_ CHAPTER XIV. THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE
At about eight o'clock the next morning, as we were about to line up for our journey, two men came romping down the trail, carrying packs on their backs and taking long strides. They were "hitting the high places in the scenery," and seemed to be entirely absorbed in the work. I hailed them and they turned out to be two young men from Duluth, Minnesota. They were without hats, very brown, very hairy, and very much disgusted with the country.
For an hour we discussed the situation. They were the first white men we had met on the entire journey, almost the only returning footsteps, and were able to give us a little information of the trail, but only for a distance of about forty miles; beyond this they had not ventured.
"We left our outfits back here on a little lake--maybe you saw our Indian guide--and struck out ahead to see if we could find those splendid prairies they were telling us about, where the caribou and the moose were so thick you couldn't miss 'em. We've been forty miles up the trail. It's all a climb, and the very worst yet. You'll come finally to a high snowy divide with nothing but mountains on every side. There _is_ no prairie; it's all a lie, and we're going back to Hazleton to go around by way of Skagway. Have you any idea where we are?"
"Why, certainly; we're in British Columbia."
"But where? On what stream?"
"Oh, that is a detail," I replied. "I consider the little camp on which we are camped one of the head-waters of the Nasse; but we're not on the Telegraph Trail at all. We're more nearly in line with the old Dease Lake Trail."
"Why is it, do you suppose, that the road-gang ahead of us haven't left a single sign, not even a word as to where we are?"
"Maybe they can't write," said my partner.
"Perhaps they don't know where they are at, themselves," said I.
"Well, that's exactly the way it looks to me."
"Are there any outfits ahead of us?"
"Yes, old Bob Borlan's about two days up the slope with his train of mules, working like a slave to get through. They're all getting short of grub and losing a good many horses. You'll have to work your way through with great care, or you'll lose a horse or two in getting from here to the divide."
"Well, this won't do. So-long, boys," said one of the young fellows, and they started off with immense vigor, followed by their handsome dogs, and we lined up once more with stern faces, knowing now that a terrible trail for at least one hundred miles was before us. There was no thought of retreat, however. We had set our feet to this journey, and we determined to go.
After a few hours' travel we came upon the grassy shore of another little lake, where the bells of several outfits were tinkling merrily. On the bank of a swift little river setting out of the lake, a couple of tents stood, and shirts were flapping from the limbs of near-by willows. The owners were "The Man from Chihuahua," his partner, the blacksmith, and the two young men from Manchester, New Hampshire, who had started from Ashcroft as markedly tenderfoot as any men could be. They had been lambasted and worried into perfect efficiency as packers and trailers, and were entitled to respect--even the respect of "The Man from Chihuahua."
They greeted us with jovial outcry.
"Hullo, strangers! Where ye think you're goin'?"
"Goin' crazy," replied Burton.
"You look it," said Bill.
"By God, we was all sure crazy when we started on this damn trail," remarked the old man. He was in bad humor on account of his horses, two of which were suffering from poisoning. When anything touched his horses, he was "plum irritable."
He came up to me very soberly. "Have you any idee where we're at?"
"Yes--we're on the head-waters of the Nasse."
"Are we on the Telegraph Trail?"
"No; as near as I can make out we're away to the right of the telegraph crossing."
Thereupon we compared maps. "It's mighty little use to look at maps--they're all drew by guess--an'--by God, anyway," said the old fellow, as he ran his grimy forefinger over the red line which represented the trail. "We've been a slantin' hellwards ever since we crossed the Skeeny--I figure it we're on the old Dease Lake Trail."
To this we all agreed at last, but our course thereafter was by no means clear.
"If we took the old Dease Lake Trail we're three hundred miles from Telegraph Creek yit--an' somebody's goin' to be hungry before we get in," said the old trailer. "I'd like to camp here for a few days and feed up my horses, but it ain't safe--we got 'o keep movin'. We've been on this damn trail long enough, and besides grub is gittin' lighter all the time."
"What do you think of the trail?" asked Burton.
"I've been on the trail all my life," he replied, "an' I never was in such a pizen, empty no-count country in my life. Wasn't that big divide hell? Did ye ever see the beat of that fer a barren? No more grass than a cellar. Might as well camp in a cistern. I wish I could lay hands on the feller that called this 'The Prairie Route'--they'd sure be a dog-fight right here."
The old man expressed the feeling of those of us who were too shy and delicate of speech to do it justice, and we led him on to most satisfying blasphemy of the land and the road-gang.
"Yes, there's that road-gang sent out to put this trail into shape--what have they done? You'd think they couldn't read or write--not a word to help us out."
Partner and I remained in camp all the afternoon and all the next day, although our travelling companions packed up and moved out the next morning. We felt the need of a day's freedom from worry, and our horses needed feed and sunshine.
Oh, the splendor of the sun, the fresh green grass, the rippling water of the river, the beautiful lake! And what joy it was to see our horses feed and sleep. They looked distressingly thin and poor without their saddles. Ladrone was still weak in the ankle joints and the arch had gone out of his neck, while faithful Bill, who never murmured or complained, had a glassy stare in his eyes, the lingering effects of poisoning. The wind rose in the afternoon, bringing to us a sound of moaning tree-tops, and somehow it seemed to be an augury of better things--seemed to prophesy a fairer and dryer country to the north of us. The singing of the leaves went to my heart with a hint of home, and I remembered with a start how absolutely windless the sullen forest of the Skeena had been.
Near by a dam was built across the river, and a fishing trap made out of willows was set in the current. Piles of caribou hair showed that the Indians found game in the autumn. We took time to explore some old fishing huts filled with curious things,--skins, toboggans, dog-collars, cedar ropes, and many other traps of small value to anybody. Most curious of all we found some flint-lock muskets made exactly on the models of one hundred years ago, but dated 1883! It seemed impossible that guns of such ancient models should be manufactured up to the present date; but there they were all carefully marked "London, 1883."
It was a long day of rest and regeneration. We took a bath in the clear, cold waters of the stream, washed our clothing and hung it up to dry, beat the mud out of our towels, and so made ready for the onward march. We should have stayed longer, but the ebbing away of our grub pile made us apprehensive. To return was impossible.
THE CLOUDS
Circling the mountains the gray clouds go
Heavy with storms as a mother with child,
Seeking release from their burden of snow
With calm slow motion they cross the wild--
Stately and sombre, they catch and cling
To the barren crags of the peaks in the west,
Weary with waiting, and mad for rest.
THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE
A land of mountains based in hills of fir,
Empty, lone, and cold. A land of streams
Whose roaring voices drown the whirr
Of aspen leaves, and fill the heart with dreams
Of dearth and death. The peaks are stern and white
The skies above are grim and gray,
And the rivers cleave their sounding way
Through endless forests dark as night,
Toward the ocean's far-off line of spray. _