the dogs together, pulling
the kayaks up on the decks of the sailing-schooners. The great event
of the year was coming to its close and camp was breaking. Now the
head of the brigade, this unit farthest north, must begin its long and
laborious passage southward once more against the current. As it
had brought north such store as was possible of bulky goods, now it
carried back, tight packed in its hold, the bales of the precious fur,
so much less bulky than the goods which had been brought north, and so
far more valuable.

The old trader, gray, grizzled, and taciturn, who had done his Company
the service of accumulating all this store of fur, stood leaning
against the beam of the great fur-press which but now had been busy in
baling the precious white-fox fur, the mink and marten, of this great
and solitary country of the North. He would not again see a civilized
face until that time in the following year, if he still were living
then. He made no comment, nor did the swarthy men of his immediate
command who stood about him, grim and taciturn, and disdaining to show
the emotion of a salute to the passing crew of the _Mackenzie River_.

But at last the conclusion of all these partings came. All the
government men and Company men who were going out went on board ship.
The bell jingled under the hand of the captain in his pilot-house
above. The strong-armed breeds hauled in the gang-plank, and with a
parting shrill salute the steamer began to swing her nose into the
current of the Peel.

Majestically she turned about to pick up the current for her brief run
down that stream to the great river which she was now to ascend. The
boys on the bank plied their cameras as she swung midstream, and
worked them yet further as the Eskimo whale-boats fell in her wake.

By and by the last cheering ceased to be heard. A blank silence fell
upon all those remaining on the bank. The three young lads looked from
one to the other, looked again at the silent face of the tall and
sun-bronzed man who was to lead them out of this country now. A sudden
melancholy had fallen upon them all. The silence, the mystery of the
great North, seemed now to envelop them. They felt strangely
alone--indeed, if truth were told, strangely sad and helpless.
Home--how very far away it seemed! John poked a swift elbow into
Jesse's side, for it seemed to him he had caught just a suspicion of a
tear in the corner of that young traveler's eye.

And now, late in w