in the main
current of the river scattered odds and ends of river traffic, now and
then a brigade scow, or the shapeless boat of some prospector going
north, he knew not how or where.

Continually, however, the impression of the deepening of the
wilderness fell upon our party as they pushed on steadily down-stream
between the low timbered banks of the river. John now noted on his map
that this river, the outlet of Lake Athabasca, which received the
combined floods of the Peace and the Athabasca, was known as the Slave
River, or sometimes the Little Slave River.

As had been the Athabasca all the way down, this river was very much
discolored and stained by the high waters of the spring.

"Now, young men," said Uncle Dick to his charges as they stood on the
fore deck of the steamer in the hot sun of midafternoon, "you can say
that you are getting into the real wilderness. It runs every way you
can look--west, north, south, and east. From where we are now, draw a
circle large as you like, and you will embrace in it thousands of
miles of country which no man really knows. Trust not too much even in
the Dominion maps. I'd rather trust John's map, here, because he
doesn't have to guess."

"Well," said John, looking up from his own work with his papers, "it
doesn't seem such a very wild trip now, traveling along on the
steamboat. It might as well be along the Alaska shore, or even on the
Hudson River--if the things we had to eat were better."

"Never you mind about all that," rejoined his uncle. "If you want to
see wild work with a thrill to it, you shall have all you care for
within the next few days. To-morrow we'll be at Smith's Landing, which
marks the sixteen-mile portage of the Slave River. I suppose in there
you'll see the wildest water in the world, so far as boating is
concerned. I'll warrant you you'll think you are in the wilderness
when you see the Cassette Falls and any of a hundred others between
Smith's Landing and the Mountain Portage. I've been talking with the
boat captain about those things."

Rob looked up from the book which he was reading. "It says," remarked
he, "that Sir Alexander Mackenzie knew all this country as far down as
the big portage here."

"Quite likely," replied Uncle Dick. "The truth is that all of this
early exploration which comes down to us in history was perhaps not
so difficult as it sounds. There is continual trading back and
forward among the Indian tribes, even when they a