Canoe Mates in Canada; Or, Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan

Copyright, 1912, M. A. Donohue & Co.
Canoe Mates in Canada
Afloat on the Saskatchewan

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.
Otherwise the country at this time was a vast unknown land, seldom penetrated by human kind, save the Indian fur gatherers.
Considering that he was in so vast a wilderness this adventurous lad appeared to have scant luggage in his well battered bullboat—indeed, beyond the buskskin jacket, which he had thrown off because of his exertions, there did not seem to be anything at all aboard the craft, not even a gun, by means of which he might provide himself with food while on the journey downstream.
This singular fact would seem to indicate that he might have had trouble of some sort back yonder.