“Now you see the direction in which the water runs is towards the north. Here in the map is the great Yukon River, running right across from east to west, and these lakes form the little rivers which must run into the Yukon.”
“And that’s the great gold river, my sons.”
“Yes; but we shall find what we want in the rivers and creeks that run down from the mountains to form the Yukon.”
“That’s all right, my son; so if we keep to these waters we must come to the right place at last.”
“I hope so.”
“So do I, my son; so, as they said at the ’Merican railway stations, ‘All aboard, and let’s get as far down to-day as we can.’”
They stepped on to the raft, cast off the rope, and each man picked up one of the twelve-foot pine-sapling poles they had provided for their navigation down the rapids, of which they had been warned at starting; and the big Cornishman planted himself in front.
“Anybody else like to come here?” he said.
There was a chorus of “No’s,” and he nodded and smiled.
“Thought I was best here to fend the raft off the rocks when she begins to race. I say, we’re going to have it lower down. Hear it?”