ill read
four-months'-old newspapers on a camp stool between the two doors.

There were signs of an early winter, and the question that was discussed
from dawn till dark, and far into the dark, was whether they would get
out before the freeze-up or be compelled to abandon the steamboat and
tramp out over the ice. There were irritating delays. Twice the engines
broke down and had to be tinkered up, and each time there were snow
flurries to warn them of the imminence of winter. Nine times the _W.H.
Willis_ essayed to ascend the Five-Finger Rapids with her impaired
machinery, and when she succeeded, she was four days behind her very
liberal schedule. The question that then arose was whether or not the
steamboat _Flora_ would wait for her above the Box Canon. The stretch of
water between the head of the Box Canon and the foot of the White Horse
Rapids was unnavigable for steamboats and passengers were transshipped
at that point, walking around the rapids from one steamboat to the
other. There were no telephones in the country, hence no way of
informing the waiting _Flora_ that the _Willis_ was four days late, but
coming.

When the _W.H. Willis_ pulled into White Horse, it was learned that the
_Flora_ had waited three days over the limit, and had departed only a
few hours before. Also, it was learned that she would tie up at Tagish
Post till nine o'clock, Sunday morning. It was then four o'clock
Saturday afternoon. The pilgrims called a meeting. On board was a large
Peterborough canoe, consigned to the police post at the head of Lake
Bennett. They agreed to be responsible for it and to deliver it. Next,
they called for volunteers. Two men were needed to make a race for the
_Flora_. A score of men volunteered on the instant. Among them was
Churchill, such being his nature that he volunteered before he thought
of Bondell's gripsack. When this thought came to him, he began to hope
that he would not be selected; but a man who had made a name as captain
of a college football eleven, as a president of an athletic club, as a
dog-musher and a stampeder in the Yukon, and, moreover, who possessed
such shoulders as he, had no right to avoid the honor. It was thrust
upon him and upon a gigantic German, Nick Antonsen.

While a crowd of the pilgrims, the canoe on their shoulders, started on
a trot over the portage, Churchill ran to his stateroom. He turned the
contents of the clothes-bag on the floor and caught up the grip with the
int