The Trail of 98 (14 page)

At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I was
thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head. For I was
beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it easily, willingly
and without reserve.
And in truth at the idea I felt a strange thrill of joy. The
girl seemed to me all that was fair, lovable and sweet.

We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the breeze and
a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong sunlight. His face
was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope. Leaning over the side, the
Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch the monster trout that lived in
those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered
at the bow. As he slept I noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his
bare brawny arms, tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and
nails! There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange
parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned for him
in far-away England?

Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the gargantuan
mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the gloomy vastness!

We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with menace
and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats and scows
crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we saw wreckage piled
up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary hours we pulled at the
oars, and in the end our danger was past.

We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of
mosquitoes. We sweltered
in the heat; we strained, with blistered hands, at the oars;
we cursed and toiled like a thousand others of that grotesque fleet. There were
boats of every shape, square, oblong, circular, three-cornered, flat,
roundanything that would float. They were made mostly of boards, laboriously
hand-sawn in the woods, and from a half-inch to four inches thick. Black pitch
smeared the seams of the raw lumber. They travelled sideways as well as in any
other fashion. And in such crazy craft were thousands of amateur boatmen,
sailing serenely along, taking danger with sang-froid, and at night, over their
camp-fires, hilariously telling of their hairbreadth escapes.

We entered the Fifty-mile River; we were in a giant valley; tier after tier
of benchland rose to sentinel mountains of austerest grandeur. There at the
bottom the little river twisted like a silver wire, and down it rowed the eager
army. They shattered the silence into wildest echo, they roused the bears out of
their frozen sleep; the forest flamed from their careless fires.

The river was our beast of burden now, a tireless, gentle beast. Serenely and
smoothly it bore us onward, yet there was a note of menace in its song. They had
told us of the canyon and of the rapids, and as we pulled at the oars and
battled with the mosquitoes, we wondered when the danger was coming, how we
would fare through it when it came.

Then one evening as we were sweeping down the placid river, the current
suddenly quickened. The banks were sliding past at a strange speed. Swiftly
we whirled around a bend,
and there we were right on top of the dreadful canyon. Straight ahead was what
seemed to be a solid wall of rock. The river looked to have no outlet; but as we
drew nearer we saw that there was a narrow chasm in the stony face, and at this
the water was rearing and charging with an angry roar.

The current was gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw back. At
his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the man who loves
danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With set faces we prepared
for the fight.

I was in the bow. All at once I saw directly in front a scow struggling to
make the shore. In her there were three people, two women and a man. I saw the
man jump out with a rope and try to snub the scow to a tree. Three times he
failed, running along the bank and shouting frantically. I saw one of the women
jump for the shore. Then at the same instant the rope parted, and the scow, with
the remaining woman, went swirling on into the canyon.

All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I heard
a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in the bottom of
the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow rise, hover, and then
plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.

The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air grew
dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them with our oars,
were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river seemed to leap and
buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its sides, a veritable hog-back
of water. It bounded on in great billows, green, hillocky and terribly swift,
like a liquid toboggan slide. We plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black,
moss-stained walls brindled past us.

About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a volcano,
sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant eddy, and here,
circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The forsaken woman was still
crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and we were half blinded by the flying
spray, but I clung to my place at the bow and watched intently.

"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."

It was almost too
late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down on us. In a moment we would
have been struck and overturned, but I saw Jim and the Jam-wagon give a
desperate strain at the oars. I saw the scow swirling past, just two feet from
us. I looked againthen with a wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching
figure was that of Berna.

I remember jumpingit must have been five feetand I landed half in, half out
of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself aboard. I heard
shouts from the others as the current swept them into the canyon. I remember
looking round and cursing because both sweeps had been lost overboard, and
lastly I remember bending over Berna and shouting in her ear:

"All right, I'm with you!"

If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe the
girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me
unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my shoulders as if
to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a half-sob, half-cry of joy, she
clasped her arms tightly around me. Something in her look, something in the
touch of her slender, clinging form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in
her ear.

"It's all right, don't be frightened. We'll pull through, all right."

Once more we had whirled off into the main current; once more we were in that
roaring torrent, with
its fearsome dips and rises, its columned walls corroded with
age and filled with the gloom of eternal twilight. The water smashed and
battered us, whirled us along relentlessly, lashed us in heavy sprays; yet with
closed eyes and thudding hearts we waited. Then suddenly the light grew strong
again. The primaeval walls were gone. We were sweeping along smoothly, and on
either side of us the valley sloped in green plateaus up to the smiling sky.

I unlocked my arms and peered down to where her face lay half hidden on my
breast.

"Thank God, I was able to reach you!"

"Yes, thank God!" she answered faintly. "Oh, I thought it was all over. I
nearly died with fear. It was terrible. Thank God for you!"

But she had scarce spoken when I realised, with a vast shock, that the danger
was far from over. We were hurrying along helplessly in that fierce current, and
already I heard the roar of the Squaw Rapids. Ahead, I could see them dancing,
boiling, foaming, blood-red in the sunset glow.

"Be brave, Berna," I had to shout again; "we'll be all right. Trust me,
dear!"

She, too, was staring ahead with dilated eyes of fear. Yet at my words she
became wonderfully calm, and in her face there was a great, glad look that made
my heart rejoice. She nestled to my side. Once more she waited.

We took the rapids broadside on, but the scow was light and very strong. Like
a cork in a mill-stream we tossed and spun around. The vicious,
mauling wolf-pack of the river heaved
us into the air, and worried us as we fell. Drenched, deafened, stunned with
fierce, nerve-shattering blows, every moment we thought to go under. We were in
a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears. Giant hands with claws of
foam were clutching, buffeting us. Shrieks of fury assailed us, as demon tossed
us to demon. Was there no end to it? Thud, crash, roar, sickening us to our
hearts; lurching, leaping, beaten, battered ... then all at once came a calm; we
must be past; we opened our eyes.

We were again sweeping round a bend in the river in the shadow of a high
bluff. If we could only make the bankbut, no! The current hurled us along once
more. I saw it sweep under a rocky face of the hillside, and then I knew that
the worst was coming. For there, about two hundred yards away, were the dreaded
Whitehorse Rapids.

"Close your eyes, Berna!" I cried. "Lie down on the bottom. Pray as you never
prayed before."

We were on them now. The rocky banks close in till they nearly meet. They
form a narrow gateway of rock, and through those close-set jaws the raging river
has to pass. Leaping, crashing over its boulder-strewn bed, gaining in terrible
impetus at every leap, it gathers speed for its last desperate burst for
freedom. Then with a great roar it charges the gap.

But there, right in the way, is a giant boulder. Water meets rock in a crash
of terrific onset. The river is beaten, broken, thrown back on itself, and
with a baffled roar rises
high in the air in a raging hell of spume and tempest. For a moment the chasm is
a battleground of the elements, a fierce, titanic struggle. Then the river,
wrenching free, falls into the basin below.

"Lie down, Berna, and hold on to me!"

We both dropped down in the bottom of the scow, and she clasped me so tightly
I marvelled at the strength of her. I felt her wet cheek pressed to mine, her
lips clinging to my lips.

"Now, dear, just a moment and it will all be over."

Once again the angry thunder of the waters. The scow took them nose on,
riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind,
pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving, straining, we
pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised nakedly. The waters danced a
fiery saraband; each wave was a demon lashing at us as we passed; or again they
were like fear-maddened horses with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each
other convulsively. Would it never, never end ... then ... then ...

It seemed the last had come. Up, up we went. We seemed to hover uncertainly,
tilted, hair-poised over a yawning gulf. Were we going to upset? Mental agony
screamed in me. But, no! We righted. Dizzily we dipped over; steeply we plunged
down. Oh! it was terrible! We were in a hornets' nest of angry waters and they
were stinging us to death; we were in a hollow cavern roofed over with slabs
of seething foam; the
fiery horses were trampling us under their myriad hoofs. I gave up all hope. I
felt the girl faint in my arms. How long it seemed! I wished for the end.
The
flying hammers of hell were pounding us, pounding usOh, God! Oh,
God!...

Then, swamped from bow to stern, half turned over, wrecked and broken, we
swept into the peaceful basin of the river below.

On the flats around the Whitehorse Rapids was a great largess of wild
flowers. The shooting stars gladdened the glade with gold; the bluebells brimmed
the woodland hollow with amethyst; the fire-weed splashed the hills with the
pink of coral. Daintily swinging, like clustered pearls, were the petals of the
orchid. In glorious profusion were begonias, violets, and Iceland poppies, and
all was in a setting of the keenest emerald. But over the others dominated the
wild rose, dancing everywhere and flinging its perfume to the joyful breeze.

Boats and scows were lined up for miles along the river shore. On the banks
water-soaked outfits lay drying in the sun. We, too, had shipped much water in
our passage, and a few days would be needed to dry out again. So it was that I
found some hours of idleness and was able to see a good deal of Berna.

Madam Winklestein I found surprisingly gracious. She smiled on me, and in her
teeth, like white quartz, the creviced gold gleamed. She had a smooth,
flattering way with her that disarmed enmity. Winklestein, too, had conveniently
forgotten our last interview, and extended to me the paw of spurious friendship.
I was free to see Berna as much as I chose.

Thus it came about that we rambled among the
woods and hills, picking wild flowers and glad
almost with the joy of children. In these few days I noted a vast change in the
girl. Her cheeks, pale as the petals of the wild orchid, seemed to steal the
tints of the briar-rose, and her eyes beaconed with the radiance of sun-waked
skies. It was as if in the poor child a long stifled capacity for joy was
glowing into being.

One golden day, with her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes shining, she turned
to me.

"Oh, I could be so happy if I only had a chance, if I only had the chance
other girls have. It would take so little to make me the happiest girl in the
worldjust to have a home, a plain, simple home where all was sunshine and
peace; just to have the commonest comforts, to be care-free, to love and be
loved. That would be enough." She sighed and went on:

"Then if I might have books, a little music, flowersoh, it seems like a
dream of heaven; as well might I sigh for a palace."

"No palace could be too fair for you, Berna, no prince too noble. Some day,
your prince will come, and you will give him that great love I told you of
once."