The Dangerous River by R. M. Patterson

Author:R. M. Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926971-36-0
Publisher: Touchwood Editions
Published: 2011-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

5

Fall of the Leaf

Then came the autumn … The air grew thin and sharp, the days thin and short. The river ran sluggishly, and skin ice formed in the quiet eddies. All migratory life departed south and silence fell upon the land. The first snow flurries came … and the running mush ice. Then came the hard ice, solid cakes and sheets, till the Yukon ran level with its banks. And when all this ceased the river stood still and the days lost themselves in the darkness.

The Story of Jees Uck, JACK LONDON

WE SUPPED OFF THE CARIBOU, sitting by the rock fireplace that Gordon had built outside the tent, and then in the dusk, after supper, we took a look around the clearing.

Gordon had been busy. The walls of the cabin were partly up and the rest of the logs were cut and lying in the bush; any trees that threatened the safety of the cache and cabin had been cut down, and all the tops and useless timber had been sawed up and split and now made the foundation of our winter wood pile. The clearing was a more open and orderly place than when I had last seen it—and, in addition to this, a lot of trapline had been cut out. We decided to put in a week’s straight work on the cabin in case of an early snow, and then, after that, we should be able to take days off alternately and do some hunting. Gordon had been living on a sheep he had shot over on Prairie Creek and on fish: there was just about enough sheep and caribou left to do us for the week’s combined effort on the cabin.

The soft autumn darkness shut down on the valley; we chained the dogs up to their trees and went into the tent and lay and talked and drew sketch maps there for hours by candlelight. I told Gordon what I had found up beyond the canyon of the Flat River, and I listened to all he had to tell of Deadmen’s Valley, its high alpine basins and its queer side canyons. It looked as though we might be on to a pretty good thing in the way of trapping: the best thing we could do now, we decided, was to concentrate on that and make all we could out of it. The knowledge we had gained about the Flat River country we would keep under our hats and hope to make use of it later. We had tried to cram too much into this one trip, we could see that now. What we should have done was to go all out for the Flat River part of the plan, with only a few traps and either no dogs at all or perhaps just one big one trained to carry a pack. However, it was no use crying over spilt milk: we had seen some wonderful sights, a lot of game and a lot of new country—now for a successful winter! I blew the candle out and in a few minutes we were fast asleep.

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