At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and willow growth that overhung the shore.  The current beneath and the thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery junction with the horizon.

There were three men in the canoe.  One squatted forward, another rested his body on his heels in the after end.  These two were swarthy, stockily built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber’s touch.

The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were piled to the top of the deep-sided craft.  He was no more like his companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle.  He was a fairly big man, taller, wider-bodied than the other two.  His hair was a reddish-brown, his eyes as blue as the arched dome from which the hot sun shed its glare.

He had on a straight-brimmed straw hat which in the various shifts of the long water route and many camps had suffered disaster, so that a part of the brim drooped forlornly over his left ear.  This headgear had preserved upon his brow the pallid fairness of his skin.  From the eyebrows down his face was in the last stages of sunburn, reddened, minute shreds of skin flaking away much as a snake’s skin sheds in August.  Otherwise he was dressed, like a countless multitude of other men who walk the streets of every city in North America, in a conventional sack suit, and shoes that still bore traces of blacking.  The paddlers were stripped to thin cotton shirts and worn overalls.  The only concession their passenger had made to the heat was the removal of his laundered collar.  Apparently his dignity did not permit him to lay aside his coat and vest.  As they cleared the point a faint breeze wavered off the open water.  He lifted his hat and let it play about his moist hair.

“This is Lake Athabasca?” he asked.

“Oui, M’sieu Thompson,” Mike Breyette answered from the bow, without turning his head.  “Dees de lak.”

“How much longer will it take us to reach Port Pachugan?” Thompson made further inquiry.

“Bout two-three hour, maybeso,” Breyette responded.