is bound to lose a boat now and then on the rocks. Both
Moosetooth and La Biche cautioned me against running the Rapids loaded,
but as it would take a week to portage around the Rapids, I took a
chance. Moosetooth got through all right, but La Biche--and I reckon he's
the better man of the two--at least I had him on the more valuable
boat--managed to find a rock and we were in luck to reach the bank alive.

"All my iron tubing and drilling machinery disappeared in the Rapids.
There was no way to recover it and we went to Fort McMurray in the other
boat. It carried my lumber and most of the provisions, but I couldn't
work without tools. There was nothing to do but make the best of it and I
left my three men to build a cabin and spend the winter in the wilderness
while I went back on foot again to the Landing to buy a new outfit."

"Gee, that was tough," commented Norman.

"You boys have lived in the Northwest long enough to have learned the
great lesson of this country," explained Colonel Howell. "This is a
region where you can't have a program and where, if you can't do a thing
to-day, you can do it some other time. And, after all, it isn't a bad
philosophy, just so long as you keep at it and do it sometime. They seem
to do things slowly sometimes up in this wilderness land, but they always
seem to do them in the end. I guess it's the Indian way. I notice they
always drive ahead until they get there, although there may be a good
many stops on the way."

"Then what?" persisted Roy.

"I had to come back to the States--that was the end of last season,"
continued the man, "and now I'm on my way again to reach the Athabasca.
My outfit is in Edmonton, I hope. But this year I'll have a little less
trouble. There's a railroad now between Edmonton and Athabasca Landing
and I expect to get my equipment and my stores to the river in freight
cars. I've been detained by other business and should have been in Fort
McMurray by this time, as the ice goes out of the river late in May. And
I have my boats this year that I bought before I left the Landing.

"But when I tried to arrange for my old steersmen to pilot me down the
river again, I found that energetic Calgary had beaten me to it.
Moosetooth and La Biche are not the best boatmen on the Athabasca, but
they are the ones I want. And I'm here, waiting for the show to close.
They will go with me, and I suppose their families as well," added
Colonel Howell with a grimace, "direc