ver it. Next,
they called for volunteers. Two men were needed to make a race for the
_Flora_. A score of men volunteered on the instant. Among them was
Churchill, such being his nature that he volunteered before he thought of
Bondell's gripsack. When this thought came to him, he began to hope that
he would not be selected; but a man who had made a name as captain of a
college football eleven, as a president of an athletic club, as a dog-
musher and a stampeder in the Yukon, and, moreover, who possessed such
shoulders as he, had no right to avoid the honour. It was thrust upon
him and upon a gigantic German, Nick Antonsen.

While a crowd of the pilgrims, the canoe on their shoulders, started on a
trot over the portage, Churchill ran to his state-room. He turned the
contents of the clothes-bag on the floor and caught up the grip, with the
intention of entrusting it to the man next door. Then the thought smote
him that it was not his grip, and that he had no right to let it out of
his possession. So he dashed ashore with it and ran up the portage
changing it often from one hand to the other, and wondering if it really
did not weigh more than forty pounds.

It was half-past four in the afternoon when the two men started. The
current of the Thirty Mile River was so strong that rarely could they use
the paddles. It was out on one bank with a tow-line over the shoulders,
stumbling over the rocks, forcing a way through the underbrush, slipping
at times and falling into the water, wading often up to the knees and
waist; and then, when an insurmountable bluff was encountered, it was
into the canoe, out paddles, and a wild and losing dash across the
current to the other bank, in paddles, over the side, and out tow-line
again. It was exhausting work. Antonsen toiled like the giant he was,
uncomplaining, persistent, but driven to his utmost by the powerful body
and indomitable brain of Churchill. They never paused for rest. It was
go, go, and keep on going. A crisp wind blew down the river, freezing
their hands and making it imperative, from time to time, to beat the
blood back into the numbed fingers.

As night came on, they were compelled to trust to luck. They fell
repeatedly on the untravelled banks and tore their clothing to sheds in
the underbrush they could not see. Both men were badly scratched and
bleeding. A dozen times, in their wild dashes from bank to bank, they
struck snags and were capsized. The