of the surrounding country. It was not reassuring.

"As to products, there seems to be plenty of undersized timber, plenty
of snow and plenty of river, and, as far as I can see, just nothing
else."

"Well, there's oodles o' blueberries," said the Boy, his inky-looking
mouth bearing witness to veracity; "and there are black and red
currants in the snow, and rose-apples--"

"Oh, yes," returned the other, "it's a sort of garden of Eden!"

A little below here it was four miles from bank to bank of the main
channel, but at this point the river was only about two miles wide, and
white already with floating masses of floe-ice going on a swift current
down towards the sea, four hundred miles away.

The right bank presented to the mighty river a low chain of hills,
fringed at the base with a scattered growth of scrubby spruce, birch,
willow, and cotton-wood. Timber line was only two hundred feet above
the river brink; beyond that height, rocks and moss covered with
new-fallen snow.

But if their side seemed cheerless, what of the land on the left bank?
A swamp stretching endlessly on either hand, and back from the icy
flood as far as eye could see, broken only by sloughs and an occasional
ice-rimmed tarn.

"We've been travelling just eight weeks to arrive at this," said the
Kentuckian, looking at the desolate scene with a homesick eye.