ature with every one
of the five well-grown lads.

These boys with their guides were a long way from home. Hundreds upon
hundreds of miles separated them from the great metropolis of New York
City, where the troop to which they belonged had its headquarters.

Those readers who have had the pleasure of meeting the five husky scouts
in the pages of previous volumes of this series will not need any
introduction to them. But for the sake of those who are not as yet
acquainted with the chums, a few words of explanation may not come in
amiss.

They all belonged to the same lively troop, but Ned Nestor and his
shadow, Jimmy McGraw, were members of the Wolf Patrol, while Jack
Bosworth, Frank Shaw and Teddy Green belonged to the patrol that proudly
pointed to the head of an American black bear as its totem.

Ned Nestor had long been secretly in the employ of the United States
Government, and had won considerable renown in carrying to a successful
conclusion several difficult cases entrusted to his charge by the
authorities in command of the Secret Service.

Jimmy, who had once been a typical Bowery newsboy, but now "reformed,"
fairly worshiped Jack, and had been his faithful henchman for a long
time past. He was witty, brave, and as as true as the needle to the
pole.

Then there was Frank Shaw, whose father owned and edited one of the
great daily papers in New York; he had long ago shown a desire to be a
correspondent, and was always on the lookout for chances to visit
far-off corners of the world which did not happen to be well known, and
about which he might write interesting accounts for the columns of his
father's paper. He was a great admirer of the celebrated Frank
Carpenter, whom he had met many times in his father's office.

Jack Bosworth's father was a wealthy corporation lawyer and a capitalist
as well, always ready to invest in promising schemes of a legitimate
character. And it was really because of this venturesome nature of Mr.
Bosworth that these five lads had undertaken this tremendous journey,
away above the outskirts of Canadian civilization, many weary leagues
beyond the northern limits of Lake Superior, and with the almost unknown
shores of the great Hudson Bay as their objective point.

The last boy was Teddy Green. He had a well-known Harvard professor as
his father, and some day no doubt the lad anticipated following in the
footsteps of his parent. Just now his greatest ambition was to be an
expl