many strangers pass this way. They say they French trappers, but they speak strange tongue and never sell any furs.”

“Did he say how many?” Sandy asked.

“Maybe six.”

Jerry clapped his mittened hands together. “And there are five of us. Those aren’t bad odds.”

“In a fair fight,” Sandy corrected him. “But from what I’ve heard and seen of these guys, they probably have no idea of fighting fair.”

The sun went down early, but this night was clear and the sky was full of stars, so they drove on for quite a while after dark. At five-thirty they came to a weather station near Lake Muncho. It was a small place, manned by three technicians, and although the five guests really crowded their quarters, the weathermen were very hospitable.

“You chaps are lucky,” the man in charge told them. “This high-pressure area should be with us for the rest of the week. You’ll have fine weather all the way to Alaska.”

“Gosh,” said Jerry, when he saw the small pine tree trimmed with tinsel and colored balls and lights that stood in one corner of the shack’s main room. “I almost forgot—this is Christmas Eve.”

“It doesn’t seem like it, somehow,” Sandy said, feeling a slight twinge of homesickness. “Not without Mom’s turkey dinner and presents and Christmas carols.”

“Christmas isn’t turkey and presents and chimes,” Professor Crowell observed. “It’s what you feel in the heart.”

“You’re right, sir,” Sandy admitted. Then he grinned. “I guess Jerry and I are still kids at heart.”

“That’s as it should be,” the professor said. “It’s one of the things I admire most about you Americans—your boyish exuberance. You’re always looking for an excuse to give a party. I think it’s one of the reasons why you have so many national holidays.”

“Nothing shy about us Canadians when it comes to a party either,” one of the weathermen put in. He turned to his two partners. “Let’s show these Yanks a real Christmas party. What do you say?”

There was a chorus of “ayes.”

After a hearty meal of tinned ham, fried potatoes and frozen candied yams, topped off by a flaming plum pudding, they gathered in a tight circle about the little fireplace and sipped hot cider and nibbled marshmallows toasted in the winking embers. About nine o’clock the weathermen picked up a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program of Christmas carols on their shortwave radio and piped it through a big hi-fi speaker over the fireplace.

“This is more like it,” Jerry sighed contentedly, stuffing himself with marshmallows and roasted nuts, staring at the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree and listening to the strains of “Silent Night.”

Dr. Steele grinned mysteriously. “And who knows, maybe Santa will find you boys even up here. Better pin up your stockings before you go to bed.”

There were only two extra cots at the weather station, so the boys, Lou Mayer and Tagish Charley bedded down in their sleeping bags around the fireplace. Just before he turned in, Charley fed the dogs and let them run for a while on the deserted highway. Then he penned them in on the big front porch of the weather station.

Sandy fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, and the next thing he knew, sunlight was streaming into his eyes. Yawning, he sat up and looked around. Tagish Charley and Lou Mayer were already up and off somewhere. Only Jerry was still asleep, curled up in his sleeping bag like a hibernating bear.

Sandy’s eyes widened as they came to rest on the little Christmas tree in the corner. Beneath it were piled assorted boxes wrapped in gaily colored tissue and tied with tinseled ribbon. He leaned over and shook his friend.

“Hey, Jerry, wake up!”

Jerry snorted and opened his eyes, heavy-lidded with sleep. “Whazza matter?” he mumbled.

Sandy grinned. “Looks like Santa was here while we were asleep. C’mon, get up.”

Sandy rolled out of his sleeping bag, put on his trousers, shirt and boots and went over to the tree. Kneeling down, he read the tags on the packages: “‘To Sandy from Dad,’ ‘To Jerry....’ Hey! There’s something here for everybody.”

He looked up and saw his father, Professor Crowell and Lou Mayer standing in the doorway that led into the tiny kitchen. They were all smiling broadly.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” Dr. Steele said. “Pass them around.”

As Sandy had observed, there was something for everyone. An intricate chronometer wrist watch that told the days of the month and even the phases of the moon for Sandy; a candid camera for Jerry; a gold fountain pen for Lou Mayer; and a fine steel hunting knife with a silver inlaid handle for Tagish Charley. Professor Crowell, with genuine Yuletide spirit, gave a set of ivory chessmen he had bought from an Indian at Fort Nelson to the three weathermen. They, in turn, presented the professor and Dr. Steele each with a pair of fine snowshoes.