rable ever since."

"D-d-do you s'pose they have dog days up here so near the pole?" asked
Pepper.

"Begorra, it looks to me as if all days might be dog days around here,"
suggested Gerald, who was surrounded at that moment by at least a dozen of
the hundred animals in the village.

"You would be surprised to know," said Colonel Snow, "that the dog is
really the most important animal, except perhaps the reindeer in our
Northern possessions. Little of this country would have been explored or
settled except for his good services. There was a time when as much as two
thousand dollars has been paid for a good dog up here."

The Indians were persistent peddlers, offering the handsome baskets, hats
and blankets which they are peculiarly skilful in making, and the boys
would have loaded themselves down with souvenirs had not Colonel Snow
suggested that they would have plenty of time to supply themselves before
they left for the south again.

Two days later, Swiftwater Jim, having returned from White Horse, and the
freight having been taken from the steamer's hold, it was placed on cars
of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad; the "piano case" as it had come to
be called having been put in storage until their return, and early in the
morning of a June day the boys bade farewell to Colonel Snow and boarded
the train for White Horse.

The journey required nearly six hours, but the first half was a stiff
climb to the top of the pass and through such magnificent scenery of
mountain and gorge that the boys scarcely noticed the passage of time,
beguiled, as it was, with thrilling tales by Swiftwater Jim, with the
story of the fight of the Argonauts against the winter horrors of this
same trail in the early days of the great gold rush.

They arrived at White Horse about four o'clock in the afternoon, and were
met by six halfbreed Indians headed by a well-known guide of that region
known as Skookum Joe, who spoke good English and greeted Swiftwater as an
old friend. He had been charged with securing the crews for the two boats
that Swiftwater Jim was to use in the trip, and he introduced the men whom
Jim greeted in the "pigeon" Siwash of that section, used as a means of
communication with the natives who do not speak English.

"I send up river for um," said Skookum Joe, "Dey know dat country. Good
work when no rum; rum, no work," referring to the prevalence of the liquor
habit among the Indians since they have come into contact wi