aid Rob, firmly. "When we've pushed up to the
head of the Athabasca River and gone over the Yellowhead Pass it will
all be downhill. We'll go fast when we hit the rivers running south.
And we'll come in but a little way from the Boat Encampment, which was
a rendezvous for all the old traders who crossed by the Saskatchewan
trail below us. But, you see, we'll be taking a new way; and I agree
with Jess that it will be about the best trip we ever had."

"Those old fur-traders were great fellows to travel, weren't they?"
said Jesse, looking curiously at the deep-worn, ancient trail which
ran close by their camp.

"Yes," said Rob, "they weren't afraid of anything. When they got to
Fort Augustus they had three choices of routes west over the Rockies.
They could go away north to the Peace River--old Sir Alexander
McKenzie's trail, which we followed last summer; or they could go up
the Saskatchewan the way David Thompson used to go to the Columbia
River; or they could strike west by cart or pack-horse from Fort
Augustus and cross this rolling country until they struck the
Athabasca, and then follow up that to the Yellowhead Pass. I shouldn't
wonder if old Jasper Hawse was one of the first trail-makers in here.
But, as I was saying, those who came this route had to leave their
boats at Edmonton. Here at Wolf Creek we are about one hundred and
thirty miles west of there. For a long while they used to have a good
wagon trail as far as Saint Anne, and, as you know, it has been pretty
much like a road all the way out here."

"I like the narrow trail best," said John; "one made by feet and not
wheels."

"Yes," went on Rob, "perhaps that's why we're so anxious to get on
with this trip. The water does not leave any mark when you travel on
it, but here is the trail of the old traders worn deep into the soil.
A fellow can almost see them walking or riding along here, with their
long rifles and their buckskin clothes."

"That's what I like about these trips Uncle Dick lays out sometimes,"
said Jesse. "A fellow sort of has to read about the country and the
men who found it first."

"Yes," John assented, "reading about these old places makes you begin
to see that there is quite a world besides the part of the world where
we were born. It seems as though these old fellows in the past weren't
making these trails just for themselves."

"Pshaw! I'll bet they just wanted furs, that was all," ventured Jesse.
"But, anyhow, they found the