S'pose you boys keep on," said Moise, "bime-by you make _voyageur_.
Then you come with Moise--she'll show you something!"

"Well, Moise," continued Rob, "if we don't see you many a time again
it won't be our fault, you may be sure."

"I'm just wondering," said Jesse, "how Leo and George are going to
get back up to the Tete Jaune Cache. They told us they meant to go up
the Ashcroft trail and home by way of Fort George and the Fraser River
and the 'choo-choo boat.' But that seems a long way around. I suppose
you'll come to the hotel with us, down to Revelstoke, won't you Leo?"
he added.

"No like 'um," said Leo. "My cousin and me, we live in woods till time
to take choo-choo that way to Ashcrof'."

"Well, in that case," said John, "I think we'd better give you our
mosquito-tent; you may need it more than we will, and we can get
another up from Seattle at any time."

"Tent plenty all right," said Leo. "Thank." And when John fished it
out of the pack-bag and gave it to him he turned it over to George
with a few words in his own language.

George carried it away without comment. They were all very much
surprised a little later, however, to discover him working away on the
tent with his knife, and, to their great disgust, they observed that
he was busily engaged in cutting out all the bobbinet windows and in
ripping the front of the tent open so that it was precisely like any
other tent! John was very indignant at this, but his reproof had
little effect on Leo.

"Tent plenty all right now," said he. "Let plenty air inside! Mosquito
no bite 'um Injun."

When they came to think of it this seemed so funny to them that they
rolled on the deck with laughter, but they all agreed to let Leo
arrange his own outfit after that.

They passed steadily on down between the lofty banks of the Columbia,
here a river several hundred yards in width, and more like a lake than
a stream in many of its wider bends. They could see white-topped
mountains in many different directions, and, indeed, close to them lay
one of the most wonderful mountain regions of the continent, with
localities rarely visited at that time save by hunters or travelers as
bold as themselves.

Carlson, the good-natured skipper of the _Columbia_, asked the boys
all up to the wheelhouse with him, and even allowed Rob to steer the
boat a half-mile in one of the open and easy bends. He told them about
his many adventurous trips on the great river and explained to t