aching him, "we start
to-day, eh?"

"Mebbe so, _oui_," replied the old man. "We load h'all the boats
bimeby now. Yes, pretty soon bimeby we start, mebbe so, _oui_."

"Well," said Uncle Dick, smiling, as he turned to the boys, "that's
about as definite as you can get anything. We'll start when we start!
Just get your stuff ready to be embarked and tell the manager where it
is. It will be on board all right."

"But what makes them start so late in the day?" demanded John, who was
of an investigative turn of mind. "I should think the morning was the
right time to start."

"Not so the great fur brigade," was his answer. "Nor was it the custom
in the great fur brigades which went out with pack-trains from the
Missouri in our own old days when there were buffalo and beaver. A
short start was made on the first day, usually toward evening. Then
when camp was made everything was overhauled, and if anything had been
left behind it was not too far to send back to get it. Nearly always
it was found that something had been overlooked.

"Now that's the way we'll do here, so they tell me. We'll run down the
river a few miles, each boat as it is loaded, and then we'll make a
landing. That will give each boat captain time to look over his stuff
and his men--and, what is more, it will give each man time to run in
across country and get a few last drinks. Some of them will come back
to be confessed by their priest. Some will want to send supplies to
their families who are left behind. On one excuse or another every man
of the brigade will be back here in town to-night if we should start!
Of course by to-morrow morning they'll be on hand again bright and
early and ready for the voyage. You see, there are customs up here
with which we have not been acquainted before."

It came out precisely as Uncle Dick had said. Very late in the
afternoon--late by the clock, though not so late by the sun, which at
this latitude sank very late in the west--there came a great shouting
and outcry, followed by firing of guns, much as though a battle were
in progress. Men, hurrying and crying excitedly as they ran, went
aboard the boats. One after another the mooring-ropes were cast off.
The poles and oars did their work, and slowly, piecemeal, but in a
vast aggregate, the great Mackenzie brigade was on its way!

The first boat of the fleet, as had been predicted, ran no more than
three or four miles before it pulled ashore at a landing-place which
se