"The boat will be going back to the Landing in a couple of days, I suppose," he added after a time, as he gathered their hands in his and started along the path up the steep bank; "but there are a few things here you ought to see--the post and the farms and grains which they have--wonderful things in their way. And then I'll try to get Saunders to fix it so that you can see the Vermilion Chutes of the Peace River."
"I know right where that is," said Rob, feeling in his pocket for his map--"about sixty miles below here. That's the head of navigation on the Peace, isn't it?"
"It is for the present time," said Uncle Dick. "I've been looking at that cataract of the Peace. There ought to be a lock or a channel cut through, so that steamboats could run the whole length from Chippewayan to the Rockies! As it is, everything has to portage there."
"We don't know whether to call this country old or young," said Rob. "In some ways it doesn't seem to have changed very much, and in other ways it seems just like any other place."
"One of these days you'll see a railroad down the Mackenzie, young man," said Uncle Dick, "and before long, of course, you'll see one across the Rockies from the head of the Saskatchewan, above the big bend of the Columbia."
"Why couldn't we get in there some time, Uncle Dick?" asked Jesse, who was feeling pretty brave now that they were well out of the Rocky Mountains and the white water of the rapids.
"Well, I don't know," said Uncle Dick, suddenly looking around. "It might be a good idea, after all. But I think you'd find pretty bad water in the Columbia if you tried to do any navigation there. Time enough to talk about that next year. Come on now, and I'll introduce you to the factor and the people up here at the Post."
They joined him now, and soon were shaking hands with many persons, official and otherwise, of the white or the red race. They found the life very interesting and curious, according to their own notions. The head clerk and they soon struck up a warm friendship. He told them that he had spent thirty years of his life at that one place, although he received his education as far east as Montreal. Married to an Indian woman, who spoke no English, he had a family of ten bright and clean children, each one of whom, as John soon found to his satisfaction, appreciated the Imperial Toffy which made a part of the stock of the Hudson Bay Company at that post also.