"I'm telling you, sister," he added, eagerly, "the boys will _learn_ something in that way, something about how this country was discovered and explored and developed, so far as that is concerned. That is history on the hoof, if you like, sister. In my belief they're the three luckiest little beggars in the world if you will only let them go. I'll promise to bring them back all right."
"Yes, I know about your _promises_!" began Mrs. Wilcox.
"When did I ever fail to keep one?" demanded Uncle Dick of her. "And where can you find three sounder lads in Valdez than these we're talking about now?"
"But it's so _far_, Richard--you're talking now about the Peace River and the Athabasca River and the Arctic Ocean--why, it seems as though the boys were going clear off the earth, and we certainly would never see them again."
"Nonsense!" replied Uncle Dick. "The earth isn't so big as it used to be in Sir Alexander's time. Let them alone and they'll come through, and be all the more men for it. There's no particular hardship about it. I'll go down with them in the boat to Vancouver and east with them by rail to where they take the stage up the Ashcroft trail--a wagon-road as plain as this street here. They can jog along that way as far as Quesnelles as easy as they could on a street-car in Seattle. Their men'll get them from there by boat up the Fraser to the headwaters of the Parsnip without much more delay or much more danger, but a lot of hard work. After that they just get in their boats and float."
"Oh, it _sounds_ easy, Richard," protested his sister, "but I know all about your simple things!"
"Well, it isn't every boy I'd offer this good chance," said Uncle Dick, turning away. "In my belief, they'll come back knowing more than when they started."
"But they're only boys, not grown men like those old fur-traders that used to travel in that country. It was hard enough even for them, if I remember my reading correctly."
"I just told you, my dear sister, that these boys will go with less risk and less danger than ever Sir Alexander met when he first went over the Rockies. Listen. I've got the two best men in the Northwest, as I told you. Alex Mackenzie is one of the best-known men in the North. General Wolseley took him for chief of his band of _voyageurs_, who got the boats up the Nile in Kitchener's Khartoum campaign. He's steadier than a clock, and the boys are safer with him than anywhere else without him. My other man, Moise Duprat, is a good cook, a good woodsman, and a good canoeman. They'll have all the camp outfit they need, they'll have the finest time in the world in the mountains, and they'll come through flying--that's all about it!"