."

"All in your imagination, if you'll remember back to your geography,"
replied the miner, with a smile, while the other boys who were slightly
awed by the new situation, for a moment, gave a hearty laugh.

"Don't appear to be very frigid, does it?" remarked the Colonel, and the
boys, who, for the first time, felt that they had really invaded the
"Terrible North" of the explorers, gazed with new interest on the lush
green meadows of the shores and the foliage of the tree-covered island.

They ran on down the river, and an hour later landed at Fort Yukon, an
abandoned military post, the most northerly point on the river, lying at
the mouth of the Porcupine, the Yukon's most important tributary.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE SEWARD PENINSULA.

The voyagers left Fort Yukon the same afternoon and soon recrossing the
Arctic Circle, continued on the dreary Yukon Flats, where the river
broadened to more than thirty miles. As there was almost perfect daylight
at midnight they proposed to sleep on board and continue the journey.

In spite of the clouds of mosquitos, which managed to invade even the
well-closed in cabin, they passed a restful night, the engine working
perfectly, and soon passed into the narrower reaches of the Yukon, and in
the early morning came to the town of Rampart.

Here is a federal court which people come nearly a thousand miles to
attend. There was also a telegraph station the end of the line to St.
Michael's and Colonel Snow stopped only long enough to send certain
despatches to that point. Then, again aboard the launch, they put on all
speed, the purpose being to reach the mouth of the Tanana and Fort Gibbon
that night. The day's journey was almost as uninteresting as that through
the Yukon Flats, for while the river was narrower, the banks were low,
thinly wooded and monotonous. Along in the afternoon they reached the
mouth of the Tanana and landed at the town of that name, next to which
stands the military post of Fort Gibbon, where Colonel Snow was to be a
guest until the arrival of the down river steamer from Dawson.

Two days later the steamer Amelia put in an appearance, and they boarded
her, to find their aeroplane and baggage aboard. Swiftwater Jim, who was
to journey up the Tanana, had stayed to bid them gooybye, and the boys
parted with him with real regret. He promised faithfully that after he had
made his "stake" he would come out to the "States" again, and would visit
them at the