Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/58

40 the Aurora and sent her roaring full speed for the mouth of Stewart River. Here the Aurora was abandoned and the ascent of the Stewart begun in a canoe. The ensuing five days were days of bone-racking toil, now paddling against the swift current, now poling, and again packing the outfit around a foaming, rock-ribbed rapid, or tugging waist-deep at the tracking line. They arrived, however, without mishap and, halting at the small outpost police station only long enough to replenish the oufitoutfit [sic], tackled the smaller and swifter McQuesten.

The nights were short, now, the days long and warm, and from river-bed to timber-line, the Northland was gay with colour. For there is no spring here. As at the touch of a magician’s wand, summer leaps from winter’s boreal embrace, full fledged in her wild riot of glory. Wild-flowers bloomed everywhere in profusion, showing against the light green of the lower levels in great patches of white and purple and scarlet; while above, the dark, almost sombre green of the spruce and fir stood out sharply against the everlasting snows of the naked peaks that flashed and gleamed their blue and coral lights from a million ice-facets