Rolf in the Woods

Then Warren took Rolf aside and explained: “I’m sending down all my fur this trip. There’s ten bales of sixty pounds each, pretty near my hull fortune. I want it took straight to Vandam’s, and, night or day, don’t leave it till ye git it there. He’s close to the dock. I’m telling ye this for two reasons: The river’s swarming with pirates and sneaks. They’d like nothing better than to get away with a five-hundred-dollar bundle of fur; and, next, while Bill is A1 on the river and true as steel, he’s awful weak on the liquor; goes crazy, once it’s in him. And I notice you’ve always refused it here. So don’t stop at Troy, an’ when ye get to Albany go straight past there to Vandam’s. You’ll have a letter that’ll explain, and he’ll supply the goods yer to bring back. He’s a sort of a partner, and orders from him is same as from me.”

“I suppose I ought to go myself, but this is the time all the fur is coming in here, an’ I must be on hand to do the dickering, and there’s too much much to risk it any longer in the storehouse.”

“Suppose,” said Rolf, “Bill wants to stop at Troy?”

“He won’t. He’s all right, given he’s sober. I’ve give him the letter.”

“Couldn’t you give me the letter, in case?”

“Law, Bill’d get mad and quit.”

“He’ll never know.”

“That’s so; I will.” So when they paddled away, Bill had an important letter of instructions ostentatiously tucked in his outer pocket. Rolf, unknown to any one else but Warren, had a duplicate, wrapped in waterproof, hidden in an inside pocket.

Bill was A1 on the river; a kind and gentle old woodman, much stronger than he looked. He knew the value of fur and the danger of wetting it, so he took no chances in doubtful rapids. This meant many portages and much hard labour.

I wonder if the world realizes the hard labour of the portage or carry? Let any man who seeks for light, take a fifty-pound sack of flour on his shoulders and walk a quarter of a mile on level ground in cool weather. Unless he is in training, he will find it a heavy burden long before he is half-way. Suppose, instead of a flour sack, the burden has sharp angles; the bearer is soon in torture. Suppose the weight carried be double; then the strain is far more than doubled. Suppose, finally, the road be not a quarter mile but a mile, and not on level but through swamps, over rocks, logs, and roots, and the weather not cool, but suffocating summer weather in the woods, with mosquitoes boring into every exposed part, while both hands are occupied, steadying the burden or holding on to branches for help up steep places — and then he will have some idea of the horror of the portage; and there were many of these, each one calling for six loaded and five light trips for each canoe-man. What wonder that men will often take chances in some fierce rapid, rather than to make a long carry through the fly-infested woods.

It was weighty evidence of Bill’s fidelity that again and again they made a portage around rapids he had often run, because in the present case he was in sacred trust of that much prized commodity — fur.

Eighty miles they called it from Warren’s to Albany, but there were many halts and carries which meant long delay, and a whole week was covered before Bill and Rolf had passed the settlements of Glens Falls, Fort Edward, and Schuylerville, and guided their heavily laden canoe on the tranquil river, past the little town of Troy. Loafers hailed them from the bank, but Bill turned a deaf ear to all temptation; and they pushed on happy in the thought that now their troubles were over; the last rapid was past; the broad, smooth waters extended to their port.

Chapter 54. Albany

Only a man who in his youth has come at last in sight of some great city he had dreamed of all his life and longed to see, can enter into Rolf’s feelings as they swept around the big bend, and Albany — Albany, hove in view. Albany, the first chartered city of the United States; Albany, the capital of all the Empire State; Albany, the thriving metropolis with nearly six thousand living human souls; Albany with its State House, beautiful and dignified, looking down the mighty Hudson highway that led to the open sea.

Rolf knew his Bible, and now he somewhat realized the feelings of St. Paul on that historic day when his life-long dream came true, when first he neared the Eternal City — when at last he glimpsed the towers of imperial, splendid Rome.

The long-strung docks were massed and webbed with ship rigging; the water was livened with boats and canoes; the wooden warehouses back of the docks were overtopped by wooden houses in tiers, until high above them all the Capitol itself was the fitting climax.

Rolf knew something of shipping, and amid all the massed boats his eyes fell on a strange, square-looking craft with a huge water-wheel on each side. Then, swinging into better view, he read her name, the Clermont, and knew that this was the famous Fulton steamer, the first of the steamboat age.