CHAPTER XLI

GOING UP THE LOWER SLAVE What we thought about the steamboat official who was responsible for our dilemma we did not need to put into words; for every one knew of the bargain and its breach: nearly every one present had protested at the time, and the hardest things I felt like saying were mild compared with the things already said by that official's own colleagues. But these things were forgotten in the hearty greetings of friends and bundles of letters from home. It was eight o'clock, and of course black night when we landed; yet it was midnight when we thought of sleep. Fort Resolution is always dog-town; and now it seemed at its worst. When the time came to roll up in our blankets, we were fully possessed of the camper's horror of sleeping indoors; but it was too dark to put up a tent and there was not a square foot of ground anywhere near that was not polluted and stinking of "dog-sign," so very unwillingly I broke my long spell of sleeping out, on this 131st day, and passed the night on the floor of the Hudson's Bay Company house. I had gone indoors to avoid the "dog-sign" and next morning found, alas, that I had been lying all night on "cat-sign." I say lying; I did not sleep. The closeness of the room, in spite of an open window, the novelty, the smells, combined with the excitement of letters from home, banished sleep until morning came, and, of course, I got a bad cold, the first I had had all summer. Here I said "good-bye" to old Weeso. He grinned affably, and when I asked what he would like for a present said, "Send me an axe like yours," There were three things in my outfit that aroused the cupidity of nearly every Indian, the Winchester rifle, the Peterboro canoe and the Marble axe, "the axe that swallows its face." Weeso had a rifle, we could not spare or send him a canoe, so I promised to send him the axe. Post is slow, but it reached him six months later and I doubt not is even now doing active service. Having missed the last steamer, we must go on by canoe. Canoeing up the river meant "tracking" all the way; that is, the canoe must be hauled up with a line, by a man walking on the banks; hard work needing not only a strong, active man, but one who knows the river. Through the kindness of J. McLeneghan, of the Swiggert Trading Company, I was spared the horrors of my previous efforts to secure help at Fort Resolution, and George Sanderson, a strong young half-breed, agreed to take me to Fort Smith for $2.00 a day and means of returning. George was a famous hunter and fisher, and a "good man" to travel. I marked his broad shoulders and sinewy, active form with joy, especially in view of his reputation. In one respect he was different from all other half-breeds that I ever knew--he always gave a straight answer. Ask an ordinary half-breed, or western white man, indeed, how far it is to such a point, his reply commonly is, "Oh, not so awful far," or "It is quite a piece," or "It aint such a hell of a ways," conveying to the stranger no shadow of idea whether it is a hundred yards, a mile, or a week's travel. Again and again when Sanderson was asked how far it was to a given place, he would pause and say, "Three miles and a half," or "Little more than eight miles," as the case might be. The usual half-breed when asked if we could make such a point by noon would say "Maybe. I don't know. It is quite a piece." Sanderson would say, "Yes," or "No, not by two miles," according to circumstances; and his information was always correct; he knew the river "like a book." On the afternoon of September 27 we left "Dogtown" with Sanderson in Weeso's place and began our upward journey. George proved as good as his reputation. The way that active fellow would stride along the shore, over logs and brush, around fallen trees, hauling the canoe against stream some three or four miles an hour was perfectly fine; and each night my heart was glad and sang the old refrain, "A day's march nearer home." The toil of this tracking is second only to that of portageing. The men usually relieve each other every 30 minutes. So Billy and George were the team. If I were going again into that country and had my choice these two again would be my crew. Once or twice I took the track-line myself for a quarter of an hour, but it did not appeal to me as a permanent amusement. It taught me one thing that I did not suspect, namely, that it is much harder to haul a canoe with three inches of water under her keel than with three feet. In the former case, the attraction of the bottom is most powerful and evident. The experience also explained the old sailor phrase about the vessel feeling the bottom: this I had often heard, but never before comprehended. All day we tracked, covering 20 to 25 miles between camps and hourly making observations on the wild life of the river. Small birds and mammals were evidently much more abundant than in spring, and the broad, muddy, and sandy reaches of the margin were tracked over by Chipmunks, Weasels, Foxes, Lynxes, Bear, and Moose. A Lynx, which we surprised on a sand-bar, took to the water without hesitation and swam to the mainland. It went as fast as a dog, but not nearly so fast as a Caribou. A large Fox that we saw crossing the river proved very inferior to the Lynx in swimming speed. The two portages, Ennuyeux and Detour, were duly passed, and on the morning of October 3, as we travelled, a sailboat hove into sight. It held Messrs. Thomas Christy, C. Harding, and Stagg. We were now within 11 days of Fort Smith, so I took advantage of the opportunity to send Sanderson back. On the evening of the 3d we came to Salt River, and there we saw Pierre Squirrel with his hundred dogs and at 1 P. M., October 4, arrived at Fort Smith.