anoe and the Columbia, and out
to Revelstoke--we've crossed the mountains at the Yellowhead Pass,
coming west from Edmonton by pack-train."

"Ye're jokin', man!" rejoined O'Brien. "Shure, ye'll not be tellin' me
those boys came all that way?"

"Him did," said Leo, with almost his first word of praise. "Boys all
right. Kill 'um grizzlum. Not scare' of rapid."

They went on now to explain to O'Brien more details of their journey
and its more exciting incidents, including the hunt for the grizzlies
and the still more dangerous experiences on the rapids. O'Brien
listened with considerable amazement.

"But I know Leo," he added, "and he'll go annywheres in a boat. 'Tis
not the first time he's run this river, bad cess to her! But come in
the house now, and I'll be gettin' ye something to eat, for belike
ye're hungry."

"We are frankly and thoroughly hungry," said Uncle Dick, "especially
John here, who is hungry most of the time. We've reached your place
just as our grub was about gone. Can we stock up with you a little
bit, O'Brien?"

"Shure, if ye need to. But why not take passage on the steamer--she's
due this afternoon at three o'clock, and she's goin' down to-morrow.
Ye see, we run a wood-yard here, for the steamboat company owns this
farm now, and I'm takin' care of it for them."

"What do you say, boys?" asked their leader. "Shall we make it on
down? Or shall we take to the steamer and leave our boats here?"

"Better take to the steamboat," said O'Brien. "True, ye could get down
mayhap to the head of Revelstoke Canyon all right, but then ye'd have
to walk in about five miles annyway. The steamer can't run the canyon
herself, for that matter, and no boat should try it at this stage, nor
anny other stage, fer all that. She's a murderer, this old river,
that's what she is."

Leo and Moise now helped O'Brien with his preparation of the meal, so
that in a little time they were all sitting on real chairs and at a
real table, with a real oil-cloth cover--the first of such things they
had seen for many a day. Their own tin dishes they left in their
boats, and ate from china, coarse but clean. Their meal was well
cooked and abundant, and O'Brien gave them with a certain pride some
fresh rhubarb, raised in a hotbed of his own, and also fried eggs.

"Wait a little," said he, "and I'll give ye new potatoes and all sorts
o' things. 'Tis a good farm we have here."

"But how came you to have a farm like this, up here in