armer.

But I was telling you about the scows. Unless you sat here catching
fish, you could never believe how much stuff can be packed into a scow.
As I watch the men at work, I think of Mark Twain's ambitious blue-jay
who tried to fill a house with acorns. Still the men do not seem
lacking in confidence, and keep wading backward and forward through the
water with sacks of flour, slabs of bacon, chests of tea, crates of
hardware, tins of stuff, and treasures in boxes that can only be
guessed at. I am hoping the biggest box contains dolls, ribbons,
work-bags, picture books, peppermint bull's eyes, and things like that,
for a mission school Christmas-tree somewhere down near the Arctic. I
am almost praying that it does.

The smaller boxes are called permits, and each contain six bottles of
whisky. These are for the pioneering gentlemen at the different posts
who are delicate, and who honestly desire to get strong.

Each permit is signed by a doctor so that the liquor must be considered
strictly as medicine. Irritating people who fail to understand that
there are only two licensed hotels between Edmonton and the North Pole,
sneer about there being a thousand delicate men on the rivers; but, for
my part, I am inclined to stand by the doctors, although I have always
held the clinical thermometer to be the only thing about the medical
profession with an integrity beyond question.

If any one should glean from reading these lines that all there is to
loading a scow is to load it, he or she is a much misled person. The
last bale is hardly stowed away till two of the men have disappeared.
No one saw them go, least of all the Boss, but any one can see they are
not here now. The Boss is a creature of steel who seems to forget
there is much to be done in the last hour or two before a boatman
leaves the Landing for the stretched out journey beyond. Various
purchases are to be made; people are to be seen; drinks are to be had
against a long, long thirst, to mention nothing of new vows to Marie,
Babette, and Josephine.

After awhile, the voyageurs are all rounded up with the exception of
Luke. The best the Boss can say for Luke is that he has been given a
Christian name. Jake is sent to fetch him. Luke turns up, but Scotty
must find Jake. Luke isn't drunk either--not he. It's the scow that's
drunk. Who said Luke was "fuller'n a goat," I'd like to know.
Ultimately, the Boss starts off to get Scotty and Jake. He get