mariners of ancient Greece—the rock and the whirlpool known as Scylla and Charybdis—if they missed being impaled upon the one they were apt to be engulfed in the other—and yet here in the rapids of this furious Saskatchewan feeder he was brought face to face with a proposition exactly similar to that of mythology.

He strove valiantly to meet the occasion, and his sturdy sweep of the paddle did send him away from the ugly pointed rock; but the last whirlpool was so close that he was not enabled to fully recover in time to throw his whole power into the second stroke; consequently his canoe was caught in the outer edge of the swirl, and before one could even wink twice it capsized.

This was not the first time Owen had met with such a disaster while shooting rapids and he had his wits about him for all of the confusion that surrounded him there.

His very first act was to clutch hold of the canoe, and throw all his energies into the task of avoiding the deadly suction of the whirlpool, for once he fell into its grip there must be only a question of seconds ere he reached its vortex and went under.

Fortune, aided by his own violent efforts, favored him, and as a result he managed to swim down the balance of the rapid, and reach the smoother waters below, still hanging on with a desperate clutch to his poor old boat, while his other hand gripped the paddle.

The canoe was full of water, but it did not sink, being buoyant enough to keep on the surface; but Owen found it as much as he could do to push the unwieldly thing along when he began to make for the nearest shore.

Exciting as this adventure had been, it was only an episode in a life such as he had spent up in this vast region, where the first lesson a boy learns is to take care of himself, and meet peril in any guise.

There was not the least doubt with regard to his ability to gain the nearby shore with his wrecked canoe, even if left to himself.

Nevertheless, when his ears caught the sound of encouraging shouts, and he realized that his perilous descent of the rapids had been witnessed by sympathetic eyes, it gave Mm a thrill to know that friends were near by, and waiting to assist him, if such were necessary.

But young Dugdale was an independent lad, accustomed to relying altogether upon his own endeavors, as one must always do whose life is spent in the heart of the Great Lone Land of the Far Northwest.

Hence, he kept on swimming with his boat until he could wade, and in this way came out of the river dripping, temporarily held in check by his misfortune, but not in the least dismayed.

Two figures hurried to meet him, though they arrived too late to give him a helping hand in effecting a landing.

Owen looked at them in amazement—he had at the most anticipated that those whose encouraging shouts had reached his ears while in the water must be some timber-cruisers who chanced to be camping at the foot of the rapids for the fishing to be found there; or it might be several of the halfbreed voyageurs employed by the Hudson Bay Company to carry furs from far distant posts to some station on the railroad; but he found himself gazing upon neither.

Two boys confronted him, neither of them much older than himself, and utter strangers at that.

Owen had never had a chum; and indeed, his life had been a lonely one, burdened by responsibilities that had made him much older than his years—his scanty associations had been with hardy lumbermen or voyageurs, so that the presence of this twain struck him as the most mysterious and remarkable thing in all his experience.

And they seemed so solicitous concerning his welfare, insisting upon taking hold of the boat and pulling the same clear of the water, that he almost began to fancy he must be dreaming.

"Now," exclaimed the taller of the two, when this job had been finished, "come right up to our tent, where we have a bully fire that will dry you off in a jiffy. And our coffee is just ready, too—I rather guess that'll warm you up some. Eli, it's lucky you made an extra supply, after all. Looks as if you expected we'd have company drop in on us. I'll carry the paddle—good you hung on to it, for it's a tough job to whittle one out, I know. Here we are, old chap, and believe me, you're a thousand times welcome!"

Young Owen Dugdale's heart thrilled within him.

In all his life he could not exactly remember a single time when he had been thus warmly welcomed to any camp. Why, it was almost worth shooting the rapids and meeting with disaster to hear such words, and feel that every one was meant.

Who were these lads, and why were they here in this faraway land?

His astonished eyes fell upon the craft that had evidently carried them up the river from some hamlet, scores, perhaps hundreds, of miles away.

Such a dandy canoe Owen Dugdale had never dreamed existed in the whole wide world, for it was of varnished cedar, and with its nickeled trimmings, glistened there under the hemlocks in the flash of the lightning, and the glow of the protected campfire.

He seemed to feel somehow that this apparent calamity upon the river had been the "open sesame" for him to enter upon a new and perhaps delightful experience; rather a rough introduction perhaps, but then he knew only such in the range of his past.

And the delicious odor of that supper was enough to arouse the dormant appetite of one who had foresworn all cookery, one of these modern cranks determined to exist upon nuts and fruit, which our young friend of the bullboat certainly was not.

Both lads bustled about trying to make him comfortable near the cheery blaze, and then filling a pannikin with the canoeist's stew of corn beef, succotash and left-over potatoes, they invited him to set-to, nor wait for them a second.

Owen could not have restrained himself, once his nostrils became saturated with those delicious odors, and he started to eat like a starving chap; as indeed, he came very near being, seeing that he had not partaken of a mouthful of food for almost twenty-four hours, and then but scantily.

Then came a cup of such coffee as he had never before tasted, with condensed milk to mellow the same, and close at his hand was placed a package of crackers into which he was expected to dip as the humor seized him.

Boys never like to talk while hungry, and no matter how strong the curiosity on both sides might be, nothing was said beyond the usual courtesies necessary in passing things, until one and all declared themselves satisfied.

But, although their tongues were silent during this half-hour, their eyes did double duty, and Owen found a thousand things at which to wonder.

The canoe had been enough to excite his curiosity, but everything he saw about the camp was in keeping with such luxury.

The dun-colored tent was a beauty, and doubtless positively waterproof, for the rain that had been beating down ever since they commenced eating had found no inlet; and the fly over the fire sufficed to keep it from being extinguished.

He saw several warbags of the same kind of canvas, evidently used for the storage of clothes and provisions; and in addition there were a couple of guns, rubber ponchos, gray blankets that peeped out of two expensive sleeping bags, and a couple of black japanned boxes the contents of which he could not picture, unless they might be something in the way of surveyors' instruments; for Owen had once seen a party