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They are great gifts in the raw, but, like most others, they need exercise and assiduous cultivation for their full development. On reaching the head of the rapid, they went back for another load, and afterward Jake got into the canoe, while Lisle fixed the end of the tracking-line about his shoulders.
The men distributed the hide and meat between the two, covering up both with green willow boughs. "Now," said Alex, "for a fast run down this river. We've got more meat than we can use, and we must get to the Landing." It is possible to make twenty-five miles a day with pole and tracking-line against a current even so strong as that of the Peace River.
Only one who has measured the strength of the surf against the smallest craft, may comprehend the magnitude of their labour. "Aleck's crew ahead with the tracking-line," shouted Garth. The line is always kept coiled and ready, hanging on the bow. Aleck seized it, and followed by three others, ran ahead along the beach, paying it out.
Eventually it was decided to leave Jake below, ready to swim out with the tracking-line and seize the canoe if any mishap befell, and Lisle and Nasmyth went back to the head of the rapid. They dragged the canoe round the worst rush with infinite difficulty; and then Nasmyth set his lips and braced himself for the mad descent when his companion thrust her off.
They stood upright in the unloaded, unstable craft, long pole in hand, guiding her with what seemed wonderful skill across madly-whirling eddies and through tumbling foam, while Nasmyth and another man, floundering deep in water, assisted them at intervals with the tracking-line.
Presently they came to a sheer impassable precipice, where the men had to embark and take to poling up the stream; but ere long they got into water too deep for the poles, and recourse was again had to the tracking-line.
The craggy banks being low enough, however, to admit of the tracking-line being used, the men landed and towed the canoe till they came to the foot of the most rapid cascade they had yet seen.
Again, approaching the point, the four men on the end of the tracking-line crawling slowly around the edge of a steepish bank, were by a sudden heave of the Loseis all four jerked into the water. Instantly picking themselves up, they scrambled ahead with their line through the breakers. Garth's heart warmed over the half-fed, half-clad boys.
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