upper branches murmur and whisper among themselves. Such scenes cause
a feeling of depression even among grown persons who first meet them;
and to-night, in this remote spot, one could not well have blamed the
three young occupants of this camp had they felt a trifle uneasy as
the twilight drew on toward darkness.

They were, it is true, not wholly new to camp life, these three
boys--Rob McIntyre, John Hardy, and Jesse Wilcox. You may perhaps call
to mind the names of these, since they are the same who, more than a
year before, were cast away for some time on the slopes of Kadiak
Island, in the far upper portion of Alaska; from which place they were
at last rescued in part by their own wits and in part by the
watchfulness of their guardian, Mr. Hardy. The latter, whom all three
boys called Uncle Dick, was a civil engineer who, as did the parents
of all the boys, lived in the coast town of Valdez, in far-off Alaska.

When Rob, John, and Jesse returned home from their dangerous
adventures on Kadiak Island, they had been told that many a day would
elapse before they would be allowed to take such chances again.
Perhaps Uncle Dick never really told the parents of the boys the full
truth about the dangers his young charges had encountered on Kadiak
Island. Had he done so they would never have been willing for the boys
to take another trip even more dangerous in many ways--the one on
which they were now starting.

But Uncle Dick Hardy, living out of doors almost all the time on
account of his profession as an engineer, was so much accustomed to
dangers and adventures that he seemed to think that any one could get
out of a scrape who could get into one. So it was not long after the
return from Kadiak before he forgot all about the risks the boys had
run there. The very next year he was the first one to plead with their
parents, and to tell them that in his belief the best way in the world
for the boys to pass their next summer's vacation would be for them to
cross the Rocky Mountains from the Pacific side and take the old water
trail of the fur-traders, north and east, and down the Peace River
from its source.

It chanced that Uncle Dick, who, like all engineers, was sometimes
obliged to go to remote parts of the country, had taken charge of an
engineering party then locating the new railroad bound westward from
Edmonton, in far-off Northwest Canada. While he himself could not
leave his employment to go with the boys acro