r board
houses of the men who had moved here following the rush of the last
emigration to the North. There were a few tents and lodges of
half-breeds also scattered about.

"Well, Uncle Dick said we would be starting right away," argued Jesse,
a trifle crestfallen.

"Yes," said Rob, "but he told me we would be lucky if 'right away'
meant inside of a week. He said the breeds always powwow around and
drink for a few days before they start north with the brigade for a
long trip. That's a custom they have. They say the Hudson's Bay
Company has more customs than customers these days. Times are changing
for the fur trade even here.

"Where's your map, John?" he added; and John spread out on the
platform where they stood his own rude tracing of the upper country
which he had made by reference to the best government maps obtainable.
Their uncle Dick, engineer of this new railroad and other frontier
development enterprises, of course had a full supply of these maps,
but it pleased the boys better to think that they made their own
maps--as indeed they always had in such earlier trips as those across
the Rockies, down the Peace River, in the Kadiak Island country, or
along the headwaters of the Columbia, where, as has been told, they
had followed the trails of the wilderness in their adventures before
this time.

They all now bent over the great sheet of paper, some of which was
blank and marked "Unknown."

"Here we are, right here," said John, putting his finger on the map.
"Only, when this map was made there wasn't any railroad. They used to
come up from Edmonton a hundred miles across the prairies and muskeg
by wagon. A rotten bad journey, Uncle Dick said."

"Well, it couldn't have been much worse than the new railroad,"
grumbled Jesse. "It was awfully rough, and there wasn't any place to
eat."

"Oh, don't condemn the new railroad too much," said Rob. "You may be
glad to see it before you get back from this trip. It's going to be
the hardest one we ever had. Uncle Dick says this is the last great
wilderness of the world, and one less known than any other part of the
earth's surface. Look here! It's two thousand miles from here to the
top of the map, northwest, where the Mackenzie comes in. We've got to
get there if all goes well with us."

John was still tracing localities on the map with his forefinger.
"Right here is where we are now. If we went the other way, up the
Athabasca instead of down, then we would come o