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d again by his companion. It became absolutely necessary to clean the engine, and while one of the boys kept the launch in the middle of the river as it drifted, with an oar, the others rolled up their sleeves, and with the knowledge gained from their aeroplane motors, aided the steersman to disconnect and clean the machinery. Meantime the engineer arrayed himself in dry clothing. "Well, well," said he, as he came out of the cabin, "I didn't know we had a group of experts aboard. I supposed the aviator that went up yesterday knew all about it, but this help will save us about an hour's time, and we haven't been getting any too much speed out of her to-day." The engine behaved excellently for the rest of the day, and about five o'clock in the afternoon they landed at the town of Circle. They found it a village of a couple of hundred, the supply point for the Birch Creek mining region. At an early hour the next morning they were again on the bosom of the river, the engine having again been cleaned and "nursed" as the engineer described it for the day. The river had begun to widen and the bank to fall to almost a dead level just before reaching Circle the night before, and they now entered upon a dreary expanse of tundra or flat marsh land covered with a meager growth of willow and stunted birch. The river spread out to a width of nearly a dozen miles, dividing into many channels surrounding small bushy islands and rendering navigation very difficult. The wheelman, who was an old river pilot, was thoroughly acquainted with what he called the "Yukon flats," and managed to elude the sandbars and sunken islands with considerable dexterity. "The trouble is," he confided to Swiftwater, "that this old river is closed six months in the year, and we never can tell whether we're goin' to find any of it here when the ice goes out in the spring. It wanders 'round as if it had no home or mother, and where we find a twenty-foot channel this fall there may be a dusty wagon road next spring." At nine o'clock in the forenoon, Swiftwater rose and stepped onto the roof of the cabin and scanned the far-off shore intently. Suddenly, he turned to the interested Scouts, and removing his broad brim made a mock bow and said impressively: "Young fellows, let me welcome you to the Frigid Zone; we have just crossed Arctic Circle." "Wha--wha--where is it?" cried Pepper excitedly. "Where's what?" asked Swiftwater. "Th-the Circle
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