Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/82



Catching a lock of her flowing hair, she threw it across the darting blade it fell, severed, to the floor. Spellbound the traders watched them. The movements grew swift and swifter, until, in the excitement, Dr. McLoughlin thumped his cane upon the floor and cried, "Enough, McDonald, enough! "

For hundreds of miles the Columbia has a regular descent, broken only at long intervals by steps of rapids and falls. One hundred, one hundred and fifty miles a day, the fur-traders glide, pausing at nightfall to camp. Scarcely has the first boat touched shore before the axe is in the forest. The Canadian cook builds the tiny pile of lighted brush into a pyramid of blazing logs. From a sapling bent beside it the kettle swings and sings of supper.

On one side of the fire the voyageurs carve with pocket-knife and hunting-knife, and never resting in their talk gulp tea, tea, tea. On the other side the cook has spread McLoughlin's kitchen of linen and plate. Catharine Sinclair is that Canadian lily taking her first flight from the Manitoba home. David's laugh rings merrily. Bruce the gardener sips his tea. He loves the camping life; it reminds him of military marches and Waterloo. Two new clerks, McTavish and Finlayson, are keeping copious journals to send home to Scotland. There is a world of difference between the happy-go-lucky voyageur and his more thoughtful Scotch companion. The French-Canadian or FrenchIroquois laughs at mishaps, he rollicks and flings out the border song. The Scotchman is grave, solemn, and watchful, the brain and nerve of the Hudson's Bay Company.

Down the Okanogan country the grass is sere. Autumn flames. Sombre Alpine forests climb the faroff heights. Eastward dwell the Spokanes, the Children