hich presently resulted in the three
visitors tightening up their belts, taking their solitary rifle, and
passing out of sight in the bush at the top of the bank.

"Where are they going?" asked John, curiously, of Moise.

"She'll say she'll go after bear meat," said Moise. "Not got much
meat, for she'll ain't seen much moose yet."

"Well, they're welcome to that grizzly meat," grinned Alex. "I didn't
think they'd eat it. They must be starving. Make them up a little
package of tinned stuff, Moise, and put it in their boat. I think
we'll need about all the bacon we've got, and they can use the fat of
the bear better than we can. Give them some tea, and a little flour
too. What do they say about the river below here at the big canyon?"

"Says bad water," said Moise. "She'll rose perhaps four, three, two
inches to-day, maybe so, here, and that's all same so many foots in
the canyon. She'll say best way to do is to take portage trail and
leave those boat on west end of those canyon."

"Yes, but we want to get our boats through," said Alex, "although it
must be a dozen miles anyhow by way of the carrying trail, and not too
good at that."

"He'll say," resumed Moise, "s'pose we take those boat through to the
big mountain--through big water, ver' wide, with many islands--we'll
come on a place where boats can go up the bank, if plenty men carry
them up. Then she'll been ten mile, eight mile, to some place below
the mountain. All the tam she'll say best way is to go by horse, on
the north side of the river, on the police trail from Fort St. John,
s'pose we'll could find that trail, an' s'pose we'll had some horse."

"What do you say, Mr. Rob?" asked Alex. "We ought to get our boats
down. Shall we haul out at the west end, or try for Hudson's Hope?"

"I'd be in favor of getting down as far as we can," said Rob. "We can
reach the head of the mountain in a couple of days. I'm for moving on
down and taking a chance on the rest of it! Of course we'll have to
portage the canyon somehow."

"That suits me," said John. And even Jesse, the youngest of the three,
was all for continuing the journey as originally planned.

"All right," said Alex, "I'm with you. We're learning the game now,
certainly, and I don't think we'll find this part of the river any
worse than it has been up above. There isn't anything bad marked on
the map, anyhow, for quite a way."

At about this time, as they were all busied about the camping place,
the