he
death of one of the wandering units to be found in every corner of the
frontier, one unknown prospector. Was it worth while? Did it pay? Yes,
it paid. It is by such object-lessons that to Indian and white alike is
forced home the truth that God's law, "Thou shalt not kill," is also the
law of Britain and of Canada.

We are still on foot, when a cry from the Kid hurries us to the
hilltop. Reaching the crest, we catch our breaths. Down below lies the
little village of "The Landing." That sparkling flood beyond proves the
Athabasca to be a live, northward-trending river, a river capable of
carrying us with it, and no mere wiggly line on a map.

CHAPTER III

ATHABASCA LANDING

"I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods;
I wait for the men who will win me--and I will not be won in a day;
And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild,
But by men with the hearts of vikings, and the simple faith of a child."

--_Robert Service_

[Illustration: Athabasca Landing]

Athabasca Landing, a funnel through which percolates the whole trade
between the wheat-belt and the Arctic, is the true gateway of the North.
Seeing our baggage tucked away in the bar-room of the Grand Union
Hotel, and snatching a hasty supper, we walk down to the river, its
edges still encrusted with fragments of winter ice. It is an
incomparable sunset, the light a veritable spilt spectrum, spreading
itself with prodigality over the swift river.

The Athabasca, after dipping to the south, here takes a sudden northward
bend. Its source is in the crest of the continent far back in the
Committee's Punch-Bowl of the Rockies, the general trend of the river
being northeasterly. It is the most southerly of the three great
tributaries of the mighty Mackenzie, and from its source in Rockies to
embouchure in Athabasca Lake it is about seven hundred and seventy-five
miles long; through a wooded valley two miles wide it runs with perhaps
an average width of two hundred and fifty yards.

We are in latitude 55 deg. North, and between us and the Arctic lies an
unknown country, which supports but a few hundred Indian trappers and
the fur-traders of the Ancient Company in their little posts, clinging
like swallows' nests to the river banks. The wheat-plains to the south
of us are so fertile and accessible that the tide of immigration has
stopped south of where we stand. But that t