the aeroplane, and an hour later cast off lines for Dawson. Here
another exhibition was made, and under Swiftwater's guidance a visit paid
to the mining camps.

CHAPTER XIII.

DOWN THE RIVER TO NOME.

Two days later, Colonel Snow and the boys, accompanied by Swiftwater,
having taken leave of their new made friends at Dawson, embarked on a
small launch (a new importation from the States) and started on a leisure
trip down the Yukon, intending to use this means of river travel as far as
the military post at Fort Gibbon, at the mouth of the Tanana, up which
river Swiftwater was to proceed to the Fairbanks mining district, the
latest discovered and most important in Alaska.

Colonel Snow's plan was to drop down the river in the swift motor boat,
stopping at several army posts where he had friends, some of whom had come
up from Seattle with the party and had extended the hospitalities of the
various posts to them. They had left the crated aeroplane at Dawson with
other heavy baggage to come down on the large river steamer Amelia, which
was not due on its first trip up from St. Michael's for nearly a week, and
which would overtake them on its return trip down the river at Fort
Gibbon, another United States Army post.

The first stop of the party was to be at Eagle, a small, but prosperous
town, on the boundary line between Alaska and Yukon territory, containing
the most northerly custom house of the United States. Here they were to
"declare" the aeroplane and the property they were to bring back into the
United States and satisfy the customs authorities that it was all of
American manufacture, after which it would be examined and passed when the
"Amelia" came along. Adjoining the town of Eagle is the army post of Fort
Egbert, garrisoned by two companies of infantry, and here Colonel Snow
proposed to spend the night with his brother officers as their first
stopping place.

The distance from Dawson to Eagle is about 150 miles, but the high powered
launch they had secured with a crew of two, running down stream made
easily thirty miles an hour, and they expected to reach their destination
early in the afternoon.

"Colonel, if ye don't mind," said Swiftwater, "I'd like to stop off an
hour or so up at Forty-mile, jest above here."

"Certainly," replied the Colonel, "we're making first-class progress and
shall have plenty of time to reach Eagle before night. There's a wireless
station and a line of military telegr