d these by running
the rapids. Men from the Ottawa or from some other north Canadian river,
like all true canoemen, hated to portage and loved to take the risk of
the rapids. Though the current was fairly rapid, going upstream was not
so difficult as one might imagine; that is, if the canoeman happened
to know how to take advantage of the eddies, how to sneak up the quiet
water by the banks, how to put the nose of his canoe into the swift
water and to hold her so that, as Duprez, the keeper of the stopping
place at the Landing, said, "She would walk on de rapide toute suite lak
one oiseau."

There was a bad outbreak of typhoid at the upper camp on the Big Horn,
and Dr. Bailey had been urgently summoned. The upper camp lay on the
other side of the Big Horn Lake, twenty miles or more from the steel.
The lake itself was six miles long by canoe, but by trail it was at
least twice that. Hence, though there would be some stiff paddling in
the trip, the doctor did not hesitate in his choice of route. He knew
his canoe and loved every rib and thwart in her. He had learned also the
woodsman's trick of going light. A blanket, a tea pail which held his
grub, consisting of some Hudson Bay hard tack, a hunk of bacon, and a
little tea and sugar, and his drinking cup constituted his baggage, so
that he could make the portages in a single carry. Many a mile had he
gone, thus equipped, both by trail and by canoe, in his journeyings up
and down these valleys, doing his work for the sick and wounded in the
railroad, lumber, and tie camps, and more recently in the new-planted
mining towns.

It was a great day for his trip. A stiff breeze upstream would help him
in his fight with the current and coming down it would be glorious.
The sun was just appearing over the row of pines that topped the low
mountain range to the east when he packed his kit and blankets under the
gunwale in the bow and slipped his canoe into the water. He was about to
step in when a voice he had not heard for many days arrested him.

"Hello, Duprez! Did you see the preacher pass this way yesterday? He
was--By the livin' jumpin' Jemima! Barney!"

It was Ben Fallows, gazing with open mouth on the doctor. With two swift
steps the doctor was at his side. He grasped Ben by the arm and walked
him swiftly apart.

"Ben," he said, in a low, stern voice, "not a word. I once did you a
good turn?"

Ben nodded, still too astonished for speech.

"Then listen to what I tell