Canoe Mates in Canada | Page 5

lumber regions of Michigan, and with his fortunes bound up in mine."
"And I'm Owen Dugdale," said the other, knowing the pause was intended for him to break in with the mention of his name; "a native Canuck, and at home in this timber region--my parents were of Scotch descent I believe. And the first thing I want to say is that I'm mighty glad to be here with you just now. I was just about as hungry as a bear, and only for you I don't see what I could have done, after that ducking, for my matches must have been wet, and I would have gone to sleep hungry and cold."
The tall lad hastened to interrupt him, evidently not fancying being thanked for doing what was apparently the greatest pleasure in the world to him.
"Hold on, please; we understand all that. You're a thousand times welcome, and I tell you right now nothing could have happened to please me better than meeting up with you. You can bet there's something besides chance in it. Now, naturally you're wondering what in the dickens two fellows of our stripe are doing wandering about up here in the Far Northwest like a couple of nomads.
"Well, perhaps when you learn the actual truth you'll wonder harder than ever how it is one of us has escaped landing in a lunatic asylum up to this time; but as some of my friends say to me, youthful enthusiasm is responsible for many queer things, and so long as my wonderful ambition is to copy after Stanley in the line of exploring, why, they don't worry.
"They say I have more money than I know what to do with, anyway, and if it must be blown in somehow, why, this is a harmless way of doing it, dangerous only to myself, and any other foolish chap whom I may influence to accompany me on my mad expeditions," and as he spoke he glanced affectionately in the direction of the homely, freckled but good-humored Eli, who returned the look with a grin and an emphatic nod of approval.
"Now, you see, Eli has been with the lumbermen all his life, and is as hardy as they make them. What he doesn't know about the woods isn't worth telling; and so we make a pretty good team, for I've picked up a little knowledge about camp life during my canoeing days in the East, and manage to fill in the gaps in Eli's education, along the line of woodcraft.
"I might as well make a full confession in the start, for you're bound to get on to my weakness if we see much of each other, and I hope we will. Ever, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper I've been inoculated with the exploring bee, read everything ever printed in that line, and pictured myself doing wonderful stunts like Livingstone and Stanley."
It was only to be expected then that when I was left my own master at the death of my father, I would pursue my hobby to the limit; and I rather guess I have been on the jump for two years. Haven't made myself famous yet, and a little of my enthusiasm in that line has dribbled away; but I'm just as determined to work in the field of research as ever; only age is beginning to tone down my earlier wild notions, and after this last and crowning folly I think I shall hitch up with some veteran who knows it all, and be content to work up from the ranks.
"I started out on this expedition with great notions of making such a trip as no man had ever before attempted, passing up a branch of the Saskatchewan, making a portage with the assistance of the Crees or Chippewas to some convenient branch of the Athabasca River, and voyage on to the lake of that name by fall, winter there perhaps at the Hudson Bay Post, and in the spring by means of the chain of lakes and rivers that I understand connect the Athabasca Lake with Hudson Bay, arrive at that vast sheet of water in time to be picked up by some whaler and carried home a winner.
"Makes you smile, I guess--well, it strikes me as funny, now that I've been navigating this country for several months, and only gotten this far; but when I laid out the trip it was a serious business for me, and I couldn't see anything but success ahead of me. I've had my fun, and I'm ready to call the game off. This is a man's work, I understand now, and I'm out of the exploring business for the time, only now that we're up so far Eli and myself want to see all we can of the country;