s, and it ended right here where
we stand. I've never made that trip across the Athabasca Pass myself.
That old pass, famous as it is, is in the discard now. With a railroad
on each side of it, it will be visited from this time on very rarely
by any man, whether he be tourist or bear-hunter. The Rockies will
take back their own once more.

"But here, right where we stand, is one of those points comparable to
old Fort Benton, or Laramie, on the plains below us, in our own
country. This was the rendezvous, the half-way house, of scores of
bold and brave men who now are dead and gone. I want you to look at
this place, boys, and to make it plain on your map, and to remember it
always. Few of your age have ever had the privilege of visiting a spot
like this."

Rob and Jesse busied themselves helping John with his map, and
meantime Moise and the other two men were making a little fire to boil
a kettle of tea.

"Why did they stop here?" asked John, after a time, busy with his
pencil. "Couldn't they get any farther up?"

[Illustration: THE COLUMBIA RIVER, ABOVE THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT]

Uncle Dick pointed to the jutting end of the shore which hid the bend
of the river from view above them. "You know that river, Leo?" said
he.

Leo spread out his hands wide, with a gesture of respect.

"Me know 'um," said he. "Plenty bad river. Me run 'um, and my Cousin
George. And Walt Steffens--he live at Golden, and Jack Bogardus, his
partner, and Joe McLimanee, and old man Allison--no one else know this
river--no one else ron 'um. No man go up Columby beyond here--come
down, yes, maybe-so."

"Last year," said Uncle Dick, "when I came in from the Beaver Mouth I
saw a broken boat not far below Timbasket Lake. Whose was it?"

"My boat," grinned Leo. And George also laughed. "We bust up boat on
rock, lose flour, tea, everything. We swim out, and walk trail down to
here, swim Wood River, and go up Canoe River, fifty mile. Two day
we'll not got anything to eat."

"Well, I don't see how they got up these streams at all," said John.

"Joe McLimanee he come this far from Revelstruck," said Leo. "Take
him twenty-nine day, not on high water."

"Then there must be bad rapids below here," said John.

"Yes," said his uncle, "and, as I went up the Canoe myself from here,
I've never seen that part of this river, but they say that at the time
of the big gold excitements a generation ago, when the miners tried to
get out of this country, they too