me ashore, walking
along the banks and occasionally relieving one or two of the Indians in
the harness. The miner on the occasion of these tows spent most of his
time ashore, directing the Indians and making frequent excursions into the
neighboring forest with one or the other of the young Scouts, examining
the timber and pointing out the peculiarities of the different trees. He
carried with him a repeating shotgun, and was constantly on the lookout
for game, both birds and mammals.

"Might run across a caribou," said he, "but I scarcely think so this time
of year. Besides, up here he doesn't take to heavy timber like this same
as he does in Maine and the Kanuck provinces. He runs in droves of
hundreds and thousands up this way, and seems to like the scrub timber."

A short time before noon they came to a sharp bend in the creek where the
nature of the bank hid the current ahead from the boys in the two boats.
Suddenly the Indians towing the leading craft stopped, and as three held
it against the current, the leader of the team beckoned to Swiftwater, who
had fallen behind.

"Carry," he said, briefly, to the latter as he came up, and pointed to the
stream ahead.

"He means a portage," said the miner to Jack, who was walking with him, as
they topped the rise, they went forward to inspect the creek. Directly in
front of them where the stream had made a turn, the heavy timber of the
forest had retreated back from the water for several hundred yards and the
elevated shore sank to almost the level of the water, and became half
swamp and half meadow, covered with tufts of grass, and nearer the woods
with a stunted growth of brush and small dwarf birches. Gold Creek itself
spread out to nearly twice its former width, with innumerable little
sandbars and a few boulders protruding from the bottom. Even Jack's
unpractised eye could see that the current had no depth of any moment.

"Stake out," said Swiftwater to the Indians. "We'll have to portage." The
Indians at once drove the steel anchorage stakes which they carried into
the soil and drew the bow of the boats up against the bank and took
similar precautions with the stern of each. The Scouts had all joined Jack
and Swiftwater at the top of the bank, where the commander of the
expedition pointed out that the widening of the Gold had so reduced the
depth of the channel that it would be impossible to take the fully loaded
boats over the route. As a result most of the cargo i