fascinations of sack-races, hop-step-and-jump, and the three-legged race.  The thing had taken so that the fathers came out and participated, and, surreptitiously behind the tepees, the mothers began to hop.  Having no popcorn, fizz, or Coney-Island red-hots to distribute, we did the next best thing,—­became barkers and gave the calls that go with festivities.  So now, as the boat swings out from the soft bank, it is a gay company of urchins who wave their caps and yell, “R-r-r-red lemol-lade, everybody drinks it!”

There is only one Fort Smith!  Established for three decades, it has as yet seen no wells dug.  The people still climb that steep bank, carrying in pendant buckets from wooden shoulder-yokes water for the daily drinking and ablutions.  At four o’clock in the afternoon, should you visit Fort Smith forty years from now, you will see the same daily procession of women and kiddies bearing buckets,—­the Aquarius sign of the Fort Smith zodiac.  A scoffer at my elbow grins, “Why should they bother to dig wells?  It’s cheaper to bring out Orkney-men in sail-boats from Scotland to tote their water up the banks.”

[Illustration:  The “Red Lemol-lade” Boys]

At noon we reach the Salt River, twenty-two miles up, which is one of the most marvellous salt deposits in the world.  The Salt River winds in crescent curves through a valley wooded with aspen and spruce, and the Salt Plains six miles in extent stretch at the base of hills six or seven hundred feet high.  The salt lies all over the ground in beautiful cubes,—­pure crystal salt.  It is anybody’s salt plain; you can come here when you will and scoop up all you want.  These plains have supplied the North country with salt since first white men penetrated the country.  At the mouth of the Salt River are the shacks of the present representatives of the Beaulieus,—­a family which has acted as guides for all the great men who ever trended northward.  They have been interesting characters always, and as we look in upon them to-day neither Beaulieu nor salt has lost his savour.

[Illustration:  Salt Beds]

The Slave River from where it leaves Fort Smith to its embouchure in Great Slave Lake is about two hundred miles long, with an average width of half a mile, except where it expands in its course to enclose islands.  The big boat behaves beautifully in the water, and on we slip with no excitement until about five o’clock, when a moose and her calf are espied, well out of range.  Each in his narrow cell, we sleep the sleep of the just and wake to find ourselves tied to the bank.  The captain fears a storm is brooding on Great Slave Lake; so, tethered at the marge of the reedy lagoon, we wait all the forenoon.  A corner of Great Slave Lake has to be traversed in order to reach Fort Resolution.