DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER 237 



a reasonable load, but overloaded as we were I had to go 

 ashore a few times to walk around a rapid. Occasionally 

 we took a chance and ran through a ripple, but it never 

 really paid, for the canoe always sprung a leak and each 

 time we only barely got ashore before sinking. Then it 

 took two or three hours to make a fire, melt some spruce 

 gum and patch up the cracks in the bark. 



It took tv/o days from Old Crow River to Rampart 

 House. A few miles above that trading post we came to 

 an encampment of a white man, Archie Linklater, who 

 was living there with his Indian wife and family. We 

 had a pleasant visit with them, after which Linklater took 

 me on his raft to Rampart House, for the river between 

 was swift and would not have been safe to run in a bark 

 canoe carrying two men. 



At Rampart House I had the warmest sort of welcome 

 from Daniel Cadzow, the local trader and only resident 

 white man (there were several other white men who made 

 up a sort of floating population). It would have been 

 pleasant to linger there as he urged me to do but it was 

 now the 30th of August and in two or three days Mr. 

 Harrison might reach Athabasca Landing and send out 

 over the world the report that I had told at Herschel 

 Island of the death of Lefnngwell, Mikkelson and Stork- 

 erson. As soon as Mr. Cadzow understood how pressing 

 the case was he ceased his urging that I should stay and 

 devoted himself instead to helping with preparations for 

 my continuing the journey. I had thought of hiring 

 Indians, but Cadzow said that Linklater would take me 

 to Fort Yukon much more rapidly than any Indian. 

 Linklater undertook the job, and in a few hours he and 

 his family were on their way with me in a flat-bottomed 

 rowboat. 



