river, too, which was his first great exploration place.

“Now,” he continued, “we’ll be going down-stream, as I said, almost two thousand miles to the mouth of that river. Uncle Dick says we’ll be comfortable as princes all the way. We’ll have big scows to travel in, with everything fixed up fine.”

“Here,” said Jesse, putting his finger on the map hesitatingly, “is the place where it says ‘rapids.’ Must be over a hundred miles of it on this river, or even more.”

“That’s right, Jess,” commented John. “We can’t dodge those rapids yet. Uncle Dick says that the new railroad in the North may go to Fort McMurray at the foot of this great system of the Athabasca rapids. That would cut out a lot of hard work. If there were a railroad up there, a fellow could go to the Arctics almost as easy as going to New York.”

“I’d rather go to the Midnight Sun now,” said Rob. “There’s some trouble about it now, and there’s some wilderness now between here and there. It’s no fun to do a thing when it’s too easy. I wouldn’t give a cent to go to Fort McPherson, the last post north, by any railroad.”

John was still poring over the map, which lay upon the rude boards of the platform, and he shook his head now somewhat dubiously. “Look where we’ll have to go,” he said, “and all in three months. We have to get back for school next fall.”

“Never doubt we can do it,” said Rob, stoutly. “If we couldn’t, Uncle Dick would never try it. He’s got it all figured out, you may be sure of that, and he’s made all his arrangements with the Hudson’s Bay Company. You forget they’ve been going up into this country for a hundred years, and they know how long it takes and how hard it is. They know all about how to outfit for it, too.”

“The hardest place we’ll have,” said John, following his map with his finger now almost to the upper edge, “is right here where we leave the Mackenzie and start over toward the Yukon, just south of the Arctic Ocean. That’s a whizzer, all right! No railroad up in there, and I guess there never will be. That’s where so many of the Klondikers were lost, my father told me—twenty years ago that was.”

“They took a year for it,” commented Rob, “and sometimes eighteen months, to get across the mountains there. They built houses and passed the winter, and so a great many of them got sick and died. But twenty years ago is a long time nowadays. We can do easily what they could hardly do at all. Uncle Dick has allowed us about three weeks to cover that five hundred miles over the Rat Portage!”

“Well, surely if Sir Alexander Mackenzie could make that trip in birch-bark canoes, over three thousand miles, with just a few men who didn’t know where they were going, we ought to be able to get through now. That was a hundred and twenty-eight years ago, I figure it, and a lot of things have happened since then.” John spoke now with considerable confidence.

“Well, Uncle Dick will take care of us,” said Jesse, the youngest of these adventurers.

“Yes, and we’ll take care of ourselves all we can,” added Rob. “Uncle Dick tells me that the trouble with the Klondikers was that they didn’t know how to take care of themselves out of doors. A lot of them were city people fresh to all kinds of wilderness work, and they simply died because they didn’t know how to do things. They were tenderfeet when they started. A good many of them died before they got through. Some of those who did get through are the prominent men of Alaska to-day. But we’re not tenderfeet. Are we, boys?”

“No, indeed,” said Jesse, stoutly. “As I said, I’m ready to start.” And he again puffed out his chest with much show of bravery, although, to be sure, the wild country in which he now found himself rather worked on his imagination.

It had required all the persuasion of Uncle Dick, expert railway engineer in wilderness countries, to persuade the parents of these three boys to allow them to accompany him on this, his own first exploration into the extreme North, under the Midnight Sun itself. He had promised them—and something of a promise it was, too—to bring the young travelers back safely to their home in Valdez, on the Pacific Ocean, in three months from the time they left the head of the railroad at Athabasca Landing.

“Well, now,” said John, folding up his map and putting it back in his pocket, “here comes Uncle Dick at last. I only hope that we won’t have to wait long, for it seems to me we’ll have to hustle if we get through on time—over five thousand miles it will be, and in less than ninety days! I’ll bet Sir Alexander Mackenzie himself couldn’t have beat that a hundred years ago.”

II

THE SCOWS

“

Well, well, young gentlemen,” called out the tall and bronze-faced man who now strode toward them across the railway platform, “did you think I was never coming? I see that you are holding down your luggage.”

“Not a hard thing to do, was it, Uncle Dick?” said Jesse. “We haven’t got very much along.”

“That all depends. Let me tell you, my young friends, on this trip every fellow has to look out for himself the best he can. It’s the hardest travel you’ve ever had. You must keep your eye on your own stuff all along.”

“What do you mean—that we must be careful or some one will steal our things?” demanded Jesse.

“No, there isn’t so very much danger of theft—that is, from the breeds or others along the way; they’ll steal whisky, but nothing else, usually. But it’s a rough country, and there are many portages, much changing of cargoes. Each chap must keep his eye on his own kit all the time, and look out for himself the best way he can. That’s the lesson of this great North. It’s the roughest country in the world. As you know, there is an old saying among the fur-traders that no man has ever whipped the North.

“I was thinking more especially about the dogs,” he added, nodding toward the luggage on which the boys were sitting.

“And what do you mean about the dogs, Uncle Dick?” asked Jesse.

“Well, those are the beggars that will steal you blind. They’ll eat anything they can swallow and some things they can’t. I’ve had them eat the heels off a pair of boots, and moccasins are like pie for them. They would eat your hat if you left it lying—eat the pack-straps off your bag. So don’t leave anything lying around, and remember that goes now, and all the way through the trip.”

“Are there dogs all the way through?” asked John, curiously.

“Yes, we’re in the dog country, and will be for five thousand miles down one river and across and up the other. You’ll not see a cow or a sheep, and only two horses, in the next three months. North of Smith’s Landing, which is at the head of the Mackenzie River proper, there never has been a horse, and I think there never will be one. The dogs do all the hauling and all the packing—and they are always hungry. That’s what the fellows tell me who have been up there—the whole country starves almost the year round, and the dogs worst of all. I’m just telling you these things to be useful to you, because we’ve got nothing along which we can afford to spare.”

“When are we going to start, Uncle Dick?” demanded Jesse, once more, somewhat mindful of the recent laughter of his companions at his