Every minute I
expected the canoe to turn over. However, George was soon obliged
to relinquish his hold for the doe's feet touched bottom and in a
moment she was speeding up the steep hillside stopping now and then
to look back with wondering frightened eyes at the strange
creatures she had so unexpectedly encountered.
Here where the caribou were rare, George River mosquitoes made life
miserable for us. The flies, which in the Nascaupee country had
been such a trial to me, had not driven the men to the use of their
veils except on rare occasions; but now they were being worn even
out on the lake where we were still tormented. Backs and hats were
brown with the vicious wretches where they would cling waiting for
a lull in the wind to swarm about our heads in such numbers that
even their war song made one shiver and creep. They were larger by
far than any Jersey mosquitoes ever dreamed of being, and their
bite was like the touch of a live coal. Sometimes in the tent a
continual patter on the roof as they flew against it sounded like a
gentle rain.
The foot of the lake was finally reached on Monday evening, August
21st, at sunset, and we went into camp fifty-five to sixty miles
from where we had entered it, and within sound of the first pitch
in the one hundred and thirty miles of almost continuous rapids
over which we were to travel. That night Job had a dream of them.
He believed in dreams a little and it troubled him. He thought we
were running in rapids which were very difficult, and becoming
entrapped in the currents were carried over the brink of a fall.
In the morning he told his dream, and the others were warned of
danger ahead. My canoe was to lead the way with George in the bow
and Job in the stern, while Joe and Gilbert were to follow close
behind. When we left our camp an extra paddle was placed within
easy reach of each canoe man so that should one snap at a critical
moment another could instantly replace it.
This was a new attitude towards the work ahead and as we paddled
slowly in the direction of the outlet where the hills drew
together, as if making ready to surround and imprison us, my mind
was full of vague imaginings concerning the river.
Far beyond my wildest thought, however, was the reality.
Immediately at the outlet the canoes were caught by the swift
current and for five days we were carried down through almost
continuous rapids. There were long stretches of miles where the
slope of the river bed was a steep gradient and I held my breath as
the canoe shot down at toboggan pace. There was not only the slope
down the course of the river but where the water swung past long
points of loose rocks, which reach out from either shore, a
distinct tilt from one side to the other could be seen, as when an
engine rounds a bend. There were foaming, roaring breakers where
the river flowed over its bed of boulder shallows, or again the
water was smooth and apparently motionless even where the slope
downward was clearly marked.
Standing in the stern of the canoe, guiding it with firm, unerring
hand, Job scanned the river ahead, choosing out our course, now
shouting his directions to George in the bow, or again to Joe and
Gilbert as they followed close behind. Usually we ran in the
shallow water near shore where the rocks of the river bed looked
perilously near the surface. When the sun shone, sharp points and
angles seemed to reach up into the curl of the waves, though in
reality they did not, and often it appeared as if we were going
straight to destruction as the canoe shot towards them. I used to
wish the water were not so crystal clear, so that I might not see
the rocks for I seemed unable to accustom myself to the fact that
it was not by seeing the rocks the men chose the course but by the
way the water flowed.
Though our course was usually in shallow water near the shore,
sometimes for no reason apparent to me, we turned out into the
heavier swells of the deeper stronger tide. Then faster, and
faster, and faster we flew, Job still standing in the stern
shouting his directions louder and louder as the roar of the rapid
increased or the way became more perilous, till suddenly, I could
feel him drop into his seat behind me as the canoe shot by a group
of boulders, and George bending to his paddle with might and main
turned the bow inshore again. Quick as the little craft had won
out of the wild rush of water pouring round the outer end of this
boulder barrier, Job was an his feet again as we sped onward, still
watching the river ahead that we might not become entrapped.
Sometimes when it was possible after passing a particularly hard
and dangerous place we ran into a quiet spot to watch Joe and
Gilbert come through. This was almost more exciting than coming
through myself.
But more weird and uncanny than wildest cascade or rapid was the
dark vision which opened out before us at the head of Slanting
Lake. The picture in my memory still seems unreal and mysterious,
but the actual one was as disturbing as an evil dream.
Down, down, down the long slope before us, to where four miles away
Hades Hills lifted an uncompromising barrier across the way,
stretched the lake and river, black as ink now under leaden sky and
shadowing hills.
