Canoe Mates in Canada: Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan

A PLUNGE DOWN THE RAPIDS. Kneeling in a "bullboat," fashioned from the skin of an animal, and wielding a paddle with the dexterity only to be attained after years of practice in canoeing, a sturdily-built and thoroughly bronzed Canadian lad glanced ever and anon back along the course over which he had so recently passed; and then up at the black storm clouds hurrying out of the mysterious North. It was far away in the wilderness of the Northwest, where this fierce tributary of the great Saskatchewan came pouring down from the timber-clad hills; and all around the lone voyager lay some of the wildest scenery to be met with on the whole continent. Here and there in this vast territory one might come across the occasional trading posts of the wide-reaching Hudson Bay Company, at each of which the resident factor ruled with the arbitrary power of a little czar. It might be he would discover the fire of some Ishmaelite of the forest, a wandering "timber-cruiser," marking out new and promising fields for those he served, and surveying the scene of possible future bustling logging camps