ment estimate is a hundred and
sixty-five feet.

"Well," said John, doing a little figuring on the margin of his map,
"we're going downhill pretty fast, it seems to me, as we go north. The
Grand Rapids drop only fifty-five feet. From Athabasca Landing to
McMurray there is a drop of eight hundred and sixty feet in the two
hundred and fifty-two miles. That's going some. And here we drop a
hundred and sixty-five feet in about sixteen miles. It's no wonder the
water gets rough sometimes."

Belcore pointed out to them, far to the left, late that evening, the
Middle Rapids, whose heavy roar they could hear coming to them across
the distance. They could not really see these rapids, as they bore off
to the right to make the second portage. The pilot found his way
without any chart through a maze of slack water and blind channels
hidden among the islands. Belcore told them that no one knew all of
the Slave River at this point, but that the Indians remembered the
way they had been following, which their fathers and their fathers'
fathers had handed down to them in the traditions of the tribes.

At this second portage, or traverse, the goods were carried across by
the wagon and team, the boats meantime making two portages in a
quarter of a mile. At the last run of the boats the men stopped calmly
no more than fifty yards above a chute which would have wrecked any
craft undertaking to make the run through.

For yet another day the block-and-tackle work on the scows, the
horse-and-wagon labor with the goods, continued. The boats were
sometimes hauled over wide ridges of rough rocks, till the wonder was
that they held together at all. There was one ancient craft, a York
boat of earlier times, which the Company was taking through, and this,
being stiffly built with a keel, was badly strained and rendered very
leaky by the time it got through the rude traverse of the rocky
portage. The men took tallow and oakum and roughly calked the seams of
this boat, so that it was possible to get it across the river to Fort
Smith eventually. A wagon-tire came off, which left the wagon
helpless. The half-breeds did not complain, but carried its load on
their own backs.

"Well," said Rob to John, as they stood apart at one time, watching
this wild labor, "Uncle Dick was right. We are in the wilderness now.
This is a land of chance--every fellow has to take his risks without
grumbling, and his work, too. I like to see these men work; they are
s