no popcorn, fizz, or Coney-Island red-hots to distribute, we did the
next best thing,--became barkers and gave the calls that go with
festivities. So now, as the boat swings out from the soft bank, it is a
gay company of urchins who wave their caps and yell, "R-r-r-red
lemol-lade, everybody drinks it!"

There is only one Fort Smith! Established for three decades, it has as
yet seen no wells dug. The people still climb that steep bank, carrying
in pendant buckets from wooden shoulder-yokes water for the daily
drinking and ablutions. At four o'clock in the afternoon, should you
visit Fort Smith forty years from now, you will see the same daily
procession of women and kiddies bearing buckets,--the Aquarius sign of
the Fort Smith zodiac. A scoffer at my elbow grins, "Why should they
bother to dig wells? It's cheaper to bring out Orkney-men in sail-boats
from Scotland to tote their water up the banks."

[Illustration: The "Red Lemol-lade" Boys]

At noon we reach the Salt River, twenty-two miles up, which is one of
the most marvellous salt deposits in the world. The Salt River winds in
crescent curves through a valley wooded with aspen and spruce, and the
Salt Plains six miles in extent stretch at the base of hills six or
seven hundred feet high. The salt lies all over the ground in beautiful
cubes,--pure crystal salt. It is anybody's salt plain; you can come here
when you will and scoop up all you want. These plains have supplied the
North country with salt since first white men penetrated the country. At
the mouth of the Salt River are the shacks of the present
representatives of the Beaulieus,--a family which has acted as guides
for all the great men who ever trended northward. They have been
interesting characters always, and as we look in upon them to-day
neither Beaulieu nor salt has lost his savour.

[Illustration: Salt Beds]

The Slave River from where it leaves Fort Smith to its embouchure in
Great Slave Lake is about two hundred miles long, with an average width
of half a mile, except where it expands in its course to enclose
islands. The big boat behaves beautifully in the water, and on we slip
with no excitement until about five o'clock, when a moose and her calf
are espied, well out of range. Each in his narrow cell, we sleep the
sleep of the just and wake to find ourselves tied to the bank. The
captain fears a storm is brooding on Great Slave Lake; so, tethered at
the marge of the reedy lagoon, we wait al