Young Alaskans on the Trail

Emerson Hough

Description

In this thrilling action-adventure novel for younger audiences, lifelong chums Rob McIntyre, John Hardy and Jesse Wilcox set off on a grueling, life-changing trek in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains with their friend Uncle Dick, a civil engineer and skilled outdoorsman.

Sujets

• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776676576
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE YOUNG ALASKANS ON THE TRAIL
* * *
EMERSON HOUGH
 
*
The Young Alaskans on the Trail First published in 1911 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-657-6 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-658-3 © 2015 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - Taking the Trail II - The Gate of the Mountains III - Studying Out the Trail IV - The Great Divide V - Crossing the Height of Land VI - Following Mackenzie VII - Around the Camp-Fire VIII - A Hunt for Bighorn IX - A Night in the Mountains X - How the Split-Stone Lake was Named XI - Lessons in Wild Life XII - Wild Country and Wilderness Ways XIII - The Caribou Hunt XIV - Exploring the Wilderness XV - In the Big Waters XVI - The Grizzly Hunt XVII - The Young Alaskans' "Lob-Stick" XVIII - Bad Luck with the "Mary Ann" XIX - New Plans XX - The Gorge of the Mountains XXI - The Portage of the Rocky Mountains XXII - East of the Rockies XXIII - The Land of Plenty XXIV - The White Man's Country XXV - How the Ermine Got His Tail Black XXVI - Trailing the Bear XXVII - The End of the Old War-Trail XXVIII - Steamboating in the Far North XXIX - A Moose Hunt XXX - Farthest North XXXI - Homeward Bound XXXII - Leaving the Trail
I - Taking the Trail
*
It was a wild and beautiful scene which lay about the little campin the far-off mountains of the Northwest. The sun had sunk beyondthe loftier ridges, although even now in the valley there remainedconsiderable light. One could have seen many miles over thesurrounding country had not, close at hand, where the little whitetent stood, the forest of spruce been very dense and green. At nogreat distance beyond its edge was rough and broken country. Fartheron, to the southward, stood white-topped peaks many miles distant,although from the camp these could not be seen.
It might have seemed a forbidding scene to any one not used to travelamong the mountains. One step aside into the bush, and one would havefancied that no foot had ever trod here. There was no indication ofroad or trail, nor any hint of a settlement. The forest stood dark,and to-night, so motionless was the air, its silence was more completethan is usually the case among the pines or spruces, where always theupper branches murmur and whisper among themselves. Such scenes causea feeling of depression even among grown persons who first meet them;and to-night, in this remote spot, one could not well have blamed thethree young occupants of this camp had they felt a trifle uneasy asthe twilight drew on toward darkness.
They were, it is true, not wholly new to camp life, these threeboys—Rob McIntyre, John Hardy, and Jesse Wilcox. You may perhaps callto mind the names of these, since they are the same who, more than ayear before, were cast away for some time on the slopes of KadiakIsland, in the far upper portion of Alaska; from which place they wereat last rescued in part by their own wits and in part by thewatchfulness of their guardian, Mr. Hardy. The latter, whom all threeboys called Uncle Dick, was a civil engineer who, as did the parentsof all the boys, lived in the coast town of Valdez, in far-off Alaska.
When Rob, John, and Jesse returned home from their dangerousadventures on Kadiak Island, they had been told that many a day wouldelapse before they would be allowed to take such chances again.Perhaps Uncle Dick never really told the parents of the boys the fulltruth about the dangers his young charges had encountered on KadiakIsland. Had he done so they would never have been willing for the boysto take another trip even more dangerous in many ways—the one onwhich they were now starting.
But Uncle Dick Hardy, living out of doors almost all the time onaccount of his profession as an engineer, was so much accustomed todangers and adventures that he seemed to think that any one could getout of a scrape who could get into one. So it was not long after thereturn from Kadiak before he forgot all about the risks the boys hadrun there. The very next year he was the first one to plead with theirparents, and to tell them that in his belief the best way in the worldfor the boys to pass their next summer's vacation would be for them tocross the Rocky Mountains from the Pacific side and take the old watertrail of the fur-traders, north and east, and down the Peace Riverfrom its source.
It chanced that Uncle Dick, who, like all engineers, was sometimesobliged to go to remote parts of the country, had taken charge of anengineering party then locating the new railroad bound westward fromEdmonton, in far-off Northwest Canada. While he himself could notleave his employment to go with the boys across the Rockies, heassured their parents that he would meet them when they came down theriver, and see that every care should be taken of them meantime.
"Let them go, of course," he urged. "You can't really hurt a good,live boy very much. Besides, it is getting to be so nowadays thatbefore long a boy won't have any wilderness where he can go. Here'sour railroad making west as fast as it can, and it will be taking allsort of people into that country before long. Here's a chance for theboys to have a fine hunt and some camping and canoeing. It will makethem stout and hearty, and give them a good time. What's the useworrying all the time about these chaps? They'll make it through, allright. Besides, I am going to send them the two best men in Canada fortheir guides.
"I wouldn't say, myself, that these boys could get across alone," headded, "because it's a hard trip for men in some ways. But in thecare of Alex Mackenzie and Moise Duprat they'll be as safe as theywould be at home in rocking-chairs."
"What Mackenzie is that?" asked Jesse Wilcox's mother of her brother,Uncle Dick.
"Well, he may be a relative of old Sir Alexander Mackenzie, so far asI know. The family of that name is a large one in the North, and therealways have been Mackenzies in the fur trade. But speaking of thename, here's what I want to explain to you, sister. These boys will begoing back over the very trail that good old Sir Alexander took whenhe returned from the Pacific Ocean."
"But that was a long time ago—"
"Yes, in 1793, while George Washington still was alive, and not sovery long after the Revolutionary War. You know, Mackenzie was thefirst man ever to cross this continent, and this was the way he went,both in going west and coming east—just where I want these boys togo. They'll see everything that he saw, go everywhere that he went,from the crown of the continent on down clear to the Arctics, if youwant to let them go that far.
"I'm telling you, sister," he added, eagerly, "the boys will learn something in that way, something about how this country wasdiscovered and explored and developed, so far as that is concerned.That is history on the hoof, if you like, sister. In my belief they'rethe three luckiest little beggars in the world if you will only letthem go. I'll promise to bring them back all right."
"Yes, I know about your promises !" began Mrs. Wilcox.
"When did I ever fail to keep one?" demanded Uncle Dick of her. "Andwhere can you find three sounder lads in Valdez than these we'retalking about now?"
"But it's so far , Richard—you're talking now about the Peace Riverand the Athabasca River and the Arctic Ocean—why, it seems as thoughthe boys were going clear off the earth, and we certainly would neversee them again."
"Nonsense!" replied Uncle Dick. "The earth isn't so big as it used tobe in Sir Alexander's time. Let them alone and they'll come through,and be all the more men for it. There's no particular hardship aboutit. I'll go down with them in the boat to Vancouver and east with themby rail to where they take the stage up the Ashcroft trail—awagon-road as plain as this street here. They can jog along that wayas far as Quesnelles as easy as they could on a street-car inSeattle. Their men'll get them from there by boat up the Fraser to theheadwaters of the Parsnip without much more delay or much more danger,but a lot of hard work. After that they just get in their boats andfloat."
"Oh, it sounds easy, Richard," protested his sister, "but I know allabout your simple things!"
"Well, it isn't every boy I'd offer this good chance," said UncleDick, turning away. "In my belief, they'll come back knowing more thanwhen they started."
"But they're only boys, not grown men like those old fur-traders thatused to travel in that country. It was hard enough even for them, if Iremember my reading correctly."
"I just told you, my dear sister, that these boys will go with lessrisk and less danger than ever Sir Alexander met when he first wentover the Rockies. Listen. I've got the two best men in the Northwest,as I told you. Alex Mackenzie is one of the best-known men in theNorth. General Wolseley took him for chief of his band of voyageurs ,who got the boats up the Nile in Kitchener's Khartoum campaign. He'ssteadier than a clock, and the boys are safer with him than anywhereelse without him. My other man, Moise Duprat, is a good cook, a goodwoodsman, and a good canoeman. They'll have all the camp outfit theyneed, they'll have the finest time in the world in the mountains, andthey'll come through flying—that's all about it!"
"But won't there be any bad rapids in the mountains on that river?"
"Surely, surely! That's what the men are for, and the boats. When thewater is too bad they get out and walk around it, same as you walkaround a mud puddle in the street. When their men th