There were no recent tracks, which was discouraging, and the air
of gloom over our camp grew heavier. The weather had been bad ever
since we left Fort Smith, cloudy or showery. This morning for the
first time the day dawned with a clear sky, but by noon it was
cloudy and soon again raining. Our diet consisted of nothing but
Moose meat and tea; we had neither sugar nor salt, and the craving
for farinaceous food was strong and growing. We were what the.
natives call "flour hungry"; our three-times-a-day prospect of Moose,
Moose, Moose was becoming loathsome. Bezkya was openly rebellious
once more, and even my two trusties were very, very glum. Still,
the thought of giving up was horrible, so I made a proposition:
"Bezkya, you go out scouting on, foot and see if you can locate a
band. I'll give you five dollars extra if you show me one Buffalo."
At length he agreed to go provided I would set out for Fort
Resolution at once unless he found Buffalo near. This was leaving
it all in his hands. While I was considering, Preble said: "I tell
you this delay is playing the mischief with our Barren-Ground trip;
we should have started for the north ten days ago," which was in
truth enough to settle the matter.
I knew perfectly well beforehand what Bezkya's report would be.
At 6.30 he returned to say he found nothing but old tracks. There
were no Buffalo nearer than two days' travel on foot, and he should
like to return at once to Fort Resolution.
There was no further ground for debate; every one and everything
now was against me. Again I had to swallow the nauseating draught
of defeat and retreat.
"We start northward first thing in the morning," I said briefly,
and our third Buffalo hunt was over.
These, then, were the results so far as Buffalo were concerned:
Old tracks as far down as last camp, plenty of old tracks here and
westward, but the Buffalo, as before on so many occasions, were
two days' travel to the westward.
During all this time I had lost no good opportunity of impressing
on the men the sinfulness of leaving a camp-fire burning and of
taking life unnecessarily; and now, I learned of fruit from this
seeding. That night Bezkya was in a better humour, for obvious
reasons; he talked freely and told me how that day he came on a
large Blackbear which at once took to a tree. The Indian had his
rifle, but thought, "I can kill him, yet I can't stop to skin him
or use his meat," so left him in peace.
This is really a remarkable incident, almost unique. I am glad
to believe that I had something to do with causing such unusual
forbearance.
CHAPTER XX
ON THE NYARLING
All night it rained; in the morning it was dull, foggy, and showery.
Everything was very depressing, especially in view of this second
defeat. The steady diet of Moose and tea was debilitating; my legs
trembled under me. I fear I should be a poor one to stand starvation,
if so slight a brunt should play such havoc with my strength.
We set out early to retrace the course of the Nyarling, which in
spite of associated annoyances and disappointments will ever shine
forth in my memory as the "Beautiful River."
It is hard, indeed, for words to do it justice. The charm of a
stream is always within three feet of the surface and ten feet of
the bank. The broad Slave, then, by its size wins in majesty but
must lose most all its charm; the Buffalo, being fifty feet wide,
has some waste water; but the Nyarling, half the size, has its
birthright compounded and intensified in manifold degree. The water
is clear, two or three feet deep at the edge of the grassy banks,
seven to ten feet in mid-channel, without bars or obstructions
except the two log-jambs noted, and these might easily be removed.
The current is about one mile and a half an hour, so that canoes
can readily pass up or down; the scenery varies continually and is
always beautiful. Everything that I have said of the Little Buffalo
applies to the Nyarling with fourfold force, because of its more
varied scenery and greater range of bird and other life. Sometimes,
like the larger stream, it presents a long, straight vista of a
quarter-mile through a solemn aisle in the forest of mighty spruce
trees that tower a hundred feet in height, all black with gloom,
green with health, and gray with moss.
Sometimes its channel winds in and out of open grassy meadows that
are dotted with clumps of rounded trees, as in an English park.
Now it narrows to a deep and sinuous bed, through alders so rank
and reaching that they meet overhead and form a shade of golden
green; and again it widens out into reedy lakes, the summer home
of countless Ducks, Geese, Tattlers Terns, Peetweets, Gulls, Rails,
Blackbirds, and half a hundred of the lesser tribes. Sometimes the
foreground is rounded masses of kinnikinnik in snowy flower, or
again a far-strung growth of the needle bloom, richest and reddest
of its tribe - the Athabaska rose. At times it is skirted by tall
poplar woods where the claw-marks on the trunks are witness of the
many Blackbears, or some tamarack swamp showing signs and proofs
that hereabouts a family of Moose had fed to-day, or by a broad
and broken trail that told of a Buffalo band passing weeks ago.
And while we gazed at scribbled records, blots, and marks, the loud
"slap plong" of a Beaver showed from time to time that the thrifty
ones had dived at our approach.
