fever broke in an instant. Only Haw was awake when she regained her senses, and only Haw watched a healthy color suffuse her face as outside the day broke cold and clear.
the river
JANUARY 1890
The general consensus among the Mather expedition held that with each homestead the men passed on their way through the teardrop-shaped valley and into the next gap, they had for certain passed the outermost settlement. Time and again they were disappointed by a small clearing or a crude snow-covered structure. Not until they reached the foot of the second, larger gorge did they truly leave the last vestiges of white settlement behind.
The snow kept on through the day and into the next, and the sound of their own plodding snowshoes was muffled, as were the echoes of their voices. There was five feet of accumulation in places, and for this reason Mather cut his blazes low on the trunks of trees, so that come spring the blazes would be at eye level.
The party dug in a half mile beyond the head of the big canyon and chose a low sandy bench just below camp as the site for boat construction. From the felling of the timber to the caulking of her hull, the boat took them the better part of four days. The dogs got into the bacon the first night, making off with all but precious little of it, so that breakfast each morning thereafter consisted of gilletes and coffee. The weather was not cooperative. Each morning the timbers were heavy with ice, and it was necessary to thaw them for several hours over the fire. They smoked the green wood until it was light as cork. They curved the timbers at stem and stern by heaving them with a lever arrangement. They caulked the hull with oakum and pitch until she was watertight and dubbed her
Lucy.
She was thirty-by-five at the beam, two feet deep, and decked forward and aft for bowman and steerman.
After the finishing touches were applied to
Lucy,
the men lowered the stores down the rutty bluff and packed them tight into the hold.Reese then persuaded Daisy and Dolly aboard with the butt end of his rifle before passing the reins to a waiting Cunningham. They dragged the boat into the riffle and held her fast by the towlines. They stood upon the bank amid a light snow, where Cunningham halfheartedly attempted to solicit heavenly intervention on behalf of the expedition, leaving Reese to roll his eyes. Finally, with considerable effort, they pushed off into the current.
The boat took fairly well to the water, though she rode low beneath the weight of the stores, her nose cutting into the water beneath the rapids. Mather manned the bow pole, with Haywood at the steering oar, while Reese and Runnells struggled for footing along opposing banks with the tow line, accompanied by the dogs, who alternately bounded ahead and sniffed along the bank. The boat dragged against the swift current. Progress was extremely hard won, as the river proved itself to be a more formidable challenge than anyone expected. Surely, this was not the same river that ran flat and shoal at its mouth, the same river that promised smooth passage to the divide. This was a rock-strewn beast boiling with rapids, a heaving, roiling, serpentine devil. Where the river did not run wide, it ran braided in chutes and timber-choked shallows. Footholds were hard to come by on either bank. Reese and Runnells spent the better part of their time waist deep in the numbing current, the wind and snow in their face.
Time and again, the boat hung up on rocks and snags, and several times the force of the current overwhelmed them, and they were pushed back into the rocks they had worked so hard to clear, colliding with such violence on one occasion that Daisy reared up in the boat, and Runnells lost the towline momentarily. Mather was nearly thrown from the deck into the rapids. And Mather’s heart thrilled on that occasion, for he found no triumph in surrender, nor even in the spoils of victory, but only in the perilous clutches of the battle
the river
JANUARY 1890
The general consensus among the Mather expedition held that with each homestead the men passed on their way through the teardrop-shaped valley and into the next gap, they had for certain passed the outermost settlement. Time and again they were disappointed by a small clearing or a crude snow-covered structure. Not until they reached the foot of the second, larger gorge did they truly leave the last vestiges of white settlement behind.
The snow kept on through the day and into the next, and the sound of their own plodding snowshoes was muffled, as were the echoes of their voices. There was five feet of accumulation in places, and for this reason Mather cut his blazes low on the trunks of trees, so that come spring the blazes would be at eye level.
The party dug in a half mile beyond the head of the big canyon and chose a low sandy bench just below camp as the site for boat construction. From the felling of the timber to the caulking of her hull, the boat took them the better part of four days. The dogs got into the bacon the first night, making off with all but precious little of it, so that breakfast each morning thereafter consisted of gilletes and coffee. The weather was not cooperative. Each morning the timbers were heavy with ice, and it was necessary to thaw them for several hours over the fire. They smoked the green wood until it was light as cork. They curved the timbers at stem and stern by heaving them with a lever arrangement. They caulked the hull with oakum and pitch until she was watertight and dubbed her
Lucy.
She was thirty-by-five at the beam, two feet deep, and decked forward and aft for bowman and steerman.
After the finishing touches were applied to
Lucy,
the men lowered the stores down the rutty bluff and packed them tight into the hold.Reese then persuaded Daisy and Dolly aboard with the butt end of his rifle before passing the reins to a waiting Cunningham. They dragged the boat into the riffle and held her fast by the towlines. They stood upon the bank amid a light snow, where Cunningham halfheartedly attempted to solicit heavenly intervention on behalf of the expedition, leaving Reese to roll his eyes. Finally, with considerable effort, they pushed off into the current.
The boat took fairly well to the water, though she rode low beneath the weight of the stores, her nose cutting into the water beneath the rapids. Mather manned the bow pole, with Haywood at the steering oar, while Reese and Runnells struggled for footing along opposing banks with the tow line, accompanied by the dogs, who alternately bounded ahead and sniffed along the bank. The boat dragged against the swift current. Progress was extremely hard won, as the river proved itself to be a more formidable challenge than anyone expected. Surely, this was not the same river that ran flat and shoal at its mouth, the same river that promised smooth passage to the divide. This was a rock-strewn beast boiling with rapids, a heaving, roiling, serpentine devil. Where the river did not run wide, it ran braided in chutes and timber-choked shallows. Footholds were hard to come by on either bank. Reese and Runnells spent the better part of their time waist deep in the numbing current, the wind and snow in their face.
Time and again, the boat hung up on rocks and snags, and several times the force of the current overwhelmed them, and they were pushed back into the rocks they had worked so hard to clear, colliding with such violence on one occasion that Daisy reared up in the boat, and Runnells lost the towline momentarily. Mather was nearly thrown from the deck into the rapids. And Mather’s heart thrilled on that occasion, for he found no triumph in surrender, nor even in the spoils of victory, but only in the perilous clutches of the battle
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