169

XIII In the Land of Caribou, Moose and Musk Ox 187

XIV In the Cabin of the Paralyzed Indian 201

XV A Letter Goes Wrong 217

XVI Roy Conducts a Hunt 232

XVII The _Gitchie Manitou_ Wins a Race 248

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The _Gitchie Manitou_ ready for its first flight in the
Far North. Frontispiece

"I've an idea and I got it the minute I saw your
aeroplane to-day." 51

"Don't shoot," he protested. "What's the use?" 181

"They must have seen us," panted Roy as he and Norman
advanced. 205

ON THE EDGE OF THE ARCTIC
OR
AN AEROPLANE IN SNOWLAND

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING AN AIRSHIP AND COUNT ZEPT

This story, which is an account of the peculiar and marvelous adventures
by which two Canadian boys--Norman Grant and Roy Moulton--achieved a
sudden fame in the Arctic wilderness of the great Northwest, had its
beginning in the thriving city of Calgary. The exact time was the big day
of the celebrated "Stampede," Calgary's famous civic celebration. It was
in July and among the many events that had drawn thousands of people to
the new Northwestern metropolis, Norman and Roy were on the program as
aviators and exhibitors of their new aeroplane.

These young men were born in Calgary and had lived eighteen years in that
city. Since this almost covered the period of Calgary's growth from a
trading post to a modern city, each young man had a knowledge of the
wilderness and its romance that other boys could get only from history.
This meant that they knew plainsmen, scouts, ranchmen, cowboys, hunters,
trappers, and even Indians as personal friends. It meant also that they
had a real knowledge of the prairies, the woods and even of the
mountains. Their knowledge of these men and the land in which they lived
was personal and did not come from the fanciful narratives of books of
adventure.

Each boy was the son of a mechanic, men who had come into the Province of
Alberta with the first railroads. And each boy was educated in all that a
grammar school affords. The picturesque romance of