nd clean children, each one of whom, as John soon found to his
satisfaction, appreciated the Imperial Toffy which made a part of the
stock of the Hudson Bay Company at that post also.

[Illustration: THE PORTAGE, VERMILION CHUTES, PEACE RIVER]

All of these new friends of theirs asked them eagerly about their
journey across the Rockies, which was a strange region to every one of
them, although they had passed their lives in the service of the fur
trade in the north. As usual, in short, they made themselves much at
home, and asked a thousand questions difficult enough to answer. Here,
as they had done at Peace River Landing, they laid in a stock of gaudy
moccasins and gloves and rifle covers, all beautifully embroidered by
native women in beads or stained porcupine quills, some of which work
had come from the half-arctic tribes hundreds of miles north of
Vermilion. They saw also some of the furs which had been sent down in
the season's take, and heard stories in abundance of the ways of that
wild country in the winter season. Even they undertook to make friends
with some of the half-savage sledge-dogs which were kept chained in
the yard back of the Post. After this they made a journey out to the
farm which the Dominion government maintains in that far-off region,
and there saw, as they had been promised by Captain Saunders, wheat
and rye taller than any one of them as they stood in the grain, and
also vegetables of every sort, all growing or in full maturity.

"Well, we'll have stories to tell when we get back," said Rob, "and I
don't believe they'll believe half of them, either, about the wildness
of this country and the tameness of it. Anyhow, I'm glad we've come."

The next day they put in, as Uncle Dick suggested, in a steamer trip
down to the Vermilion Chutes. They did not get closer than three or
four miles, but tied up while the party went down on foot to see the
big cataract of the Peace--some fifteen feet of sheer, boiling white
water, falling from a rim of rock extending almost half a mile
straightaway across the river.

"I expect that's just a little worse than the 'Polly' Rapids," said
John. "I don't think even Moise could run that place."

Even as they stood on the high rim of the rock at the edge of the
falls they saw coming up from below the figure of a half-breed, who
was dragging at the end of a very long line a canoe which was guided
by his companion far below on the swift water. Had the light line