Cattle weren’t able to get through to the grass beneath; and in any case there was precious little grass at all, after the preceding season’s overgrazing and fires. Even now there was a growing number of dead cattle to be found everywhere. It was certain there would be heavy losses. When spring came they’d find out the extent.
In the meantime it was necessary to tie a rope to the corner of the house and to wade blindly, bucking the drifts, to find the barn; once this was done Wil tied the riata to the barn and they had a lifeline between the buildings. But there were three consecutive days when they couldn’t use it, for the temperature dropped to 60 degrees below zero.
“Everything comes to an end,” said Mr. Roosevelt with satisfaction. He stood on the piazza in shirtsleeves. There were chunks of ice on the river; the chinook was blowing and there must have been a very warm thaw upstream to the south, for a flood kept pressing upon the high dams of thick ice until they burst. These explosions heaped great crags of ice in piles along the river; there was a tremendous crashing and roaring.
It couldn’t help remind Wil of the advancing date for the duel. He couldn’t fathom the way Roosevelt seemed to regard it. He was neither in a dither nor in a blithe pretense; he neither worried it nor ignored it. He spoke of De Morès without particular rancor and he mentioned the duel occasionally and lightly, as if it were nothing more than another occasion in his calendar—a dinner to attend, a speech to deliver.
The threat of it may not have bothered the boss but it hung over Bill Sewall like a huge black cloud and there were whole days when it dampened Wil’s spirits as well; he couldn’t get the spectral anticipation out of his mind.
One morning Wil exploded. “Doesn’t it ever get you down?”
“You can’t allow those things to get you down, old fellow. When the time comes, I shall confront Mr. De Morès, and hope I can talk him out of this foolishness. That failing, I suppose I shall have to shoot him, or be shot by him. I shall endeavor to wound him as lightly as possible, and still dissuade him from continuing. What more can I do? In the meantime it’s no use brooding, is it. Now you may have forgotten, but I have not, the four deer that we shot weeks ago and hung from a tree to keep the coyotes from them. With this thaw we shall have to rescue that meat right now or it will spoil. Are you with me?”
“Best we all go together,” said Uncle Bill. “And keep both eyes open for Stranglers. They could easy have it in mind to save the Marquis some trouble. He wouldn’t have too rough a time duelling with you after you got hung.”
The three men used their Mackinaw skiff to get across; Wil bent his back to the oars. It was harrowing to go into the rough current just ahead of the ice dam but they kept dry and pulled the boat high up the bank and walked inland on Indian-style snowshoes.
They set out on foot, traveled two hours, arrived at the tree and found a few bones, nothing more.
Mr. Roosevelt examined the tracks. “Mountain lion,” he judged. “Not long ago. Bully! Let’s go after it.”
They spent the rest of the day hunting lion, with no success, and returned in a rising gale to make their perilous way back across the river. They took the boat out of the water and hitched it securely to a tree high on the bank before they hurried inside.
Mr. Roosevelt was determined that in the morning they should continue the cougar hunt. Uncle Bill was not cheered by the prospect.
In the morning the boat was gone.
Wil said in a hushed voice, “Indians!”
Uncle Bill had a look at the rope. It had been cut. “You may be right. But I didn’t know they used any kind of boat except canoes.”
Then Wil espied a dark object on the bank below. He scrambled for it and picked it up. A man’s glove. “Look here!”
Mr. Roosevelt said, “I don’t recognize it. Do you, Bill?”
“No. But I expect it’s a white man’s glove. Indians don’t use them, do they?”
Mr. Roosevelt made fists. “Scoundrels!”
“Scoundrels with nerve,” Uncle Bill observed, “to go out into those ice packs in an open boat.”
“By Godfrey, let’s saddle up, Bill. We can overtake them.”
“Think again. Half the ground’s frozen stiff and the other half overflowed. Anyway all they need to do’s keep on the opposite side of the river. We try to reach them, they can pick us off. The river’s so high it’ll probably kill them anyway. Howard Eaton told me only two parties ever tried to go down this stream in boats, and they neither of them ever made it. One boat got swamped in the rapids and the other party was on a portage, got killed by a grizzly.”
“We will pursue the thieves, Bill.”
“No sir. Anyhow by now the boat’s probably kindling and they’re probably drowned or froze to death.”
“We will pursue them, by thunder! It’s a matter of defending principle. To submit tamely and meekly to theft is to reward evil and encourage repetition of the offense. Great Scott, man!”
Uncle Bill flinched before the outburst. “That may be as you say. But there’s a power of white water on this river.”
“I know that, but you two are used to this kind of navigation in Maine. You’re so accomplished at handling boats in rough water I always suspected you had webbed feet.”
Wil Dow said, “We can’t ride and we can’t walk and we have no boat, so I don’t rightly see how we can pursue them.”
“We shall simply have to build a boat,” said Roosevelt.
They fashioned a boat by stripping lumber from the ranch house. They nailed it together and caulked it with pitch. Wil Dow gave it a little run on a slack eddy in the river and with dubious faith pronounced it serviceable.
“They’ve got a mighty jump on us,” grumbled Uncle Bill. “No chance to catch them now.”
“We may fail,” Roosevelt replied, “but it won’t be for want of trying. We’ll go now. By George, old fellows, this will be a grand adventure!”
Uncle Bill caught Wil’s attention. Then he rolled his eyes toward the sky.
They loaded provisions and Roosevelt’s camera and a knapsack full of books, armed themselves and gave chase.
With Uncle Bill in the bow steering and Wil aft at the oars and Roosevelt athwart the boat with his rifle at the ready they made slow advance through great slabs of broken ice that had tumbled over one another in wild confusion. The chinook had scoured the hills and left them bare and grey, scarred by washouts where the clay was still dark from melted snow that had run off and swollen the river.
The temperature kept dropping. Uncle Bill sat forward, hands on gunwales, swaying his body-weight to balance the boat as it breasted ridges of white water.
The wind in Wil’s face was ice-cold and he said, “Likely have this breeze in our faces all day.”
“That would have to be the crookedest wind in history,” Uncle Bill replied.
Along one stretch a coal vein was on fire high above them. It burned for more than a quarter of a mile, at the end of which a great boulder tipped ominously from a precarious overhang; sure enough it did tumble into the river and they had scarcely gone past it at the time. The plunging rock made a tidal wave that lifted the boat ten feet and nearly swamped it.
They came around a bend into a gale blowing straight upstream. Funneled into a howling rush by the narrowing cliffs it roiled the water into a froth that stood higher than Wil could believe. He heard Uncle Bill say, “That looks pretty saucy.”
Wil said, “We can weather it if we lay the boat about right.”
“Give it your all, boys!” Roosevelt’s voice, and subsequent coughing fit, were all but lost in the racket as the strong wind met the current hard enough to make a vertical wall of water. The boat met the bared teeth of the gale; knifed into the white wall and rocked and shuddered. Foam soaked Wil’s every pore. The homemade skiff took on more water than he believed she could hold; but she came through the roil without striking rock and when they wheeled into the lee of the cliffs they were still afloat and it was time to start bailing with their hats.