fine beads of perspiration broke out on Conacher’s forehead. He perceived that in a dozen yards the raft would be beyond his control. He seized the next overhanging branch, and wound a leg around his improvised oarlock to hold the raft. The girls were now fully alive to the danger. Mary-Lou climbed into the tree, and Loseis swiftly passed her their precious few belongings. When everything was ashore Conacher let the raft go, and it lumbered around the point with surprising swiftness.

“That’s the last of it,” said Conacher sadly.

They climbed the stony hill. As they rounded the top, a hoarse, throaty bellowing buffeted their ears; and a moment later a wild welter of white water was spread before their eyes. They had seen nothing like this. After rounding the hill the stream straightened out, and narrowing down to a quarter of its usual width tumbled down as steeply as a flight of stairs between high wooded banks. The impression of power was overwhelming. The water was forced into great, regular billows which looked to be fifteen feet high. Each billow or ridge of water converged to a point in the middle; and the effect as one looked downstream was of a series of blunt white arrows pointing up. No boat could have lived in that turmoil. The raft—or what was left of it—was already out of sight. The three looked at each other with scared and thankful faces. A close call!

They now had to adjust their minds to traveling on foot again—and this would not be anything like the rolling prairie! The first thing was to roll up their packs, and strap them on their backs. They then descended into the gorge; but found it impossible to make headway along the steep side, impeded with stones and down timber. They were forced to climb a hundred feet or so to level ground. This was scarcely better. Only those who have tried to make their way through a trackless virgin forest can appreciate the difficulties that faced them in the shape of undergrowth, fallen trees and holes in the earth. The débris of ages was heaped in their path. They guided themselves by the sound of the cascade upon their left.

In a mile or so (which had all the effect of ten) the river fell quiet again, and they pushed back to its bank. It was an open question which was the more difficult going. Along the edge of the stream the dead timber brought down by the freshets was left stranded in inextricable tangles. Conacher finally chose a course parallel with the river bank, and a few yards back from the edge. Here they were at least sure of a supply of water. All day long it was a case of climbing over obstacles or through them or chopping a way. Heart-breaking work. They camped while it was still early, completely tired out.

For day after day this continued. There was no lack of dead timber to make another raft: but the rapids followed each other in such close succession that it seemed a waste of time. It was exasperating to have to undergo such crushing labor with the stream running alongside ready to carry them in the desired direction. “If I only had a dug-out!” Conacher groaned a dozen times a day. But even if they could have taken the time to make a dug-out, there was no suitable timber in that stony land. The noise of their progress through the bush scared away all game; and they would soon have gone hungry, had it not been for the smoked meat which Mary-Lou had thoughtfully provided. Presently this gave out, and they had to lay over for a day, while Conacher hunted a bear, along the river. Their clothes were in rags.

In ten days Conacher figured that they had made about fifty miles: but this was pure guesswork. It was now within two or three days of the time when the surveying outfit was due at the mouth of the Mud River.

The three travelers were sitting gloomily on the shore of the river in a spot where it flowed as smoothly and prettily between poplar and birch-covered shores as a river in a civilized land where picnics might be held. The view downstream was blocked by a graceful island. Suddenly around that island came poking the nose of a birch-bark canoe with a single paddler.

To those three that sight was like a blow between the eyes. They glanced fearfully at each other for confirmation. It was a month since they had seen others of their kind. They stared at the approaching canoe with open mouths. Then Conacher jumped to his feet and hailed. The paddler was arrested in mid-motion. He was no less startled by the meeting than they. After a moment he came paddling gingerly towards them. They saw that it was a white man, an odd, withered, brownish specimen, whose skin was all of a color with his battered hat, and faded khaki jacket.

He grounded his canoe gently in the mud, and stepped out. An old smoked pioneer with a comically injured look which never varied. They shook hands gravely all around before a word was spoken.

“Who are you?” demanded Conacher and Loseis simultaneously.

“Bill Mitchell,” he replied with the shrug and the aggrieved look that were characteristic of him. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Conacher of the surveying outfit, and this is Miss Blackburn.”

“Blackburn’s daughter!” exclaimed the old man with widening eyes. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve come down from Blackburn’s Post this away!”

Conacher was not anxious to go into lengthy explanations. “We’re expecting to join my outfit on the Sinclair River,” he said quickly. “How far are we from the Sinclair?”

“Matter of ten mile. There’s one rapid between.”

“Well, thank God!” cried Conacher fervently. “Have you seen the surveying outfit?”

“Spelled with them three days since,” replied the old man. “They’re working up-stream slow. Ought to be off the mouth of the Mud River some time to-morrow.”

Conacher and Loseis exchanged a beaming look. All their troubles rolled away. “Well, we didn’t manage that so badly,” said the former, conceitedly.

“What are you doing here?” Conacher asked of the old man.

“Me?” he answered with his disgruntled look; “what do you think I’m doin’? I’m prospectin’ this river. It ain’t never been prospected.”

“But when you get above the rapids it’s a prairie river,” said Conacher. “We came through three hundred miles of it, and there’s likely three hundred miles more above that.”

“Then I’ll work up to the mountains,” said the old man undisturbed.

“You fellows ought to study a little geology before you break your hearts with a journey like this,” said Conacher nettled. “Nobody has ever found any amount of gold on the easterly slope of the Rockies.”

“Mebbe this river comes right through the mountains like the Spirit and the Sinclair,” said the old fellow obstinately.

“Look at it!” said Conacher. “There’s damned little snow water in that. It’s pure prairie mud.”

“Oh, well, I’ve come so far I might as well go see,” he said calmly. “I got all summer. All I want is to get into the mountains before I go into winter quarters.”

Conacher gave him up. He described the upper reaches of the river for his benefit. “How will you get your canoe around the big fall?” he asked.

“Chop a trail through the bush, and then come back for it,” said the old man calmly. “It don’t weigh but forty pound.”

Looking into his canoe they perceived that his entire worldly goods consisted of three bags of flour, a box of ammunition, and a slim dunnage bag of odds and ends. It appeared that his gun was of the same caliber as that carried by Conacher. The old man looked at the other’s still partly filled ammunition belt desirously.

“You’ll be joining your outfit to-morrow,” he said suggestively.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Conacher. “Cache your flour here, and carry us down to the mouth of the river and it shall be yours.”

“Don’t mind ef I do,” said Bill Mitchell.

After the labors of the past days that last ten miles was like riding in a taxi. They whisked the light canoe around the rapid with no trouble at all. Below, the Mud River widened out and found its way into the Sinclair through a miniature delta amongst low, grassy islands covered with gigantic cottonwood trees that created a dim green twilight below. Mitchell landed them on a pine-clad point that looked down a reach of the greater river, several miles long. The old man did not get out.

“Won’t you spell with us?” asked Conacher politely.

The pioneer rubbed his hairy chin, and squinted down river as if he had perceived something important down there. “I guess not,” he drawled. “Got to be gettin’ along.” With a casual good-by, he pushed off and resumed his solitary journey up-stream.

“What a strange creature!” murmured Loseis.

“It was the presence of a lady which embarrassed him,” said Conacher. “He confided to me that he had not seen a white girl in seven years.”

* * * * *

Twenty-four hours later it was Conacher who perceived, down at the end of the long reach, the flash of wet paddles in the sun.

“Here they come!” he cried.

The two girls ran to his side. For a long time they could make out nothing but the regular flash of several paddles like heliograph signals. Finally four little black objects took shape down river. The watchers filled with a mounting excitement that became painful to bear; their breasts were like dynamos humming higher and higher until the pitch became unendurable. They had looked forward to this meeting through such hardships and perils! there had been so many days when they despaired of accomplishing it! But here they came at last; men of their own kind; friends; rescuers. Conacher and Loseis felt as if their hearts would crack with joy.

“My God! how astonished they’ll be!” said Conacher shakily.

The impulse to make the most of their friends’ astonishment was irresistible; and the three drew back under cover of the trees. Soon they were able to distinguish that the approaching party consisted of three white men and eight Indians traveling in three big dug-outs, and a rough, narrow scow that was being poled along close to the shore. Finally Conacher recognized his especial friend.

“Alec Jordan!” he murmured with a tight, warm feeling around the heart. “Good old Alec!”

They saw that the oncoming boats intended to make a landing directly at their feet. It was an inevitable camping-place. The three dug-outs grounded almost simultaneously on the shingle. As the white men rose in their places, Conacher stepped out from among the trees.

“Hello, fellows!” he said in a casual voice.

They stared at him completely awe-struck. “My God!” they murmured in hushed tones; and looked at each other. The Indians in the scow pushed off in a panic and floated away on the current.

Conacher, pale with excitement, but grinning widely, stepped down the bank. “I’m no ghost!” he cried. He marched up to Langmuir, the head of the party. “I want to report for duty,” he said simply.

“Report . . . for duty!” stammered Langmuir clownishly.

Jordan was the first to recover from the shock. He flung his arms around his friend. “Conacher! Conacher! _Conacher!_” he yelled, shaking him violently as if to make certain that he was flesh and blood.

“How in hell did you get here?” demanded Langmuir in a voice of extreme bitterness, which was not really bitter.

“Been waitin’ for you since yesterday,” said Conacher airily. “I cut across the prairie north of Blackburn’s Post, and came down the Mud River to head you off. Got a map of the river for you, chief, such as it is.”

“Well, I’m damned!” said Langmuir solemnly. And the others echoed him in varying tones: “I’m _damned_!”

Conacher was not yet done surprising them. As they turned to climb the bank, he said somewhat nervously: “I’ve got a couple of guests with me. . . .”

Loseis stepped into view above. In breeches and Stetson, smiling merrily, yet a little apprehensively, too, she made an enchanting figure. The rents in her clothes, the marks of hardship in her face, only set off the bravery of her spirit. To those white men so long parted from the women of their race, it was like a miracle.

“Miss Blackburn, gentlemen,” Conacher sang out. “Mr. Langmuir; Mr. Jordan; Mr. Seely.”

They snatched off their hats. “Pleased to meet you,” they mumbled sheepishly.

“Merciful Heaven! am I awake or dreaming!” Langmuir murmured to himself.