over the Mackenzie watershed to the West Rat. This little stream
fed the Porcupine, which in turn joined the Yukon where that
mighty highway of the North countermarches on the Arctic Circle.

But they had lost in the race with winter, and one day they tied
their rafts to the thick eddy-ice and hurried their goods ashore.
That night the river jammed and broke several times; the
following morning it had fallen asleep for good. 'We can't be
more'n four hundred miles from the Yukon,' concluded Sloper,
multiplying his thumb nails by the scale of the map. The council,
in which the two Incapables had whined to excellent disadvantage,
was drawing to a close.

'Hudson Bay Post, long time ago. No use um now.' Jacques
Baptiste's father had made the trip for the Fur Company in the
old days, incidentally marking the trail with a couple of frozen
toes.

Sufferin' cracky!' cried another of the party. 'No whites?' 'Nary
white,' Sloper sententiously affirmed; 'but it's only five
hundred more up the Yukon to Dawson. Call it a rough thousand
from here.' Weatherbee and Cuthfert groaned in chorus.

'How long'll that take, Baptiste?' The half-breed figured for a
moment. 'Workum like hell, no man play out, ten--twenty--forty
--fifty days. Um babies come' (designating the Incapables), 'no
can tell. Mebbe when hell freeze over; mebbe not then.' The
manufacture of snowshoes and moccasins ceased. Somebody called the
name of an absent member, who came out of an ancient cabin at the
edge of the campfire and joined them. The cabin was one of the