pioneers for a score of years, he hurried to Edmonton in the
spring of the year; and there, unluckily for his soul's welfare,
he allied himself with a party of men.

There was nothing unusual about this party, except its plans.
Even its goal, like that of all the other parties, was the
Klondike. But the route it had mapped out to attain that goal
took away the breath of the hardiest native, born and bred to the
vicissitudes of the Northwest. Even Jacques Baptiste, born of a
Chippewa woman and a renegade voyageur (having raised his first
whimpers in a deerskin lodge north of the sixty-fifth parallel,
and had the same hushed by blissful sucks of raw tallow), was
surprised. Though he sold his services to them and agreed to
travel even to the never-opening ice, he shook his head ominously
whenever his advice was asked.

Percy Cuthfert's evil star must have been in the ascendant, for
he, too, joined this company of argonauts. He was an ordinary
man, with a bank account as deep as his culture, which is saying
a good deal. He had no reason to embark on such a venture--no
reason in the world save that he suffered from an abnormal
development of sentimentality. He mistook this for the true
spirit of romance and adventure. Many another man has done the
like, and made as fatal a mistake.

The first break-up of spring found the party following the
ice-run of Elk River. It was an imposing fleet, for the outfit
was large, and they were accompanied by a disreputable contingent
of half-breed voyageurs with their women and children. Day in and
day out, they labored with the bateaux and canoes, fought