were still drifting silently forward, with no sign of life except
in the erect forms of Moosetooth and old La Biche, who were yet standing
against their long steering oars as they had stood through the night.
Neither of them gave salutation, Moosetooth's dripping oar following in
silence now and then a like sweep of his companion's blade in the water
ahead.

Not arousing their companions, the two boys perched themselves where Paul
had sung the night before and, shivering in the new day, began to drink
in the scene before them.

What they saw at that moment was a picture repeated for nearly two weeks
to come. Although drifting at the rate of four miles an hour, much time
was lost while the boats made their way back and forth across the river,
and although it was but three hundred miles to Fort McMurray, there was
constant delay in camps ashore, and at the beginning of the Grand Rapids
a week was lost in portaging the entire cargo. Colonel Howell did not
welcome another lost outfit and he was quite satisfied when both
Moosetooth and La Biche took their empty scows safely through the
northern whirlpool.

Rising almost from the water, the hills, little less than mountains in
height, ran in terraces. Strata of varicolored rock marked the clifflike
heights and where black veins stood out with every suggestion of coal,
the young observers got their first impression of the mineral
possibilities of the unsettled and unknown land into which they were
penetrating.

The first deer which they observed standing plainly in view upon a
gravelly reef aroused them to excitement. But when Moosetooth, not
speaking, but pointing with a grunt to a dark object scrambling up the
rocky shelf on the other side of the river and the boys made out a bear,
Roy sprang for his new twenty-two.

"Nothin' doin'," called Norman in a low tone. "That's where we need the
.303 and of course that's knocked down."

"Well, what's the use anyway?" retorted Roy, resuming his seat. "I can
see there's going to be plenty of this kind of thing. And besides, you
can bet our friend here isn't going to stop for a bear, dead or alive."

From that time on, although they did not find animals so close together
again, they saw eagles, flocks of wild geese floating ahead of them on
the river, and three more deer. And continually the magnificent hills,
hanging almost over the river, gave them glimpses of vegetation and
objects new to them.

"I'm glad I came," remarked