, which we shall be most happy to
leave with you when we go out."

"I thank you very much for that," said the reverend gentleman. "All
such things are very useful to us indeed. And I shall be glad to have
them, provided that you are quite finished with their use.

"And now will you tell me of your trip?" he resumed. "It was over the
old Klondike trail of twenty years ago--a dangerous trip for you to
take with just boys like these."

"Well, you see," said Uncle Dick, with a look of pride on his face,
"these are not just ordinary boys. They are an Alaskan product,
'young Alaskans,' all three of them, and more used to out of doors
than are most young folk of their age. They are good travelers
already, better than many a man; they have made the Peace River and
the Saskatchewan, have run the Big Rapids of the Columbia, and have
killed their Kadiak bear in southwest Alaska. I knew what they were or
I never would have taken on this trip in their company. I fancy"--and
he smiled--"that they did better than many a tenderfoot who came over
the Rat Portage twenty years ago."

"No doubt, no doubt!" replied the archdeacon. "I join you in your
pride that you are all Americans, like myself. I, too, am something of
an explorer, as I may say modestly. I am just back from the climbing
of Denali, and I had a boy with me in that ascent--an Indian boy he
was!"

"Denali!" exclaimed Uncle Dick, excitedly. "You mean Mount McKinley--I
know the Indian name."

The older man nodded with gravity. "Yes," said he. "We climbed it for
the first time--the first scientific time. Of course you know about
the false claims that have been made?"

Uncle Dick rose and grasped him by the hand warmly. "Sir," said he,
"you are a great man, even had you never lived so long and useful a
life here in your work. I am glad that the Church and not the traders
put the first flag on top of the highest mountain on this continent. I
congratulate you, and I am proud that my young friends can meet you
here."

"It was not so difficult," said the reverend gentleman, modestly, once
more. "Only, be sure, it actually was done. Be sure also that it was a
boy--an Indian boy--who first set foot upon the top of Mount Denali. I
held back when we got to the very summit, thinking it appropriate that
a native of the people who owned this land before we came should be
the first to set foot upon its highest summit."

"Fine!" said Uncle Dick. "That's what I call sportsmanship, a