ly
things happen. Lines are run from the wreck to the shore, other scows
discharge their cargo on the bank and push out to take the water-logged
goods from the wreck. The lightened craft is pulled ashore. There has
been no loss of life, but it is a sorry-looking cargo that piles up on
the bank,--five thousand dollars' worth of goods destroyed in three
minutes!

A sad procession, we make the boats, and drop downstream toward
McMurray. The night is beautiful. The sun sank in a crimson splendour an
hour ago. A low-hung moon comes out and is visible and is hidden
alternately as we pass on the shore-line high hill and intervening
swale. With a blanket thrown over me, as the others sleep, I lie along
the gunwale, and the beauty of it sinks into my very soul. Just before
we enter McMurray the wraith of a tall oil-derrick tells of the
enterprise of some pioneer in the wilderness.

The location of Fort McMurray is ideal. At this point the river breaks
into two branches which encircle a high-banked and thickly-wooded
island. Some hundreds of yards farther on the Clearwater River makes in;
so here we have three streams. The fort has a foundation dating back
forty years. This fur outpost will be the terminus of the Alberta and
Great Waterways Railway, and one could not well imagine a more beautiful
site for a great city. On the broad flat as we enter appear a handful of
Indian houses and the little stores of the fur-traders.

Letters from the outside are not as eagerly looked for as one would
expect. To the people who live within the North, the North is their
world, and to them the news of who is to be appointed to the charge of
the next post down the river is of more, importance than the partition
of Turkey or a possible redistribution of the thrones of Europe. Mr.
Brabant says, "Oh, by the way, Bob, there is a package of letters for
you somewhere in the scow. Shall I dig them out for you?" "Never mind,"
says Bob, "I'll get them to-morrow. Have you got any whiskey?"

It is Sunday the fourteenth of June. On the long beach is strewn the
water-soaked cargo of the wrecked scow, the abomination of desolation.
Mrs. Harding, although all of her personal belongings and her "special
orders" are ruined, smiles bravely. It is a point of honour in the North
not to whine, whatever happens. All day we work trying to save some of
the wrecked cargo. Bales of goods are unwound and stretched out for
hundreds of yards in the sun. Bandanna handke