o the head of the steamboat transport? I'd like to see that
trail!"

"I suppose we could get on the steamboat some time before long if we
wanted to," said John.

"No," said Alex, "hardly again this summer, for she's made her last
trip with supplies up to Fort St. John by now."

"We don't want any steamboat, nor anything else," said Rob, "except to
go on down on our own hook, the way we started. Let's be as wild as we
can!"

"We're apt to see more game from here down than we have any place on
the trip," said Alex. "You know, I told you this was the Land of
Plenty."

"Bimeby plenty bear," said Moise. "This boy Billy, he'll tol' me ol'
Picheu he'll keel two bear this last week, an' he'll say plenty bear
now all on river, on the willows."

"Well, at any rate," said Alex, "old Picheu himself is coming."

"How do you know?" asked Jesse.

"I hear the setting-pole."

Presently, as Alex had said, the dugout showed its nose around the
bend. At-tick and Billy, Jesse's two friends, were on the tracking
line, and in the stern of the dugout, doing most of the labor of
getting up-stream, was an old, wrinkle-faced, gray-haired and
gray-bearded man, old Picheu himself, in his time one of the most
famous among the hunters of the Crees, as the boys later learned. He
spoke no English, but stood like some old Japanese war-god on the
bank, looking intently from one to the other as they now finished
their preparations for re-embarking. He seemed glad to take the money
which Rob paid him for the dugout and shook hands pleasantly all
around, to show his satisfaction.

The boys saw that what Moise had said about the dugout was quite
true. It was a long craft, hewed out of a single log, which looked at
first crankier than it really was. It had great carrying capacity, and
the boys put a good part of the load in it, which seemed only to
steady it the more. It was determined that Rob and Moise should go
ahead in this boat, as they previously had done in the _Mary Ann_, the
others to follow with the _Jaybird_.

Soon all the camp equipment was stowed aboard, and the men stood at
the edge of the water ready to start. Their old friends made no
comment and expressed little concern one way or the other, but as Rob
turned when he was on the point of stepping into the leading boat he
saw Billy standing at the edge of the water. He spoke some brief word
to Alex.

"He wants to say to Mr. Jess," interpreted Alex, "that he would like
to make