LOWING MACKENZIE

"Well," said Alex, "now we've got all these fish, we'll have to take
care of them. Come ahead and let's clean them, Moise."

The boys all fell to and assisted the men at this work, Moise showing
them how to prepare the fish.

"How are we going to keep them?" asked John, who always seemed to be
afraid there would not be enough to eat.

"Well," explained Alex, "we'll put them in between some green willow
boughs and keep them that way till night. Then I suppose we'll have to
smoke them a little--hang them up by the tail the way the Injuns do.
That's the way we do whitefish in the north. If it weren't for the
fish which we catch in these northern waters, we'd all starve to death
in the winter, and so would our dogs, all through the fur country."

"By the time we're done this trip," ventured Rob, "we'll begin to be
_voyageurs_ ourselves, and will know how to make our living in the
country."

"That's the talk!" said Alex, admiringly. "The main thing is to learn
to do things right. Each country has its own ways, and usually they
are the most useful ways. An Injun never wants to do work that he
doesn't have to do. So, you'll pretty much always see that the Injun
ways of keeping camp aren't bad to follow as an example, after all.

"But now," said he at length, after they had finished cleaning and
washing off their trout, "we'll have to get on across to the other
lake."

As before, Moise now took the heavier pack on his own broad shoulders,
and Alex once more picked up the canoe.

"She's a little lighter than the other boat, I believe," said he, "but
they're both good boats, as sure's you're born--you can't beat a
Peterborough model in the woods!"

The other boys noticed now that when he carried his canoe, he did so
by placing a paddle on each side, threaded under and above the thwarts
so as to form a support on each side, which rested on his shoulders.
His head would have been covered entirely by the boat as he stood,
were it not that he let it drop backward a little, so that he could
see the trail ahead of him. Rob pointed out to Jesse all these
different things, with which their training in connection with the big
Alaskan sea-going dugouts had not made them familiar.

"Have we got everything now, fellows?" asked Rob, making a last search
before they left the scene of their disembarkation.

"All set!" said John. "Here we go!"

It required now but a few moments to make the second traverse of t