pt for the regular,
ordinary display."

"When can they be ready?" inquired Bennie eagerly.

"To-morrow morning," replied Holliday. "Marc will engage his uncle.
They're all right. Now how about an outfit? But don't talk any more
about salmon. I know what you're after--it's _gold_!"

* * * * *

The moon was still hanging low over the firs at four o'clock the next
morning when three black and silent shadows emerged from the factor's
house and made their way, cautiously and with difficulty, across the
sand to where a canoe had been run into the riffles of the beach. Marc
came first, carrying a sheet-iron stove with a collapsible funnel; then
his Uncle Edouard, shouldering a bundle consisting of a tent and a
couple of sacks of flour and pork; and lastly Professor Hooker with his
mackintosh and rifle, entirely unaware of the fact that his careful
guides had removed all the cartridges from his luggage lest he should
shoot too many caribou and so spoil the winter's food supply. It was
cold, almost frosty. In the black flood of the river the stars burned
with a chill, wavering light. Bennie put on his mackintosh with a
shiver. The two guides quietly piled the luggage in the centre of the
canoe, arranged a seat for their passenger, picked up their paddles,
shoved off, and took their places in bow and stern.

No lights gleamed in the windows of Moisie. The lap of the ripples
against the birch side of the canoe, the gurgle of the water round the
paddle blades, and the rush of the bow as, after it had paused on the
withdraw, it leaped forward on the stroke, were the only sounds that
broke the deathlike silence of the semi-arctic night. Bennie struck a
match, and it flared red against the black water as he lit his pipe, but
he felt a great stirring within his little breast, a great courage to
dare, to do, for he was off, really off, on his great hunt, his search
for the secret that would remake the world. With the current whispering
against its sides the canoe swept in a wide circle to midstream. The
moon was now partially obscured behind the treetops. To the east a faint
glow made the horizon seem blacker than ever. Ahead the wide waste of
the dark river seemed like an engulfing chasm. Drowsiness enwrapped
Professor Hooker, a drowsiness intensified by the rythmic swinging of
the paddles and the pile of bedding against which he reclined. He closed
his eyes, content to be driven onward toward the re