y well--they're just as kind, and my!
how strong!"

Presently they all met again at the eastern edge of the dim trail. "I
stepped it myself," said John, proudly. "Both Sir Alexander and old
Simon Fraser were wrong--she's just six hundred and ninety-three
paces!"

"Maybe they had longer legs than you," smiled Alex. "At any rate,
there's no doubt about the trail itself. We're precisely where they
were."

"What made them call that river the Parsnip River?" demanded Jesse of
Alex, to whom he went for all sorts of information.

"I'll show you," said Alex, quietly, reaching down and breaking off
the top of a green herb which grew near by. "It was because of the
wild parsnips--this is one. You'll find where Sir Alexander mentions
seeing a great many of these plants. They used the tops in their
pemmican. You see, the north men have to eat so much meat that they're
glad to get anything green to go with it once in a while."

"What's pemmican?" asked Jesse, curiously.

"We used to make it out of buffalo meat, or moose or caribou," said
Alex. "The buffalo are all gone now, and, in fact, we don't get much
pemmican any more. It's made by drying meat and pounding it up fine
with a stone, then putting it in a hide sack and pouring grease in on
top of it. That used to be the trail food of the _voyageurs_, because
a little of it would go a good way. Do you think you could make any of
it for the boys, Moise?"

"I don' know," grinned Moise. "Those squaw, she'll make pemmican--not
the honter. Besides, we'll not got meat. Maybe so if we'll get moose
deer we could make some, if we stop long tam in camp. But always squaw
make pemmican--not man."

"Well, we'll have to give some kind of imitation of the old ways once
in a while," commented Alex, "for though they are changed and gone,
our young friends here want to know how the fur-traders used to
travel."

"One thing," said John, feeling at his ankle. "I'll be awfully glad
when we get out of the devil's club country."

"Do you have those up in Alaska?" asked Alex.

"Have them?--I should say we have! They're the meanest thing you can
run across out of doors. If you step on one of those long, snaky
branches, it'll turn around and hit you, no matter where you are, and
whenever it hits those little thorns stick in and stay."

"I know," nodded Alex. "I struck plenty of them on the trail up north
from the railroad. They went right through my moccasins. We'll not be
troubled by these,