of excitement.

The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to
be annoying.

"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.

"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed. "We
ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good
many miles in the rest of this day."

So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it
kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went
down to the river. The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free
from snow except for a little drift here and there.

Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them. Paying no attention,
the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with
skates attached. They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan
after them.

The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a
yell as they struck out. The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly
after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight. In a moment the
snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend
of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side.
The great adventure had begun.

CHAPTER II

"Don't force the pace at first, boys," Fred warned his companions.
"Remember, we've a long way to go."

As the expert skater, he had taken the leading end of the drag-rope.
His advice was hard to follow. The ice was in perfect condition; the
toboggan ran almost without friction on its steel shoes, and in that
sparkling air it seemed that it would be easy to skate a hundred miles
without ever once resting.

For a little way the river was bordered with stumpy clearings; then the
dark hemlock and jack-pine woods closed down on the shores. The
skaters had reached the frontier; it might well be that there were not
a dozen cultivated fields between them and the North Pole.

Here the river was about a hundred feet wide, the long ice road that
Fred had imagined. Comparatively little snow had yet fallen, and that
little seemed to have come with high winds, which had swept the ice
clear. More, however, might be looked for any day.

But for that day they were safe. They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a
little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding
behind. In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen
swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ashore to get round
roaring, unfrozen ra