him a present of this pair of moccasins, if he would take them
from him."

"Would I take them!" exclaimed Jesse; "I should say I would, and thank
him for them very much. I'd like to give him something of mine, this
handkerchief, maybe, for him to remember me by."

"He says," continued Alex, "that when you get home he wishes you
would write to him in care of the priest at St. John. He says he hopes
you'll have plenty of shooting down the river. He says he would like
to go to the States when he gets rich. He says his people will talk
about you all around the camp-fire, a great many times, telling how
you crossed the mountains, where so few white men ever have been."

"I'll tell you what, boys," said Rob, "let's line up and give them all
a cheer."

So the three boys stood in a row at the waterside, after they had
shaken hands once more with the friends they were leaving, and gave
them three cheers and a tiger, waving their hats in salutation. Even
old Picheu smiled happily at this. Then the boys sprang aboard, and
the boats pushed out into the current.

XXIV

THE WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY

They were passing now between very high banks, broken now and then by
rock faces. The currents averaged extremely strong, and there were at
times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was
beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the
whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before.
The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very
tractable, and made a splendid boat for this sort of travel.

"You'd think from the look of this country," said John to Alex, "that
we were the first ever to cross it."

"No," said the old hunter, "I wish we were; but that is far from the
truth to-day. This spring, before I started west to meet you, there
were a dozen wagons passed through the Landing on one day--every one
of them with a plow lashed to the wagon-box. The farmers are coming.
If you should stop at Dunvegan you'd hardly know you were in
Mackenzie's old country, I'm afraid. And now the buffalo and the elk
are all gone, where there used to be so many. It is coming now to be
the white man's country."

"You'll have to come up to Alaska, where we live, Alex," said John.
"We've got plenty of wild country back inside of Alaska yet. But even
there the outside hunters are killing off the bear and moose mighty
fast."

"Yes," said Alex, "for sport, for their heads, an