Part 3 (2/2)

”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 b.i.+.c.he 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, ”directly to Athabasca Landing, and in a week from now there is no reason why we should not be drifting down the big river again.”

”Then your trouble'll begin again, won't it?” asked Norman.

Instead of answering, Colonel Howell sat in silence a few moments.

”There's a good deal I might say about the country I'm going into,” he continued at last, ”but I think you young men understand it pretty well.”

”Pretty well up into the Barren Lands, isn't it?” asked Roy.

”The last of the wilderness before you reach the treeless plains,”

explained the colonel, ”but as far as Fort McMurray the region is a vast trail-less extent of poplar and spruce. The winter comes in November and lasts until June. In that period, when the nights grow long, you have a pretty good imitation of the Arctic. There are Indians here and there and game abounds, but the white man pa.s.ses only now and then. The dog and sled are yet the winter means of transportation and here you may find the last of the trappers that have made history in the great Northwest.

”Some of this region will undoubtedly in time provide farms, but as yet no farmer has learned how to use the rich black soil of its river lands in the short summer seasons. In time, powerful steamers will navigate the Athabasca and also, in time, there will be railroads. When they come,”

the speaker went on with a chuckle, ”I hope to be able to supply them with oil. This at least is why, for the third time, I'm making my way into that little-known country.”

”I hope you don't get dumped again,” suggested Norman.

”How genuinely do you hope that?” asked Colonel Howell instantly and with renewed animation.

”Why, I just hope it,” answered Norman, somewhat perplexed.

Colonel Howell hesitated a moment and then said abruptly: ”You two boys are the best guarantee I could have against another accident. I want you to help me make a success of this thing. I've an idea and I got it the moment I saw your aeroplane to-day. Come with me into the wilderness.”

”Us?” exclaimed both boys together.

”Why not?” hastily went on the oil man. ”Don't you see what I've been driving at? Don't you recall the two long trails I made back to civilization--a month each time? Think of this: When I leave Athabasca Landing, the only way by which I can communicate with the world behind me is by courier, on foot; from Fort McMurray this means a tramp of four weeks for me, and even to a skilled Indian it means three hundred miles through the poplar forest.”

”And what could we do?” asked the breathless Roy.

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