But the letter had not come. Nothing had changed. They would leave on the appointed day. And so Summy Skim was driven back to the station, and on the morning of March 3 F he was back in Montreal with his formidable cousin.

"Nothing new?" he asked, standing in front of him like a question mark.

"Nothing, Summy, except that everything is ready for our trip."

"So you've bought ..."

"Everything," replied Raddle, "except for food, which we'll find in Vancouver. I only got clothes. As far as guns are concerned, you have yours and I have mine. They're excellent firearms, and we know how to use them. Two good rifles and a complete hunting outfit. But since we won't be able to replenish our wardrobes out there and since there are no department stores yet in the capital of the Klondike, here are the various articles of clothing that each of us will take, just to be on the safe side: four flannel shirts, two sets of two-piece woolen underwear, a heavy knitted sweater, a corduroy suit, two pairs of heavy pants, two pairs of canvas outer pants, a blue denim suit, a fur-lined leather coat with a hood, a sailor's raincoat with a waterproof hat, a rubber coat, six pairs of fitted socks and six pairs of socks one size larger, a pair of fur mitts, leather gloves, a pair of hobnailed hunting boots, two pairs of knee-length moccasins, a pair of snowshoes, a dozen handkerchiefs, towels ..."

"Hey!" exclaimed Skim, raising his hands heavenward, "that's enough for ten years."

"No, only two years."

"Only, Ben? That `only' is very frightening. Look, all we have to do is go to Dawson City, sell Claim 129, and come back to Montreal."

"Of course, Summy, if anyone will pay us what the claim is worth."

"And if not?"

"Then we'll think about it, Summy."

Since it was impossible to get any other answer, Skim did not insist. In the two days prior to their departure he wandered like a lost soul between the house on Jacques Cartier Street and Snubbin's office.

To make a long story short, on the morning of April 2 the two cousins were at the Montreal railway station, where their luggage was waiting for them. There was not a lot of it, and it would not really be a burden to them en route until they added more to it in Vancouver.

The travelers could have bought steamship tickets to Skagway from the Canadian Pacific Railway before leaving Montreal, but Ben Raddle had not yet decided what route to take to Dawson City. He could either travel up the Yukon River from its mouth to the capital of the Klondike, or go from Skagway across the mountains, plains, and lakes of British Columbia.

Finally the two cousins were on their way, one dragging the other along, one resigned to his fate, the other full of confidence. They would travel in style, too, in a very comfortable first-class car. The least they could ask for was to have all their creature comforts during the six days of the 2900-mile journey from Montreal to Vancouver.

During the first part of the trip the train traveled through the varied regions of eastern and central Canada. They would have to pass the Great Lakes before entering the sparsely populated, and sometimes uninhabited, part of the country, especially as they approached British Columbia. It was the first time either of them had visited that part of North America.

The weather was fine, the air bracing, the sky overcast with a light haze. The mercury hovered around zero degrees centigrade, with a dry, biting wind when it rose and brief snow flurries when it dropped.

White plains stretched as far as the eye could see. In a few weeks they would be green again, and their numerous streams would be free of ice. Flocks of birds went flapping their way westward ahead of the train. On either side of the track, footprints of wild animals could be seen on the snow, leading back to the forests on the horizon. Those tracks would have been easy to follow and might have led to a lucky shot! Summy Skim's impatience and regret can well be imagined, imprisoned as he was aboard the train, unable to give free rein to his hunting instincts.

But hunting was out of the question for the time being. If there were hunters on the train heading for Vancouver, they were only nugget hunters, and the dogs that accompanied them were not there to retrieve partridges or hares, or to chase down deer or bears. No! Their masters had bought them in Montreal with only one plan in mind: to use them for hauling sleds across the frozen surface of lakes and streams in that part of British Columbia between Skagway and the Klondike.

Among the travelers who had boarded the train in Montreal or at the various stations along the Canadian Pacific Railway were immigrants, both country folk and city people.

Yes, the gold fever was only beginning. But news kept coming in, announcing the discovery of gold on Eldorado Creek, Bonanza Creek, Hunker Creek, Bear Creek, Gold Bottom Creek, all the tributaries of the 150-mile-long Klondike River. There was talk of claims where a prospector could pan as much as three hundred dollars' worth of gold. The flood of immigrants continued to grow. They were rushing headlong into the Klondike just as they had rushed into Australia, California, and the Transvaal, and the transportation companies were being swamped. Besides, the people traveling on the train were not representatives of companies or syndicates founded with the support of big American or European banks, equipped with the best material, well supplied with food and clothing, and with no fear for the future, since they continually received fresh supplies of clothing and food through a special service. No! They were only poor people, trapped by all the hardships of life, driven from their homeland by misery.