ot brought up
your own map of the country we have crossed over. You are only using
the maps that you could make or buy ready-made. Now, John, suppose you
be official map-maker for the party and take your notes from day to
day."

"Pshaw! What do I know about making a map?" said John.

"Well, you can do as well as an Indian; and let me tell you an Indian
can make a pretty good map with nothing but a stick and a smooth place
in the sand."

"How could I tell how far it was from one place to another?" inquired
the newly elected map-maker.

"We can't tell so very well, as we are now traveling. Of course, when
engineers go out in a party they measure every mile by a chain, and
know just how far they have come. The old trappers used to allow three
or four miles an hour for their pack-horses in a country like this.
Sometimes an engineer carries what is called a pedometer in his
pocket, which tells him how far he has walked. Maybe you did not know
that instrument was invented by Thomas Jefferson over a hundred years
ago? Suppose you allow twenty or twenty-five miles a day, at most, for
our travel. Now you have your compass, and, though you don't try to
put in every little bend in the trail or in the valley, you take the
courses of all the long valleys and the general directions from one
peak to another. Thus between your compass and your pack-train you
will have to do the best you can with your map, because we have no
scientific instruments to help us."

"All right," said John. "I'll make my notes the best I can, and every
night we'll try to bring up the map. It'll be fine to have when we get
back home to show our folks, won't it?"

"Well, I'll help you all I can," said Uncle Dick. "You remember the
two big streams that run into the Miette back of us, where we made the
fourth ford of the Miette? Well, that is just about eight miles from
the Athabasca River. If we had not lost so much time with the horses
bogging down we ought to have been in here yesterday instead of
to-day, for now we are at Deer Creek, and that is only fourteen miles
in a straight line from the Athabasca. This prairie between the forks
of Deer Creek is called Dominion Prairie. The valley is soft and
marshy for a couple of miles beyond the Dominion Prairie, as you can
see from the way the trail runs over the edges of the ridges. The
grade is a little bit steeper for three miles west of Dominion
Prairie. The width of the marsh or meadow in here is about h