But there remained an immense amount of shopping to do, and all the things had to be purchased at half a dozen different places. Together they went the rounds of the shops with a list from which they checked off article after article,—ammunition, sleeping-bags, moccasins, food, camp outfit,—and they ordered them all sent to Macgregor's rooms by special delivery.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the boys went back, and found the room littered with innumerable parcels of every shape and size. Only the toboggan had not arrived, though it had been promised for the middle of the afternoon.

"Gracious! It looks like a lot!" exclaimed Maurice, gazing about at the packages.

"It won't look like so much when they're stowed away," replied Peter. "Let's get them unwrapped, and, Fred, you'd better go down and hurry up that toboggan. Stand over them till it's done, for we must have it before six o'clock."

Fred hurried downtown again. The toboggan was not finished, but the work was under way. By dint of furious entreaties and representations of the emergency Fred induced them to hurry it up. It was not a long job, and by a quarter after five Fred was back at Mac's room, accompanied by a messenger with the remodeled toboggan.

The toboggan was of the usual pattern and shape, but the cushions had been removed, and a thirty-foot moose-hide thong attached for hauling. It was fitted with four short steel runners, only four inches high, which could be removed in a few minutes by unscrewing the nuts, so that it could be used as a sledge on ice or as a toboggan on deep snow.

During Fred's absence the other boys had been busy. All the kit was out of the wrappers, and the room was a wilderness of brown paper. Everything had been packed into four canvas dunnage sacks, and now these were firmly strapped on the toboggan. The rifles and the snowshoes were similarly attached, so that the whole outfit was in one secure package. They hauled this down to the railway station themselves to make sure that there would be no delay, and dispatched it by express to Waverley, where they intended to leave the train. It was then a few minutes after six.

THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY

"Well, we're as good as off now," remarked Maurice, with a long breath. "Our train goes at eight. We've got two hours, and now I guess I'll go home and have supper with my folks and say good-bye. We'll all meet at the depot."

Neither Fred nor Macgregor had any relatives in the city and no necessary farewells to make. They had supper together at a downtown restaurant, and afterwards met Maurice at the Union Depot, where they took the north-bound express.

Next morning they awoke from uneasy slumbers to find the train rushing through a desolate landscape of snowy spruces. Through the frosted double glass of the windows the morning looked clear and cold, but they were relieved to see that there was only a little snow on the ground, and glimpses of rivers and lakes showed clear, shining ice. Evidently the road was still open.

It was half-past ten that forenoon when they reached Waverley, and they found that it was indeed cold. The thermometer stood at five above zero; the snow was dry as powder underfoot, and the little backwoods village looked frozen up. But it was sunny, and the biting air was full of the freshness of the woods, and the spirits of all the boys rose jubilantly.

The laden toboggan had come up on the same train with them, and they saw it taken out of the express car. Leaving it at the station, they went to the village hotel, where they ate an early dinner, and changed from their civilized clothes to the caps, sweaters, and Hudson Bay "duffel" trousers that they had brought in their suit-cases.

They had been the only passengers to leave the train, and their arrival produced quite a stir in Waverley. It was not the season for camping parties, nor for hunting, and no one went into the woods for pleasure in the winter. The toboggan with its steel runners drew a curious group at the station.

"Goin' in after moose?" inquired an old woodsman while they were at dinner.

"No," replied Peter.

"Goin' up to the pulpwood camps, mebbe?"

"No."

"What might ye be goin' into the woods fer?" he persisted, after some moments.

"We might be going in after gold," answered Maurice gravely.

He did not mean it to be taken seriously, but he forgot that gold is mined in several parts of northern Ontario. Before many hours the word spread that a big winter gold strike had been made up north, and a party from the city was already going to the spot, so that for several weeks the village was in a state of excitement.

The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to be annoying.

"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.

"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed. "We ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good many miles in the rest of this day."

So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went down to the river. The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free from snow except for a little drift here and there.

Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them. Paying no attention, the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with skates attached. They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan after them.

The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a yell as they struck out. The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight. In a moment the snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side. The great adventure had begun.

CHAPTER II

"Don't force the pace at first, boys," Fred warned his companions. "Remember, we've a long way to go."

As the expert skater, he had taken the leading end of the drag-rope. His advice was hard to follow. The ice was in perfect condition; the toboggan ran almost without friction on its steel shoes, and in that sparkling air it seemed that it would be easy to skate a hundred miles without ever once resting.

For a little way the river was bordered with stumpy clearings; then the dark hemlock and jack-pine woods closed down on the shores. The skaters had reached the frontier; it might well be that there were not a dozen cultivated fields between them and the North Pole.

Here the river was about a hundred feet wide, the long ice road that Fred had imagined. Comparatively little snow had yet fallen, and that little seemed to have come with high winds, which had swept the ice clear. More, however, might be looked for any day.

But for that day they were safe. They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding behind. In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ashore to get round roaring, unfrozen rapids. Each of those obstructions cost the boys half an hour of labor before they could get the toboggan through the dense underbrush that choked the portage. But they had counted on such delays.

Not a breath of wind stirred, and the forest was profoundly still. Full of wild life though it undoubtedly was, not a sign of it was visible, except now and then a chain of delicate tracks along the shore.

Evening comes early in that latitude and season. At sunset Macgregor estimated that they had covered thirty miles.

"Time to camp, boys!" he shouted from the rear. "Look out for a good