e sun was
beginning to cast a softening light. The boys turned away to trudge on
along the trail with a feeling almost of sadness at leaving a place so
beautiful.

"It is as Moise says, though!" broke out Rob, answering what seemed to
be the unspoken question in the minds of his fellows--"we'll have to
come back again some time. It's a man's country."

Hardened by their long experience in the open, the boys were able to
give even Uncle Dick, seasoned as he was, something of an argument at
footwork on the trail, and they used wagons by no means all the time
in the hundred miles which lie between Peace River Landing and Little
Slave Lake--a journey which required them to camp out for two nights
in the open. By this time the nights were cold, and on the height of
land between these two waterways the water froze almost an inch in the
water-pails at night, although the sun in the daytime was as warm as
ever. To their great comfort, the mosquito nuisance was now quite
absent; so, happy and a little hungry, at length they rode into the
scattered settlement of Grouard, or Little Slave Lake, passing on the
way to the lower town one more of the old-time posts of the Hudson Bay
Company.

"You see here," said Uncle Dick, as they paused at the edge of the
water which lay at the end street, "only an arm of the lake proper.
The steamer can't get through this little channel, but ties up about
eight miles from here. I suppose we ought to go aboard to-night."

"If you will allow me, sir," said Alex, stepping forward at this time,
"I might give the boys a little duck-shoot this evening on their way
down to the boat."

"Why not?" said Uncle Dick, enthusiastically. "I don't know but I'd
like a mallard or so for myself, although I can't join you to-night,
as I'm too busy. Can you get guns and ammunition, Alex?"

"Oh yes," replied the old hunter, "easily. And I'll show the young
gentlemen more ducks to-night than they ever saw in all their lives
before. The _Jaybird_ will carry all of us, if we're careful, and I'll
just paddle them down along the edge of the marsh. After we've made
our shoot, we'll come on down to the boat after dark, or thereabout."

"Fine!" said Uncle Dick. "That'll give me time to get my business
completed here, and I'll go down to the boat by wagon along shore."

This arrangement pleased the boys very much, for they knew in a
general way that the lake on whose shores they now were arrived was
one of the greatest