“

Well, well, young men!” broke out a hearty voice, not long after our young friends had completed their evening’s work and were seated near the fire. “How are you getting on? Are the mosquitoes pretty bad?”

“Hello, Uncle Dick!” answered John. “We thought it was about time for you to be coming up.”

“And about mosquitoes,” answered Jesse, brushing at his face, “I should say they were pretty bad for early spring.”

“Well, I’m glad to be in for the day,” remarked the tall, lean-looking man they all called Uncle Dick—the friend to whom they owed so many pleasant and adventurous journeys in out-of-the-way parts of the country. He was dressed as the men of the engineers usually were in the rough preliminary survey work. He wore a wide white hat, flannel shirt, loose woolen clothing, and high laced boots. His face was burned brown with the suns of many lands, but his blue eyes twinkled with a kindly light, which explained why all of these boys were so fond of him.

“Where’s Moise?” asked Rob, after a time, assisting Uncle Dick at unsaddling his riding-pony.

“Just back on the trail a way,” replied the older member of the party. “Stuck in the mud. Considerable muskeg in here, believe me.”

Presently they could hear the voice of Moise, the remaining member of their party, who was to go along as cook and assistant with the pack-train. He was singing in a high voice some odd Indian tune, whose words may have been French; for Moise Richard, as all our readers will remember who followed the fortunes of our young adventurers in their trip along the Peace River, was a French half-breed, and a man good either with boats or horses.

“Hello, Moise!” cried the three companions, as he came into view, driving ahead of him the remainder of the pack-train. They pronounced his name as he did, “Mo-Èes”.

“Hello, young mans,” exclaimed Moise, smiling as usual as he slipped out of his saddle. “How was you all, hein? I’ll bet you was glad to see old Moise. You got hongree, what?”

“Certainly we are,” replied John for all three. “We always are.”

“That’s the truth,” laughed Uncle Dick. “Lucky we’ve got a couple of pack-horses apiece, and lucky the engineers have got some supplies cached over there in the Rockies.”

“Well, some of those new horse, she was fool horse,” said Moise. “She’ll want to go back on his home, or run off on the bush. She’s like any fool pack-horse, and don’t want to do what he knows is right worth a cent, him.”

“Well, never mind,” said Uncle Dick, carelessly. “I imagine our train will be like all pack-trains, better when they get settled down to work. It’s always a lot of trouble until they get straightened around and shaken down to the work.”

“I’ll goin’ to put some bell on those old gray mare Betsy,” said Moise. “Maybe those fool horse will follow him, Betsy. All the time six height hour, I’ve chase those fool horse where she’ll break out and eat grass. They make more trouble for Moise than all his eleven, ten children up on Peace River.”

“I don’t believe your children are troubling you very much now, Moise,” said Uncle Dick.

“No, my hooman, she’ll know how to herd those childrens,” said Moise, calmly. “S’pose those baby start out for eat grass, she’ll told him, no, not do that, and he’ll learn pretty soon. Now if a little baby can learn, why can’t a three-year-old horse with white eye—I’m going to talk to that fool yellow horse, me, before long.”

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “we’ll get all the packs off now and finish the camp.”

“Whoa, there!” called out Moise to the offending claybank cayuse which had caused him most of his trouble that afternoon. “Hol’ still now, or Moise, she’ll stick his foot in your eye.”

But Uncle Dick only laughed at the threatening Moise, knowing that in his heart he was kindly. Indeed, he smoothed down the warm back of the cayuse with a gentle hand when he took off the pack. Soon all the packs were in a row on the ground, not far from the fire, each with a cover thrown over the saddle. Our three young companions helped put hobbles on the fore-legs of the horses, and soon all the horse band, twelve in number, were hopping away from the camp in search of grass and water. They found the latter in a little slough a short distance back on the trail, and did not attempt the steep descent to Wolf Creek.

The three young friends assisted in unpacking the animal which carried their tent and blankets. They had lashed on the cow-saddles of their own riding-horses the little war-bags or kit-bags of soft leather in which each boy carried his own toilet articles and little things for personal use. Their rifles and rods they also slung on their riding-saddles. Now, with the skill of long training, they put up their own tent, and spread down their own blanket beds, on the edge of which they placed their guns and rods, making pillows out of their folded sweaters. Soon they were helping Moise with his cooking at the fire and enjoying as usual their evening conversation with that cheerful friend.

It did not take Moise, old-timer as he was, very long to get his bannocks and tea ready, and to fry the whitefish and grouse which the boys now brought to him.

Uncle Dick looked at his watch after a time. “Forty minutes,” said he.

“For what?” demanded Jesse.

“Well, it took us forty minutes to get off the packs and hobble the horses and get supper ready. That’s too long—we ought to have it all done and supper over in that time. We’ll have to do better than this when we get fully on the trail.”

“What’s the use in being in such a hurry?” demanded John, who was watching the frying-pan very closely.

“It’s always a good thing to get the camp work done quickly mornings and evenings,” replied the leader of the party. “We’ve got a long trip ahead, and I’d like to average twenty-five miles a day for a while, if I could. Maybe we’ll have to content ourselves with fifteen miles a good many days. The best way is to get an early start and make a long drive, and an early camp. Then get your packs off as early as you can, and let your horses rest—that’s always good doctrine.”

“Well, one thing,” said Jesse, “I hope the mosquitoes won’t be any worse than they are now.”

“Well,” Uncle Dick replied, “when we get higher up the nights will get cool earlier, but we’ll have mosquitoes all the way across, that’s pretty sure. But you fellows mustn’t mind a thing like that. We’ve all got our mosquito bars and tents, and very good ones too.”

“No good for fight mosquito,” said Moise, grinning. “He’s too many.”

“Oh, go on, Moise, they don’t hurt you when they bite you,” said John.

“Nor will they hurt you so badly after a time,” Uncle Dick said to him. “You get used to it—at least, to some extent. But there is something in what Moise has told you—don’t fight mosquitoes too hard, so that you get excited and nervous over it. Don’t slap hard enough to kill a dog—just brush them off easy. Take your trouble as easy as you can on trail—that’s good advice. This isn’t feather-bed work, exactly; but then I don’t call you boys tenderfeet, exactly, either. Now go and finish the beds up for the night before it gets too dark.”

Jesse crawled into the back part of the tent and fished out three specially made nets, each of cheese-cloth sewed to a long strip of canvas perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. At each corner of this canvas a cord was sewed, so that it could be tied to a tent-pole, or to a safety-pin stuck in the top of the tent. Then the sides, which were long and full, could be tucked in at the edges of the bed, so that no mosquitoes could get in. Each boy had his own net for his own bed, so that, if he was careful in getting in under the net, he would be pretty sure of sleeping free from the mosquitoes, no matter how bad they were. Uncle Dick had a similar net for his own little shelter-tent. As for Moise, he had a head-net and a ragged piece of bar which he did not use half the time, thinking it rather beneath him to pay too much attention to the small nuisances.

“You’ll better go to bed pretty soon, young mans,” said Moise, speaking to his young friends after they had finished their supper. “If those fly bite me, he’ll got sick of eating so much smoke, him. But those fly, he like to bite little boy.” And he laughed heartily, as he saw the young companions continually brushing at their faces.

Uncle Dick drew apart from the camp at the time and went out to the edge of the bank, looking down at the water far below.

“You can bet that’s a steep climb,” commented John—“two hundred feet, I should think. And I don’t see how we’ll get the horses down there in the morning.”

“At least one hundred and fifty feet,” assented his uncle. “But I reckon we can get across it somehow, if the engineers can get a railroad and trains of cars over it—and that’s what they’re going to do next year. But, as I have told you, never worry until the time comes when you’re on the trail. The troubles’ll come along fast enough, perhaps, without our hurrying them up any. Take things easy—that’s what gets engineers and horses and railroads across the Rockies.”

“How long before we get to the Rockies, Uncle Dick?” inquired John, pointing to the west, where the clouds had now hidden the distant range from view.

“All in due time, all in due time, my son,” replied the engineer, smiling down at him. “A good deal depends on how quickly we can make and break camp, and how many miles we can get done each day through muskeg and bush and over all sorts of trails and fords. For instance, if we lost half our horses in Wolf Creek here to-morrow, we might have to make quite a wait. But don’t worry—just turn in before the mosquitoes get you.”